Month: July 2014

Under The Skin: The Year Of The Surreal Continues

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Under The Skin (2013)
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Screenplay by Jonathan Glazer & Walter Campbell
Based on a novel by Michel Faber
108 min.

Spoilers ahead.

While waiting in line for the bathroom, I couldn’t help but overhear two women talking about the movie we had all just come from.

“Totally pointless. What was that even about?”

“Nothing.”

I guess on the surface I can see how this film could seem pointless. I mean, I get it—long silences, abstract cinematography, and alien invaders just don’t really do it for some people. However, I couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason they didn’t understand the movie was because they weren’t looking in the right place; this isn’t actually a movie about an “alien seductress [that] preys upon the population of Scotland” as its IMDB tagline says, it’s a movie about women and their place in modern society.

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A Review of a Review of ‘They Came Together’

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They Came Together (2014)
Directed by David Wain
Written by David Wain & Michael Showalter
83 min.

You don’t need a review from me of They Came Together—it’s great, it’s hilarious, go watch it. I saw it two nights ago and I plan to see it again pretty soon. It’s just too damn good.

Surprisingly, it has a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t mean that I was expecting it to have a higher rating—quite the opposite, since some of the cleverest and most subversive comedies of the last twenty years have very low ratings: Freddy Got Fingered, MacGruber, Hell Baby, The Brothers Solomon, The Goods, The Wrong Guy, Reno 911: Miami, Nacho Libre, even Step Brothers. The list goes on—those were just ones off the top of my head. Oh, and toss two of David Wain’s previous films on that list too, while you’re at it: Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten.

The culprit seems to be that most critics don’t try and understand comedies like they do dramas. It doesn’t occur to them that maybe the reason they’re not laughing isn’t because the jokes aren’t funny, but because they don’t get them. These hypocrites don’t see their own sense of humor as a brain muscle in need of toning, whereas they’ll spend their whole lives consciously strengthening their understanding of ‘mise en scéne’ or ‘auteurship’ or ‘symoblism’ or ‘dialectics’ or ‘semiotics’ or whatever.

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There Is A Movie Called ‘A Teacher’

ATeacher

A Teacher (2013)
Written & Directed by Hannah Fidell
75 min.

There is a movie called A Teacher. I want you to read that sentence again, so in case you’re like me and your automatic reaction to instructions is to ignore them, I will type it again, forcing you to:

There is a movie called A Teacher. 

Here’s why I like that sentence—the most you can say about the movie A Teacher is that the person the filmmaker shot the most footage of was playing a teacher in this movie about a teacher that is called A Teacher. Nothing could ever be more literal. I have no idea what writer-director Hannah Fidell was going for with her title, but she has achieved the strongest connection in history between a piece of art and its title—A Teacher is most definitely 75 minutes of a teacher.

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‘Doom’: Worthy Of Doing Right

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It is rumored that there will be a new Doom movie.

I don’t know anything about video games. I buy a new one every winter, just to get me through the cold. Most of them I never bother to finish. It’s just not my medium, I guess. But I know Doom. Doom and Doom II: Hell on Earth are two of a very few games to really capture me.

There are a lot of reasons to love Doom and Doom II—which, in practical terms, I consider just one long game, sort of like Godfather and Godfather II. For one, you run at like 60 miles per hour the whole time. But above all else, I’m an aesthete, so what really gets me are the games’ production design—something we should talk about in light of the upcoming film. I think this is a great opportunity to repair some long-standing damages in the sci-fi horror genre.

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‘Glengarry Glen Ross’: Just Watch It Already

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A close friend of mine committed suicide this past Monday. Someone I loved dearly and always felt like family. The last time I saw her was about a year ago, and it was wonderful—we had a great time together. It was the most perfect last memory of her that I could ever ask for.

This review is for her. One of the many things we shared was a deep love for this movie. I can’t begin to make sense of her passing, but I can at least write this piece. She’d be pleased to know it was out there.

Continue reading ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’: Just Watch It Already