The Wife, a most unconventional tale

 The Wife was one of the most surprising movies I have ever seen. Glenn Close was giving us everything and nothing with her eyes, revealing but not revealing her inner feelings, taking us on a little roller coaster ride of suspense just by grabbing our attention with her eyes and her face. Not something you see every day. I don't have a label called #NotSomethingYouSeeEveryDay but maybe I should - it doesn't sound strong enough to describe the revelation of this film.

It's not so much that it's a movie for feminists, although in a way yes it is obviously so. That's not the true power of the movie as much as the deep intimacy between the viewer and characters. Both of the two main characters are complicated --their marriage itself is what we as viewers learn about and internalize and care about and have mixed feelings about. It's not just a psychological movie, however. There are actual acts taken and choices made. The choices are unconventional and maybe even unwise, but nevertheless we as viewers are compelled to empathize.

I think that viewers/readers/watchers/listeners (the audience) being compelled to empathize with characters is an important thing for art, Capital A Art, to do - perhaps that sounds too lofty. It's important however for us never to lose sight of the difference between art and entertainment.

This film moved me, and I am continuing to think about it and will think about it endlessly.

Birdman, aka Biggest Pile of Crap of the Year Award

Birdman has been universally acclaimed as the best movie of 2014. It was lauded for its plot, theme, cinematography, score, and direction, of course. Unfortunately this is yet another turn for me in Going Against the Crowd. Reminds me very much of the year American Beauty was released. That film, like this one, was artsy in a way that gives really good art films a bad name. It comes across as so pretentious, so abstract, and so theme-riddled that you feel the need to vomit up its theme like a bad breakfast. That film, like this one, was overwrought to the point where its message became utterly hollow when it should have been provocative and sad. That film, like this one, made mistakes in just about every category, and to my mind was most notable for being hard to sit through.

This film was worse, however. Despite having talented acting (Michael Keaton and Edward Norton were outstanding, as they usually are, and none of this can be counted against them), which ought to have helped, Birdman failed on every level. The viewing experience was nearly unbearable. ...Why? For several reasons. First, the score, which was basically a cacophonous mess, has been called "audacious" because it is almost entirely "...percussion – a careening, ramshackle-sounding drum score that underpins most of the scenes and gives the film the feeling that the whole glorious mess may come crashing down at any second." Yes, and along with it, your sanity. Many of the jazz drum solos have no notes and likewise no meaning, no soul. They just ramble on towards insanity, like the main character Riggan Thomson. I suppose it would be fitting; it could be helpful, if it were actually necessary to show us the problems the main character is having. But we don't need that erratic nerve-shattering so-called "music" because we already have this: the booming voice of Birdman that Thomson is hearing in his mind.

Yes, he is hearing voices, throughout the movie, or rather -- one voice. The booming, inevitable, inescapable, thunderous, hideous, scratchy, domineering voice of Birdman. "You know I'm right. Listen to me, man. You are the original! Let's make a comeback! You're Birdman! You are a god!"

The voice, along with the other hallucinations (Thomson believes he can fly, and can move objects with his mind) proves to us the level of mental decline. We don't need the score, on top of it all. Because of several humorous interludes, and the powerful talent of Edward Norton (portraying another large ego character, an archetype of a dedicated theater actor, for whom staged reality is the only reality), there are moments of relief in this movie (just barely enough to keep us sane). Nevertheless the hammer keeps pounding us on the head. It says in scene after scene: "Actors have big egos!" Pound, pound, pound. "The search for recognition will drive your ego into the ground!" Pound, pound, pound. "Hollywood is the only place an actor can achieve recognition!" Pound, pound, pound. "But the art world and the world of theater has no respect for Hollywood!" And on it goes.

I'd like to know why so many people found this movie "new" or "refreshing" or some such. If you'd like to see a man flying through the air, if that would be an exciting new experience for you, can I recommend Man of Steel? Wouldn't that be ironic? To find what you really want by leaving your art theater behind and going to see a mainstream superhero movie? But wait -- wasn't that the whole point? To remind us of the superhero movies? Yes, sure, yes. But that isn't what we're watching here. So the effect is, Birdman is telling us those films are too lowbrow while still tricking us with the exact same gimmick? Something smells wrong.

