Queue It Up: The Descent

[Queue It Up is supposed to be for mostly overlooked films. I’m not sure this one classifies. And then again it does, because I nearly overlooked it myself. The blood-and-guts genre just ain’t my tub of popcorn. That said, horror fans are likely to tell me that this movie isn’t horror at all, and maybe that’s the point. Perhaps this is a bridge film. In any case, it went down as one of my top five films of 2006. In celebration of Halloween, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

When you grow up on the West Coast like I did, you tend to view the 2,000-plus-mile Appalachian Range as a parade of cute, wee bluffs. Out toward the Pacific, we have the mighty Rocky Mountains, not to mention the slighter yet striking Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges. By comparison, the Appalachians aren’t just underwhelming, they’re, well, a bit sissy – the one series of undulations in a landscape so otherwise flat that without them someone standing on the hood of their car in New York could see all the way to Kansas.

That’s why I couldn’t help but elicit a tiny, politically-incorrect chuckle as I realized that The Descent’s all-girl fright-fest would unfold within the belly of America’s weak little sister of a mountain range; all too appropriate, I thought, for a movie void of men. But the joke, it turns out, was on me. Stuffed with action and bathed in blood, The Descent may be full of sisters, but it’s neither weak nor little. Instead it’s gory and ghastly and second to none. It’s also so packed with girl power that it made me think I might need an intravenous drip of estrogen just to survive it.

Lest I be misunderstood, I mean that as a compliment. The Descent tells the story of six female friends who gather together on the one-year anniversary of a tragedy to bond on a spelunking expedition in a remote part of Appalachia (so remote that it has a nearby cabin and a clearly well-used road, but never mind). They are led by the gung-ho Juno (Natalie Mendoza), who believes in safety but not maps, and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), an expert climber who does everything by the book. The rest of the girls aren’t quite so practiced, but they’re hardly novices. They strap into their harnesses and attach their descenders without effort, and none of them even thinks to complain about what a helmet will do to their hair.

Seasoned adventures, they take the plunge with gusto. Yet as soon as the girls rope down into the massive cave system, there’s a sense that their expedition won’t go as planned. Maybe because Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is still haunted by the deaths of her husband and young daughter and hears voices. Maybe because a flashlight reveals red scratches on the cave walls that make it appear as if someone before them tried to claw their way out. Maybe because there’s an obligatory surge of bats that startles the girls (and us) before exiting the cave in an embarrassingly pathetic CGI shot that takes special effects backward about 15 years. Maybe.

But for sure we know something will go wrong because of the way the movie begins, with Sarah’s husband dying in a car crash when a metal rod perforates his skull, sending blood and brain matter oozing out the back of the headrest. A scene like that is a promise. It says, “Get ready, folks, this movie is gonna get messy!” And it will. But not right away. Writer/director Neil Marshall believes in foreplay, and so for I-won’t-tell-you-how-long he just sets the mood of impending doom. The girls go deeper and deeper into the cave, and the claustrophobia and suspense increase in time. Whenever one of the girls turns a corner or reaches out into the darkness we wonder, “Is this it? Is this when it arrives?”

Which of course brings us to the question that the not-so-legendary band Faith No More asked so epically (and repetitively) in 1990: “What is it?” Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to know, but after a few near encounters the girls eventually come face-to-revolting-face with predatory creatures that climb the subterranean walls like spiders. Hairless and pasty in complexion, these mostly-humanesque dwellers of the dark look like the byproduct of Lord Of The Rings’ Gollum mating with Harry Potter’s Voldemort. Only less sexy.

Yet grotesque as they are, my first reaction upon getting a good peek at one of the creatures is that they aren’t much to look at. Not when you compare them to those classic creepy-crawlies from the Alien movies, which are all spine and tail and skull and teeth. Now those creatures leave an impression! But the demons of The Descent are memorable in their own right, not so much for their appearance but their implementation. Breaking away from the usually-accurate convention that says horror film thrills come from the anticipation of an encounter rather than the realization of one, Marshall lays all his cards on the table and says, “Let’s get it on.”

Once the monsters are revealed, the final act is non-stop action, a babalicious butt-kicking brouhaha. And this time it’s the encounters that thrill. Marshall is so confident in his girl-ghoul showdowns that sometimes he even warns us when the creatures are approaching. And still the movie terrifies! The Descent’s format succeeds because there’s something undeniably exciting about watching athletically-sexy girls kick ass. In the past, the horror genre has always been fond of female characters because – as extraordinary screamers who tend to undo their bras just before evil descends upon them – they make good prey. But that’s another rule that’s reversed in The Descent.

These chicks are fighters. They use their bare hands, rocks, pieces of bone and a few moves they might have picked up in self-defense classes. Were I not so busy covering my eyes at the punishment they inflict, I would have applauded regularly. Their tenacity is so inspirationally thrilling that at one point – maybe when Juno plunges her ice axe into the skull of one of the creatures – I actually thought, ‘If I had a daughter, I’d hope she’d grow up to be like one of these girls.’ No kidding!

But The Descent will hardly warm everyone’s cockles. In fact, I’m surprised it warmed mine. Given the nausea it creates, I wouldn’t recommend seeing it before eating, or after eating, or really at all. On principle, I have a hard time advocating a film in which one of the characters emulates Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now with a slow, steady rise out of a pool of blood. But that’s the nature of The Descent and there’s no way around it: one way in, one way out, lots of blood, sweat and cheers in between. Pretty much in that order. I couldn’t always watch, but I never closed my eyes. Well, almost never.

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

Debating Documentaries

At its simplest, Errol Morris’ documentary Standard Operating Procedure is an exploration of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. Beyond that, though, it’s an examination of the reality – or lack thereof – of the filmed image. Some folks like to say the camera doesn’t lie, and that might be right. But the camera doesn't always tell the truth, either. And it was in that vein that Yours Truly, the opinionated host at The Cooler, began a friendly e-mail debate with Fox, the equally opinionated host of the feisty mostly-movies blog Tractor Facts.

The discussion began early this month, just before the release of Religulous, and it continued sporadically from there. Over the course of our exchanges, we debated the very nature of the documentary while touching on Religulous, Michael Moore, Ben Stein’s Expelled, Werner Herzog, The Fog Of War, The King Of Kong, Tarnation and more. Almost 5,000 words later, we felt that we’d explored some interesting topics … and that we’d barely scratched the surface.

A transcript follows …

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JB: Let’s get into this discussion by talking about Religulous, which hits theaters tomorrow. At this point, neither of us has seen the film, but judging by the trailer it appears to be a documentary in the Michael Moore style, which I suppose might be best characterized thusly: (1) more liberal than conservative, (2) at least as entertainment-minded as education-minded, (3) shiftily manipulative and (4) stunty, to coin a term. The movie is directed by Larry Charles, who also directed Borat, a comedy with elements of the Moore-esque documentary. I know you loath Borat, which – correct me if I’m wrong – you think is disingenuous, agenda-driven and predatory, for lack of a better term, especially in its portrayal of conservative Southerners. Religulous looks as if it will prey on a similar audience, perhaps in similar fashion. Borat wasn’t considered a documentary because its key subject is a dramatic creation of actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Religulous is considered a documentary because Bill Maher is playing himself. So my questions for you are: Is that fair? Is Religulous a “documentary” in the traditional definition of the term? Or is Religulous, along with the rest of its Moore-inspired brethren, a bastardization of the documentary genre? And if so, so what?

