American Splendor

In his book Making Comics, prominent comic scholar (yeah, you read that right) Scott Mccloud defines iconoclast as an artist who values "honesty, vitality, authenticity and unpretentiousness. Putting life first." This definitely describes the main character of American Splendor, Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti), a comic book artist who decides to make his own life into a work of art, but it also could apply to the to the film. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini use their experience to shape the film much like one of their documentaries, inserting actual interview footage of Harvey alongside the movie itself.

From the very beginning, the actual Harvey Pekar informs us that the actor we are watching is not him and then proceeds to narrate the story anyway. We follow the fictional Harvey through a typical day, which quickly turns into a terrible one. His girlfriend decides to leave him even though he pleads with her. He's working a dead end job at a VA hospital with some truly obnoxious people. You as an audience member immediately begin to feel good about your own life.

Then something amazing happens to Harvey. He meets Robert Crumb, an independent comic artist, and has an epiphany. Well maybe he has two of them. First superheroes are not the only stories comic books can tell and second, everyday stories are pretty damn important too. He convinces Crumb to help illustrate these comics and begins to write earnestly. Suddenly all these ordinary moments in his life take on a new, exciting perspective.

It’s an important lesson to remember these days, what with summers filled of superhero blockbuster movies, that sometimes the most fantastic stories don’t need to be fantastical at all. Not that Harvey Pekar’s life was without incident. He meets a cute woman about his age and quickly falls in love and marries her. They may disagree often but you can tell even in actual interviews that they love each other. She supports his efforts to tell these stories.

He finds that his comics are gaining popularity but not as much as he hoped. So when David Letterman calls him onto the Late Night show he naively agrees to come on. What he doesn’t know is that he is considered a sideshow attraction by the audience, a counter culture novelty writing comics. Refusing to accept this he returns to the show several times, each time more combative with both the host and the audience.

The show handles these obviously artificial sequences in a clever way combining real footage and staged recreation. It is here that one of the central struggles of the film plays out. Harvey is convinced that these stories are important but the majority of America thinks he is punch line. He thinks he’s writing the next great American story, they think he’s writing a comic strip. But life goes on.

Eventually Harvey and his wife take in a little girl who is need of a home. They struggle to make it all work but then something eclipses all these little problems. Cancer. Harvey attempts to go into a deep depression but Joyce refuses to let him quit. Her solution is both genius and obvious. Write a comic about the experience. So he writes and she helps him finish and together they survive the experience.

It’s ironic that an artist who values truth above everything that wants to stare life in the face has his own story end on an optimistic note. He gets better. They decide to adopt the kid. He has a retirement party. It is a surprisingly heartwarming ending even as the real Harvey reminds us how hard it is and that there are no guarantees. Its funny that he may have been trying to remind us of the importance of ordinary people, a rebuke against those men in capes too often on the silver screen, because at the end, as the camera shows the real him embracing his family, Harvey Pekar looks a little bit like a superhero.

Note: On July 12, 2010, Harvey Pekar died of accidental overdose. Around the same time I found a copy of this film at Walgreens in the bargain bin for $4. Guess Harvey still had some convincing to do.

Bad Lietunenant: Port of New Orleans

Werner Herzog, like the bad lieutenant of the title, has found his port in New Orleans and it would be nice to think that Herzog is paying tribute to the city's most popular art form, jazz, in the way he directs this story but that would be inaccurate. It just so happens that this German director has a signature style and tone that fits perfectly with this unique setting of a city. As the song says it really is a small world.

The sense of improvisation, the delightful narrative dead ends (never thought you would hear that did you?), the playful madness of it all are what make this film so much fun. Like any good jazz band, Herzog and company (Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendez, etc) take the standard template of a crime procedural and spin it into an absurdist trip. It seems pointless to even try and describe the film but I will anyway.

Nicolas Cage plays Terence McDonagh a cop whose moral compass isn't broken but simply missing altogether. We meet him and his dirty partner Steve Pruit (Val Kilmer) as they stumble upon a prison inmate drowning in the flooding of New Orleans. First the two try to have a bet on when the guy will die. Then Terence decides to dive in and save him not out of a change of heart but just because he can.

