My Neighborhood Of Make-Believe

There will be no trip to the movies for me this weekend. I’m curious about Stop-Loss, and I still need to get around to The Band’s Visit, and I’m hoping that Run, Fat Boy, Run will do for the sports movie what Hot Fuzz did for the action flick. But right now I have no time for cinematic make-believe. I’m too busy losing myself in another world of pseudo-reality.

See, with apologies to the globe-trotting Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox, today marks the beginning of baseball season. And that means the beginning of the fantasy baseball season, too. At noon ET, I’ll be phoning a guy in Colorado and then using my three-way caller skilz to patch us through to a speaker phone in Oregon where a group of guys representing the other eight teams in our 10-team NL-only league will sit around with laptops, breakfast treats and very concerned looks on their faces wondering what it’s going to take to land the New York Mets’ Johan Santana. Today is auction day!

If you’ve never played fantasy sports, you probably feel a lot like Leslie Mann’s Debbie in Knocked Up, who follows her husband (Paul Rudd’s Pete) to a strange house, convinced he’s having an affair, and catches him in the act of … drafting his fantasy baseball team. It’s probably the funniest moment of the movie. Pete, as I recall, is decked out in baseball gear (team shirt and cap), and all the guys in the room clutch magazines and bundles of analysis. It’s the baseball geek equivalent of the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut.

I’d like to think that my group isn’t quite so pathetic – no one has ever arrived at the auction wearing baseball pants or eye black, to my knowledge – but we must be. The league has been around since 1988. I’ve been a member since 1993. In that span I’ve made it to our league’s World Series three times, but I’ve never won the title (lost in seven games twice and lost in six games the year I looked destined to win it all). This is a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s a competitive league: two years ago I entered the final week of the season with the very real chance to finish first. But I had a bad week and wound up dropping to third, which meant dropping out of the money.

Uh-oh! I just committed Fantasy Sports Sin No. 1: I told you something about my team as if you’d actually care. My bad! I promise, no more war stories. But let me at least tell you what’s in store for me today: four-hours-plus on the phone. That’s what it’s going to take for all 10 teams to fill out their 30-man rosters before drafting two minor leaguers and a five-man taxi squad. Each fantasy player selected gets signed to a three-year contract. That’s why most of us have about 15 roster spots assigned already, based on carryovers. But the other roster spots will be decided through an auction format (straight drafts are for sissies): 300 fantasy dollars to fill out a 30-man fantasy team. As the best pitcher available, Mr. Santana will go for at least $60-something. Maybe $70-something. Other players will go for $1. You just never know, and that’s a major part of the fun!

But seeing as this is a movie blog, let me bring this post back to the world of cinema: At this very moment, a movie on fantasy baseball is taking shape. It’s called, or so I presume, Fantasyland, based on the book of same name by Sam Walker, the Wall Street Journal columnist who in 2004 took a break from his day job to figure out what all the fantasy fuss was about by talking his way into Tout Wars, the fantasy baseball league comprised of the most expert of the fantasy experts (the geekiest of us geeks).

The book is out in paperback now, and it’s a terrific, fast read for anyone who likes baseball (people who think fantasy sports are a silly waste of time may get more enjoyment out of it than those who get high off its stat-based thrills). What the movie will be like is hard to say. It’s a documentary. But in this installment someone else is stepping into Walker’s first-timer’s shoes. The film’s producers accepted applications with the hopes of finding someone who would take his/her shot at Tout Wars with the seriousness displayed by Walker, who not only poured through the stat books but also interviewed scouts and players in an all-out effort to win the league.

To me this sounds a bit like trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice, but I have hope. Walker’s personal experiences make for the heart of his book, yet there’s a lot of enjoyment to be found in the cast of supporting players that make up the regular Tout Wars warriors. Like the documentary King Of Kong (which I highly recommend as a Netflix treat), I suspect the film will introduce us to folks so, um, colorful that only the documentary format could allow us to believe in them.

So keep your eyes open for that film in 2009(?); the documentary is filming over the 2008 season, so that seems about right. In the meantime, here’s to Opening Day: the crack of the bat, the pop of the catcher’s mitt and, as Shoeless Joe says in Field Of Dreams, the thrill of the grass. Now, forgive me, I’ve got to go back to my last-minute cramming, trying to determine if Andruw Jones is Orson Welles (a once great talent grown fat and washed up) or Martin Scorsese (a guy who wandered off course for a bit but is ready to be a star again). Maybe I’ll let someone else find out.

The Last Paid Picture Watchers?

It’s not quite an inconvenient truth, but it’s certainly an unfortunate one: The era of the paid local film critic is crumbling like an Antarctic ice shelf. This week at movie commentary sites like The House Next Door, Scanners and The Reeler, writers, bloggers and readers have been responding to news that critic Nathan Lee was let go by the Village Voice, after only 18 months of employment, for what Lee said were “economic reasons.”

The discussion of Lee’s dismissal (and I highly recommend you check out the above links) has rarely been about Lee himself but about what his ousting represents: a growing trend. Earlier this year the Detroit Free Press became “the most highly circulated newspaper in the country without a full-time in-house film critic” when it decided to buy out and then not replace Terry Lawson. The Freep and other newspapers nationwide have instead decided to run national wire copy from the likes of Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, among others.

With newspapers across the country struggling to stay afloat, it’s somewhat difficult to fault the publishers. A blockbuster released in Manhattan is the same one that hits theaters in Nowhere, Kansas, so why not use wire copy? It’s available and it comes edited and ready for print. If magazines like the New Yorker can offer film criticism that’s as worthwhile for folks in Maine as folks in New Mexico, why can’t someone in Idaho get movie reviews in newsprint from a critic based in Florida? If a newspaper wants nothing more than to simply fill column inches it’s a poor business model to pay for original material.

Still, ignoring for the moment the conversation about what newspapers should be, this is a disappointing trend for those of us who enjoy reading thoughtful, well-crafted film criticism. Sites like metacritic.com and rottentomatoes.com have made it quick and easy to read critics from across the country on any given movie. But, the way things look now, in 10 years or so there might only be a handful of voices left to choose from.

