A couple things that I'm thinking about:

I realize that Patrick Kane looks like a preteen. But nevertheless I'm not sure that "Most Patriotic Grade School Portrait" is a great look for a professional hockey player who will likely be participating in the Olympics this winter. Particularly when it's only one in a series of truly terrible photos. I mean, I'm not insane so I don't expect great things from USA Hockey or anything, but really, someone got paid to do this. I could do better and I'm really not a particularly talented photographer and just barely qualify as knowing how to use photoshop.

Time Out New York reviewed Sondra Lee's new book and said that readers might be familiar with her from the orgy scene in La Dolce Vita. I've seen the movie but certainly didn't remember she was in it. I do, however, remember her as Tiger Lily the Mary Martin starring Peter Pan. My sister and I used to watch an old tape of that whenever we went to our grandparents' country house.

It's been a long time since I thought about it but it's something tons of people watched as kids, no?

A Couple Things

1. I went to see Adventureland Saturday and thought it was good but far less funny than I expected. I mean I laughed and all, but it mostly made me sad. Which is fine, except a little warning would be nice. I like to go in expecting the whole sad thing. (I also like to read the last pages of books ahead of time; I'm not so big on surprised). 

Adventureland also made me miss driving. Which is strange, I suppose, but one of the things I miss most about living in the suburbs is driving home late at night with the streets nearly empty and your headlights sweeping across the road, maybe a sad, quiet song playing. I loved that. 

I was three in 1987 (when Adventureland is set) and I certainly never worked in an amusement park, but the world of the movie still feels totally familiar--an experience I expect many people will have. 

2. In a 280 word review of Buffalo Lockjaw, TONY's Drew Toal manages to say that Buffalo is as grim and frostbitten a city as one can find in the continental U.S. (someone doesn't know their grim and frostbitten cities very well, I suspect), refer to it as a "bleak upstate land," and reference the 0-for-4 Superbowl run. Now if he'd also managed to wedge in Brett Hull's skate and the Appalachia-esque economy I might have been impressed by his "Buffalo is a miserable hole" dedication. But as it is it's just lazy reviewing. I mean, he says that the "scenes of high-blood-alcohol regression flirt with Northern-gothic clichés"--I might argue for realism there*--but then manages to spit out a review where he regurgitates the most hackneyed cliches about Buffalo despite his limited space? How tedious.

*I haven't read the book yet so I can't really say, but I would bet Ames isn't exaggerating when it comes to Buffalo and drinking.

Waltz with Bashir

I went to the Lincoln Center Theater early in the evening on Wednesday, having taken a vacation day since I've got some left over from last year, intending to see The Class. But since the times were inconvenient, I wound up going to Waltz with Bashir instead. It had been raining and I've worn through the soles of my shoes so I sat there cold in the thankfully-only-part-way-full theater in my wet socks, eating a bucket of popcorn and using my coat as a blanket. 

I hadn't been totally sure I wanted to see the movie because I haven't been feeling totally up to seeing depressing things lately. But I'm so glad I saw it, and in the theater. It's an oddly beautiful movie, not just about war but also about the nature of memory and history. And it's so difficult to watch but at the same time never feels like a chore.  

I think that the ways in which we construct our own histories--both consciously and unconsciously--are fascinating. History is most interesting when we consider it as a narrative that we construct. And that is the framework within which Waltz with Bashir plays out. The protagonist is trying to reconstruct his own past using the faulty memories of his compatriots, and in the process shows us the tragedy of the 1982 Lebanon War. As a story told in dreamscapes and recollections it has a surreal air, and yet it always feels like you're seeing something truthful. That truth, though, is a personal truth, the tragedy one of individuals as well as nations, and the film acknowledges the importance of that at the same time as addressing the broader subject of war and how people forget and remember, how they lie to themselves and others. 

The only thing I was unsure of was the sudden switch from animation to live action newsreel footage. It was as if the filmmaker was trying to remind us that this was something that actually happened and not a work of fiction. But I don't think it ever felt like fiction in the first place. And I don't think it was any less truthful because it was drawn not filmed. It felt like we were being provided with proof--see, this was awful, this was real--but I think that with a work of art so consistent in its aesthetic and so emotionally engaging,  we don't actually need any proof to believe in it. 