For his efforts he is recognized by his police department and develops a back problem because no deed goes unpunished. From this point the film follows Terence as he tries every available method both legal and illegal in an attempt to relieve the pain. The standard approaches come to mind: prescription drugs, rape, illegal drugs, conspiracy with drug dealers, and so on. The film and the character together stroll down dark alleys and back roads and walk away unscathed.

If there is a moral statement in this quite frankly, depraved affair, it is that there is a "bliss of evil" and no actor more perfectly captures that bliss than Nicolas Cage. The shower of praise that fell on him for this performance was both plenty and well deserved. Doing things both ridiculous and despicable, at one point he pistol whips an old lady at a nursing home, Cage has never been more believable or had more fun being unleashed on society.

The film makes no judgement of its rogue gallery of characters. Terence's prostitute girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendez), his drug connection Big Fate (Xzibit), and his parasitic father all feel authentic and fully formed. These people stand as a testament to one of Herzog's own axioms, that one should know something about "the soul of man". And Frankie is a perfect example of this, she truly feels like the soul of mate of a dirty cop, a fellow addict with her own irrational tics and trouble with the criminal element.

Ultimately though it comes down to Herzog forgoing plot to give cinema another one-of-a-kind experience. The film is so disinterested in the actual narrative that the ending is literally resolved in a scene that involves a trinity of deus ex machina. Instead it would rather be inserting imaginary iguanas into a stake out or having the soul of a dead man literally break dance. Yes you read that right break dance. It is at that point that one has either decided to sit back and enjoy the ride or get off the train. And I definitely enjoyed the ride.

TRON: Legacy

The irony is hard to miss in a film like TRON: Legacy. When Kevin Flynn's (Jeff Bridges) digital replicate Clu, newly appointed dictator of the virtual world called the Grid, attempts to destroy his predecessor, the real world parallel is obvious. When the original Tron was released in 1987 it created a new high watermark for special effects, being among the first films to successfully blend CGI and live action. Now it's being defeated by a whole new generation of special effects movies. For those who haven't caught on by now, in this allegory the original "Tron" is Kevin Flynn and Clu is Tron's legacy.

If this sort of unnecessary complexity confuses you then you are going to have a hell-of-a time with this movie. It begins in the real world with "the son of Flynn", Sam, an abandoned young man with daddy issues, who through a family friend receives a message ostensibly from his father. When he goes to his father office to investigate, an automatic program digitizes him and transports him to the Grid.

Wondering why I'm giving you a synopsis of the plot is a legitimate question for most viewers who have already seen the movie's massive marketing campaign . The real question is why this movie feels the need to exist at all. At this point in cinema's history, a short 23 years after the original Tron, a virtual army comparable to Clu's has already exceeded Tron's landmark achievement. From a lowbrow action picture like Transformers to a highbrow action picture like The Matrix, Tron has been surpassed several times over.

Despite this, the movie is surprisingly well crafted. Long time commercial and music video director Joseph Kosinski uses his background in architecture and his collaboration with concept artists to establish a great sense of visual design. The world of the Grid is distinctive and yet if you're one of the few people who have remember the original Tron then its origins are easily recognized. In fact the film succeeds in almost every aspect of craftsmanship.

The CGI creation Clu is in no way perfect but in certain moments in the film, particularly the prologue, he looks uncannily like a young Bridges. Kosinski's direction is unfussy for most of the film allowing the action sequences to be enjoyed without intrusion by unnecessary edit. The other side of this is that he too often allows exposition to devolve into shot-reverse-shot sequences that could put you to sleep. The technology of the universe is comparable to another sci-fi world: Star Wars. Light-bikes for TIE fighters and discs for light-sabers.

Even the performances are surprisingly good. If ever there was a time to phone a performance in for Bridges, this would be it. Yet he charmingly shows up and delivers a performance as easy going and pitch perfect as his Rooster in True Grit. Garret Hedlund is a nerd-cum Bruce Wayne who oozes a necessary cool and understatement in a movie with such preposterous concepts. A Steve MQueen with more emotional range. Olivia Wilde plays a program that radiates more body heat then most "flesh and blood" heroines.