Fox: I think the definition of the traditional documentary itself has been bastardized. The root term "document" implies that truth, or proof, is what the viewer will be getting. Now, most viewers have come to know – especially in our "sensational documentary" era – that documentaries are just as much about a point-of-view as they are a treatment of facts. Certainly there are truths in these films, but never have I encountered a documentary where opinion or point-of-view isn’t the dominant mode. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The best thing a documentary can accomplish is to introduce the viewer to topics or information.

So: "Is Religulous a ‘documentary’ in the traditional definition of the term?" I would say no, but … so what? What we've come to think of as a documentary is anything that is a nonfictional narrative/short, and that's fine. To me, the real battle lies with taking on what I see as irresponsible filmmaking and/or manipulation of reality (which I think every documentary does). That doesn't mean I think that these manipulated films can't present enjoyable entertainment or useful information, but as an art form I think the documentary is inherently flawed because it can never truly achieve what it sets out to do. I wouldn't qualify myself as an expert of the genre, but personally I've never seen a documentary that moves beyond the quality of a well done news segment.

Borat lies somewhere between documentary and mockumentary because only half of the party is in on the joke. In fact, Borat is truly a mockumentary in that it "mocks" its subject matter. What I despise most about Sacha Baron Cohen is that he cowardly hides behind a persona when he ambushes his subjects. (He also picks mostly passive, easy targets, but that's for another conversation.) At least someone like Maher confronts his subjects in an upfront, honest manner. I will give him the credit of sitting side-by-side with his opposition.

Religulous appeals to me because I too have problems with organized religion. However, I respect a fellow citizen's personal beliefs as long as they don't encroach on my life. I could give a crap if my neighbor worships Jesus, Mohammed, Satan, or his parrots, but if that bleeds over into society in a negative way then I have a problem with it. Now, Maher seems to have a problem with religion on a large scale. Not just with the fanatics, but with people of faith in general. What I'm curious to see is who he goes after in Religulous. Just the militants? Or the militants and the peaceful believers as well? A last compliment I can give to Maher before seeing his film is that he doesn't hide his intentions. He's got a chip on his shoulder and he makes that clear. Michael Moore's films are simply propaganda. He's never been interested in trying to understand anything outside of his agenda. Will Maher take the same path? We shall see.


JB: Terrific points. Let me take this back to the beginning by noting that a couple days ago Maher and Charles were on NPR’s “Fresh Air” talking about Religulous. They did their usual shtick. Then their segment was followed by an interview with Steven Waldman, founder and editor in chief of Beliefnet, which host Terry Gross described as “the largest website devoted to religion and spirituality.” Gross asked Waldman about Religulous and he was both praiseful (“funnier” and “more challenging” than he expected) and critical (“offensive” and “slippery”). Waldman then noted that most of Maher’s film is an attack on fundamentalism, and offered that for each example Maher provides of religion having a negative societal impact he could think of many more in which religion is a positive influence. Fair enough. All of which leads Waldman to say the following: “To only look at one part of the story is not really a ‘documentary,’ as (Maher) calls it.”

Now, this observation from Waldman is similar to what you just said when you talked about the bastardization of the term “documentary.” And I’d say that the view that you and Waldman share – that documentaries are supposed to be truthful and perhaps somehow balanced – is widely shared among the movie-going public. In general, I think people equate documentaries with “truth” or “nonfiction.” But I’m wondering how we got to that definition. You said that you think every documentary manipulates reality. So how did we ever arrive at the notion that documentaries are or should be entirely truthful (which is to say void of bias or inaccuracy)?

To answer my own question: I think that the “documentaries” many of us first encountered were nature films in school. Now, even nature films can be untruthful – for Winged Migration, several scenes were staged – but in general a nature documentary shows you animals being animals, responding to their own instincts. You can’t get much more truthful than that. Thus, part of the problem, is us. We carry from childhood this notion that documentaries reflect total and complete truth, only to be offended when we spot shades of gray among the black-and-white. And so I wonder if the documentaries have actually changed (been bastardized) or if instead we’ve just wised up.

Look at it this way: When we were kids, we read our history books and encyclopedias and thought both were undeniable, inarguable truth. Then we got older and we realized (most of us, anyway) that history is written by the victors of war, that different countries have alternate views of world history, that even our own country’s version of historical “fact” has changed over the years as our social norms have changed. All of a sudden we realize that short of something like Andy Warhol’s Sleep, which is nothing more than five hours of footage of his lover sleeping, there’s very little that can be documented on film that is as accurate as it seems.

I think we have a bad habit in this country of equating consensus with truth. They aren’t always the same. For example, we all agree that the Nazis were evil, so no one would ever expect a documentary on World War II to be “fair” to Adolph Hitler or to give the Nazis “equal time.” But when Maher provides a dissenting opinion on religion, he is going to get torn apart for “ignoring” certain “truths.” Is that fair? By my definition, a documentary needs to document. Simple as that. What I object to is when documentary filmmakers stage events and pass them off as unscripted. What I object to is when someone like Moore tells you that a plaque says one thing when really it says something else. Those are lies. But as a concept I think Religulous is truthful: it’s an accurate representation of Bill Maher’s views. I’d say that’s enough to be called a documentary.


Fox: You make a really wonderful distinction that I hadn't thought of before – that's what these discussions are all about, right? – and that is that a documentary is a document of the filmmaker's personal opinion, rather than a dead honest portrait of the subject they happen to be focusing on. I can live with that. Also, you beat me to something I had been thinking about: that the only true documentary – if the definition of that is "a document; a true portrait of events” – would be a camera filming a location in some sort in real-time – uncut and unedited.

I think you're right that our perception of what a documentary is supposed to deliver may place a lot of unfair expectations on the director. On the other hand, I think it's the responsibility of the director to not act like they are an authority on a topic simply because they've made a film. Unfortunately, this is the attitude I get while watching a lot of the historical and/or political documentaries today.

To be honest, while watching older documentaries like Hearts & Minds or Winter Soldier, I got the impression that this is where that trend started. Surely, during Vietnam, it was one of the first times a generation felt openly deceived and had the media tools to express their rage, confusion and distrust. Yet, there is no doubt that Hearts & Minds and Winter Soldier come off as their maker's one-sided opinions and not as a balanced dissection of events. Surely, there is no problem with someone wanting to make such a film if that is their desire, but I fail to see it as anything more than propaganda or selfish catharsis.

Again, nothing wrong with that, but the way the critical establishment has lauded these films as highly-rated works of art bothers me. I haven't seen Ben Stein's Expelled, but it was curious to me the absolute across-the-board denunciation of that film when it sounds like it follows the same one-sided, biased set of rules as any other button-pushing documentary. I expect to dislike the film for the same reason I dislike any other agitprop, but it was telling how critics pushed that film away, seemingly for no other reason than for disagreement with their ideology and/or belief system. In a way, that reaction of theirs kind of proved my point that these films – whether it be Moore or Stein – shouldn't be taken seriously as films.

