"Pushing It"

I don’t know why this bothered me, but it did.  And when something bothers me, you are likely to hear about it.  If something good happens, you may hear about that too… if I remember it.  The troubling stuff seems to stick longer.  (I may have just inadvertently defined a pessimist.)

I am reading an L.A. Times review of a recently released movie – an animated feature.  Animated features interest me.  They deal with issues I care about more often than movies with actual people in them, which don’t.   

So I check out the review, which begins with this:

“Why does ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ exist?  I mean besides the obvious reasons, like the bankability of family-friendly animation, the ticket surcharges for 3-D or the fact that Universal Pictures and Illumination are trying to boost their share of the non-Minion collectible toy market.”

I stop reading and I think – and I am curious if you agree –

“That’s kind of cynical, isn’t it?”

I return to the movie review, hoping for the “attitude” to recede, and I read:

“… the picture is a glorified hairball pulled together from the strands of better, more appealing movies and then noisily coughed up and disgorged at a multiplex near you.”

So no.  It does not. 

I then check the “by-line”, to determine who wrote this unpleasant – by which I do not mean negative, I mean unpleasant – review and I read the unfamiliar-to-me name:  “Justin Chang.”

Justin Chang I researchily discover is a recent “hire” (April, 2016) as an L.A. Times movie reviewer, supplementing veteran film critic Kenneth Turan, who’s been working at the Times since 1991.  (The “book” on Turan:  “Dully reliable, and reliably dull.”)

Armed with this information about Justin Chang, I immediately start thinking, rightly or wrongly – which are the only two ways I know how to think – about this nastily written review:

“New guy trying to make a name for himself.”

(The original title for this post, which I replaced with “Pushing It” was “Trying Too Hard.”  But I felt “Trying Too Hard” was me trying not hard enough, so I changed it to “Pushing It.”  It’s subtler, don’t you think?  Although these parenthetical interruptions themselves may be “pushing it.”)

Justin Chang’s review…

Wait.

You want your writing to stand out.  But, for me, the best way of making your mark is by not making your mark, illuminating the subject in an appealing manner without drawing undue attention to the writer. 

Justin Chang’s review of The Secret Life of Pets, although it went on to make some legitimate reviewer-appropriate distinctions, was overall too smartass for my liking.  And my first thought was,

“New guy trying to build a reputation but doing it the wrong way.”  (A variation on “New guy trying to make a name for himself” to avoid boring repetition.  Though I repeated myself anyway.  Man, this is a tough gig.  Plus, I am drawing too much attention to the writer.  Oh well.  What are blogs for?)

Curious as to his professional origins, I Google “Justin Chang.”  I discover that before coming to the Times, Justin worked since 2010 as a film critic for the show biz periodical, Variety.

Being a nice person, I immediately construct an explanation, rationalizing the misplaced aggressiveness in Justin Chang’s review of The Secret Life of Pets:

It’s where he came from.

Variety.

A traditionally more provocative outlet than the middle-of-the-road Los Angeles Times. 

Variety was famous for its eye-catching headlines.  The classic example:

“Hix Nix Stix Pix”

(Translation:  Rural moviegoers reject films set in rural surroundings.)

So, okay.  Justin Chang has residual “Variety” in his blood and it emerges in inappropriate situations.  Did you ever have a “fuck” accidentally slip out when you were speaking to your grandfather?  It’s like that.

Then, still wishing to give Justin Chang the benefit of the doubt, I consider the coarsening effect of “Social Media” on mainstream journalism.

On “Social Media” you can say anything.  I don’t, because I was born in another country.  Yes, Canada.  But also “The Land of Politeness, Decency, and Self-Imposed Restraint.”  I am too old to vituperate.  (Although age has not to deterred a “Tweeting” candidate for president.)

Okay, so to a substantial degree it’s generational. 

“Restraint?  What’s that?”

But hold on…

I recall the writing of an equally youthful L.A. Times reporter who also joined the paper in 2016, a sportswriter named Andy McCullough, currently the everyday “beat reporter” covering the Dodgers.

