Unexpected Withdrawal

Fine, I admit it: I want more Harry Potter books.

*grumbles*

.... please note that while I think JK Rowling is a fantastic writer and storyteller, there were plenty of things I didn't necessarily like about the HP universe... until I saw the first few movies, which made Rowling look like that much more of a genius. Whoever directed the first few movies was terrible.

Horton Hears A Who Patriarchy

Damn skippy.

Parkour

There's also a movie in the making based on Parkour.

I like Parkour. I also happen to think it'll make a terrible film.

Info on Parkour here.

I once told a HS student he should take it up. I'm pretty sure he thought I was insane.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Apparently it's being made into a movie.

[Whiteside Theatre] An Interesting Comment From a Regal Tool

I'm a little behind on blogging, so this story isn't exactly new, but I wanted to highlight something.

The background: A local group is trying to put together a bid to buy the Whiteside Theatre in Corvallis with the intent to remake into "performance space."

I have no issues with that, though I trust Darkside owner Paul Turner's word that it's going to be a very expensive operation.

I do have issues with this:

The sale would include a restriction against showing any first-run movies to avoid competition with Regal’s four-screen cineplex across town.

“The intent is to not allow the downtown theater to play the same movies that are playing at the Ninth Street theater,” Nunley said.

I call bullshit, but at least Nunley is upfront about it.

I know Regal and Carmike have an agreement that stipulates that they won't both show the same movie in Corvallis, and I think that's bad enough (actually, I think it's pretty frackin' horrible since it has allowed Regal to let their theatre turn into a giant dump). For Regal to want a similar noncompete clause as part of any sale is insulting and undemocratic... and I'm not much of a supporter of the market or private property rights, but this undercuts both. It's monopolistic and infringes on the right of the new owner of the Whiteside to do what they will with the building.

I wonder if this sort of thing has been held up as legal in a court of law?

[Corvallis] Whiteside Developers Bail

It seems to boil down to the fact that there was too much citizen resistance to making the Whiteside a shopping mall.

This is a complex issue - while I'd rather not see retail space there (I prefer a live-action or movie theatre), I am cognizant of what Paul Turner (aka the Avalon/Darkside guy) has said about the Whiteside.

On the other hand, this guy is frustrated (and has a bit of a savior complex):

“That’s not a very big deal, and it was turning into something that’s just nuts,” Kemper said Thursday. “If that’s how the community of Corvallis wants to behave, fine. They can have their theater, and it can continue to be a dump for the next five years.”

(Kemper was the lead developer of the now-defunct effort to remake the Whiteside.)

[Movies] Juno & The Great Debaters

So I saw two movies today (officially yesterday, but I'm still awake, so...). Juno, the first, was an excellent movie, and if I was still subbing I'd be talking it up to HS students (to be perfectly honest). It's much, MUCH better than Knocked Up.

Juno deals with one woman (played to perfection by Ellen Page) who happens to get pregnant while a junior in high school. I am loathe to give away the plot, so let's just say that I am now in love with Diablo Cody, the movie's screenwriter - and Ellen Page, who puts on a terrific performance as Juno herself.

My one critique of the movie is that I wasn't sure what the point was - i.e. that I'm not sure how the characters changed as a result of the events that occurred when the camera was on. And while that might seem like a serious critique, I still think it's a movie unquestionably worth seeing.

For anyone who has seen it: What was going on with Mark (Jason Bateman)? Was he supposed to be sympathetically viewed? Was he (in the words of a friend of mine (sympathetic or just plain pathetic?

...

The second movie I saw today was The Great Debaters. As brilliant as it was different from Juno (and wow, was it different... apples and oranges, to say the least), The Great Debaters was a Denzel Washington-directed, few-if-any-holds-barred film that addressed (in a way this philosophy major could love) serious issues of race, gender, morality and ethics in early 20th-century America.

It actually reminded me of the potential upside of debate (a subject I am sad to say I've had poor experiences with): The issues that get debated are often the major issues of the day, and in participating, the debaters often get to sharpen their minds for the "real" struggles they will face in the world.

The Great Debaters is not a movie to be taken lightly. It is often brutally honest, to the point that the crowd I saw it in clapped, laughed, shouted and most likely cried.

I think that's another of saying that y'all need to go see it - now. Just make sure to bring your serious self when you do.