The irony is that this is happening at a time when film criticism is enjoying a sort of renaissance thanks to the blogosphere. Just over two years ago, I wasn’t reading any movie blogs. Now I follow several of them daily. And I agree with a comment Matt Zoller Seitz made in the discussion over at The House Next Door: “I find these days that I'm more likely to find lively writing and original viewpoints on blogs than in print outlets.” But the movie blog universe has some obstacles, the most obvious being that there’s no great way to find new and exciting bloggers. Surely right now there’s an outstanding film criticism blog somewhere that I’ve never seen, and I get irritated wondering how long it will take before I discover it.

On top of that, criticism as unpaid avocation isn’t ideal. Sure, bloggers have the freedom to say whatever they want however they want and let their readership decide what’s appropriate, which has enormous potential value (along with potential danger). But your average movie blogger probably has a day job. If layman criticism becomes the norm, it stands to reason that criticism will lose something: depth, expertise, perspective, access and, one would hope, quality. My argument isn’t that professional critics need to have a PhD in film studies, it’s that someone making a living watching and writing about movies should be able to produce better material than someone squeezing it in on the side.

As someone who has been employed to write about sports, I know what it is to have one of those cool jobs that many people would sacrifice a limb for. But what’s interesting to me is that paid sports commentary seems to be increasing even though TV packages and the Internet have made straight sports news reporting almost obsolete. No one picks up the Sports page for the Who, What, When, Where, and Why anymore, because they know those details already. They pick up the Sports page or read online sports columnists or listen to sports talk radio for the Who Cares.

At a time when ESPN.com is hiring writers away from newspapers, sometimes to do little more than provide niche content, how is it that a publication like Entertainment Weekly hasn’t made a push to become the go-to outlet for film criticism? Is it a lack of competition? Is it a lack of initiative? Please don’t tell me it’s a lack of vision! Because the potential benefits seem obvious: Imagine several prominent film critics writing under the same masthead. Imagine these critics not having to waste their talents by writing reviews of three lousy February releases for the same Friday. Imagine being able to read your favorite critic as he/she dips back into the vault to write about films past. Imagine, in essence, if someone combined the best elements of paid criticism with the qualities of the best film blogs.

Can’t this happen? And can’t it provide money for the publisher daring enough to try it and provide a tremendous boost to film criticism for those of us who wish to read it? I think so. I can imagine that. What I can’t imagine given the current state of things is the paid local critic rebounding according to the existing model, and that’s disheartening. I used to tell people that being a paid movie critic was a tough gig to get because it’s the kind of job you hold onto until you die. Now, sadly, the jobs are dying faster than the critics.

A Hitch In Its Giddy-Up: Married Life

The word Hitchcockian gets thrown around all too often by critics, and I admit that I’m probably an overuse offender. Usually the term precedes the word suspense, and in these attention deficient days we rush to employ it whenever a movie slows down long enough for even the slightest tension to build. And yet while Alfred Hitchcock deserves every bit of his reputation as the “master of suspense,” applying the word Hitchcockian only to suspenseful situations is an insult more than an honor, as if suspense marked the limits of his filmmaking talents. It didn’t. That’s why in a broader and perhaps more accurate sense, Ira Sachs’ Married Life may be the most truly Hitchcockian film I’ve seen since, well, Hitchcock.

It’s not a great picture by any means, but then many of Hitch’s flicks aren’t great either. The film does have moments of pure suspense, achieved through some classic devices, but Married Life reaches Hitchcockian long before that. Elements of the great director can be found in the film’s late-1940s setting, in its wit and dark humor, in its sly sexy attitude, in its confident pace, in its visual splendor and in its deliberate Vertigo motif – from its Northern California locale to Rachel McAdams’ ultra-blond Kim Novak look. And then there’s Chris Cooper’s Harry Allen, your typical Hitchcockian everyman who winds up in a situation slightly over his head.

The situation? Murder, of course. Harry is married to Patricia Clarkson’s Pat. Happily married, or so it would seem. But Harry falls for McAdams’ Kay, a book-loving widow of World War II, and lost for a way to bring Pat down easy, he decides that poisoning his wife would be the most considerate of options. Portrayed by Cooper as a man of measured confidence, Harry is guy who finishes what he starts, and his plan isn’t overwhelmingly complicated, but murder remains just outside his comfort zone. Watching him, I recalled something Roger Ebert wrote in his review of Munich when discussing a scene in which hitmen spring into action to halt a planned bombing: “It is always more thrilling in a movie, when someone needs to run desperately, for it to be an awkward older man.” Harry’s plot doesn’t require explosives or running, but the same principle applies here: Cooper is just awkward enough, just uncertain enough to keep our attention.

But Sachs’ film, which he co-wrote with Oren Moverman from a book by John Bingham, is hardly all doom and gloom. Quite the opposite, actually. It’s tremendously playful, thanks in large part to Pierce Brosnan’s Richard, Harry’s friend and Kay’s more distant admirer, who also acts as our narrator and extremely biased commentator. Richard’s voice-over frequently speaks right to us, addressing us as members of an audience watching a spectacle unfold after the fact, yet the narration is surprisingly inconspicuous. And to Brosnan’s extreme credit, there’s a twinkle in Richard’s eyes that goes perfectly with the self-serving schemes percolating underneath his fedora.

That Married Life can so effortlessly swim from mood to mood and character to character is one of its joys. The film never reaches tremendous heights, but it never frustrates either. It’s a solid three-star effort all the way, each scene delivering precisely on its modest intent. Still, there’s at least one enormous cinematic thrill to be found in a scene that finds Richard and Kay at a diner right out of an Edward Hopper painting: Frustrated that his cunning advances have failed to land his best-friend’s girl, Richard leans back against the bar, smoking a cigarette and contemplating his next move, while Kay coyly turns her head, away from Richard but toward the camera, as if unaware of her salivating pursuer. It might not sound like much, but cinematographer Peter Deming makes it a deliciously framed two-shot, an image of such noir-ish beauty that I yearned to snatch it off the screen and frame it for my wall.