Let the Right One In

This movie wasn't really what I expected. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. I guess I didn't think it was going to be quite as slow as it was. That's not a complaint though.

I loved the quiet tension and the way the frozen, wintery landscape framed the story. Not only because it's a refreshing change from the overheated, Gothic-lite Louisiana setting that I associate with modern vampire stories--so was Twilight, although it was less effective--but because that hushed, snow-coated world seems much more frightening to me.

I was skeptical of the reviews claiming the movie was both scary and touching, but I did find that I agreed. Although not, to my relief, all that scary. Or gory. I don't do particularly well with scary movies. I was also relieved that it was so good, as I'd gotten friends to come with me and I'm always worried that people won't enjoy things I ask them to go to with me. Fortunately they liked it as much as I did.

Milk

It's funny that a biopic should feel so impersonal. Particularly one as fantastically-acted as this one. That's not a complaint, exactly. It just felt more like a movie about a movement and a moment in time than a person. In other words, the subject was not Milk's interior world but his exterior world. I think that's a perfectly legitimate tact to take, and certainly the movie is engaging, both intellectually and emotionally (false dichotomy alert). But I do think that it has a distancing effect, particularly for someone like me who wasn't born when these events took place and doesn't have any personal investment in them. And it robs the climax--the assassination itself--of some of the power it might otherwise have. Because it's the movement that matters in the movie, and we know that that continued.

That said, it's the best movie of gone to this year (although I've gone to very few movies) and I really did think it was excellent. Fairly conventional but the subject and performances make it extremely rewarding.

Twilight

I went to see this tonight with my father and grandparents because my grandparents apparently wanted to see it. I would have gone for Role Models if I were the one choosing movies, but that's just me.

I've never read the books and don't have many thoughts on the movie. I like Edward's jackets but he seems more creepy than gorgeous to me. Maybe it's because I saw the publicity tour photos first and Pattinson looks kind of creepy as himself even without the white makeup? Or maybe it's because I'm not 15 anymore? And the sparkling skin thing is . . . odd on film. Also, I wish my hair looked as nice as Kristen Stewart's does in that movie when I was in high school. Or now.

Oh, and I totally caught that shout out to Little, Brown. Heh.

Religulous

I went to see this on Wednesday because I needed to be out of the apartment for four hours after the exterminator came. Definite mistake. Theoretically, I'm the target audience for something like this. I don't believe in God, and my opinion of fundamentalism is about as low as Maher's. I think that a great deal of the evil in this world is attributable to religious beliefs. And people who don't believe in evolution, think the world is 7,000 years old, etc. baffle me completely. So the movie should be right up my alley. I thought it was terrible.

Problem numero uno is that Maher is a condescending asshole throughout the film. This is a problem that afflicts many anti-religionists--hello, Richard Dawkins!--but as a result the film works best when Maher isn't talking. Many of the people he features are ridiculous enough that they can make a mockery of themselves with no help from Maher. But Maher clearly loves to hear himself talk, so that's unfortunately not to frequent occurrence. I feel like it should be possible to respect a person (and their intelligence) even when you don't have much respect for their religious beliefs. I know smart people who are deeply religious. There are many people who are much more intelligent than I am who believe in God. It doesn't seem to me that they're deserving of my condescension.

The second issue is that the view of religion that Maher presents in Religulous is almost completely lacking in nuance. The one point where he provides something other than a black-and-white view is when he speaks to a Catholic priest who explains that believing in evolution isn't against Catholic doctrine and it is possible to reconcile faith and science. It was such a relief because it was one of the only times when Maher presented the audience with someone who could express and defend his or her beliefs on an intellectual level. Because he's not interested in that; he wants to show religious people as dangerous idiots. He'd rather we see the guy who runs the patently stupid evolution museum or the man that believes god performs miracles for him. When the man who plays Jesus at the Holy Land theme park explains the Trinity as being like the three states of water Maher talks about how clever that is as though fake Jesus were a dog that just learned to roll over. (Sidenote: I can't believe there's a Holy Land theme park. How weird.) And many of the people he interviews of really on the fringe. I mean, of all the rabbis in America--most of whom are reasonable, intelligent people--he picks the nutjob who went to Iran to meet Ahmadinejad? Yet he doesn't seem to differentiate between these extremists and mainstream religious people.