The conversation happens about 11 or 12 times -- the conversation about art v. Hollywood. It is truly old; there is no new idea there. Some critics have said the movie is really about Thomson's ego and search for recognition, his lost identity as an artist, his integrity as an actor being equal to his integrity as a human being. However, the movie itself seems to imply that his identification with the superhero is what saves him... The theater is only a place of torture and bloodshed. I figured the main idea was that if he had any sense of himself, in the first place, any true sense of identity, that he would be equally content to work in Hollywood as the theater, and he would have nothing to prove. He would know he was an actor, an artist, regardless of the medium. I figured the Birdman persona was redemptive, given the ending.

So. yes. Then there's the ending of the movie, which I can't say much about except it was 100% predictable. Not only are we sitting, stuck, watching a movie that hits us over the head (psychologically and sonically) and feels pointless and unbearable, but we also can see the end coming from a long, long distance.

All I can really take away from it is, once again, the old saying that "what's old is new again" to the audience. And/or, people really love cacophonous music and people are very much more masochistic than you would have thought just by looking at them.

Side Effects

I am so happy to say I was not disappointed in "Side Effects" at all. You never know with these small-budget thrillers. Sometimes they slip by and no one sees them, and there's no way to know if it's because they were awful or because they just didn't have a promotional budget.

Rooney Mara, looking nothing like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, (I wouldn't have recognized her, had it not been for her unusual name) plays a depressed woman whose doctor prescribes experimental drugs. She has tried several traditional anti-depressants, and none of them work anymore. However, once she is on the new drugs, she commits a bloody crime while sleepwalking, and has no memory of the event in the morning. It's up to the viewer to decide who's to blame.

Scene by scene we become more and more uneasy. Could her doctor have prevented this? What made her become so violent? Was there something in her history that we don't know about? What was in those drugs, anyway? Is there any precedent for sleepwalkers to be acquitted of their crimes? (It turns out, there is.)

Her doctor, played by Jude Law, seems like a very nice guy at first (sympathetic to a non-English speaker who finds himself in a psychiatrist's office because of language barriers). After a while though, we learn that he's on the take of Big Pharma. This theme is so pervasive these days, we feel right at home with it. Of course, we say: this is what doctors do. The guy is pushing new experimental drugs right and left. It seems risky and uncertain -- but does it mean he's a bad guy? Hard to be sure. But he's going to suffer from the publicity of this patient's case, either way. He'll lose his reputation and be attacked by his business partners and his wife before this is over.

Meanwhile Rooney Mara does amazing things with her eyes -- they can be zombie-like, empty of all humanity; or droop downward like a heroin addict's; or shine with manic tears and anger. It's very hard to tell what's in her head, indeed.

I can't really say more than this. If you like psychological thrillers, which are frightening not because of their shock value, but because of their familiarity -- the eerie similarity to the anxious uncertainty of real life -- you will love this movie, too.

The Paperboy

The Paperboy is an attempt at a southern gothic, basically. It is rich with dripping moss and cicadas, humid days and bloody murder. Those moments in which you most feel you are really in the south, you are really luxuriating in heat and grit, are its best moments. You get the dialogue, by instinct, rather than by clarity of diction. That's exactly how it is in the south. I love the way the young white boy and the young black maid who works for his father are friends. This is Faulknerian; this is classic. I love the way Matthew McConaughey sits in a grubby room and sweats. He glimmers and still keeps his roughness. I don't know why he always brings the south to life in so many movies. The scenes where he's holed up in his home-made "office" are so gritty they seem to be filmed behind a lens that's been covered in a thick layer of dirt. There are old, rickety oscillating fans and low, dusty lawn chairs.

Then there's the swamp - plenty of swamp - and you can certainly imagine what it's like to have your two choices be getting your throat slit or swimming with crocodiles.

John Cusack plays the murderer. He's absolutely unsettling in this movie and barely recognizable. His face is transformed from the sweet charming boy we all know into someone whose bloodlust eminates from his eyes and open mouth as he stares bluntly, dumbly, his cheeks ragged and his hair hanging down in stiff, greasy pieces.