In that scene and others, McAdams is perfectly cast as the object of male enchantment. Neither she nor Clarkson enjoy particularly well-defined roles, yet both actresses suggest depth beyond what the screenplay seems to offer. Married Life may be liberal with its screen time, but ultimately it’s a movie built for the fellas. Cooper, who so often is attached to oddballs right out of the Island of Misfit Toys, takes full advantage of a rare opportunity to showcase his range. Brosnan, meanwhile, thanks to natural aging or strong acting, mutes his James Bond suaveness and sexuality to make Richard the womanizer next door (imagine George Clooney in the part and you’ll instantly understand the significance of Brosnan’s ability to inhabit scenes rather than dominate them).

Throughout the film, it’s these performances that make the experience engaging. The plot, though smartly constructed and peppered with interesting observations on love and marriage, merely provides an excuse to enter these characters’ lives. In that way the story itself is inconsequential, which might be one of the reasons that Married Life is so difficult to classify. It’s also the reason I suspect that many will walk away from the movie wanting more. Yet just because Sachs’ film doesn’t leap boldly into a common genre (drama? comedy? suspense?) doesn’t mean it fails to become something. It might be best described as a small-c classic, the kind of movie you stumble upon when flipping through channels on a Sunday afternoon, the kind of film that makes you think: “Why don’t they make movies like this anymore?” Thanks to Sachs, now someone has.

Royal Scandal: The Other Boleyn Girl

Movies set in England in the first half of the 16th Century have a habit of secluding themselves in the museum-like interiors of castles and cottages, with proper gentlemen and ladies standing rigidly on their marks like sculptures while eloquently expressing themselves about whatever they doth please. But Justin Chadwick’s The Other Boleyn Girl isn’t that kind of movie. This much we learn in the film’s opening, which finds a well-to-do couple strolling down a tree-lined path, chatting comfortably and enjoying the sight of their three young children frolicking in the tall grass of a neighboring field. One of the kids is Anne Boleyn, one of the focal points of the film and a famously controversial historical character, but here she could be any child, chasing about with her sister Mary and her brother George like kids playing tag in a modern suburban playground.

That initial scene is an announcement that The Other Boleyn Girl, based on Peter Morgan’s adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s book, is a break from the norm – a breath of fresh air from a period piece that doesn’t have its corset tied too tight. I’m all for historical accuracy and propriety, but this approach is good, too. The film quickly leaps forward to give us Natalie Portman as Anne and Scarlett Johansson as Mary in a sultry tale of seduction, manipulation, heartbreak and lies that covers Mary’s relationship with King Henry VIII as his mistress and Anne’s efforts to connive her way into a royal union. Of course, all of us know how things will end for Anne (uh, badly), and history buffs know that the significant impact of her position as Henry’s second wife was to drive a wedge between the King and the Catholic Church and to give birth to a future queen, Elizabeth. But this story isn’t based on lasting impressions or long-term context. Instead it’s a peek into the love triangles of a king as if reported by TMZ. It’s a bodice-heaving melodrama – History Channel meets Telemundo.

I’m not supposed to like this kind of garbage, but I often did anyway, even as I was rolling my eyes. Sure, I scoffed at the pairing of Portman and Johansson as sisters. I cringed as their accents wavered. And I saw enough to keep me thoroughly confused as to whether Eric Bana (Henry VIII) is a gifted actor or a severely limited one. But at the same time I reveled in the supporting performances of Mark Rylance and Kristin Scott Thomas as Anne and Mary’s father and mother. I enjoyed the depiction of Katherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent) as a woman who sees her husband for what he is and smells her ousting coming. And, soap-operatic though it certainly is, I got a kick out of the portrayal of Henry as a pussy-whipped slave to his hormones, and I even came away wondering if that might actually be close to the truth (homeboy was married six times, after all).

My major quibbles with the film actually have less to do with its saucy substance than its style. The compositions of cinematographer Kieran McGuigan require us to constantly view characters around doorways, beyond bedposts and through iron screens so that our view of the action is almost always obstructed. In certain moments, the effect is metaphorical (creating mystery or distance) or practical (hiding the business end of the movie’s many birthing scenes), but just as often it’s a pointless device that winds up being over-used. Then there’s the editing of Paul Knight and Carol Littleton which is problematic from both ends of the spectrum. In the first third of the picture, scenes end a beat or two prematurely, cutting off emotional notes before they can drift into the ether. However, in the final third the action carries on too long so that the 115-minute picture begins to feel like an epic slog. By the time Anne’s second pregnancy results in miscarriage I was done with her and was calling for her head.

Thankfully the movie obliged, just like I knew it would. That’s the nice thing about history: unless Mel Gibson is directing, you can pretty much bank on it. Still, the casual approach of a film like this trades the finer historical details for a different kind of realism. Sure, the morals and traditions of the film’s characters are skewed through a modern prism (we couldn’t rally behind female subservience, for example), but there’s a humanness to these historical figures that many period pieces overlook. Instead of approaching the Anne Boleyn-Henry VIII saga as if it’s documented in an encyclopedia, accompanied by dignified portraits that don’t match up with the scandalous details, The Other Boleyn Girl unfolds like a tabloid tell-all or an undignified reality show. And as I leaf through my history books I remember that, well, that’s kind of what it was.

Not Endorsed by Wikipedia

In a break from watching NCAA hoops today, I was signing out from my Yahoo! e-mail account when I noticed the following headline: “10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies.” Well, twist my arm. I couldn’t help myself. I clicked the link and skimmed the list of “films that make your high school history teacher cry.”

The Patriot is there. Braveheart, too. Apocalypto, three. So apparently Mel Gibson is history’s arch nemesis, though the Yahoo! staff wasn’t ballsy enough to add The Passion Of The Christ to the list by questioning, say, Jesus’ rather milky skin tones. That would have pissed people off, and that’s not the reaction Yahoo! is looking for with this fluffy filler.