A hastily composed writing sample (sportswriters are required to “file” almost immediately after the game), concerning a gifted pitcher’s unimpressive return to the mound after a year-and-a-half’s layoff due to a surgically-repaired injury:

“The digits beamed across Dodger Stadium’s right-field scoreboard, an electronic clearinghouse for fastball velocity readings, the numbers offering a startling depiction of Hyun-Jin Ryu’s physical limitations.”

Elegant scribbling, n’est pas?  I’d have changed “startling depiction” to “startling reflection”, but otherwise, it reads beautifully.  Perhaps I am simply being subjective, favoring nimbleness and balance over condescension and “‘tude”? 

Possible Variety counterpart (if they covered sports, which they don’t):

“Ryu: P-U.”

In the end, it is not about age.  It’s about taste, verbal facility and judgment.  And about making your reputation the less flashy more reliable way:

One carefully crafted sentence at a time.
----------------------------------------------------
Half-Birthday Notice:  When Milo says "I'm four-and-a -half", he's announcing he is more than four.  When I say, "I'm seventy one-and-an-half, I'm announcing I am less than seventy-two.

The distinction is cosmetic but in both cases.  But in both cases, it matters.

"The Happy Time"

I am not sure of the number – it doesn’t really matter – but word is – whatever that means – that there are only seven original storylines, all other stories being variations on those universal themes.

Love, hate, envy… I don’t know, I am sure they are written down somewhere.  But I get it. 

You start with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew – adversarial opposites, fusing into passionate connection – or maybe you don’t start with that.  Maybe Shakespeare got the idea from some imaginative predecessor.  But whatever.  You have there the template for virtually every romantic comedy even since, exemplified most notably on television by the Sam-and-Diane relationship on Cheers and the ultimately scorching Maddie-David relationship on Moonlighting.  Not to mention the Castles and the Bones and virtually every other cable mystery series.  (Just once I’d like to see the couple hate each other at the beginning, their antagonism gradually escalates and they wind up killing each other in the end.  That would be different.  Though I am not sure it would “test” very well.)

Here’s possibly an eighth original storyline:

“A congenitally shy person escapes his oppressive shell with the assistance of an inanimate ‘human’ surrogate.”  

That’s the summary of Swiss Army Man (2016.)

A shy island castaway (Paul Dano) – his shyness demonstrated in flashbacks, it being difficult to be reclusive when there is nobody else on the island – is about to hang himself when onto the beach a body washes a body that turns out to be dead. 

And also a farter.

The corpse’s prodigious farts reaching speedboat engine intensity, the almost suicide climbs onto his back and rides him away like a jet ski. 

This escape ushers a danger-fraught trek to “civilization”, during which the introvert and the dead guy who farts – and squirts drinking water, his erection also serving as a direction-assisting compass – develop a deepening relationship, the introvert eventually maturing, signaling, after the farting corpse’s departure, the possibility for a (relatively) normal life in the future.

In a promotional news article for the movie, the actor portraying the introvert (Paul Dano) explains that he was intrigued by the project’s challenge of the first fart making the audience laugh and the last fart making the audience cry.

Spoiler Alert (at least for me):  Not even close.

So all right.  You have a long-shot idea for a movie.  You were unable pull it off.  Blame the idea – too weird.  But so what?  You want “safe”, write “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”  “Safe” isn’t always safe, but it’s safer.  (And sometimes, monumentally successful.) 

A-dead-guy-who-farts-transforming-another-guy’s-life movie?  You’re pretty much asking for trouble.

Though not necessarily.

In Lars and the Real Girl (2007), an “attachment phobic” young man (Ryan Gosling) develops a relationship with a lifelike, inflatable female doll, his consequent maturing signaling, after that relationship ends, signaling the possibility for a (relatively) normal life in the future.

Sound familiar?  Minus the farting and the directional erections?  (And not because I used a lot of the same words?)

That’s ‘cause they’re the same story.  Proving:  Well… let me reserve that for the fast-approaching conclusion.

In Lars and the Real Girl (written by Nancy Oliver, directed by Craig Gillespie), the “inanimate surrogate” story is presented with warmth, compassion, sensitivity and assiduous good taste.  In Swiss Army Man (credited to “Daniels” because both collaborators are named Daniel), it isn’t. 