The third problem, which encompasses the first two, is that Maher has made a small, petty movie about a big subject. Religious extremism, on the parts of not only Muslims but Christians and even Jews, is terrifying. It's a topic that deserves real consideration and discussion. And Maher's a comedian, so of course he's not giving us this. But in his statement about the dangers of religion at the end of the movie he concludes as though he's just given us a serious and compelling argument. It feels completely unearned. The movie would have been far better and more interesting if Maher talked to more people like the priest and rabbi in the YouTubes below as well as the fools and extremists.

The Whisper of the Whistling Water

Well, I think it's safe to say that this has supplanted Watermill on Wendy's list of most boring things I've gotten her to go see. When my friend called and asked if I wanted to see a documentary on Louise Bourgeois at the Anthology Film Archive I said, "Who?" and then figured, "Sure, why not?" because it could be interesting and I figured I'd learn something. As it turns out, some of her work was familiar to me and I did learn some stuff but I think the only way it could have been interesting for me was if the artist was of particular interest to me or if I really enjoyed her work. There were all sorts of details that probably have more value if you go in with a basic, working knowledge of her life. As it was, around the time that Bourgeois was spending quite some time showing the filmmaker a ticking metronome which is virtually identical to one that sits in my apartment I decided that--despite moments of interest and humor--I might have more fun banging my head against a wall. Although I did really like the beginning when she was telling us about different tapestries. That was neat.

Anyway, afterward Wendy and I went home and watched the results show of So You Think You Can Dance? while reveling in our philistinism.

Love Songs (Les Chansons d'amour)

So, in case people haven't picked up on this, I'm a fan of musicals. Not so much of the big, overwhelming, cheesy sort (see Wicked) but of the smaller scale sort. Not that I never like the big stuff, but sometimes the small ones seem more effective. Les Chansons d'amour isn't a great movie by any means but it is one I thoroughly enjoyed.

To get the criticism out of the way, the movie never quite seems to develop its themes fully--it feels like more could have been done in places and the ending is abrupt--and the subtitles for the songs are sometimes good and sometimes a bit of a disaster. Wendy assures me that the lyrics are decidedly not awkward in French and are, in fact, very good, so blame that one on the translator.

Still, there's more good than bad. The music is a sort of French pop that I enjoy and the actors do a nice job of handling the musical numbers without seeming forced. (No subtitles in the clips on YouTube, unfortunately.)



The family in the movie is a nice change from the dysfunctional families that seem to pervade most movies and the relationships between the family members seemed more true and familiar to me than those in many movies. The story is emotionally involving and I think what the director is aiming at in his examination of love--the ways in which it shifts, the relationships people form to fill different needs--is interesting. And Louis Garrel is delightful. So all in all well worth seeing, I think.

This and That (again)

So I've really been pretty busy, but not with things that make very interesting posting. So, you know, feel free to skip over this.

I've been doing quite a bit of cooking of late in an attempt to eat both healthier and cheaper food. I need to save some money. In the last couple weeks I've made:

• Carrot and Potato Stew with Quinoa: Tasty but too spicy. I think next time I'll cut the spices in half. The quinoa was excellent though.
  
• Potato Bread: Yummy! Very fluffy and light.
  
• Cranberry Sorbet: Didn't quite freeze right and kind of tastes like canned cranberry sauce in sorbet form.
• Mashed Potatoes: Kind of tough to mess up.
• Finnish Rye Bread: Has a nice taste to it but a little denser then I'd like.
  

Shooting all that money-saving in the foot this week was the escapades in cat ownership. Wendy and I found out that clay kitty litter is strip mined and have been experimenting for the last month and a half with more environmentally-friendly options. We started out with a corn-based litter which was highly disgusting. Then we tried Yesterday's News which was too difficult to clean. I think think we've settled on a yellow pine litter that smells a bit gerbil-y but controls the cat odors well. In between the newspaper and the pine though, I bought this crazy expensive litter (I misread the price) that promised to turn pink if your cat had a urinary tract infection, among other things. So of course it turns pink and we drag both miserable cats to the vet for urine samples. While we were there the vet weighed them and noted that Pyramus had lost a pound. Since he hasn't seemed to be feeling great we got him the full check-up and blood test workup our vet does on FELV+ cats. $550-odd later they're both totally fine and Pyramus has seemed much perkier the last couple days. So much for saving money this month.