And fluff is what it is. In general I’m not a big fan of the top-10 fad, but lite fare isn’t such a bad thing on a Friday, so I thought I’d share the link. My first reaction reading the list was disappointment that almost all the movies were fairly recent, suggesting a pedestrian research effort. Then again, I’d really only quibble with the presence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is included in a lame effort to be cute.

So, I ask you: What affront to history is left off the list? Maybe my brain is pooped after a long week, but I couldn’t think of any obvious oversights.

Of course, if it were up to me I’d include Knocked Up. I know, I know: it’s not a “historical” movie. But in the history of mankind have you ever seen an inconsiderate, overweight, penniless slob like the dude on the right (below) land an intelligent, successful, charming babe like the woman on the left?

Talk about inaccurate!

Is Brown the Same Old Black?

Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder isn’t due in theaters until mid-August, but already it’s generating some lightning bolts of controversy. In the movie, Robert Downey Jr. plays an Oscar-winning actor named Kirk Lazarus who accepts a role in a Vietnam War film that’s written for a black character. Lazarus, who like Downey is white, decides to play the character as written, and so he wears makeup to appear African-American – which obviously means that Downey wears makeup, too.

White folks playing black folks is risky business. Tropic Thunder is going for laughs – and technically it’s Downey’s character who reveals his ethics, not Downey – but that doesn’t mean some people won’t be offended. Production stills of Tropic Thunder featuring Downey in brown makeup have been circulating for weeks now (see the trailer here) and entertainment news outlets are jumping on the pre-story, in large part because it arrives amidst a similar storm of controversy surrounding the casting of Fred Armisen (of white and Asian heritage) as the go-to Barack Obama impersonator on Saturday Night Live.

Are these representations offensive, insensitive or taboo? Is brownface, however respectfully applied, simply the new blackface? Or, have we reached a place of racial comfort where an actor of one race can wear makeup to approximate the skin tones of another without it recalling painful and embarrassing images of this country’s horrific burnt-cork past?

Last Sunday, the Arts section of the Washington Post dedicated a two-page spread to a less than 1,400-word article by Neely Tucker called “Hollywood’s About-Face on Blackface,” which is subtitled: “Is the broken taboo a step forward or a step back?” It’s a question that the article hardly attempts to answer. Instead, Tucker briefly and patchily outlines the history of blackface in cinema while wandering into other topics like the adoption of “black culture” by white entertainers, as if they’re one and the same. They aren’t. True, pointing out Quentin Tarantino’s lack of shame over using the word “nigger” as a slang form of “brother” provides an example of eroding taboos (or at least a decline in the furor they inspire), but to lump into the conversation Justin Timberlake’s method of “performing in black styles” is to suggest that “black styles” are as genetically inspired as black skin. And that’s not only incorrect, it’s also off-topic.

That said, I have no interest in trashing Tucker’s feature. That the article doesn’t provide clear-cut solutions to the brownface debate isn’t the least bit shocking. Yes, I’m peeved that – Arts section or not – the Post dedicated two pages to an article that only gums at the issues instead of sinking some fangs to the bone, but the only thing that surprised me about Tucker’s article was to finish the piece and realize that my own opinions on this issue are about as rigid as a jellyfish. I’d like to think that I rarely profess to know the answers to such cultural quagmires, but I usually have an opinion about what I think the answers are. In this case though, I see black and white and brown and heck of a lot of gray.

So let’s look at a few recent cases of light-skinner actors playing darker-skinned characters and see where that leads us:

Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart:


There are several ways to defend this portrayal. First and foremost, Pearl endorsed the casting. If it’s fine by her, it should probably be fine by us. Second, Jolie’s portrayal taps into Pearl’s emotions rather than her subject’s Afro-Cuban/Dutch heritage. The darker skin tone and the wig of tight, black curls do make the actress more closely resemble the real-life woman she’s playing, but Jolie’s performance is in no way reliant upon those physical approximations. Third (and this one is tricky), Jolie still looks very much like Jolie, but with a wig. She’s clearly wearing a coat of paint, yes, but we’ve all seen Caucasian women darken themselves to that degree at the tanning salon. That Jolie’s physical approximation of Pearl didn’t require an enormous transformation makes the casting seem like a small, logical step rather than an inexplicable leap. Fourth, if Jolie isn’t naturally dark-skinned enough, or ethnic enough, or black enough for this role (however someone wants to put it), then how far must producers go in order to remain respectful of Pearl’s family tree? Would they be required to find an actress of Afro-Cuban/Dutch roots? Is it possible that an African-American actress could have been cast who would have been too dark-skinned for the part? And if a black actress wore makeup to lighten her skin color, would that be any less offensive?

On the other side: (1) Just because Pearl endorsed Jolie’s casting doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have endorsed another actress. (2) Just because Jolie’s portrayal is respectful (not to mention impressive) doesn’t mean that she’s the only actress who could have played Pearl or even the best actress for the job. (3) Just because a tan Jolie might come close to resembling Pearl’s skin color without the application of makeup doesn’t mean that adding a layer of race-based paint shouldn’t send up caution flags; the “close enough” argument puts us in danger of ruling that the previously commonplace practice of having whites play American Indians wasn’t quite so misguided after all. (4) Just because finding an actress to match Pearl’s exact racial heritage might have meant going overboard doesn’t mean that getting closer to the truth would have been a foolish effort.

On top of all that, here’s something to ponder: What if Daniel Pearl had been black instead of white? In A Mighty Heart, Mariane shares scant screen time with her husband, but would producers have dared to darken Jolie’s skin color in order to put her on the arm of, say, Samuel L Jackson? It’s hard to imagine that. In the minds of producers (and then moviegoers) did Daniel Pearl accentuate Mariane’s whiteness, both physically and culturally, and make Jolie’s casting permissible?