All of this works well, and makes the movie fun to watch, but it has a shallowness problem. There's a false note in the way Nicole Kidman stumbles on the set and takes over the plot. Sure, she's got some brave moves here, as Ebert pointed out - but we're watching her brave acting rather than believing her character. She takes so much screen time for the majority of the movie; she motivates the plot (no murderer-freeing without her there) and she motivates the actions of the two hero brothers (no victim-rescuing without her there). However, aside from the fact that Nicole can still truss up as a sexy whore, what do we learn from her appearance? There's a lot of potential. She's a dumb-ish lower-class woman seeking a man; she also has a propensity to be attracted to prison inmates. In the very beginning of the story, her romance with Cusack's character, consisting only of letters they wrote each other, reminded me of the beautiful book The Executioner's Song which is motivated also by just such a romance. This could be a real story; she could be a real character. What is it about her that makes her want a convicted murderer for a mate? Why does she want him out of prison so badly?

We'll never know because all she does in the film is spout sex and then be victimized; it's truly a wasted performance by Kidman -- bravery and all.

Albert Nobbs (and Young Adult, accidentally)

I'm thinking right now about movies that misidentify themselves. Is that a word? Movies that seem to believe they are something other than what they actually are. One example of this, from recent memory, is a movie called Young Adult. It was billed as a comedy, and the trailers made it seem like a typical fluffy romance -- a chick flick. Even though there were one or two scenes that made this implication possible, the overarching vibe of the film was very dark, featuring a main character whose depressive immaturity and complicated web of neuroses is extremely difficult to watch. She may be beautiful, but she's not beautiful on the inside, and that may be one of the misleading elements. We're not accustomed to seeing someone as beautiful as Charlize Theron acting in a way that's viscerally disgusting, at least not without her first putting on a lot of "ugly person" makeup and altering her appearance like she did in Monster. In "Young Adult" she's simply disgusting because of her neuroses. The way she pulls at her hair, for instance, plucking out a bald spot on the back of her head compulsively. Her drunkenness, how pathetically unaware she is of how pathetic she is, her false sense of pride as she piles on layers of makeup like sludge to hide her age. It's so obvious that she is 100% phony. It's miserable to watch. I sat in the theater, cringing throughout.

People told me afterward, "Didn't you think that was a really profound portrayal of a woman who hasn't outgrown the self-image she had as a teenager?" Well, yes. "But!" I yelled. "It was supposed to be a romantic comedy! Or heck, just a comedy at least! It wasn't funny at all!"

Now, that was an extreme case of bad marketing. However, I was shocked not only by how misleading the marketing for the film was, but also by its expectations for itself. Did it really expect to win an Oscar? Did it really expect to be successful as a "comedy" in the Golden Globes? Did it not understand that it was a film destined to be loveable only by the fringe, a film dealing with heavy, heavy territory that not many people would be willing to traverse? Unfortunately for Charlize, because she is such a high-caliber actor and this performance was so exquisite, the film will never get the attention it deserves. Why did it not stand up and say what it truly was? Something like a psychological horror film. If I were in the editing room, I would cut out all the supposedly-comedic or supposedly-romantic "borderline" scenes and emphasize all the ones involving makeup or vomit. After all, "Young Adult" in fact has more in common with "Black Swan" -- which did win an Oscar -- than it does with "Notting Hill."

So. Mis-identified movies. I was thinking about this because of the movie I just watched yesterday: Albert Nobbs. What a totally confused movie this is. On one hand, it thinks it's a period piece. On the other hand, the period is completely irrelevant. Also, there's a lot of references to other movies about class struggles and the plight of the poor. While the viewers are sitting there figuring out that this is no Jane Austen movie, they're left wondering why it's important that the primary characters are working class.

Too much is happening all at once: You've got a woman disguised as a man, and it's not at all clear why she is doing this. Not for a long, long time. You've also got a bunch of working class people, in a time where clearly it's difficult to find work -- but the socioeconomic conditions are never clearly explained. Yes, Albert is saving up "his" money in order to gain independence. But what does that have to do with the decision to pass as a man? You might start to think that passing as a man was something Albert chose to do in order to make money. But then, why would "he" have to do this for so long? Early in the film he makes us aware that he will be well enough off in six months to buy his own tobacco shop. That's his plan. But he's not a young man. Couldn't he have done this a long time ago? Besides, couldn't he have taken a more traditional route as a woman? It's completely unclear what the class struggle has to do with the gender struggle.