In my view.

The first fart made me laugh.  The last fart, elicited not tears but relief that this unpleasant cinematic experience was finally over.

The identical premise in both films is indisputably bizarre.

But as these two convenient examples persuasively demonstrate…

That is not necessarily in impediment.

You can tell “bizarre” successfully. 

Or you can tell it the other way.

In the end…

Not surprisingly but worth reiterating…

It comes down to the storyteller.

"'Swiss Army Man' (And The Better Film It Reminded Me Of)"

I am not sure of the number – it doesn’t really matter – but word is – whatever that means – that there are only seven original storylines, all other stories being variations on those universal themes.

Love, hate, envy… I don’t know, I am sure they are written down somewhere.  But I get it. 

You start with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew – adversarial opposites, fusing into passionate connection – or maybe you don’t start with that.  Maybe Shakespeare got the idea from some imaginative predecessor.  But whatever.  You have there the template for virtually every romantic comedy even since, exemplified most notably on television by the Sam-and-Diane relationship on Cheers and the ultimately scorching Maddie-David relationship on Moonlighting.  Not to mention the Castles and the Bones and virtually every other cable mystery series.  (Just once I’d like to see the couple hate each other at the beginning, their antagonism gradually escalates and they wind up killing each other in the end.  That would be different.  Though I am not sure it would “test” very well.)

Here’s possibly an eighth original storyline:

“A congenitally shy person escapes his oppressive shell with the assistance of an inanimate ‘human’ surrogate.”  

That’s the summary of Swiss Army Man (2016.)

A shy island castaway (Paul Dano) – his shyness demonstrated in flashbacks, it being difficult to be reclusive when there is nobody else on the island – is about to hang himself when onto the beach a body washes a body that turns out to be dead. 

And also a farter.

The corpse’s prodigious farts reaching speedboat engine intensity, the almost suicide climbs onto his back and rides him away like a jet ski. 

This escape ushers a danger-fraught trek to “civilization”, during which the introvert and the dead guy who farts – and squirts drinking water, his erection also serving as a direction-assisting compass – develop a deepening relationship, the introvert eventually maturing, signaling, after the farting corpse’s departure, the possibility for a (relatively) normal life in the future.

In a promotional news article for the movie, the actor portraying the introvert (Paul Dano) explains that he was intrigued by the project’s challenge of the first fart making the audience laugh and the last fart making the audience cry.

Spoiler Alert (at least for me):  Not even close.

So all right.  You have a long-shot idea for a movie.  You were unable pull it off.  Blame the idea – too weird.  But so what?  You want “safe”, write “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”  “Safe” isn’t always safe, but it’s safer.  (And sometimes, monumentally successful.) 

A-dead-guy-who-farts-transforming-another-guy’s-life movie?  You’re pretty much asking for trouble.

Though not necessarily.

In Lars and the Real Girl (2007), an “attachment phobic” young man (Ryan Gosling) develops a relationship with a lifelike, inflatable female doll, his consequent maturing signaling, after that relationship ends, signaling the possibility for a (relatively) normal life in the future.

Sound familiar?  Minus the farting and the directional erections?  (And not because I used a lot of the same words?)

That’s ‘cause they’re the same story.  Proving:  Well… let me reserve that for the fast-approaching conclusion.

In Lars and the Real Girl (written by Nancy Oliver, directed by Craig Gillespie), the “inanimate surrogate” story is presented with warmth, compassion, sensitivity and assiduous good taste.  In Swiss Army Man (credited to “Daniels” because both collaborators are named Daniel), it isn’t. 

In my view.

The first fart made me laugh.  The last fart, elicited not tears but relief that this unpleasant cinematic experience was finally over.

The identical premise in both films is indisputably bizarre.

But as these two convenient examples persuasively demonstrate…

That is not necessarily in impediment.

You can tell “bizarre” successfully. 

Or you can tell it the other way.

In the end…

Not surprisingly but worth reiterating…

It comes down to the storyteller.

"Woody Allen's 'Cafe Society' - Random Reactions"

An eighty year-old makes a movie.

A four year-old rides a bicycle. 