Fred Armisen as Barack Obama on SNL:


Similar to above, here we have a case where an actor’s (comic) portrayal is modeled on a subject’s mannerisms, speech patterns, expressions and personality. Arguably, Armisen’s impression (as well as the skits built around it) would work nearly as well if Armisen went without makeup, just like Frank Caliendo’s impersonation of Charles Barkley is as hilarious without makeup as with it, just like Caliendo’s impersonation of John Madden is as spot-on without makeup as with it. In cases like these the makeup provides punctuation for the sentence; it doesn’t comprise the message itself.

Also, when Armisen impersonates Obama the joke isn’t that Obama is black or that a white guy is playing a black guy (so far, at least). Instead it’s about spoofing Obama’s identity as a public figure, something SNL has done to politicians and other celebrities for decades. If Armisen can deliver the cast’s best Obama impersonation, why shouldn’t he be able to perform it? And if he performs it, why shouldn’t the makeup department complete the effect by outfitting his skin appropriately? So long as SNL is willing to let black actors don makeup to play white characters the program is playing fair.

Besides, Armisen’s impersonation has made headlines only because of the heightened media attention brought on by national election coverage. There’s no uproar when Armisen portrays Prince, or Darrell Hammond plays Jesse Jackson or Maya Rudolph plays Liza Minnelli one day and Oprah Winfrey the next. Billy Crystal’s Sammy Davis Jr. impression (which utilized brownface) is one of SNL’s most famous and, so far as I know, most beloved characters. In all these cases, race isn’t at the core of the comic portrayals. But having a white guy play a black guy who might very well be the next president becomes a big deal when the media has already speculated whether that black man is “black enough” to draw the overwhelming support of African-Americans.

Still, here’s something to ponder: Since Armisen isn’t black, does that take jokes about black stereotypes off the table? Having a white guy play a black guy in a skit about the media’s kid-gloves treatment of Obama is one thing. Having a white guy play a black guy in a skit about the inaugural ball being catered by Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits would be something else. But stereotypes frequently make for comedy fodder.

Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder:


It’s too soon to make a ruling on this one. I presume that Tropic Thunder will make some sort of editorial comment on society or Hollywood (or both), but until it speaks in full it would be wrong to dismiss or embrace Downey’s “blackface” until we see it within the context of the film.

Who knows, maybe Tropic Thunder holds the answers to all these questions. But until then, where does that leave me?

Where does that leave this debate?


I look at the cases above and see nothing – absolutely nothing – in the casting of Jolie, Armisen and Downey that in any way resembles our most vulgar definition of blackface, as seen in Al Jolsen’s portrayal within 1927’s The Jazz Singer. But while I acknowledge that we live in a country that is often overly obsessed with political correctness, I’m uncomfortable dismissing the linking of these two extremes as a case of media space-filling. The practice of using public acceptance as a measuring stick of racial sensitivity has a habit of inflicting extreme damage before public opinion swings the other way. Even if the majority of black America is comfortable with Armisen’s portrayal, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s just.


Is there a difference between blackface and brownface? If there is, determining one from the other would seem to come down to intent: a performance that aims to injure, defame or otherwise offend is unacceptable blackface, while a respectful performance (and with comedy this gets tricky) is tolerable(?) brownface. But it’s still not that simple. Watching Mickey Rooney’s ghastly Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany’s is a case-closed example of modified blackface that should not and would not be tolerated today. But what of the portrayal of Prince Feisal by Alec Guinness in Lawrence Of Arabia? That performance is dignified, respectful and honorable, but a white actor shouldn’t and wouldn’t get that role if the movie were made today. And that realization brings us back to Jolie as Pearl and back to where we started.

It’s tempting in a time like this to fall back on Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of hard-core pornography and say that when it comes to identifying odious blackface performance slurs from publicly accepted brownface costuming we know it when we see it. But I wonder, do we?

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The Cooler encourages your thoughts and debate on this subject.

Ancient Setting, Older Design: 10,000 B.C.

Roland Emmerich’s latest CGI extravaganza may be far from (pre)historically accurate, but at least it doesn’t offer any false pretenses about what it is or how it came to be. With a specifically vague title like 10,000 B.C., Emmerich informs us not only of when his film takes place (sort of) but also about what makes the movie original-ish. Borrowing from historical epics ranging from Apocalypto to Braveheart, Gladiator to Troy and about anything else in between, 10,000 B.C. is less about telling a story than about staking claim to a time and place that had yet to be imagined on the big screen in the digital effects era. It’s a cinematic land grab. The advertising tagline for the picture might as well be, “A mindless knockoff of movies you’ve seen before, but with saber-tooth tigers and mastodons and shit.”

The film doesn’t have much of a plot, but it does a decent job of pretending otherwise. Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser pepper their flick with some Princess Bride-like narration that provides a campfire feel along with an illusion of intricacy (as if we couldn’t follow along without it). Steven Strait plays D’Leh, a simple hunter in love with the blue-eyed Evolet (Camilla Belle) who has been living in disgrace ever since his father ran out on the tribe many years before. Excuse me, I meant many winters before. This is one of those pictures that conjures cultures past by saying “many moons” instead of “many days” and requiring its actors to speak with unclassifiable yet deliberate accents. That would also explain the hairstyles right out of Battlefield Earth. Then again, who knew that men could manicure their facial hair so superbly without a Braun product?

But with a movie like this it’s better not to ask questions, so let me provide you with some answers instead: Yes, there appear to be more mastodons around than women. Yes, D’Leh and his buddies must have some nasty body odor for the mastodons not to be able to smell them crawling at their feet. Yes, those predatory birds look like a cross between ostriches and the vulture-like creatures in The Dark Crystal. Yes, the voice of the “Warlord” (Affif Ben Badra, the main bad dude on horseback) sounds as if it’s coming solely out of a subwoofer. Yes, it’s perplexing that D’Leh can so easily climb in and out of that prison considering that the prisoners sit around like contently gated cattle. Yes, when D’Leh tells the saber-tooth pussy not to eat him after he saves its life it marks what might go down as the most preposterous line of the year. Yes, that line would have been even more ridiculous if Nicolas Cage said it.