I watched The Rocket over the weekend. I thought it was well filmed and well acted--although Roy Dupuis is way too old to play a 21-year-old rookie--but not nearly as captivating as it could have been. I felt like the filmmakers were more worried about stuffing as much as possible about his career than about creating a really solid dramatic structure or a full picture of his life. It's creates a bit of an unbalanced feeling film to me. As a side note, I watched the movie using the subtitles but I did see a bit of the dubbed version and oh my lord is it horrible.

I think that's about all I have to say. This has not been my best post ever here.

Them!

Today I watched my roommate's favorite Sci Fi movie, which she has been promising to make me watch for the 6 years I've known her. And it was totally awesome. The other stuff I've seen this week probably would have been improved by the introduction of giant ants. Just saying. I would like to note that my very favorite part of this poster is the fact that they put a woman in a slinky bombshell dress between the ant's mandibles when in fact the movie contains exactly no women who wear such clothing in the movie. I'm also fond of the pulpy copy line.

Forbidden Planet

My day at work was Crappy--yes, so much so that it deserves capitalization--and thoroughly frustrating, so when I got home instead of doing the multitudinous things that need doing around the apartment I sat around in the living room eating Americone Dream and watching Forbidden Planet with Wendy. Part of my '50s sci fi education (next up is Them!). Today sucked. But Forbidden Planet is pretty awesome.

On a total side note, the highlight of my crappy day--setting aside deliciously bad special effects--was watching Obama's S. Carolina speech. Either that man's quite the writer or his speechwriter deserves a very nice raise. Or both.

Sweeney Todd

I've never seen the musical of Sweeney Todd but I like Sondheim so I was looking forward to the Tim Burton directed movie version. Anyway, I thought it was a good and entertaining night at the movies, although the movie falls well short of greatness. I don't have all that much to say, and it's not that I didn't like the movie, because I did, but the theater version is funnier right? Or something-er? Because the movie is pretty unrelentingly dark. And while I admire Burton's ability to create an aesthetically consistent world, I'm not sure what making an entirely dark musical about an entirely dark subject and then filming it in an entirely dark way does for the viewer. A bit more black humor would have gone a long way and I can only assume that the actual musical had said humor. And maybe a portrayal of Todd that was a bit more nuanced? I would have liked that too.

Stardust Revisited

(Quick note: I don't own a scanner so the images here are photos of the pages. Obviously that distorts them somewhat and there are shiny spots from the flash. Sorry.)

I wrote about Stardust months back when I saw the movie and only now finished with the novel, which my mother sent me as a present. The movie altered the plot of the novel in various ways to make it more exciting of course. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the fact that the problems present in the movie are all there in the novel as well; the lack of magical feeling, the pallid characters, the dullness of it, are all problems that the movie was simply replicating. In fact, even the entertaining supporting characters from the movie are, well, less than entertaining here.

I realize that this might not be a popular opinion but I don't think characterization is particularly Gaiman's strong point. Oh, he's got some very appealing characters in the Sandman comics and in Good Omens, but for the most part his people tend to be a bit . . . flat. And that particularly hurts this story because the intermittent moments of inventiveness are so glossed over. There are clever bits as well:

Scaithe's Ebb is a small seaport town built on granite, a town a chandlers and carpenters and sailmakers; of old sailors with missing fingers and limbs who have opened their own grog-houses or spend their days in them, what is left in their hair still tarred into long queues, though the stubble on their chins has long-since dusted to white. There are no whore in Scaithe's Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months.

Unfortunately those clever bits are separated by periods of blandness. All in all, a disappointment.