And then to confuse matters even more: Suddenly there is another woman posing as a man. What are the chances? And this woman is married (to a woman). Suddenly, it's apparently the central plot point that Albert wants to be married, too. This is now his grand pursuit. He sees they have a successful marriage and he wants one, too. Why? We spend a lot of time in the film with Albert "courting" a young working maid. A lot of his precious saved-up money is wasted on her, buying her hats, chocolate and whisky. But why? Does this movie now think that it is, in fact, a Jane Austen novel with a twist? Is it going to become a lesbian romance?

No. Finally, Albert confesses his story. It turns out that Albert Nobbs was actually gang-raped when she was a young girl of fourteen. My, how disturbing it is to see her put on a dress for the first time after some forty-odd years of living as a man and, having confessed her horrible rape story, in a state of exhilerated emotional release, run wildly on the beach. She looks like an old man in drag, and she looks also like someone with severe mental derangement. Is there pity for her? Of course there is. Gang rape?! Is there anything more horrible in all the world? It's deeply disturbing. Your "aha" moment, the big reveal. Albert is a victim of a serious trauma, and Albert is mentally ill.

But, as a viewer, by this time aren't you completely angry with the movie? Aren't you completely disappointed that nothing that's happened so far really matters at all? Think about it. Socioeconomic struggle? Not relevant. Long courtship with pretty young maid? Not relevant. Life in 19th century Ireland? Completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters, in fact, is passing as a man because she could no longer stomach the identity of a woman -- She could no longer live with the idea of sex, or play the part of demure feminine girl seeking a husband. This movie turns out to be something utterly, utterly off the charts un-mainstream. I have rarely seen something so horrible. When the revelation hits you, and you realize what you're watching, you instantly want your money back. Figuratively speaking.

What was Glenn Close thinking, anyway? We know she likes a little crazy, and does it well (I'm thinking "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Fatal Attraction" now). But "Albert Nobbs" has a multi-layered identity crisis, thinking of itself as some kind of cross between "Emma," "Yentl," and "Boys Don't Cry," but with none of the payoff of any of those films. I won't even mention how badly it ends for poor Albert. Oops. Well, you weren't going to see it anyway.

Congratulations "Albert Nobbs," you are now officially the worst movie I've ever seen, bumping "Edward Scissorhands" out of the bottom spot.

The Aviator

Last night, I re-lived the bliss of watching the movie that I long ago decided was my all-time favorite movie: The Aviator, with the stunning Leonardo DiCaprio.

It became my favorite movie the minute I walked out of the theater having seen it for the first time. Ever since then, whenever I want someone to get to know me, or whenever I'm in the middle of a deep conversation with a new close friend, I tend to somehow work in an opportunity to quote DiCaprio, as Howard Hughes, repeating: "The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future."

If the person I am speaking to finds this funny, then s/he will be able to understand me. If not, then probably not. It's very simple.

What does it say about me, that my "ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOVIE" is The Aviator? Well, I begin to answer this by first pointing you toward my previous favorite movie, before I had seen The Aviator. It was: The English Patient.

For this, the very first blog post in a series where I discuss my favorite movies, we'll have a perfect introduction by comparing The Aviator and The English Patient. Both of these movies have a tragic hero. That is crucial. Both of these movies have a flawed tragic hero, reminiscent of ancient Greek literature. Both of these movies tend toward the romantic, in style, philosophy and substance. Both of these movies are absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous to watch -- Both movies fill the screen with huge, lucid portraits of landscapes, skies, architecture and masterpieces of human engineering. Both of these movies are masterpieces of cinematography.

Both of these movies have an extremely handsome male lead. Both of these movies have a quirky, unusual, melodramatic, introspective, fearful and socially awkward male character as the lead. And the things he must do! to make us love him. In both cases.