So where does that leave us? Waiting for the end, I suppose. The movie is basically 109 minutes of D’Leh on the trail of a kidnapped Evolet, encountering now-extinct beasts and darker-skinned tribesmen who are more than happy to follow his lead, cross deserts and thrust their spears in the air and wave ‘em round like they just don’t care. There’s no emotional connection to be made here, unless you count the embarrassment I felt for Cliff Curtis, whose mangy beard is still too thin to keep me from recognizing him as D’Leh’s guardian TicTic (you can’t make up names like this, nor should you). Curtis is too gifted an actor to appear in this kind of crap, which isn’t even bold enough to reach camp. But I suppose Curtis can now tell people that he’s acted in a movie with Omar Sharif, given that Dr. Zhivago himself is the one paying his bills by lending his voice as the narrator. How terribly sad.

On the plus side, 10,000 B.C.’s CGI artistry showcasing a city in chaos – complete with rampaging mastodons – provides a reward for those who suffer all the way to the end (I especially liked the aerial shot of thousands of slaves kneeling before their god). On top of that there’s the knowledge that Hollywood is running out of unclaimed historical eras that can be so carelessly imagined in the name of getting there first. 10,000 B.C. probably won’t be the most offensive movie I see this year, because it’s hard to get worked up over something that makes so little effort to entice me in the first place. But 10,000 B.C. might have the least to offer. In the end it’s like one of those gag-reflex meals offered up on Fear Factor: rancid, yet predictably so. So plug your nose and have at it, if you dare. Just be sure to bring a bucket.

Modest Treasures: In Bruges

Quiet, unassuming and surprisingly unforgettable. That might be the way you’d describe the modest town of Bruges, Belgium, which makes for the setting of Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s debut film In Bruges. Then again, those are words you could also use for Brendan Gleeson’s performance in the movie. Casual cinema fans might remember Gleeson – a “that guy” if there ever was one – as Hamish to Mel Gibson’s William Wallace in Braveheart. He was the stoic Monk in Gangs Of New York. And he’s popped in and out of recent Harry Potter flicks as MadEye Moody. Here, Gleeson hits the screen in what is set up as another supporting role, this time alongside Collin Farrell. Before the end, Ralph Fiennes joins the fray, too. But Gleeson is the MVP. In a picture that wobbles in a sea of tonal contradictions, he is the axis. Steady and true.

Gleeson and Farrell play Ken and Ray, a pair of hitmen coming off a botched job who are sent to the sleepy medieval town of Bruges to hide out and await instruction. For Ray this is something of a death sentence. He mopes and whines, and Farrell spends much of the movie fidgeting around in the role like a kid in ill-fitting clothes. Gone is any hint of his broad-shouldered and swaggery Sonny Crockett, but on the whole Farrell’s portrayal is like Mike Tyson’s life: as notable for its embarrassing disasters as for its thunderous knockout punches. Gleeson, on the other hand, is flawless. He hardly fits our mental image of a hitman and so he wastes no time pretending otherwise. Gleeson’s Ken gleefully meanders through Bruges taking in the tourist attractions like an excited social studies teacher, or like a dad on vacation – so relieved to be away from the office that he pretends to ignore the crybaby tag-along grumbling next to him.

Would Ken really kill someone? He might not come off like a killer, but Ken says that he is one and that’s good enough. Gleeson infuses his character with such sincerity that we don’t even begin to question his word. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Ken is a particularly happy hitman. Ray is the haunted one of the two, desperate to occupy his time so that he might escape his nightmarish depression. He’s the one running from what he’s done. But, in a less obvious way, Ken is silently coping with an even larger issue: what he is. For him, Bruges isn’t just a break from the norm, it’s a peek at a life that might have been, if only …

In that sense, the quaint town of Bruges is more than just a punchline for Ray’s bitter grumbling. Every movie “takes place” somewhere, but few films truly inhabit their settings. Working with cinematographer Eigil Bryld and editor Jon Gregory, McDonagh allows his film to move along like Ken’s experienced sightseer. His camera and his screenplay soak in each precious moment with the knowledge that it can’t last, yet they never overstay their welcome, determined to turn over as many stones as possible within the allotted time. Next to these visuals and plot developments, Carter Burwell’s original score sets the mood, beginning fancifully, piano-only, before applying a more menacing tone with the addition of strings.

The modest orchestral score and the earnest appreciation of setting are two of the key reasons In Bruges feels so original while working within a genre that has been pummeled into critical condition by cheap knock-off artists desperate to capture the retro hipster flair of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. McDonagh’s screenplay is rife with black comedy, arbitrary ruminations on life, midget/dwarf jokes, drug use, f-bombs, c-bombs and graphic violence. The use of these elements and the frequent juxtaposition of tonal opposites puts In Bruges in the crosshairs of Q.T.’s ilk. But one significant alteration sets it entirely apart: Whereas Tarantino’s pictures are overflowing with coolness (in his movies, even the uncool are cool, as evidenced by Tarantino’s cameo in Pulp Fiction), Gleeson’s Ken is anti-cool. Ken is, for lack of a better word, normal.

But Gleeson’s performance is extraordinary. In Bruges is released too early in the year and will remain too obscure for it to realistically contend for any year-end awards, but it’s the best film of 2008 thus far (not that the competition is stiff at this point). And my bet is that Gleeson’s performance will rival, if not surpass, the Academy’s five nominees for Best Supporting Actor come February 2009. To watch a performance like this is to wonder why so many “character actors” are so regularly forced into such small roles. Ken hardly gets the screen time of Daniel Plainview, but at least he provides Gleeson with enough time to take off his shoes and get comfortable in the part. Here Gleeson plays contentment, delight, exasperation and determination. Most impressively though, he creates a character who is honorable without morphing into righteousness.