Charlie Wilson's War

I have to admit that I didn't have very high expectations of the film (I have not read the book), but I wasn't doing anything noteworthy enough to not go. So I went to the late showing tonight.

Turns out going was totally worth it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Tom Hanks + an Aaron Sorkin screenplay = every time either of the above opened their mouth I started laughing out loud.

There's also the whole the-US-screwed-itself-by-crapping-on-Afghanistan angle, which is pretty important to understanding the role the U.S. played in the rise of the Taliban. And Sorkin doesn't mince words on that front, for which I am glad.

All this assumes, of course, that one can get over the fact that Charlie Wilson was a boozing misogynist. Having him played by Tom Hanks apparently takes the edge off.

Next up: The Great Debaters!

Movie Review: The Kingdom (Ideological Spoiler Alert)

I just finished (as in the credits are still rolling) watching The Kingdom.

The Kingdom is a Syriana-like exploration of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States, except with a focus on terrorism instead of oil.

It's also a very good movie.

Since I interpret movies through a filter that allows forces me to look for and analyze the underlying values and ideology present (the "message," as it were), I am going to approach talking about The Kingdom in those terms.

In regards to the larger conflict between the so-called West and (and now I'm talking about reality, not the film), the simplest description is often literally "us" vs. "them." No distinctions are made, especially when referring to "them," and it is supposed to be understood that "they" are bad and should be subordinate to "us."

I absolutely despise this formulation of things. It's shallow, factually inept and dangerous. It allows for easy dehumanizing of others, making it easier to hate and kill other human beings. The fact that I feel compelled to point out that this is a bad thing does not make me optimistic about the world.

A slightly more complex understanding of allows for the existence of factions on both sides - and the more complex the understanding gets, the more realistic it gets, as it allows for each individual or group involved to become more three-dimensional, more realistic, by acknowledging the agency of the Other (at and some point, of course, the Other disappears and becomes us). And while I'm skeptical our understanding of anything ever approaches reality (thus outing myself as at least a little Platonic), it can get pretty darn close.

Anyway, back to the movie. The Kingdom tries very hard to place itself on the nuanced end of the spectrum, and it does a pretty good job.

The plot is pretty straightforward: Someone executes a complicated terror attack on American civilians living in Saudi Arabia. The FBI wants to investigate (as American civilians living abroad are the domain of the FBI); the Saudis say no, they don't want to show weakness by having American officials involved. One enterprising agent (Ronald Fleury, played by Jamie Foxx with a great deal of intensity held in check) cuts a deal with the Saudi Ambassador and he and three others get to go investigate.

Take that scenario, add a tremendous amount of political and cultural context, and away the movie goes.

Over an hour later - I don't want to give away too much - and we get a resolution, of sorts (another sign of a nuanced piece of fiction, be it on the page or the screen: you get the sense that the characters will continue living after you stop watching).

The two major questions I had as the end of the movie approached:

1) What stance would it take on the actual geopolitical situation in the Middle East? Would it revert back to an us-vs.-them shooter, or would it let the complexities of reality stand? (Reality, of course, undermines the idea that shooting people will ever lead to any kind of peace.)

2) What would the characters (especially the Westerners, who are ultimately the protagonists) learn from their experience? Where would they stand on the issue of shooting first vs. doing police work, an issue held in tension throughout the movie? (This question, of course, is very closely related to #1 as many people will draw the movie's message from the characters.)

The Kingdom answered the questions in what I thought was a pretty clever way: It had characters on both sides (a Saudi boy and Foxx) indicate that what they had learned was that it was necessary was to 'kill them all'. I hope that American audiences will understand the argument behind that moment: That 'killing them all' is the province of the most violent sect of Wahhabism, and not only is it radically different than most of Islam, it needs to be rejected as a method by America as well.

In its own way, I think The Kingdom rejects the premise of the War on Terror, though its very subtle promotion of American diplomacy is, of course, ultimately problematic as well...

The World's Strangest Connection

I just discovered that David Krumholtz, who played Bernard (the head elf) in The Santa Clause, has been in a very eclectic mix of works over the years:

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) (post-production) .... Goldstein

Serenity (2005) .... Mr. Universe

"Numb3rs" .... Charlie Eppes / ... (72 episodes, 2005-2007)

Superbad (2007) .... Benji Austin

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006) (uncredited) .... Frat Boy 2

There's a bunch more, but this guy seems to have a great career going. I should pay more attention to him.