Both of these movies have Drama, with a capital D. Some would argue that both of these movies are overly dramatic and overly romantic -- that they veer so far from realism that they are unbearable. In their very unbearableness, they are both beautiful. Whether it is an apocalyptic small plane crash where the roofs of Los Angeles are torn in two and burst aflame, or a poetic dialogue between two lovers trapped in a dark car while a desert sandstorm gusts around them, the scenes in these movies will echo eternally in the walls of your imagination. They will not let you go.

Isn't the height of good Drama just fundamentally defined by how readily you are taken away from the mundane and lifted up into an experience that challenges your imagination? Your mind must burn new neural territory in order to accomodate how alive this makes you feel, and in order to burnish words for the new aesthetic you have been given.

So -- that's a nice introduction, isn't it? But let's talk just a little bit about why The Aviator is better than The English Patient.

First of all, The English Patient has a weaker plot. It relies on the adaptation of a book; the adaptation was much better than the book, (yes, I read it) --it kept the romantic magic the author intended. It just didn't translate in terms of the action into a movie. The action becomes, in the movie, a story of a love affair and a cuckolded husband, set against a backdrop of a war. The war becomes the most important character, and the moral message of "War is Evil" does not roll out lightly. No, it thunders down. The war/Evil character is primarily responsible for what befalls everyone in the movie. The burns on the patient; the bombing of loved ones; the missing thumbs; even the fatal union of the lovers is shaped by war. The war/Evil is so obviously the lowest, most morally wrong of all the wrongs that could be -- so much so that the affair, and the harm it does to the cuckolded husband, become forgivable and seem less wrong. They are let off the hook completely.

Which, in turn, (deeply analyzing the plot at this point, so follow along with me), almost destroys the weight of the problem for the two lovers. You may think that the lovers are driving the plot, but you see, they're not really. How could it be so important for them to stay apart, given what's going on with the war? --The plot is weak. Upon repeated viewings it becomes tiresome.

Ralph Fiennes is damned good and Kristin Scott Thomas earned my lifelong admiration. I have never been able to forget the charm of Naveen Andrews. I love the movie still, and I'll keep it on my favorites list. But it definitely got knocked down several bars as time went on and I saw more movies.

The Aviator is breathless and literally, awesome. The planes alone -- the engineering -- make the film worth watching. Right from the start you are treated to triumphant scenes. Hughes informs his new CFO that he's standing looking at the "largest private airforce in the entire world." So right away you get the scope of it. The planes swoop and duck, and sometimes you get this amazing angle as if you were in one of the planes yourself! Cate Blanchett steps in to play Katharine Hepburn, and you feel that as a movie viewer you have suddenly gone to Heaven without having died. DiCaprio makes you know Hughes, makes you know not only Hughes' temper and stridency, passion and vulnerability, but also his shyness, his nightmares, and his inner ego. I have never in all my life felt like I could live inside another human's brain as much as DiCaprio allowed me permission to live inside Hughes'. And I relate to Hughes. I relate to him because anyone with a big heart would have to relate to him. We've all been that vulnerable at some point. We've all wished we were that powerful.

Plot, as far as it goes, in this movie takes on one of my criteria for "HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL DIRECTING;" which is to say, it is subtle and nuanced. I can't even sum up the plot in a few sentences. I might be able to say that it is a biopic of Howard Hughes, which is vague enough not to touch the plot question, but avoid it altogether! Or, I might be able to sum up the plot in a few paragraphs. That's the range. For example, I might write a paragraph about each of these questions: is it a movie about competing airlines? Is it a movie about United States history? Is it about obsessive-compulsive disorder? Is it a love story? Is it about Hollywood? Is it about money and greed, power and fame? Holy shit, buddy: it's about all of those things and more. This movie is, in short, epic. It's epic because it's directed by Martin Scorsese. He has a knack for making things larger than life, nuanced, and unforgettable. I'll write more on the perfect partnership of Scorsese and DiCaprio soon, when I discuss another fave, The Gangs of New York.