McDonagh’s debut feature film has a few awkward moments. Some jokes fall flat, others never quite mature. And plot twists in the third act become a bit heavy-handed. Still, there’s plenty within In Bruges to leave you excited about McDonagh’s potential as a filmmaker. In addition to Gleeson, who is really in a secondary leading role, McDonagh produces captivating supporting performances from Jordan Prentice (Jimmy) and Clemence Poesy (Chloe), not to mention Fiennes, who as Harry seems to be wearing either bigger teeth or a shorter upper lip than when last we saw him. In any case, what stands out about all of the film’s characters is that they seem to be real people with real lives who happen to collide in sometimes beautiful and sometimes bloody fashion in this charming little town called Bruges – a place so genuine that it feels like a fantasy. In Bruges is a film set in a place we otherwise might never encounter that’s made fantastic by an actor we’ve all too often overlooked.

Aimlessness Kills the Video Stars: Be Kind Rewind

In Be Kind Rewind, Jack Black and Mos Def play buddies who, through some extreme plot contrivances, are forced to shoot on-the-fly reenactments of popular movies to replace an entire stock of damaged merchandise at what must be the last VHS-only rental store in the country. The result is a collection of homemade homages to Hollywood classics and blockbusters that are short on frills but high on thrills, thin on polish but thick with sincerity, empty of expertise but exploding with heart. These roughhewn creations, relying on an abundance of spirit to bridge the gap created by obvious technical shortcomings, remind that the best filmmaking craft is often the result of ingenious perseverance in the face of adversity (think: Spielberg and the malfunctioning mechanical shark from Jaws). But, alas, Be Kind Rewind isn’t as enchanting as the mini-films it encompasses, because writer/director Michel Gondry lacks the instincts of his guerilla filmmaking characters.

The chief problem with Gondry’s film is its plot, and the problem with the plot is that there’s too damn much of it. At its best, Be Kind Rewind thrives on the resourcefulness of Jerry (Black) and Mike (Def) putting big-budget effort into their Kindergarten-quality pictures, but it takes at least 30 minutes until we get a glimpse of that, which is about 29 minutes too long. Rather than let us revel in his film’s feature presentation, Gondry makes us suffer through what amounts to tedious pre-show entertainment: a historical short on legendary pianist Fats Waller, a silly episode of sabotage at a power station and a lazy reach into the barrel of hackneyed plot designs that sees “Be Kind Rewind” video store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) needing to swiftly reinvigorate his business or else lose it to the wrecking ball. You could read a Syd Field book on screenwriting in less time than it takes Gondry to set up his film’s key conflict (a store full of erased VHS tapes), and yet this overflowing pot of unnecessary plot devices will later see the addition of some awkward and never developed sexual tension between Mike and his moviemaking accomplice Alma (Melonie Diaz), which exists merely to satisfy the pesky man-plus-woman equation.

It’s a pity Be Kind Rewind wanders so far from the trail, because when Gondry gets down to the essence of his film – a humorous and sweetly nostalgic reflection on movies and what they mean to us – there’s joy to be had. It starts with Jerry and Mike grabbing a camcorder circa the Bog Saget era of America’s Funniest Home Videos and shooting their rendition of Ghostbusters (Mike to Jerry: “I’m Venkman. You’re everybody else.”). The affable losers wrap themselves in foil to approximate ghost-busting attire, combine tinsel and fishing rods to create the effect of the specter-lassoing proton beams and construct a miniature Manhattan skyline out of cardboard for the climactic encounter with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But all this passes too quickly. Subsequent montages will show productions of Rush Hour 2, RoboCop, Boyz N The Hood and a handful of other instantly-recognizable flicks. And these additional wacky reenactments are pleasurable but even shorter than the first.

It’s as if Gondry doesn’t want to ruin the effect of his screenplay’s only delectable concept by offering it up in bulk. Though if that’s the case, Be Kind Rewind was doomed from the start, because what we’re left with is too much attention paid to a tired plot scenario in which a town rallies around a mom-and-pop operation to save it from being demolished by soulless corporate bigwigs (starring Sigourney Weaver as the lead bitch) and not enough of the very thing that makes it unique. Black and Def are competent leads, yet with the exception of a cutely clumsy burglary attempt they shine only in the rare but precious instances when Jerry and Mike are allowed to create.

And even then Gondry misses some golden opportunities. Be Kind Rewind would have been better off having fun with Black’s general resemblance to Orson Welles, as seen in King Kong, and re-envisioning Citizen Kane. In doing so, Gondry would have played to the strength of his biggest star while tipping his hat to a genuine classic. But even more significant, Gondry would have underlined his movie’s cinematic morals by paying tribute to a film that’s held in higher regard today than upon its 1941 release precisely because of a deep respect for Welles’ ability to prevent limited resources from putting a lid on his vision. A filmmaker thinking outside the box led to Citizen Kane’s clever employment of stock footage, its often seamless marriage of brick-and-mortar sets with matte drawings and its brilliant utilization of sets and models that pulled apart at the center to allow for otherwise impossible camera movements that David Fincher would be riffing on almost 60 years later in Panic Room (to name one).

Coincidentally, I saw Be Kind Rewind not long after catching the gritty foreign film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. In terms of theme and execution (not to mention quality), the pictures could hardly be farther apart. And yet if Be Kind Rewind, through its characters, demonstrates how a filmmaker’s passion can make up for other deficiencies, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, through the approach of director Cristian Mungiu, underlines the significance of story. Mungiu’s minimalist cinematography and use of long, unbroken takes supplies a piercing reality and unremitting intensity to his picture by design. And yet these same fixed camera angles – more inert than Mia Farrow’s overly Botoxed face in Be Kind Rewind – also demonstrate that when the story enthralls a filmmaker need only set up the scene and get out of the way. Gondry’s film has levity and movement, and it wraps up with a charming scene right out of Cinema Paradiso that should warm the cockles of even the most cynical movie fan’s heart. But Be Kind Rewind rarely offers anything that’s truly worthy of the camera’s attention, or ours.