The saving grace is the illustration work. They're not all wonderful illustrations, but there are many that contain the beauty and magic that the text is sorely missing. They possess a sense of otherworldliness. In short, what the illustrations do is what good storytelling should do: they create a sense of a completely-realized world in which the events can take place. If only the text could rise up to meet this.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Before I start talking about this movie I have one thing to say: If you are tall and you wear a hat in a movie theater that makes you even taller you, my friend, are a douche. Thank you.

To a certain extent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford seems to be one of those movies that people either love or hate. As far as I can tell critics either think it's a failure or they think it's a near-masterpiece. I'd say it's rather closer to the latter.

The critics who dislike it say that it can be boring and filled with lacunae where nothing happens. Some said the same about the beginning of Brokeback Mountain. I understand where they're coming from with this, but I didn't see it then and I don't see it now. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times writes, "Partisans will argue that without the leisurely tedium of 'Assassination's' first two hours this involvement would not have happened, but that is the voice of excess speaking." I wouldn't argue that at all. I would argue that in the beauty of the setting, the stillness and wide open space that is juxtaposed with violence and fear, there is no tedium to begin with.

Other criticisms include hard to follow accents (they weren't), bad acting (inexplicable, but then it's the resolutely anti-intellectual New York Post), pretension (true, in rare parts), and imbalance (also true--the beginning could have been shorter and the ending longer).

There does seem to be general agreement that the cinematography is beautiful. And that is very, very true. I could just watch this movie, with no sound, no plot, just the gorgeous scenery. The snow and hard ground, the clouds rolling across a giant sky, the grain blowing in the wind, the smallness of humans and civilization in this vast and harsh landscape. It's a setting that is quintessentially American, and also what I assume Kant would have described as the "terrifying sublime," provoking not only pleasure but also fear, or a sense of dread and melancholy.

The homosocial nature of much of the film is also quintessentially American. Women are generally unimportant and marginalized in the making of American mythology. It is therefore appropriate that the movie is centered upon the relationships between men. There are women present at times, yes, but as in Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn, these women are largely a footnote in the story. Everything that really matters in the movie can be seen in the brilliant assassination scene. Three men in a room, a reflection, an acknowledgment of inevitability, the ties that bind these men together.

Ford wants to be James's sidekick. He desperately wants his friendship and approval--in one scene he painfully elaborates on the similarities between James and himself. Even if James wanted such a relationship with the fawning and unlikeable Ford--and occasionally, as when he presents him with a new gun, he seems to--he's too unstable to sustain it. Thus thwarted desire and disappointment are molded into anger and resentment. It's the dark side of a relationship you see again and again in literature, movies, and perhaps most particularly, comic books, which share many features with the Western.

The reviewer in the New Jersey Star-Ledger writes, "Ford was dumb enough to confuse fame with infamy. He couldn't figure out shooting an unarmed murderer in the back only made the murderer a hero." I don't see that as the point of the movie, nor do I think that shooting James in the back made Ford dumb. And I don't think that most twenty-year-olds, no matter how smart, would have made that distinction, particularly in the rather less pop-culture-and-celebrity saturated 19th century. The movie is a commentary on fame, certainly, but I don't think it's a commentary on Ford's stupidity. Fame would be far less pernicious if it were merely the creation of stupid young people.

Anyway, the murderer was a hero before his death. The appeal of Jesse James wasn't that he was shot in the back--he was famous long before that--but that he was, in many ways, a quintessential American hero. In Studies in Classic American Literature D.H. Lawrence wrote about the, "myth of the essential white America." Lawrence's understanding of America was far different then the story we tell ourselves. He wrote, "the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." Lawrence understood that we don't make heroes or myths out of kindness or gentleness or love. That America's great literature revolves around blood and violence and horror. The character of Jesse James, prone to rages and violence, paranoid, cruel, yet still a family man who loves his children, is exactly the sort we love and mythologize. It's not a tragedy that James was shot in the back. It's not a tragedy that he dies. He's an unstable murderer. And yet, in the context of American culture James can be nothing other than a hero and a legend.

The movie isn't perfect, and it isn't a masterpiece, but it is a psychologically acute, literate, and evocative exploration of fame--the way in which it poisons those who worship it and destroys those who have it--that speaks directly to our obsessive fascinations. In it's authentic depiction of the West, built through the slow accumulation of layers of detail, it taps into something quintessentially American, which has always struck me as the raison d’être of the Western.