"Taken seriously as films" was the last thing I said, and that kind of leads into the much dreaded phrase I have used in the past that has started fights among loved ones (in fact, it led to the only time that my dear, sweet wife cursed at me...): "Documentary is lazy cinema." It's something I stand by, and have yet to be shaken from. Now, I don't mean that documentarians are lazy, or that the work that goes into making documentaries is less than pushing 10 boulders up a hill. What I mean is that documentaries tend to betray the aesthetic of what I feel is beautiful about cinema, and that is cinematography, framing, lighting, spatial relationships, acting, color, screenplay, set design, etc. Some documentarians, like Errol Morris, definitely bring a more artistic eye to their films (I'm thinking Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and Mr. Death, for example), but even then, someone like him is bound to limitations since they are filming "real life."

The exception to this would be Werner Herzog, but then he is probably the exception to documentaries in general. For example, I think The Wild Blue Yonder is a beautiful, wonderful film. I think what Herzog does in the few "docs" of his I've seen (I haven't seen Grizzly Man, by the way) is flip the idea of documentary. I think he knows that true documentary is impossible, so he takes real footage and implements it into his fiction. In a way I think this liberates the real footage and gives it a freedom that something like Religulous, or Why We Fight or The Weather Underground doesn't.


JB: See, I think that’s interesting: Having seen only Herzog’s recent Grizzly Man and Encounters At The End Of The World, I think he’s right in the Moore/Maher camp. Those two documentaries are very personal – not only narrated by Herzog but actually experienced through him. I don’t object to this in theory, but as a viewer sometimes I find myself wishing he’d shut up and get out of the way. Show me the footage. Give me the subject. Let me be the judge. Let me experience the story on my own.

By comparison, Morris is far more removed from his subjects (heck, he doesn’t even sit in the same room with the people he interviews). But his films are still influenced by his personal views. As the interviewer, he gets to ask the questions (not all of which we get to hear), and he gets to edit his subjects’ responses after the fact. In that way Morris can comment on the overall subject of his film without actually opening his mouth. To me, this is obvious. But I’m frequently astonished that so many people see Morris’ films as somehow more factual or unbiased than the stuff of a Moore or Maher. I’m not sure that perception is accurate.

Specifically, I remember being perplexed by the reaction to The Fog Of War, which is basically a long interview with Robert McNamara intercut with some b-roll of falling dominoes. In the interview, McNamara admits that he lied to the American people when he was U.S. Secretary of Defense amidst the war in Vietnam. Then he goes on to tell us the “truth.” But can we really trust that “truth”? McNamara was in spin mode before and he’s almost certainly spinning in his interview with Morris. This doesn’t detract from The Fog Of War as a documentary. To go back to the previous definition, The Fog Of War documents McNamara’s version of the truth in that time and place. But I don’t think there’s any deeper actual historical truth to the film than Moore’s stunt-filled antics in Bowling For Columbine. Yet I think I’d be the minority there.

And that brings us to your terrific point about Stein’s Expelled. I haven’t seen the picture either, but I suspect you are correct that critics rejected it for its ideology and ideas rather than its technique or general entertainment value. On cinematic grounds, that seems unfair. Then again, a film like Expelled (which to my understanding argues in favor of Intelligent Design) brings up an interesting conundrum: When it comes to documentaries that make an argument (Religulous, Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth, etc), rather than those that more or less just observe (Spellbound, Mad Hot Ballroom, Wordplay, to name a few semi-recent ones), doesn’t an evaluation of that film need to consider the persuasiveness or soundness of that argument?

As I alluded before, I cringe at the way we so often misinterpret popular opinion as fact, because it takes us right to the core of the Stephen Colbert term “truthiness” (things we know “from the gut,” often despite evidence to the contrary). But can an argumentative documentary “succeed” if its arguments are unsound? For example: I haven’t seen that straight-to-DVD documentary that argues that 9/11 was an inside job, but the whole concept is laughable. (I mean, really: Our government, eager to go to war, decided to attack itself during daylight hours? Give me break!) Can a documentary like that succeed as art if it’s filled with ideological gibberish?

If the answer is no, that would support your idea that documentaries are “lazy cinema,” because certainly we agree that the list is long of dramatic films that are mindless, absurd or simply boring that stimulate anyway because of their visual splendor. But on the flipside of that argument there’s a documentary like King Of Kong, about a modest dad’s quest to set the points record in Donkey Kong. As documentaries go, King Of Kong is as void of artistic flourish as one could imagine. From a cinematic standpoint or even a journalistic standpoint I’d find it difficult to argue that it’s one of the 10 best documentaries I’ve seen in even the past decade. But having said that I’d be hard pressed to name 10 films (fiction or non) from the past 10 years that I’ve enjoyed more. I mean that. And yet when the film garnered praise but failed to find a mainstream audience, what did distributor (New Line) do? It signed up director Seth Gordon to adapt the documentary as a narrative feature. What the fuck!? Why? The story succeeds on its own. Efforts to enhance the story via aesthetic flourishes would only expose the emptiness of aesthetics.


Fox: To Morris first: I haven't seen his recent Standard Operating Procedure, but what I've always appreciated about him (vs. a Michael Moore, a Peter Davis, or a Eugene Jarecki) is that I feel he has a genuine respect for his subject, even though he presumptively strongly disagrees with what they represent. This is most apparent to me in Mr. Death, where Morris almost turns a Holocaust denier into a sympathetic character without sympathizing with his views. Same for The Fog of War. Morris could have given McNamara the "gotcha" treatment. Instead Morris lets him speak. Of course, there is much more of the "political" attached to The Fog of War because it is ultimately Morris trying to uncover hidden truths about the decisions that led us into and kept us in the Vietnam War. With Mr. Death, it feels more like a character study and, maybe on greater reflection, an examination of the cost of free thought and free speech (albeit, in a very extreme and controversial manner) in a free world.

So, I would say the difference between The Fog of War and Bowling For Columbine is that Morris has a respect for his subjects while, to me, Moore despises them and is unwilling to grant them an ounce of slack. I know there are those that would say, "Well, fuck them! Those people don't deserve to be given any slack! K-Mart had it coming! Heston had it coming!" I don't subscribe to that. One, I think it's a narrow-minded reaction to a narrow-mined accusation by Moore, and, two, I think it’s an example that two wrongs don't make a right.

Now, I'm glad you brought up King of Kong. I caught moments of it one night while my wife was watching it and instantly got wrapped up in the drama. Afterwards, her reaction – and the reaction of many of my friends – was similar to yours: ecstatic, tear-inducing, joyous. I'm not questioning the honesty of those emotions. What I'm skeptical of is the way in which the director (through editing) was able to take footage of real life and create a type of Hollywood story arc out of it, thus manipulating emotions as if we were watching a fictional narrative like The Karate Kid. Now, the events in Kong are true, but what about the gravity and emotional pull of those events? Would you have felt as sympathetic towards Steve Wiebe and as bitter towards Billy Mitchell if director Seth Gordon hadn’t framed the two men to come off that way? Not to mention, all of this is crammed into 79 minutes! And here is where we really get at the heart of my problem with documentaries. Ethically, I have a major problem with taking real-life footage and making popcorn entertainment out of it. Is Billy Mitchell really a cocky S.O.B.? Maybe... probably... who knows? Regardless, he will now go down as a bad guy in the eyes of people who watch this film. I think that's unfair, and I think it is a major negative of documentaries.