Back to Reality (& Movies)

Sometimes movies take us to places beyond our dreams. That’s at least one of the reasons I spend so many hours each year sitting in darkened theaters: for that chance to be transported to worlds far, far away.

And yet sometimes the wonderful world around us provides visuals more amazing than what can be conjured on the big screen. I got a glimpse of that last week over a much-needed vacation (that's Bandon, Oregon, in case you're wondering).

Now the blogger returns from paradise to the real world, which means a return to theaters and to the fantasyland that is film, which means the end of one vacation and the beginning of another: A vacation of the mind. About two hours at a time.

Movie posts to come, but as I’m catching up here’s a question: from movies released last year (to narrow it down a bit), which cinematic world would you most like to visit?

Just one of my votes? Paris. Not from Paris Je T’aime. From Ratatouille. That place looks awesome!

Cooler Project: “This is it!”

[The Cooler is calling on movie fans to help investigate an obscure movie phenomenon. Details below.]

Picture it: You’re a charming drifter with no money to your name who is good with a charcoal pencil and the ladies. It’s April 1912, and over the past few days you’ve won passage on the inaugural voyage of the RMS Titanic in a hand of cards, fallen in love with the most beautiful passenger on board and sketched her naked. Now you’re clutching the rails at Titanic’s stern as the enormous vessel sinks into the Atlantic like a straw dropping into a milkshake. In a matter of seconds, the icy ocean will engulf you. And so you look to the woman to your right, who not too long ago you were getting to know biblically, and you say …?

Well, if you’re Jack Dawson, a character in the 1997 film Titanic, written by James Cameron, you say: “This is it!” Of course you do! Because you’re in a movie. And that’s what people say in a movie when the action is about to reach its orgasmic peak, especially if the screenwriter is someone who has seen the original Star Wars a time or twelve. But is that what you would say if you were a genuine 1912 smooth-talking wanderer? I doubt it.

Before we go further, let’s consider the preposterousness of the line as employed in the film: By the time he makes it to the rails of the ship’s stern, poor Jack, played by a teenage-heartthrobby Leonardo DiCaprio, has been beaten, handcuffed to a sinking ship, locked in steerage and shot at. He’s also watched passengers fall to nasty bone-crushing deaths when the ass end of the ship lifted skyward. To the point, he’s damn lucky to be alive. And so it’s almost humorous that only now, after so many brushes with death, does Jack finally determine that this is it.

The thing is, Jack is right. And we know he’s right. Because we know that Titanic will sink, and we know that Jack won’t perish before it does. Yet we also know that most people who put so much as a toe into the Atlantic that night didn’t live to tell about it. Based on that, there can’t be any dips left in the rollercoaster for Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose. But if Titanic were a monster movie instead of a historically-inspired epic, and if Jack was to be outdone by a creature from the deep instead of hypothermia, don’t you figure he’d have the foresight to hold out until the Kraken rose from the depths before recognizing the unavoidable gravity of the situation? I do. In the movies, heroes don’t panic until it’s absolutely necessary.

The point here isn’t to pick on Titanic. “This is it!” is an exclamatory line found in oodles of movies. But the implementation of “This is it!” in Titanic speaks to the phrase’s ubiquity. We’ve grown so accustomed to its presence that we hardly notice it, even though the line is often meant to cue the audience. When Jack yells “This is it!” he isn’t really speaking to Rose. Instead it’s Cameron speaking to us, and what the filmmaker is actually saying is: “This is it! It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! The doomed ship has stayed afloat for almost 3 hours, but now it sinks at last! Watch this!”

How long have screenwriters been writing this way? And why do so many movie characters utter that popular line, considering how rarely people seem to use it in real life? The answer to the first question is that “This is it!” has been around since at least 1977. George Lucas’ Star Wars pictures have provided more famed catchphrases (“Use the Force!” “I am your father!” “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy!” “Yippee!” … okay, maybe not the last one), but perhaps no line has been as influential as the observation of X-wing pilot Red Leader, who at the beginning of the trench run on the Death Star exclaims plainly yet decisively: “This is it!”

Was that the first “This is it!”? Probably not. But at the moment I’d wager that there isn’t a more significant usage of the phrase. Yet I’d like to find out for sure. That’s why The Cooler is announcing the first of what it hopes will be numerous obscure cinema history projects:

Bloggers and movie fans in general are encouraged to submit via e-mail or the comments section any known or discovered usages of “This is it!” This isn’t a blog-a-thon. There’s no deadline. No lengthy description or analysis is required. The Cooler will take all submissions and post them to form a chronological history, giving credit to those who submit. Together we will seek to identify all the branches on the “This is it!” family tree.

If you’d like to take part (once, twice, 20 times), The Cooler requests that all entries include the following: name of the film, name of the character (and actor) who utters the line and, if possible, one or two sentences explaining the situation that prompts the remark. Please be sure the line is, exactly, “This is it!” And please be sure the usage is similar to the above. “This is it?” and “This is it!” are two entirely different expressions.

All of that said, please join this effort. I expect it to be long in development, and so this item will soon receive permanent placement in the right column of this blog so that it can be easily found by those who encounter a “This is it!” and want to submit it. How many treasures we find in this archeological dig, time will tell. But we have to start somewhere, so the project begins now. This is it!

E-mail entries can be sent here. Subject: This is it.


“This is it!” History

Star Wars (1977)
Spoken by: Red Leader (Drewe Hemley)
Situation: Rebel X-wing fighters, now evading pursuit from Imperial fighters, take position for the trench run on the Death Star.
Submitted by: Jason Bellamy (The Cooler)

Ghostbusters (1984)
Spoken by: Louis Tully (Rick Moranis)
Situation: A building explodes prompting a vision of increased doom.
Submitted by: Ali Arikan (Cerebral Mastication)

Titanic (1997)
Spoken by: Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Situation: Jack and Rose, at the stern of the Titanic, prepare to plunge into icy waters as the ship swiftly disappears into the Atlantic.
Submitted by: Jason Bellamy (The Cooler)