Not a top-of–the-line performance, perhaps.  But it’s kind of remarkable they are doing it at all.

I don’t know what kind of movie I’d make if I were eighty.  Although what difference does that make?  I am reminded of the teenaged audience member who, after watching the pilot filming of Best of the West and was asked, “What did you think?” thoughtfully replied, “It’s better than I could do.” 

What kind of cockamamie standard is that?     

Woody Allen has written and directed forty-something features films, some I really enjoyed, some I didn’t, and some I didn’t bother to go to, though not necessarily in that order.  (Making movies seems to be Woody Allen’s reason for getting up in the morning.  My reason for getting up in the morning is to avoid lying lifelessly in bed going, “You mean yesterday was it?”)

It’s been a while since Woody Allen’s cinematic counterpart’s cryogenically preserved body was rolled out on a gurney encased head-to-toe in aluminum foil (Sleeper).  Or a South American dictator proclaimed that all citizens must henceforth wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing (Bananas).  Or there was a chain-gang escapee sent to jail for “dancing with a mailman” and another for “marrying a horse” (Take the Money and Run).

Youthful mishigus.  (“Mishigus” means foolishness.  “Youthful” you already know.)  That stuff is not coming back.  Where did it go?  Wherever my hair disappeared to, it is keeping company with youthful mishigus.  And my taste for powdered sugar sucked through a licorice straw.  I cannot believe I once saw that as a delectable “taste treat”.

Café Society looks spectacular.  Especially the gold-infused Hollywood segments.  (The New York segments remind me of walking the streets and getting soot in my eyes.  But I wasn’t born there.  Maybe as kids, they learn to sidestep the debris.)  The story and dialogue are professional in the extreme, “the extreme” meaning they are more deliberately constructed than actual life.  Or Annie Hall or Manhattan.

Again, I am not a film critic, so no talk about set decoration and lighting.  (I did mention the golden hue of the Hollywood segments but that could have been the actual sunset.)

What’s left to talk about? 

How Café Society makes you feel. 

Dr. M referred to its overall impression as “cold.”

I’ll meet her three-quarters of the way on that four-letter assessment.

To me, it felt old.

An old person makes an old-feeling movie.

That’s taking me “viral”, isn’t it?

Personal “Memory Pieces” (Summer of ‘42) aside, you cannot believably “write young” when you’re old any more than you can believably “act tall” when you’re short.  What then are your options?  You don’t have any.  You have no alternative but to write what you are. 

What does “old” write about, besides death, which you cannot exclusively write about or people will shun your movies in larger numbers than they already do?

Change of pace:

“Old” writes about regret.

You are happily married.  But once upon a time, there was another… and the two of you were so… it seemed inevitable you would… but you didn’t.

That’s the “A” story in Café Society. 

There was this moment and it passed and life happened and that’s it.

Thank you for coming and we’ll see you next year.

You are concerned the “Regret Theme” is not enough for an entire movie?  Throw in a murderous gangster who shoots people in the head. 

What’s that supposed to be – “comic relief”?  There are movie I avoid less violent than Café Society.  Two guys sitting in a truck, a man comes up to the passenger side and blows the guy’s brains out before my shocked and tormented eyes.

I’m thinking, “Bring back the ‘Regret’!”

Of course, if it’s Woody Allen, there are always great jokes to lift our spirits.  The two most quoted zingers from Café Society:

“Life is a comedy… written by a sadistic comedy writer.”  (Not mentioning any names.)

And…

“The unexamined life is not worth living.  But the examined one is no bargain.”

So much for “humorous interludes”.  Unlike Sleeper, there will be no “cloning a nose” (also from Sleeper) in this movie.

Oh yeah. Woody Allen also does the voiceover on Café Society, sounding like a groggy octogenarian roused in the middle of the night and instructed to

“Read this.”

An eighty year-old writer-director made Café Society, focusing on issues relevant to himself, like regret, which, either you don’t have any in which case the movie has no emotional resonance for you, or you have some but you would prefer not to think about them.

Either way, it is a tough film to recommend.

Unless you want to see Jessie Eisenberg playing Woody Allen.

As if Woody Allen had been cloned.

Which, quite possibly he was.