Take Tarnation, a movie I might hate more than any other that's come out in the 00s. Director/camera whore/exhibitionist (forgive me, my hate is coming out!) Jonathan Caouette practically crucifies his grandfather and grandmother on film for the rest of history to judge. The deal is done. They did not get chance to defend themselves because they were so old and senile that they weren't even aware what Caouette was doing. He set up flesh-and-blood grandparents like sitting ducks and attacked them with a camera. Further, Tarnation is 100 minutes long. It's supposed to be about the entirety of Caouette's life, merging old video footage he recorded as a child in Houston up with footage he took of himself as an adult living in New York. So, basically, we have a life compressed into 100 minutes. A life that many critics and fans fawned over and adored and felt sympathy for... in 100 minutes! This drives me nuts.

And to bring that around to the beginning of this entry you might say, "Well, Morris evoked sympathy for Fred Leucther by editing and twisting time?" Yep, and that's why I think documentaries are inherently flawed, and it's why I think fictional narrative filmmaking will always be superior because it automatically excludes itself from distorting reality for the sake of entertaining an audience (and to the detriment of it's subjects). I might think Morris’ film is a more respectable method of distortion, but it's still distortion.


JB: Those are interesting arguments. To put it in a nutshell, you think that since the majority of documentaries can’t completely and accurately portray truth (the truth of their subject matter; the ‘whole story’), and since many documentaries don’t even strive for such depth, that dramatic films are in essence more honest because they aren’t striving for truth in the first place. Is that about right? From that standpoint, I see the “inherent flaw.” But this goes back to the idea that documentaries must achieve perfect truth to be truthful. I don’t think they do. Think of it this way: Beethoven is going to sound different whether it’s played by your local symphony orchestra or mine. But it’s still Beethoven. Whether abridged or imperfect, it has the same core truth.

To go back to King Of Kong, does it have an entertainment agenda? Absolutely. But so what? (Billy Mitchell claims he’s unfairly represented, but watching the film it’s pretty clear that Mitchell hangs himself, even if it was Gordon who tied the noose.) Meanwhile, though I agree that Morris’ films feel as if he approaches his subjects with sympathy and an open mind, we can’t be sure. Perhaps he is just as manipulative and merely better at hiding it.

In the end, no documentary or other form of journalism can cover every facet of any complex subject. But I don’t think that means these stories are inaccurate or even incomplete. Imperfect, sure – despite best intentions, in many cases. But these “nonfiction” stories can still deliver the underlying truth, which is what we’re after. I feel like all we should expect from a documentary filmmaker is an honest effort. Then it’s on the audience to be just as open in our approach.

On that last point, something that gets under my skin is when opponents of a documentary’s ideals dismiss it as “propaganda.” Depending on the definition you choose, just about any film is propaganda (information distributed to advance an idea). The dangerous kind of propaganda is deliberate misinformation. There’s a huge chasm between the two. But when someone hears, “That’s propaganda!” they imagine the second, worst definition. Yet the reality is that most of us swallow whole the propaganda that supports our ideals, whether it comes from advertisers or politicians or movies. We don’t even think about it. We just accept because we agree. It has “truthiness.” Sure, it might have more than that. But often our critical filter takes a backseat to our emotions.

As a lover of journalism, who thinks that good, researched journalism is becoming ever more difficult to find (what with the slow death of newspapers and the deterioration of television news due to the demands of the 24/7 news cycle, etc), I’ve been thrilled by the recent documentary boom, made possible by cheaper equipment, the growth of documentary-friendly theaters and the ever widening of alternate distribution platforms (DVD, YouTube, etc). Once a year, I watch Ken Burns’ terrific Civil War, and I appreciate that kind of long-form documentary filmmaking. I don’t want to see that disappear. But No End In Sight – a film that covers recent and still evolving history – includes the kind of reportage that only PBS’ Frontline tends to provide. Some have criticized such films by saying that they feel like something you’d see on 60 Minutes. True, to a point. And false, as well. It gives 60 Minutes too much credit.

I think the core difference between the two of us in how we approach to documentaries is that I’m thrilled by more, smaller and different, while you seem to see the documentary boom as filled with fluff that gets away from bigger, deeper and more profound documentaries of the past. I’m excited by the documentary boom while you are filled with reservations. Is that fair?

We could easily ramble on this subject for days. So let me try and bring toward some sort of close by asking you this question: We’ve talked a lot about the documentaries you don’t admire. What are the documentaries that best fulfill your idea of what a documentary should be? As a fan of cinema, which films typify the strengths of the documentary genre?


Fox: That brings us back to my comment that documentaries are inherently flawed cinema. If we agree that film is a visual art form, then a film’s primary concern should be the image, whether the film is The House Bunny or The Conformist. But I can’t think of many documentaries that strive for that. To me, the primary focus of a documentary is the information, the statistics, the reporting, etc. Sure, documentaries can be visually breath-taking and can use imagery to enhance the meaning of the information and give it further power. But I think that imagery is a secondary concern of documentarians, whereas in the narrative film the director, production designer, cinematographer, actors, etc., all collaborate to create controlled, thought-out visuals. Also, a documentary is made by significantly whittling away at the shot footage (perhaps 400 hours for a 90-minute film), whereas a fictional film is built up from nothing, using only the pieces it needs (with some editing room exceptions, of course). Artistically, I think these approaches are miles apart, and I prefer the one that is more concerned with image – the foundation of what is truly cinema.

So when I think of documentaries I admire, the first films I think of are musical performances. (Do those count? Musical docs feel more like recorded performances than traditional docs.) There are exceptions, but the ones that mean the most to me are ones where the director achieves a loving recording of the musician by getting out of the way and letting the camera set-ups say everything. With that lead-in, Stop Making Sense and Neil Young: Heart of Gold are two of my favorite nonfiction films – both by Jonathan Demme. I love that guy. I would also like to mention two nonfiction films by Werner Herzog: Lessons of Darkness and The Wild Blue Yonder. Though, I don't consider these traditional docs either since they make fiction out of real-life footage.

Other more traditional favorite documentaries would include: The Outsider (Nick Jarecki); My Country, My Country (Laura Poitras); Hearts Of Darkness (George Hickenlooper); Gunner Palace (Michael Tucker); Inside Deep Throat (Fenton Bailey); Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley); Night & Fog (Alain Resnais). How about you?

JB: I’ve admired several documentaries in recent years: No End In Sight and Taxi To The Dark Side, for exploring stories that our traditional media has been too timid to handle with such straightforwardness. I’ve enjoyed examinations of the quirky, like the aforementioned Wordplay and King Of Kong. I’m still haunted by Capturing The Friedmans. I think Murderball is one of the best films of the past five years not because of the characters most people remember (the gladiators in wheelchairs) but because of the one most forget (the recent quadriplegic coming to grips with his new reality). Stringing it back a ways: I’ve seen When We Were Kings at least a dozen times, and I never tire of it. Like you, I admire Hearts Of Darkness, which I find more fascinating than the film it chronicles (Apocalypse Now). And though it can’t be watched in one sitting, I love how the split-screen approach to Woodstock evokes the event and the era it covers. These are off the top of my head, and I’ve already thought of glaring omissions. But I’ll settle it there.