Unfortunately this movie supports the critics theory that the declining quality of film is caused by the poor standards of today's screenwriting. Co-written by TV scribes Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the script shares DNA with their previous job on the sci-fi TV show LOST and has their hallmark fingerprints. Thinly veiled allusions to literature. Check. Mysterious characters waiting to be unmasked. Check. Religious allegory. Check. What ismissing was the sense of character that show created. Here people barely register as symbols for a weak metaphor or mouthpieces for exposition.

Which might be okay if the metaphor was consistent in the movie or applicable in the real world. Neither of which is true. When Kevin Flynn begins to wax poetically about how the Grid will change "science, technology, religion!" I asked myself "How?". Turns out that the writer's didn't have the answer. Say what you will about popular darling Inception but when they promised things that couldn't happen in the real world they delivered. How many fights do you know have occurred in an anti gravity hotel? Exactly, none. What does the Grid provide? Light-bikes and virtual airplanes that stall and smoke out when they get too high.

That is the crux of what's wrong with TRON: Legacy and blockbuster film in general. Visually stimulating but conceptually unimaginative. Also, note to writers: When you make a religious allegory let it be subtle. When the film finally crawls to its conclusion, info dumps and all, you will be glad to leave the theater. This movie reminds of me of what a book critic once said "Don't be angry at what isn't, be sad at what could have been". This certainly holds true for TRON: Legacy which comes just short of a great ride inside that black luminescence.

Look to the Left of the Page...

Now look at this post. Now back to the left column. Now back at this post. Do you notice something? I failed National Novel Writing Month. Miserably. In fact I think calling it a failure might count as faint praise. Now, I could make excuses but I won't. I didn't make the time pure and simple but this failure has shown me how important it is to make some time especially when you know that one easily could have. Experiencing actual consequences to not writing is a lot more concrete then say "awww I guess I didn't write today". So look forward to a lot more writing here if I get the time. I mean I am pretty busy. On second thought don't expect anything soon. So see you later...or not.

The Action Scene: Execution Style

When I say that the summer is over, understand that I don't speak of the literal calendar months but that magical place where theme and plot give way to perhaps the most cinematic of endeavors: spectacle. Not mindless either. No...No... I mean honest to god action, elegantly choreographed, filmed with the kind of energy and clarity that has you on the edge of your seat.

So now the Oscar season has arrived,and it's time to put away your popcorn folks and pick up your pickled whale and I'm excited, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to go back to school without a vacation. Especially with this summer being as fun as one in Antarctica. Why this happened is a little harder to pin down.

Is it the seemingly endless amount of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and re imaginings? Is it the increasing number of hacks (i.e. Bay) compared to genuine talents (i.e. Nolan) attracted to the tentpole material. Is the writing just terrible?

The answer to all these questions are to some extent Yes. Unfortunately I can't help anyone with that. What I can do, however, is show you some principles that when applied to the various aspects of a film make for a very exciting time and when absent leave the audience frustrated. So here I leave an education to film fans and a manifesto to any filmmaker who wants to make a bad-ass action scene.

Concept

If you have been watching movies for as long as I have then you know the feeling. That feeling you get when your brain has turned off and you realize it's been 3 minutes and the scene still isn't over? Why, you ask yourself, why is this happening to me? It's not your fault friend, it's the writers for not asking the very same question, and if they did, we wouldn't be here right now praying for it all to end.

The illusion of the action scene is that action is synonymous with entertainment. In theory you can use it as a shortcut to fill screen time and make your movie more exciting. In reality these scenes still require the same dramatic principles as any other scene of dialogue or activity. You still need a goal, stakes, and an expression of character to fully flesh out a scene, action or otherwise.

Modern films tend to skip over these steps or poorly execute them either out of ineptitude or because they think the audience won't notice. The result of which we as an audience know too well. How many times have you watched an action scene and wondered how exactly it came to this or "Who am I rooting for" or "Why do I care?". When this happens the creators failed to do their job and we are paying the price. Slow-mo bullets, explosions and kung fu fighting by themselves are not as exciting as producers think they are. We have YouTube for that sort of thing. If they simply stopped and asked themselves Why? in terms of the scene, we as an audience wouldn't have to.