There are so many scenes in this movie that I could rave about. I don't know what excited me more: the sweeping interior of a Hollywood lounge, the plane crash scene mentioned above, the lights of nighttime LA as Cate and Leo glide above it in a gentle airplane motion (that you as the viewer can actually feel, like you're back in childhood riding the Peter Plan flight ride at Disneyland), or the horror of the dank red theater in which Hughes slides into craziness, growing wolflike and repeating his instructions for milk delivery into the void. This movie is SO big in my imagination. It takes me to SO many different places, unreal places, vivid dreamscapes. It satisfies me intellectually, too -- when Hughes takes the microphone into his overscrubbed fingers and charges Senator Brewster with corruption, this is quite a bit more than a history lesson. The movie is political, and DiCaprio is at his best in those scenes.

Shall I go on? On a personal note, the scene when Hughes burns all of his clothing after Hepburn walks out on him will always move my heart. On a technical note, the scene where Hughes is barraged by cameras for the debut of his movie, and bulbs are smoking, popping and exploding all around him, is the best piece of cinematography that I have ever witnessed.

If you don't believe me, watch it again.

So we have powerful acting, (of the highest caliber -- the kind that makes you intimate with the characters), nuanced direction, action-packed and complex screenwriting, layered and intellectual plotlines, unforgettable cinematography, and stellar stylistic design from head to toe. It has the best ending to a film that I can possibly imagine, with one the most ironic and memorable lines of dialogue for its concluding sequence.

One last thing: The Aviator bears watching again. And again. And again.

This weekend: "Another Happy Day" and "J. Edgar"

I have two movies to write about from my weekend. Warning: Both of them were dark, sad movies. However, I don't regret the viewing experience in either case.

First, I watched Another Happy Day. What you might have guessed already is that the title is ironic. Yes! It is! The film is about one of the most neurotic families that ever lived, and the misery that naturally follows the people who participate in any event having to do with that family. In this case, the event is a wedding. The main character, Lynn, is played by the (maybe actually neurotic) Ellen Barkin. With all due respect to female actors everywhere, I must ask: Ellen, did you have to pout so much? Her mouth is in a seemingly permanent shape of downward protrusion, as if she had just tasted something hideous! (Of course, there's also the possibility it's her Botox.) She is not pretty, and not "hot," as one of her teenage sons suggests. Both of her sons seem to be a little in love with her, but no one knows why. She's not likeable in any way. She's a whiny, narcissistic, fragile, bitchy, anxious person. From the very first scene, we see her yelling needlessly at her (other) teenage son. It's quickly clear that Lynn can't handle stress, family events (such as the wedding they're driving to), her sons, or even driving her car -- Lynn can't handle anything, basically.

We learn that Lynn has been physically abused by her husband, forced to separate her two (other) children from that marriage, give up her eldest son and protect her daughter from complete psychic breakdown after the violence she witnessed. Lynn has four children altogether: the daughter, Alice, has been slowly mutilating her body with a straight razor, thanks to her abusive father. The younger two sons (teenagers) come from Lynn's second marriage.

We also see that Lynn has a cold mother, two stupid loudmouth sisters, a teenage son who's on the autism spectrum and another teenage son who's addicted to opiates. Lynn has a lot to deal with, but she can't handle it at all.

The family, as presented to us, is obnoxious. The mother, beautifully cold and brazen Ellen Burstyn, has sided with the ex-husband, Paul, despite his abuse. She even flirts with him over the telephone! She tells her daughter that she's just inviting trouble and wonders "why can't we just have a good time?" Paul himself, played by the rarely mis-cast Thomas Haden Church, is little more than an idiot brute. He behaves as if he doesn't remember his own sins, and we're inclined to think he doesn't. Or doesn't get it. (Is he a brute who has been hit over the head one too many times?) Lynn's father, an old man with heart problems and other ill-defined health troubles, is usually medicated or asleep, unless he's having a heart attack in the middle of the night (apparently a regular occurence). Lynn's sisters do little more than sit around gossiping, guffawing and dressing up toy dogs. Another family twist: Lynn has to fight for the right to be called "mother" to her eldest son (whom she was forced to leave with her ex). Paul comes with a second wife, Patty, played by Demi Moore. This really might be Demi Moore's best performance, as she has never been as hateworthy nor as authentic as she is here, playing a grown-up-stripper stepmom with territorial poison to spew in the face of her husband's fragile ex-wife. "I'm the one who tucked him in at night," she says. "I'm the one." (She, too, has apparently forgotten that her husband forced Lynn to leave her son.)