I respect the observation that documentaries have typically been fact-based and have evolved beyond that in recent years, sometimes for the worse. I cringe at the thought of documentaries resembling “reality TV,” complete with professional writers. Yet at the same time I am excited by the knowledge that documentaries are gaining access to audiences and thus are increasing in number. I’d like to think that the marketplace will force a balance, but I’m aware that the “reality TV” movement demonstrates that honesty, integrity and truth are often obstacles to commercial success. Where the documentary genre will go next, we’ll have to wait and see. But clearly it’s going there with a full head of steam. In a year in which smallish documentaries like Man On Wire, Standard Operating Procedure and Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired have been endlessly more fascinating than bigger-budget busts like Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, The Happening and Appaloosa, I’m happy about that.

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Special thanks to Fox for taking part in this exchange. Comments for either of us are welcome below. If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and add Tractor Facts to your list of daily blog visits. You won’t be disappointed.

Marathoning Through Movies

Yesterday morning, just before 8 am, I stood packed shoulder-to-shoulder with nearly 30,000 others. Some of us laughed. Some cheered. Some made idle conversation. Some twitched nervously. It was like the moment in Gladiator just before Maximus and his fellow rookie fighters enter the arena for the first time: for all those wearing looks of stone-cold determination, there were others just trying to keep from peeing themselves.

This was the start of the Marine Corps Marathon, the 33rd running of the race that begins near Arlington Cemetery in Virginia and snakes through Georgetown and the National Mall in Washington, DC, before ending back in Virginia at the Marine Corps Memorial (often mistakenly called the Iwo Jima Memorial). I was about to run 26.2 miles – for the first time in my life. An on-and-off recreational runner the past four years, I’d spent the past 18 weeks following a regimented running plan designed to have me ready to go the distance on race day. Now it was time to test myself.

I was excited and nervous. The longest single run in my training was 22 miles. The last 4.2 would be uncharted territory. I knew I could and (barring injury) would finish, but how well? How fast? How strong? Throughout training, I imagined that finishing a marathon would provide me with a crazed thrill of success akin to that exhibited by Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence when finally storming Akaba after days suffering across the “sun’s anvil” in Lawrence Of Arabia. But did it? What follows is my marathon experience through movies …

Starting Line: Runners are packed on a highway according to time of expected finish. My main goal is to run the marathon in under 3:45, but I’m shooting to run it in just under 3:30 – roughly an 8-minute mile average. That puts me in the first third of the competitors. Behind me, the phalanx of runners stretches as far as the eye can see. I’d say the crowd resembles shots from recent battle epics like Alexander or Kingdom Of Heaven, but the key difference is that we’re all real. No special effects here. Alas, no stunt doubles either.

Mile 1: Climbing through Rosslyn, the course takes us near the parking garage where the real Bob Woodward had secret night meetings with Deep Throat. The proximity is enough to make any relatively sane movie fan ask: “Why am I doing this instead of sitting at home and watching All The President’s Men?” It’s a question that has no good answer.

Miles 2-3: These pass with the blur of an action sequence in one of the Paul Greengrass-directed Jason Bourne movies. Approaching the fourth mile, I’m not quite sure what has happened or how it’s happened. I only know I’m here.

Mile 4: For me, this is the 2001: A Space Odyssey checkpoint: Thus far there’s been primitive grunting, and 30 minutes have gone by, but in the grand scheme of things we’re just getting started.

Mile 5: I cross into Washington, DC, via Key Bridge, which is shrouded in a misty fog that reminds me of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo tiptoes out of the Millennium Falcon to explore what turns out to be the innards of a giant space slug. It hits me that when Han was done doing that, he got to make out with Princess Leia. When I’m done with the fifth mile, I get to run 21.2 more. Advantage: Han.

Mile 7: The mist remains thick over a tree-lined street during an uphill climb toward the sun. Ahead of me, I see nothing but the silhouettes of runners bobbing and swaying in eerie beauty against the morning glow. If Terrence Malick and The New World cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki teamed up to make a running film, they’d be all over this shot. I take a mental picture to savor it.

Mile 9: Looping back into Georgetown, below the campus of the university, we’re not far from multiple shooting locations for The Exorcist. With only about 70 minutes invested on the course, I’m feeling great. But I wonder: Will hitting the inevitable wall feel like taking a Father Karras header down the stairs? Will there be Regan-esque projectile vomiting at some point? Will cramping cause me to have to spider-walk toward the finish line? We’ll see.

Mile 13: If you started watching Titanic when I crossed the starting line, you just saw the ship crash into the iceberg. The movie is just over halfway through. In terms of mileage, I’m not quite to the race’s midpoint yet. Wow.

Mile 18: Have you ever tried to drink from a paper cup while running? It’s an art form, and I’m only mildly proficient at it. Some runners elect to walk through the water stations, but I like to keep moving, for fear that if I stop I won’t be able to start again. Until the water station at the 17.5-mile mark, I’ve consumed fluids flawlessly. This time, though, with fatigue setting in, I get stuck between a breath and a gulp and have water go down the wrong pipe. It occurs to me that this has to be how Walter Donovan felt when he chose poorly and drank out of the wrong chalice at the end of Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. Thankfully, my face doesn’t wither into sand.

Mile 19: I’m more than 2 minutes under my dream goal pace of 3:30, but I’m starting to get fatigued. I’ve been running for about 2.5 hours, which is kind of sadistic. And, keep in mind, I’ve paid to do this! Still, give me the choice between running 18 miles or watching Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and I’ll take the 18-mile run any day. Priorities reassessed, I push onward.

Mile 20: In terms of effort, experienced runners say that the 20-mile mark is the halfway point. In a nutshell, the human body is built to run up to that distance. After that, you’re in survival mode. Fittingly, as I battle into my 21st mile, Titanic-watchers are seeing the stern of the ship bobbing like a cork. It’s about to go under. Am I?

Miles 21-22: The race starts to resemble Groundhog Day. A mile ago, it felt like things were heading toward a conclusion. Now, it’s as if it will never end. Mile after painful mile. Not aiding my enthusiasm is a woman near the 22-mile mark who, having obviously never run a marathon, yells out the dreaded, “You’re almost there!” I glare at her like Bill Murray’s Phil Conners sizing up Stephen Tobolowsky’s Ned Ryerson.

Mile 23: Approaching and pushing through the 23rd mile, it’s all pain and no pleasure. Round about the time I reach the 23.5-mile mark, Titanic is over and I’m wishing the race was, too. The only thing more ghastly than the thought of the upcoming miles is the thought of ever watching The Happening again. Along the course, a band plays the “Gonna Fly Now” theme from Rocky. At this point my stride has less in common with Rocky’s famous race up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, and more closely resembles his awkward ice skating with Adrian.

Mile 24: I have my Austin Powers moment. For a good 18 miles everything was groovy, baby. But not long after that I lost my mojo. And right about now I feel like I’m carrying Fat Bastard on my back. With 2 miles left, I’m still on 3:30 pace, but I’m fading fast. It occurs to me that my initial vision for the conclusion of the race was at least half right. To reach Akaba, I’m going to have to suffer through the sun’s anvil. But I’ve got no energy for a triumphant charge. I’m on damage control.