Here (yes again) I cite Mr. Plinkett over at Red Letter Media for his incisive look at how the modern prequels of the Star Wars series fail to match up to the classics in terms of action and why. [6:00-10:00]

Pre-Production

Robert Mckee, story analyst, argues that the smallest unit of dramatic structure in screenwriting and indeed all forms of fiction writing is the beat. A beat is the smallest individual action and reaction within a scene. For example, one character pulls out a gun then the other one pulls out a knife. This is one beat.

I found this definition particularly enlightening when it came to the action scenes I love. I'm not talking about ones involving martial arts mind you, that involves a level of expertise outside my current knowledge. However, scenes involving shoot outs or street brawls seem to benefit when they meet this definition. So imagine my surprise and delight when in my recreational study of screenwriting I came across this gem from actor and screenwriter extraordinaire Shane Black who knows a thing or two about action movies (He once sold an action script The Long Kiss Goodnight for $4 million dollars).

"The key to good action scenes is reversals...It's like a good news/bad news joke. The bad news is you get thrown out of an airplane. The good news is you're wearing your parachute. The bad news is the rip cord breaks. The good news is you have a backup chute. The bad news is you can't reach the cord. Back and forth like that until the character reaches the ground."

If you replace the word reversal with beats in that quote then I think you have the perfect form for an action scene and no one showcases these scenes better than Family Guy. In addition to satirizing movies of all kinds, the crew specializes in making pitch-perfect action scenes that pay homage to the great action films of the 80's, referencing, skewering and celebrating them all at once.

Execution

While the past two steps, I believe, are critical to a great action scene this one is the most important. Because while many can talk the talk, few can walk the walk. Any action scene can follow the principles outlined above but the movies is a specific medium and so must speak in a specific language.

While I may be a beginner of said language, I know of one who is not. Noted film historian and sometime critic David Bordwell is known for his love of Hong Kong cinema and so in one of his more recent blog post, he does a breakdown of the Super Cop mall scene that is a virtual class in blocking and filming one hell of a movie. Stop by their now for your final lesson and be sure to check out Mr. Emerson's take over at scanners.

Ok kids. Class dismissed. See you next summer.

Mark Zuckeberg's Face-book

Like many out there on the interwebs, I imagine you have an opinion on the upcoming film The Social Network directed by David Fincher. It is something most of us are aware of because its subject (at least on the surface) is something we are all familiar with. It is a film focused on an entity, a current event that escapes no one except maybe those literally living under a rock. If we don't own a Facebook page, we at least know some one who does. The pedigree of this film being David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and wunderkind screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men), I am extremely excited to see this film.

Even reading the reactions are exciting because the film like Facebook itself is so polarizing. Jim Emerson has some great coverage on all the chatter so far right..here. However, what really interests me is the fact that one of the fundamental interpretive questions of the film and indeed of Facebook is being glossed over, if written about at all. But for you to understand what I'm talking about we will need to take a second look at the trailer.




There has been much praise for what is already considered one of the greatest trailers of all time (I agree) but I won't waste anymore words here. Let's just consider the structure of the trailer. We begin with a cover of Creep playing over (or along with depending on how you look at it) real images of Facebook. We then flashback to Harvard 2003 which many of us now know is the time and place Facebook was created. The rest is a familiar tale of greed, friendship and betrayal most of which apparently committed by Mark. But what I want you to pay attention to is the symmetry which seems to imply a reflection, one between creator and creation.

Now many have talked about the irony of this socially awkward creator losing friendship while making a place for others to forge new ones. Others have talked about the themes that are consistent in Fincher's body of work. Specifically relative truth and moral ambiguity to name a few. Yet no one talks about Mark as auteur. Yeah, you heard me, AUTEUR. As much as Fincher is an auteur of film-- sharing his thoughts, ideas, philosophies, ideologies, neurosis and human condition through the medium of cinema -- isn't Mark an auteur (albeit a loose adaption of the word) of the social networking platform.

If so, the social network that many of us use everyday is really Mark Zuckeberg's idea or vision of a social life. The irony is, the people that created Facebook for social purposes also happen to be among the most socially awkward people around. Maybe that's why annoying elements like poking exist (just kidding, kind of) and friends are added to each others pages like commodities or pictures taken to make one feel like a celebrity. When you look at Facebook and the subsequent movie through this lens, that's when I think it becomes most revealing... and creepy.