Death at a Funeral and other assorted things

OK, honestly, I don't know how people go out and do things with other people every day and don't go batshit crazy. Granted a lot of my "out with other people" this past week was "out with family" which is particularly craziness inducing, but I kind of just want to hide in my apartment for the foreseeable future--except for tomorrow when I'm meeting Kir and Jenny after work--and pretend people don't exist.

Also, I just shelled over money for rent, a massive vet visit, and some other things and am feeling rather poor. So clearly what I need is retail therapy? Not so much--and I'm not a happy shopper anyway--but I do need to go shopping for some nice fall/winter work clothes in the next week or so.

Anyway, yesterday my aunt and I went to see Death at a Funeral based on my grandmother's enthusiastic recommendation. It often seems to me that my grandmother likes much more than she dislikes, so it might have occurred to us that this was a mistake, but naturally we failed to consider that.

It's one of those comedies that relies on everyone running about acting like complete idiots. If even one or two people behaved as though they had a brain in their head there would be no movie because the conflict would simply be solved. And I hate movies like that. I just don't understand the justification for choosing stupidity over good plotting. So while there were funny moments, it was more often painful. Rather glad I'm not the one who paid for it.

Dedication

I'm not generally against romances featuring a quirky male lead, provided that the lead doesn't seem too self-consciously quirky. But when said quirky lead seems not so much quirky as oh-my-lord-get-this-man-in-therapy-now crazy then it's not so cute. I'm not saying that such characters shouldn't exist in film. I'm saying that they shouldn't exist in movies that conclude in the manner of happily-ever-after romances. I'm sorry, but if I'm going to believe that the smart, nice heroine should be with this man, I'm going to need a lot more convincing than the fact that he loves her and doesn't lie to her, unlike her sleazy on-again-off-again ex. The fact that he's willing to try and get over his many, many issues doesn't make up for the fact that he's, y'know, crazy.

I feel like this movie has plenty of promise. Mandy Moore is likable and a better actress than I would have thought. Billy Crudup is always good, if not particularly likable. The dialogue (Blogger wants me to spell this "dialog." I refuse, Blogger!) is witty and interesting. Even the love story could work if done differently. The movie actually has a lot going for it. Which is why it's frustrating that it fails to deliver on that promise.

In her New York Times review, Jeannette Catsoulis writes:

That weird exhalation you hear at the multiplex these days is the sound of female characters settling for less than they deserve. Following on the wildly successful antifeminist heels of Knocked Up, Hollywood is falling over itself to introduce beautiful, smart young women to useless, possibly brain-damaged young men.

I felt like we, as viewers, are supposed to accept that Crudup's character has somehow earned the love of the heroine, has somehow become worthy of it. When the fact is, he's still a nut, and you're just left with a bitter taste in your mouth. Perhaps the point should be that he's not good enough for her, and he's not remotely normal, but she loves him anyway and that's a good thing. But if that's the case, then it would be nice if the movie acknowledged that and showed us why we should be happy about it instead of going the typical romance way. Instead, the only way to see him as a good guy is in comparison to her cad-ish ex and the other unpleasant people who populate a film in which only the heroine is a genuinely pleasant character.

Stardust

So I'm a little confused about Stardust. I've always been under the impression that it was a novel with illustrations, which is not, to my mind, a graphic novel. In my understanding, a graphic novel is a long comic book. The story is moved forward by the illustration work and the text is integrated with the imagery. An illustrated novel has normal text with illustrations that might illuminate, but do not move the story ahead in and of themselves. All the reviews seem to say that Stardust is based on a graphic novel, while the credits of the movie itself said that it was based on a novel. So I'm confused. Am I wrong about the nature of the graphic novel? Am I wrong about the source material? I don't like this confusion; I like categories and boundaries. Thus, I looked at Gaiman's official Web site...it's referred to as an illustrated novel there so an illustrated novel is what I'm going to consider it. My life? Would be easier if I were less neurotic.