Mile 26: Want to know the difference between how a marathoner feels in the first mile of a race vs. the last? For the first, think of Charlize Theron stretched out in all her naked beauty in The Cider House Rules. Then think of Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuoronos in Monster. Got it? I’m pretty sure I resemble the latter. I’m slower than The Postman. I’m as tired as Robin Williams. And my attempt to reach the starting line in 3:30 is now as hopeless as George Lucas. But I’m at peace with that. With 2 miles to go I had a coin-flip’s chance at reaching my ultimate time goal, and I lost. Oh well. The final miles of a marathon are as ruthless as Anton Chigurh. No shame there.

Finish Line: Fighting for every inch, I end the race in 3:35.11. The feeling of crossing the finish line offers none of the glory of storming Akaba. Instead, it’s closer to Andy Dufresne’s crawl-through-a-sewage-pipe prison-break in The Shawshank Redemption. I’m elated, proud and glad that it’s over, yet I’m immediately distracted by the stench of those final shitty miles. The good news is that the shit quickly washes off. The achievement is forever.

It was all worth it. Fade out.

Bad Movies: To Quit, or Not to Quit?

“How long should you sit through a bad movie?” That’s the way Friend of The Cooler Mark titled his e-mail last weekend when he forwarded a link to Roger Ebert’s blog post called “Don’t read me first!” In the post, Ebert defends his review of Tru Loved, a small independent film he’d blasted in a 735-word review despite watching less than 9 minutes of the movie. That Ebert admitted as much in the original review was the basis for his defense of his 1-star review. That Ebert was literally less than upfront about his early exit (he didn’t reveal prematurely quitting the movie until the last full paragraph) is what drew criticism – first from an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, and then from his blog readership, which has logged in with more than 500 comments on the issue.

As Mark predicted, I’d already seen Ebert’s blog piece (and thus also Ebert’s original review of Tru Loved). However, I hadn’t seen Ebert’s entry in the light in which it was now forwarded to my attention. Until then, I was caught up on the journalistic ethics of it all: Was Ebert’s review fair? (Sort of, I had decided. Ebert had been honest, if not perfectly explicit, in noting the amount of the film he viewed. And I suspect his written reactions to those 8 minutes were nothing short of sincere. But Ebert hadn’t practiced good journalism. His reaction to Tru Loved produced a story but not the story. Like all too many active journalists, Ebert had opted for sensationalism over good old-fashioned reportage.) This pondering of Ebert’s critical approach was absolutely appropriate. All the while, though, a more basic and yet equally worthy debate was right in front of me, and I was blind to it. Indeed: how long should you sit through a bad movie?

It’s a question that’s relevant on two levels: (1) as it applies to the critic (professional or unpaid), and (2) as it applies to the average moviegoer just out for a good time. For the critic, tradition and general respect would suggest sitting through the entire picture. But is it absolutely essential to see every minute of a film in order to pass judgment on it? In response to condemnation from his blog readership, Ebert reversed course and gave Tru Loved a full viewing. That inspired a longer (1,808 words), more detailed review that’s barely more praiseworthy than the first one. As a report for consumers trying to determine whether to see all or none of Tru Loved, Ebert’s second review is more valuable. But as a criticism of art, does the second review have any greater value than the first? Given that in his original review Ebert revealed the portion of the movie he was evaluating, I would say no – the same way that an appreciation or condemnation of a specific scene in a film is no less relevant than a critique of the entire body of the film.

But what about the average moviegoer? Does he or she owe a film a complete viewing? I would struggle to argue yes, because it’s the consumer’s time and money being invested. When I go to an art museum, I’m far more likely to spend time lingering in front of paintings than in front of sculptures, as I simply prefer one medium to the other. If I’m free to speed through the sculptures, or bypass them altogether, why shouldn’t a moviegoer be able to bail early on a film that’s failing to entertain or inspire? Then again, a movie is designed to be appreciated in its entirety. If you’ve only seen half of a movie, have you really seen it?

Ever since I started writing about movies (on and off) more than 10 years ago, I have made it a policy never to walk out of a theatrical screening. I’ve broken the rule twice, most recently with Friend of The Cooler Hokahey at Rules Of Attraction. In both cases the early exits had as much to do with wanting to make better use of precious time with a friend as it did with my dissatisfaction with the film itself. When I really think about it, I could probably stand to walk out early on a few films each year. But, like quitting midway through a workout, there’s a real danger that it becomes an awful habit. In what so far has been a disappointing year at the movies, I would have been more than happy to quit on as many as 10 films. But I stuck with them, and I’m glad I did. (At least, I think I’m glad.) In many cases – Appaloosa, most recently – I saw a film’s greatest moments only because I was willing to keep my butt in the seat. Such late windfalls rarely redeem an entire movie, but sometimes they do. And, in the meantime, they remind me of why I showed up at the cinema in the first place.

For all movie lovers, I think, movie-going is like an endless cycle of blind dates. Each time we show up at the theater hoping that this is The One – the movie that will sweep us off our feet like none has before. Odds are that it won’t happen. But we keep coming back, living for the possibility and enjoying those precious yet fleeting moments of magic in between. Many a love story – in real life and on screen – would never come to fruition if we stuck to first impressions. Some romances take time. Sometimes our initial instincts are all wrong.

But now I ask you, Cooler readers: When is the last time you quit on a movie? Do you regret it? If not, how would you react if a friend told you that he/she quit early on a movie near and dear to your heart? Would you feel the movie had been given an adequate chance?

The Truth Hurts: Body Of Lies

One of the trickledown effects of the unrestrained militaristic action films of the 1980s – the stuff of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris – was a lasting sense that the seriousness of a movie decreases as the number of onscreen kills and explosions increases. Often that’s the case. Of course, the byproduct of that tenet is the sense that the opposite must be true – that the less the action in a militarily-minded movie the more highbrow the content. Based on that latter rule of thumb, many are likely to tout Ridley Scott’s Body Of Lies as a highly intellectual affair. But it isn’t. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe as ideologically opposed anti-terrorism agents with the CIA, the film repeatedly demonstrates its intent to talk first and shoot later, yet its conversations are empty. Body Of Lies has the manner of cerebral cinema but not the ideas.

Of the film’s many failures, the biggest is that it’s a bore. William Monahan’s screenplay, based on a novel by David Ignatius, is packed with clichés, contradictions, dead ends and unrewarding convolution. Over and again, Body Of Lies makes the sort of the all-too-routine errors we would otherwise be happy to ignore if only there were something interesting to distract us. But there isn’t. In DiCaprio and Crowe, the movie possesses two of the most capable actors working today, each of them able to carry a film with the presence of a star and the conviction of a character actor. But both are wasted here. Playing one-dimensional roles, they act accordingly. Consequently their performances feel mailed-in. Er, phoned-in, I should say. After all, DiCaprio and Crowe spend most of the movie yapping on their cell phones – just one of the many elements that left me annoyed.