P.S. I think the image at the end of the teaser trailer sums up what I'm trying to say much better than I do.

Suicide is the Only Logical Answer for M. Night Shyamalan

There is a lot to hate about M. Night Shyamalan , his movies for one, but for every misstep he makes in the craft of film making there is one thing you cannot deny. You must expect the unexpected. A relatively low key Q&A session in Mexico City presented one of the first real question's from a journalist I have seen at one of these things in a long time. M. Night of course never fails to surprise. See below:



See that friends, that is how you craft a twist. There were several standard ways to answer the question.

"No, I didn't do this for the money. I always follow my passion."
"I can't speak for the audience but I am confident about the films I've made. The BO seems to reflect that."
"If by audience you mean critics then I disagree. I do not believe the critics represent the movie-going public at large."

For several more common sense examples see here.

Logic or common sense seems to escape M. Night and ironically maybe that's why the man continues to confound audiences to this day, both intentionally and otherwise. To be fair it may have been a long day, maybe he misunderstood the question (we never see a translator in the frame so we assume the text is accurate) but I think what we have just seen is arrogance plain and simple.

Having considered these setbacks I expected the flabbergasted nature of his response. He fumbles for words and looks blindsided which is not surprising seeing as he probably hasn't been questioned about anything since The Sixth Sense even though he claims just the opposite (1:09-1:15). Apparently becoming a painter is the antidote but I digress. Let's just start at the beginning to see some of the most lateral thinking ever in action.

First he implies that the journalist thought process is worthy of suicide. How very gracious of him. Regardless of how he interpreted the question which I thought was fair and nicer than it could of been there was no reason to say something like that. Implying someone's thoughts are worthy of death is taking it way too far. Sadder still is Jackson Rathbone (star of The Last Airbender) gleeful applause in which the audience joins, all too awkwardly I might add.

He then goes on to say that her question is "the opposite of everything he believes as an artist" which seems strange given that only the last quarter of the question has anything to do with his "artistic" instincts. Afterward he comments that "this is when I want to become a painter". I am especially confused by this response. Does becoming a painter somehow remove you or shield you from criticism? Also any real "artist" would die before trading their chosen medium for another. If you love film so much you think you would be able to take the heat.

A little while later he says: "Your impression of my career is not my impression of career". REALLY?! Thanks for that Sherlock. Impressions like opinions are unique to each person so by statin the obvious I can only assume he's implying his impression is more important. Then he questions the credibility of her work telling her "That's something you read on Google or something". Besides making himself sound like a technophobe (Google or something! Are we in the 90's!) he never explains why Google is a invalid source. In today's 21st century world isn't the Internet as credible a source as any given the right resources? It's a standard political tactic that I hoped M. Night would be above but now I know better.

But Wait! There's More! Now M. Night begins to list his favorites directly from his own oeuvre. Which makes sense of course because the creator is the most honest person about his own work especially when it comes under criticism. He then goes on to talk about how other will perceive his legacy as if it were actually under his control which is ironic because a legacy is largely defined by those you leave it to.

Finally he scolds the journalist for asking (probably) the only question that wasn't complete and utter tripe. He accomplishes this by saying she characterizes his career in a "crass and dismissive way like that". Let's avoid dealing with the valley girl talk and be quite clear about what just happened here.

The saddest part of this charade isn't about the answer or his approach to it. The fact is he never answered the question. The journalist didn't ask what he thought about his films. She never evaluated the films themselves even. She simply asked if this film is his attempt to win back the audience that lost faith in his work. So what pissed him off? Is it that she said he had a strong start with the Sixth Sense or was it that she believed his films have always been very personal? The Last Airbender is based on a Nickelodeon cartoon (which I love by the way) not his original work and so it can safely said that it is commercial.

I think the whole thing is indicative of why M. Night is so terrible these days. He exhibits a lack of listening ability, empathy, and self awareness. This is probably why he began as such a promising director and lost most of his respect within a decade. Which is probably the greatest twist of them all.

P.S. Rathbone tries to save him in the last moment by saying that his films inspire an argument between him and his sister as to which of M.Night's film is the greatest. Not that working for him doesn't already bias you're opinion but siblings don't need inspiration to argue buddy. Believe me I know from experience