Also: There is a movie named "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" coming out. This could be great.

A Bit on Knocked Up

This gets at why I don't like what I've seen of the movie:

Meghan O’Rourke tackles the stereotype of women in comedies, especially romantic comedies, as joy killers, after Katherine Heigl got pissed on in the media for telling the truth about how Knocked Up fed off the standard trope of men as fun-loving (if irresponsible) and women as responsible but tedious and boring. It was hard not to be defensive of Knocked Up, and not just because it was so funny, but also because Apatow at least tried to show the parallels between men’s fears and women’s fears about adulthood. He grasped that women do have inner lives, but he just failed to write the female characters with the same understanding he brought to the male characters. He showed a glimmer of understanding that the endless rotation of work in a woman’s life is not necessarily something that women want but have embraced because they feel they don’t have a choice, whereas most movies and shows and commercials that position the men as boisterous children and women as disapproving authority figures seem to think that women are mysterious non-human creatures who get off on being fundamentally unlikeable.

Shrek III

So, at the request of some students, I showed Shrek III in a class.

It is one of the most offensive movies I have ever seen. The other option was Ratatouille, which, as sad as that is, I would have preferred by a large amount.

From the first minute, Shrek is filled with stereotypes. The makers appeared to have crammed just about everything they can think of in there (remember that this movie is supposed to be set in medieval times): In the school scene alone, we see nerds who wear braces and glasses, jocks who beat up on people smaller then them, bullies, blonde women who use Valley Girl accents, etc.

Everyone is heterosexual and heterosexist - there are lots and lots of "girly man" jokes on the part of almost all of the main characters. There is a short montage where a group of imprisoned women are breaking out of their confinement... and one of the shots is of one of them burning a bra. Because every child should know about those crazy feminazi womenfolk.... argh.

The bad guys - and this reminds me of what I've heard about 300 - are all "outcasts" who happen to be ugly and/or have physical disabilities (cyclops, hook hand, etc.). Hell, they have one scene where the cyclops, who is an evil prison guard, brings his daughter to work and has a tender moment with how beautiful she is despite her one eye. Initially, I thought this was the normal Disneyified garbage... but the next shot is of the protagonist's face mocking the moment.

Gag me.

The History Boys

Picked this film up at random this evening and watched it with two friends.

It was amazing.

I don't want to give away any plot information, but here are three things that were raised during the film:

1. Student-teacher relationships, including power dynamics.

2. Pedagogy, specifically modern vs. postmodern understandings of truth, history, and literature.

3. Masculinity, male adolescent development, and sexual identity.

It plays out against the background of a British grammar school with wonderful, if incredibly understated (stereotypically British?) writing and acting - as it would turn out, the cast of the film is the same as the cast of the play the film was based on. It also shares the same writer and director as the play.

Anyway, the thing that impressed me the most was the way in which the film treated everyone with compassion.

Go see it.

Filmmaker Wes Anderson and Race

I have to agree: Wes Anderson makes movies for yuppie white kids.

This is what really breaks my heart: Wes’ track record with women of colour. Anderson just loves pairing women of colour up with dorky white dudes, shortly after dorky white dudes have been dumped or rejected by white ladies. Even though Rushmore’s Margaret Yang is the fullest of all of Wes’ colour characters, she is still paired up with the loveable/hateable Max after Ms Cross turns him down. It’s the same story with Inez, the lovely Latin American hotel cleaner in Bottle Rocket.

...

But the fact that the only role that people of colour can have in his movies are as sexual fantasies, sidekicks or deeply insulting cartoons suggests that, consciously or subconsciously, Anderson doesn’t think that much of real life people of colour. And between you and me, I’m not sure mine and Wes’ friendship can withstand that.

Rumor: Warner Bros. Will No Longer Have Female Leads

Via Feministing, from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily (which I have never heard of, so I am taking this with 1/2 a grain of salt):

Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently. "Can you imagine when Gloria Allred gets hold of this? It's going to be like World War III," one producer just told me.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And kind of sad.

Rocket Science

I saw this movie the first time it came out, way back in 1998. You know, when it was called Rushmore.



...comment based on the trailer. I suppose it's possible that the trailer is just making the movie look like Rushmore, and that somebody thinks that's a good idea.

I hate trailers.