Here are some others (spoilers ahead) …

* As Body Of Lies opens, Crowe’s Ed Hoffman delivers a primer on the state of Middle Eastern terrorism, explaining how the terrorists have confounded their technologically superior foes by going “old school.” How do you avoid computer and cell phone surveillance? Simple: by not using computers and cell phones – relying instead on hand-passed notes and face-to-face communication. Makes sense. What doesn’t make sense then is why a terrorist-camp raid by DiCaprio’s Roger Ferris inspires a hurried effort by the bad guys to destroy CDs and computers. And what also doesn’t make sense then is why, later, Ferris cooks up a scheme that assumes e-mail and the Internet are primary tools of terrorist communication. If indeed the terrorists have gone old-school, as Hoffman proclaims, they don’t appear to know it.

* Speaking of technology: As I watched Body Of Lies, I found myself thinking of Roger Ebert, who likes to take the whoopin’ stick to films that attempt to pass off furious typing as exhilarating action. (For example: In Ebert’s review of Deception, which he calls “jam-packed with all the thrills of watching that little progress bar grow and grow until it fills the allotted space in the pop-up box on your computer screen,” he begins: “What can compare to the white-knuckle suspense of uploading a file?”) There’s plenty of that here. And what’s worse is that the protagonist is rarely at the keyboard. Though there is a scene in which Ferris is nearly caught using someone else’s laptop, more often than not he simply assumes the part of tech support and barks orders over his cell phone to an assistant at the controls (“Okay, now I want you to use the fake e-mail address to send the following message …”). That isn’t action. It’s lazy plot exposition.

* And then there’s this: The guy Ferris plays Geek Squad for is supposed to be a computer expert in his own right. Which begs the question: If the tech whiz can’t make a single mouse click without instructions from Ferris, why is he there? The character is pointless. Of course, I guess I should be thankful that the computer geek isn’t some cinematic cliché – the only guy wearing sweatpants in a room full of the nattily clad, or something like that. Nah, in Body Of Lies the computer geek is a recluse living in a wilderness hideaway with a pet parrot and a collection of computer monitors. You’ve never seen anything like that before, have you?

* You have? Oh. Then this, I assure you, is a cinematic first: In one scene, a terrorist picks up an “old school” printed message with directions for a car bombing. The message, presumably written for just one person, is printed in Arabic … and in English. Huh? At first that wouldn’t seem to make sense. After further thought, though, I realized it’s a subtle clue that the bomber is planning a trip to America. The note is more than a bombing directive. It’s also an English-language flashcard! Brilliant! Because it couldn’t be brainless filmmaking, could it?

* Which reminds me: When will filmmakers learn that ‘more cuts’ doesn’t mean ‘more interesting’? Body Of Lies features two car chases so chaotic that they make the action in The Dark Knight feel straightforward. Meanwhile, when it comes time for a character to have his fingers broken with a hammer, we are treated to two unflinching close-ups. You’d think it would be the other way around.

* On the subject of things that are as obvious as a blow from a hammer: When Golshifteh Farahani hits the screen there’s no doubt – none – that her Aisha, one of only two female characters in the entire film, will form a romance with DiCaprio’s Ferris. Likewise, there’s no doubt that at some point Aisha’s life will be in danger due to the relationship. Even more, there’s no doubt that the heroic Ferris will do a number of stupid things to try and save her. All of this we know immediately, because this happens in movies all the time. Fine. But, then again, not fine. Because for a guy who would rather be gunned down by a friend than be taken alive by terrorists, Ferris’ willingness to destroy his entire operation for a young woman he barely knows isn’t a sign of gallantry. It’s the sign of a one-dimensional character losing his only dimension. And what are we left with then?

* Which brings us here: The most unforgivable mistake of Body Of Lies is that its two main characters are as complex as pancake batter. Monahan pours them into the story without shape, detail or depth. In his screenplay for The Departed, Monahan demonstrated an ability to expose the psyche of his characters through action as much as dialogue, but none of that is on display here. At the end of the movie, after two hours playing “Can you hear me now?” on their cell phones, Ferris and Hoffman are no better defined than they were 10 minutes in.

The sure sign Body Of Lies gets it wrong? Despite constant attempts to wow the audience with check-this-out high-tech gadgetry – specifically go-anywhere bird’s-eye-view video surveillance that has the clarity of Blu-ray – Scott’s film had me yearning for a comparatively old-school tech woe: the dropped call. Anything to make it shut up.

Big Payne, Big Gain

More substantial posting later this week. But first, props to Mark Wahlberg, who was a double winner this weekend. Against all odds (or so I thought), his Max Payne was tops at the box office this weekend (take that, Oliver Stone). And even more surprising, Wahlberg showed he has a sense of humor.

Just last week, he ripped both Saturday Night Live as a whole and Andy Samberg’s impersonation of him in the skit “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals.” This week? Well, see for yourself …

What’s the Other Word for Donkey?

For the first time in years, NBC’s Saturday Night Live has become must-see entertainment again – its first 5 minutes, at least – thanks entirely to a winking, media-dissing governor from Alaska. But Tina Fey’s dead-on Sarah Palin isn’t the only impersonation worth noting. On the October 4 show, Andy Samberg provided a surprisingly accurate (if goofy) impression of Mark Wahlberg. At least, I think so.

Wahlberg? Not so much. In a recent Q&A with the New York Post, Wahlberg made it clear that the offbeat sketch titled “Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals” didn’t give him good vibrations.

“It wasn't like Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, that's for sure,” Wahlberg says. “And Saturday Night Live hasn't been funny for a long time. They've asked me to do the show a ton of times. I used to watch it when Eddie Murphy was there and Joe Piscopo and Bill Murray. I don't even know who's on the show now.”

That’s quite a putdown from a guy trying to generate excitement for Max Payne, which apparently isn’t being screened for critics (never a good sign). Oh, and what was that movie Wahlberg was in over the summer? The Happening? I wonder if I can remember how that went …

Anyway, you be the judge. Watch the SNL clip. If you need a Wahlberg refresher, the trailer for The Happening is provided, too. And after that, there’s a brief clip in which Wahlberg reveals that he apparently hasn’t seen a scary movie since The Exorcist.

Enjoy! Wahlberg is right that Samberg’s impression doesn’t match Fey’s. But it’s pretty darn good. And the dialogue is as smart as anything M Night Shyamalan has written in a while. Seriously.

Holy War: Religulous

And on the eighth day, God said: “Pull my finger.” That isn’t a joke from Bill Maher’s Religulous, but it might as well be. Helmed by Larry Charles, the director of Borat, and starring Maher, Religulous is a documentary in the Michael Moore style in which religion is in the crosshairs and condescending jokes are the ammunition. Maher, standing front and center, takes us on an offbeat tour of several major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, etc), a few minor ones (a marijuana-using sect in Amsterdam) and those in between (Scientology). Maher interviews people at the Vatican, near the ruins of Megiddo, at a religious theme park in Florida and at other places across the globe. No matter which religion is being discussed or who it’s being discussed with, the conversation remains the same. Though Maher’s explicit arguments change on a case by case basis, the implicit theme goes something like this: “If you believe that, I’ve got some land near Chernobyl to sell you.”

The point of Religulous, Maher says, is to create a case for doubt. Maher notes, seemingly sincerely, that he just doesn’t know whether any of the world’s religions have it right or if there is a God at all. Thus he doesn’t subscribe to any religion, but he is careful to point out that he isn’t an atheist. To absolutely not believe in God would, in Maher’s view, cause him to commit the very sin of certainty that confounds him about believers. The trouble is, for a guy turned off by a made-up mind, Maher is so devout in his doubt that it might actually take a talking snake or a few days living inside the belly of a fish for him to see the light. After all, this is a man who calls religion “detrimental to the progress of humanity.” You’d have an easier time building an ark than finding doubt in that statement.