So of course, Lynn runs around from one disastrous, devastating interaction to another, and we're all just waiting to see if she'll survive the wedding without her son overdosing or her daughter committing suicide or her ex-husband bullying her again.

Sounds awful, right? So why do I say this movie is worth watching? Because there are some tricky nuances that will surprise you. Here is one example: you don't think Lynn is really to blame for anything that happens to her, at first, (although Lynn is frightfully annoying, she is still a victim!) until the scene where you finally get her mother's perspective. Dear Ellen Burstyn, you are a genius. The scene is the kitchen table after midnight, where Lynn stumbles upon her mother sitting in the darkness. She tells her daughter "No" when Lynn asks "Mom can I talk to you?"

Lynn flinches.

"No. You have never had the decency or the respect to know when to keep things private!" Doris (Burstyn) says. [This, after an afternoon of Lynn describing Paul's abuse in detail, to a room filled with people.]

"I'm just trying to make things better," Lynn (Barkin) says (pouting, as usual).

"Better for who? Better for me? Unable to sleep, exhausted, and unable to sleep in the middle of the night? How are you going to make things better for me?"

Doris (Burstyn) then proceeds to share with her daughter what it's really like
having her husband disappear before her eyes, falling into old age, isolated, frightened, expecting at any moment to be widowed. The intense loneliness of her life, accumulated, now Lynn must bear witness to. She is not just "Lynn's mother," but a woman with her own pain. A pain that she never, ever, shares with anyone else. Doris has been holding herself together precisely because everyone else in the family spews poison at each other all day long. It is quite truly the most heart-wrenching scene in the entire film. A film filled with heart-wrenching. Doris, the cold matriarch, turns out to have every reason to be insensitive to her daughter. Within just a few seconds the entire movie is turned on its head. The idea of a necessary insensitivity is just one example of the remarkable ways characters reveal themselves in human terms.

There are many gorgeous performances in this film. Burstyn's is best, but there's also the young addict portrayed by Ezra Miller, and Demi Moore as mentioned. All these messed-up humans are truly gorgeous to observe, once you adjust your eyes to the darkness. It's a sad story, and dark, but for anyone who knows what a neurotic family is like, this is a necessary film. It's necessary to show how truly black that bottomless pit of pain can be. It's necessary to show, also, how human are the human beings who live in it.

Second, I watched J. Edgar this weekend. By contrast to the above characters, J. Edgar is not permitting himself to be human at all. Apparently he denies himself his sexuality, even in the privacy of his own bedroom. He is unmoved by criticism or by other humans' ideas of what he should be. He is motivated, robotically, by his mother's perception of him and by his own quest for power. This is the story of a chronically repressed person, with a nastiness layered on top like a thick skin. Only it's not a thick skin. If it were self-defense, we might sympathize. No. He's only nasty because of how unhappy he is.

I didn't like the movie very much. Two things I liked. One: Naomi Watts as the devoted Ms. Gandy, Hoover's secretary for life. She is sweet, expressively silent, and offers up her own face as the window into Edgar's soul (since his own cannot express it). Two: the art direction. The juxtaposition of Edgar and Clyde at the races in the 1920s and then again in the 1960s, for instance. There are a thousand clever transitions between past and more recent past. Edgar's desk, office, and private rooms are symphonic in their carriage of the movie's mood and the main character's dark personality. You feel as though you have lived in Hoover's actual life for a little while.

Of course, Leonardo DiCaprio is always good to watch. One knows, "anything with this actor's going to be good," is not a believable statement. But I love him, anyway. He's commanding. J. Edgar Hoover only wished he were as commanding as DiCaprio actually is.

"Shame" vs. "A Dangerous Method"

I recently watched Michael Fassbender twice in a row; in one film, he portrayed Carl Jung, and in the other, a random man walking aimlessly through the world who has been accused (by the critics) of "sex addiction."

Do I need to tell you he was more fun as Carl Jung?

