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Burn Before Watching
So I just finished watching Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the epic No Country For Old Men. And I thought Country was depressing! In my current mood and situation, all I need is to listen to the new Chris Isaak album, and… Well. Let’s just say that in three days the neighbors would be calling the police, complaining of a strange smell.
My mood is not helped by the fact that I read most of the day instead of working, though I did get a little bit done. But I feel like a fat bastard of a slug. There’s always tomorrow, I suppose.
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Movies, Reviews
“Guns don’t kill people – but they sure help!”
Saw Shoot ‘Em Up last night. I had heard this described as possibly “the most ridiculous film ever conceived by Hollywood” and that’s not a criticism. As the film opens, Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) is sitting at a bus stop eating a carrot when a pregnant woman hurries past. Right behind her a tough guy in his car comes screeching to a halt, and proceeds to shout abuse as he chases her into a building.
Smith can’t let this pass, so he tags along and teaches the thug a lesson. Then, a half dozen heavily armed associates show up, and Smith is forced to shoot it out with them.
The story is framed as a cartoon (Smith munches on carrots; the bad guy even calls him a “wascally wabbit”), but it bears more resemblence to video games, specifically Max Payne, right down to Smith’s appearance. The absurdities don’t stop with the high body count or Smith’s virtuosity with firearms – for example, it only takes half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, to locate someone on the run in New York City.
Taken by itself, the plot is actually fairly reasonable (as government conspiracy theories go). But do not let children or anyone with a weak disposition near this film. It’s rated R and for good reason. If you’re in the right mood it can be fun but it’s in the same league as, say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
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Movies, Reviews
Two Lane Blacktop
Saw Two Lane Blacktop over the New Year’s holiday. It’s the story of two drifters who take their souped-up ’55 Chevy from town to town, drag racing when they can find a taker. Essentially they’re hustlers.
Along the way they hook up with a young woman who’s hitching around the country more or less at random. Later they meet a middle aged man, who picks up hitchhikers so he can have someone to talk to, and end up challenging him to a cross-country race.
Like the movie The Driver, the main characters are given labels instead of names, based on what they do (The Driver, The Mechanic), what they are (The Girl), or what they drive (GTO). Their backstories are nonexistent, and it’s clearly on purpose. When GTO starts to spill his guts, The Driver interrupts with a curt, “I don’t want to hear it.”
This movie is sort of the anti-Vanishing Point. Whereas that movie said that the open road is America, man, and you can meet a lot of interesting people there, this movie says that the road is barren, a wasteland.
In his review, Roger Ebert points out that this movie is about people who make the road their home. To them, the road is their destination, not just a path to somewhere else.
I thought the movie was very disappointing, though. If you’re making a character study, you’d think that the people in it would be interesting. Instead only Warren Oates, as GTO, really does anything (to be fair, his part is the best). In a way he and the others become friends, but it’s a fragile thing and in the end just sort of dissolves.
Plus the movie is boring in places, something I have a hard time forgiving.
Oddly enough, Slate just ran a retrospective on the movie. There were many great movies made in the 70s; I have a hard time putting this one among their number.
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Movies
Why Isildur Got A Bum Rap
Inspired by this post of Dean’s, I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy again recently, and it occurred to me that Isildur got a bum rap.
As you may recall, Isildur was the king of Gondor who saw his father, king of Arnor, cut down by Sauron in battle on the slopes of Mount Doom. Isildur took up his father’s shattered sword and cut the Ring of Power from Sauron’s hand, destroying his corporeal form and driving his army from the field.
Though urged by Elrond to destroy the ring, Isildur instead kept it for himself. The ring then betrayed Isildur during an ambush, leaving him to die.
Aragon, Isildur’s heir to the throne of Gondor, feared the weakness that caused Isildur to keep the ring instead of destroying it. But this is a load of crap! Why? Because when Frodo the Pure as the Driven Snow, the one who was chosen to bear to ring to Gondor, the saintliest of all the Fellowship of the Ring, when he stands at the Crack of Doom and prepares to send the Ring back to hell, what does he do? He keeps it for himself!
So Isildur was damned for doing the same thing that Frodo, the hero of the Lord of the Rings, did when he was faced with the same situation. And that’s why he got a bum rap.
That’s all I have to say about that.
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Movies
Vanishing Point
Saw the movie Vanishing Point last night. Verdict: not bad. It tells the story Kowalski, a delivery driver who picks up a car in Denver for delivery to San Francisco. He decides to make the trip in 15 hours, basically for the hell of it. You may read that it was for a bet, but the bet is small potatoes and Kowalski was already itching to roll.
So he takes off down Colorado roads at high speed. The cops weren’t happy about that and did their best to encourage him to slow down. This didn’t have the desired effect, as Kowalski left them trying to call for backup as they choked on his dust.
The first hour or so of the film was essentially a series of chases, cut with brief flashbacks to Kowalski’s previous life as a race driver and a cop. DJ Super Soul, listening in on a police-band radio at his small town radio station, serves as Kowalski’s main cheerleader and contact with the real world.
The second hour is a lot more interesting. Kowalski takes off into the Nevada desert to evade the highway patrol and ends up lost, with a flat tire. Soon he encounters an old man who is hunting for snakes for a fundamentalist Christian sect. This begins a series of encounters for Kowalski, who also runs into some gay (maybe?) hitchhikers and an easy rider who gives him a hand (and his girlfriend, who’d also like to help Kowalski out).
All this doesn’t seem like it would add up to much, but it’s actually a pretty good movie. If nothing else it’s a snapshot of the odd and unique character of America at the beginning of the Seventies. It’s like the whole country reverted to childhood for a decade beginning around 1966.
The movie has a strong “Stick it to the man!” undercurrent, which I had a hard time sympathizing with. Besides, Kowalski isn’t trying to stick it to anybody. He just wants to drive the car.
One thing I didn’t notice until later: as the movie begins, Kowalski is trying to run a blockade into California. As he approaches the roadblock, he passes a black sedan going the other way, and a flashback begins that makes up the rest of the movie.
The black sedan is the car he delivers to Denver. It’s like the entire movie is a huge loop, with Kowalski unable to do more than drive. Which, as it happens, is all he seems to want to do – stay in motion.
Barry Newman, who plays Kowalski, has been in a ton of stuff, and was very good in a movie I enjoyed a few years ago, 1999′s The Limey. Here he’s aloof but likeable, and comes across as a really decent guy. Vanishing Point is worth checking out if you have some time.
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