I think it should be said that any cast that includes Peter O'Toole as a bloodthirsty, dying king, Michelle Pfeiffer as an evil witch, and Robert De Niro as a scene-stealing pirate, has a pretty good cast. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't quite work, and the cast is a part of the problem. While the supporting characters are entertainingly portrayed, the leads are less engaging.

The influence of The Princess Bride is visible all over the movie. Now granted, a movie could do worse than to model itself on The Princess Bride. But in the end it doesn't work to Stardust's advantage because in every case it comes out on the worse side of the comparison. And the first problem is that Charlie Cox, as the lead, is no Cary Elwes. He functions almost as a cardboard figure around which everything happens. The charm and sense of comedy that make Westley such a great character aren't there in Cox's portrayal of the earnest hero. Claire Danes is a good enough actress, but she too makes a pallid lead. The other issue is that it lacks the cleverness of The Princess Bride. It's not the sort of movie that's going to be quoted a couple days later, much less twenty years.

In theory, that void could be filled with something. A sense of wonder and magic. A bit of unpredictability (I suck at figuring out endings and still had this one figured before the star even fell). Anything like that. Instead what we're left with is a movie that's fun and funny in some moments, but dull in others. As a whole it's entertaining, but only mildly so.

I do really like Cox's coat in that photo though. Rather more dashing then he ever becomes.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

So, I haven't seen a lot of Todd Solondz movies--only this one and Palindromes--but I think there's something about his aesthetic that I just don't get. I feel like he's incredibly sympathetic to his characters, but there's so little sympathy between characters. Which is integral to the movies, but just seems so uncomfortable to me. And not uncomfortable in a shows-us-an-integral-truth way, but uncomfortable in an unnatural way.

Now this might shock you, given my ever so happening social life and infinitely cool interests, but I was not a particularly popular middle schooler. I spent a lot of time alone in my room reading. Not just reading, but reading fantasy books. But I was never as nerdy as Dawn Weiner. Largely because I was never so angry, nor so starved for popularity. Which I find both comforting and slightly unnerving.

Or at least unnerving for me, because as tough as she has it in terms of emotional support, I find myself not terribly sympathetic toward her. Shouldn't I, as someone who was not cool, who felt alienated to an extent, be able to find more than a sliver of compassion for a character like that? I considered that it might be similar to The Catcher in the Rye where, in my opinion, it helps to read the book at a certain period in your life. I think if I read Catcher for the first time now, I'd be fairly annoyed with Holden. But I read it when I was an angry, phony-hating teenager, and at that point the book spoke to me emotionally in a way I'm not sure it would now.

So, anyway, I thought about that. And then I decided that it's not the problem here. The problem is that there's something about the movie that, for me at least, doesn't quite ring true. By the time the little sister got kidnapped, I'd kind of emotionally checked out of the whole thing. And it seems to me that with a movie like this, it's a disappointment to have a purely cerebral response.

Hairspray

Anyway, I went to see Hairspray yesterday night. I was a bit iffy on it because I wasn't sure about John Travolta. I don't mean all the boycott-the-film-'cause-Scientology-is-anti-gay stuff. I tend to agree with Travolta's point that he's playing a woman, not a gay man, even if he is in a role traditionally filled by a gay man. Now, obviously, I think that Scientology is totally insane. And I find the rumors about Travolta having an autistic son who doesn't receive the proper treatment due to Scientology downright disturbing. The reason I wasn't sure about him though was more that I found it hard to picture him doing the same role as Harvey Fierstein (I've never seen the original movie with Divine). But as it turns out, he was really good. Not camp, which is certainly a change, but believable and likeable as a damaged woman. I'm not sure if it makes sense to be believable in a movie where none of the other characters are, but there you have it.

The movie as a whole is just a lot of fun. Infectious, really. Which is an ever so appealing word for what's mostly a good thing. It's the sort of movie--and musical for that matter--that I always think I should find obnoxious: flashy, good-hearted, naive. But I really enjoyed this one, and figure it's just good escapism. And Michelle Pfeiffer makes a very good evil bitch.

In other news, it's rather difficult to type with a cat sitting on your chest, head-butting your hands and rubbing her little wet nose all over you. She's purring like a little engine though so I feel too guilty to move her. Such a sucker.