One thinks, when drawn to watch a movie like "Shame," that one is going to see something lusty. The title implies that Random Man (the audience has only one or two chances to notice that the character is named "Brandon") will do something shameful! A sex addict? What does it mean? Don't you think it means someone who has a lot of sex?

First of all, the term "sex addict" has been used by the critics, film reviewers, the official movie pundits... But... I saw no evidence for this in the film. Does owning pornography make you a "sex addict"? If it does, we live in a world full of sex addicts. Does sleeping with a stranger make you a "sex addict"? If it does... You get the idea. Really what the random man does is walk around, silently, or stare at people on trains, argue with his sister (who showed up unexpectedly), and then, occasionally, look at porn.

Second, what is this movie about? Is it about sex at all? Or is it about depression? Why don't we just call it "Depression." I don't think the guy has shame. What does he have to be ashamed about? There's an implication that he doesn't connect with women (one very awkward dinner date, nothing to do with sex) and that he doesn't enjoy his work (whatever his work is, it's only depicted as a nameless, purposeless, dull office), and that he has nothing to do but ride around on trains and stare morosely at pretty girls.

Third, when his sister shows up, we know absolutely nothing about her, other than the fact that she is depressed, too. Her close-up of singing "New York, New York" (in slow-motion, and off-key) in a bar does nothing to make us like her. She's got pouty lips, ugly hair in need of a good stylist, and she, even more than her brother, has something to be ashamed of: She has attempted suicide.

Nothing happens in "Shame" except watching two depressed people move aimlessly from one place to another. Oh, there is one sex scene.

(Worst movie ever? I would say so except Michael Fassbender is so good-looking.)

The one about Carl Jung, and his breaking away from his mentor Sigmund Freud, is actually quite thought-provoking, and Fassbender is endearing as a psycho-analyst who falls in love with one of his patients. Keira Knightely is extremely annoying, as always, so you will have to do your best to ignore her. But Carl Jung really came to life in Fassbender, not only because he makes the process of psycho-analysis seem like a worthy endeavour, but because the line between intellect and emotion is so blurry in his portrayal. His patient, evidently skilled and intellectual herself -- enough so to later become a rival analyst -- challenges his mind and his willpower. Jung seems human; he seems MALE -- just as much as he seems like a hero of academics everywhere.

We get the chance, in other words, to probe some of the ideas of psycho-analysis, such as dream analysis, and early attachment theory, alongside someone who is finding his own way in the world.... alongside a man, who dares to challenge his master, THE master. Jung has faults, and this endears us to him and demonstrates the embodiment of imperfect intelligence.

(P.S. It's also an excellent performance by Viggo Mortensen in the role of Freud.)

So Leo Can Fail, After All! (not really)

I'm just kidding. Leo didn't fail. But after thinking for many years "anything with this actor's gonna be good..." Well, I finally saw the first Leonardo DiCaprio film that I didn't like. Shutter Island, what a let-down. Actually, Leo did the best he could. The problems with the film had nothing to do with him, really. His acting was its usual clever/didn't-see-this-coming mixed with suave. The film however! Yikes! First of all, haven't we seen this one before? A movie about a mental institution with a "missing" patient? Unless this is your Very First Movie, (and how old would you have to be? 5? in which case it would probably scare you), you know how this is going to end.

But I was willing to accept that, as a matter of fact, and go with the flow. I had already heard that the movie was dull and predictable and squishy. I was ready to know the ending from the beginning. I figured there would still be drama to enjoy along the way. There wasn't! An hour into it, I'm sitting there wondering, So when are we going to get to the point? It was the equivalent of a chase scene where the main character is not chasing anyone. You will never know how painful it was for me to watch Leo running around, acting it up, making squinty eyes and hot demands from everyone around him, essentially purposeless. I mean by that: What drove this character? If the story were to be believed, he was a U.S. Marshal trying to solve a missing persons case. Yet he knew from the very start that this person was not really missing. So then, his puzzle to solve became.....? His interest in the place was.....? Right. You kinda had to know the ending, in order to understand what was going on.

Essentially, the reason this film was so terrible was: knowing the ending became a requirement for following the basic plot, and yet, the ending was supposed to be a surprise twist. Hmmmmmmm.....