But if you think Maher’s imperfections as a listener render Religulous unworthy of your attention, think again. Maher himself doesn’t always play fair (his ideological battles in this film often pit him, a heavyweight debater, against novice lightweights), but as a whole his documentary gives voice to a shockingly silent though significant minority. According to a statistic cited by Maher, 16 percent of Americans are admitted non-believers. But while Bill O’Reilly throws regular fits about a mounting “attack on Christianity” taking place in the U.S., the fact remains that remarks disparaging any religion other than Islamic extremism are considered taboo. That’s unfortunate. If you believe that society is improved by a free market of ideas, Maher’s anti-God bullhorning isn’t just acceptable, it’s long overdue.

Of course, Religulous won’t be embraced by everyone. Many will be offended, by Maher’s smugness if nothing else. But is Religulous truly offensive? If you find yourself leaning toward yes, you might ask yourself why. All Maher does with this film is repeatedly call attention to the curiosities, let’s call them, of many religious faiths. Shouldn’t something as significant as a belief in God be able to stand up to such cross-examination? Why is it that something so profound all too often goes unchallenged? There are a few instances in Religulous when people walk out on Maher rather than stand up to his questioning. “I didn’t know you were making that kind of film,” they say. Translation: “I’m here to agree with you, but don’t you dare raise doubts.” Seems to me that though we tell ourselves we don’t discuss religion in public because faith is a private matter, perhaps the real reason we avoid the subject is because it keeps us from being asked questions for which we don’t have answers.

In case it matters, full disclosure: From as early as I can remember until I left home for college, I went to church every Sunday. I even went to a Catholic high school, though that was more for the benefits of a private school education than any desire (parental or personal) for religious influence. Looking back over my life, I can think of numerous positive encounters with representatives of the Church and not a single negative one. But I am no longer a practicing Catholic. The sticking point, if there was just one, came down to the Church’s cowardly, just-barely-tolerant treatment of homosexuals (revealed through a number of equal-rights measures going through my home state of Oregon in the early 90s). I failed to see how the Catholic Church’s stance was remotely in line with the spirit of Jesus Christ’s teachings, and that quashed any desire for affiliation. As of today, I haven’t altogether eliminated the idea of God, but I can’t say I believe in Him. I love the idea of an afterlife, but I’ve seen no evidence of one firsthand, and so I don’t believe in that either. I hope I’m wrong on both counts.

In the meantime, yes, I find it either arrogant or naïve to think that any of us has a clue who God is or what His intentions are. Maher doesn’t need to sell doubt to me. I already have it. On that note, if Religulous is meant to be a vehicle to spark a non-belief movement, I’m not sure it succeeds. The movie is peppered with observations that should give any thinking believer a pause, but these erudite points are lost amidst others that are flimsy and sophomoric. Time and again, Maher genuflects to comedy before honest conversation, and in doing so he is likely to repulse the very people he hopes to convert. In Maher’s ideal scenario, the gag-filled antics of Religulous make it the meat surrounding the bitter pill that is Maher’s truth. But, more likely, the dog in this scenario is Maher. He spends so much of Religulous wearing a grin of self-congratulations that he might as well be licking himself.

To be fair: America probably isn’t ready for the PowerPoint lecture in favor of doubt, ala Al Gore’s global warming wake-up call An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps this was the only approach available to Maher if he hoped to reach a mainstream audience. But by that design, Religulous isn’t as funny as it should be or even all that bold. There are a few terrific gags (a Brokeback Mountain music cue, for one), but most of them are cheap or predictable. As it turns out, Maher’s smartest joke, borrowed from an old stand-up routine, doubles as his most cogent argument for doubt: First he lists some of the beliefs of Scientology, and then, after those get a laugh, he compares them to some of the beliefs of Christianity. The point? Most religions seem so wacky to outsiders that it’s hard to believe insiders have taken an honest look at themselves. It’s a gotcha moment for the audience, and it’s hard to avoid the trap.

At my Catholic high school I came in contact with various religious figures who encouraged me to challenge my faith. I doubt that most are so fortunate. Religulous attempts to take the fight to those who think their religion is above scrutiny. Believers shouldn’t ignore Maher or dismiss him as a bigot. They should welcome the challenge. Because if you have true faith, what is there to fear? Regardless, so as long as “In God We Trust” is printed on our currency and Presidents take their oath on the Bible and school kids pledge allegiance to the flag “under God” (terminology added in the 1950s, remember), religion doesn’t get a free pass. My personal wish would be for all those who rushed to see The Passion to put forth equal effort to see Religulous. It’s only fair. Besides, in the end Maher and Believers share a fundamental view: If Christianity or Judaism or Islam or any of the world’s religions are accurately advancing The Word of The God, well, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

Tale of Two Sundances: Appaloosa

At the end of Appaloosa, a lone cowboy rides off into the sun-tinged horizon of New Mexico circa 1882. In doing so, he is following a trail blazed by so many before him – the ride into the sunset being as much a staple of the Western movie as the cowboy and the horse – but he is heading nowhere in particular and he is in no particular hurry to get there. This much we know, not just because the metaphorical device is as self-evident as a fist-fight in a saloon or a duel on a dusty main drag, but also because, against all reason, the cowboy comes right out and says so. The clunky explanation is delivered in a bit of bow-tying voice-over that is as unnecessary as it is indicative of the film entire. Appaloosa, a Western heading nowhere in particular and in no particular hurry to get there, is a model of screenwriting mediocrity.

The film is based on a novel by Robert B Parker. Screenwriting duties were handled by Ed Harris, who also stars and directs, and Robert Knott. Neither Harris nor Knott has a previous screenwriting credit, and their lack of experience shows. Intending, I think, to be an examination of a pair of tight-lipped lawmen-for-hire, Appaloosa is instead just tight-lipped. Expressionless. If you recognize where the film aims to go, you can perhaps make some allowances and help it along. But the hard truth is that Appaloosa moves with all the purpose of a stray cut off from the herd. It doesn’t take us anywhere. It merely takes up time.

It’s a shame, because as lethargic as the film is, Harris’ passion for it is unmistakable. Working with cinematographer Dean Semler, whose Western credits include Young Guns, Dances With Wolves, The Alamo and even City Slickers, Harris frames his shots with the care of someone in love with the genre. Appaloosa lacks the opulence of The Assassination of Jesse James, which Roger Deakins approached with Malickian flare, but it gives us a handful of iconic two-shots of the contemplative cowboy leads Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), plus a seduction amidst a dust storm that’s so visually romantic that it feels as if it comes from Gone With The Wind. In these moments, Appaloosa is at least nice to look at. But because Harris and Knott fail to find the pulse of their story, that’s all that it is.

Appaloosa’s chief sin is that it is almost entirely without dramatic tension. It opens by announcing the villain, Jeremy Irons’ Randall Bragg, a wealthy rancher living just outside of town who shoots the local marshal rather than let two of his ranch hands get taken away to jail. Enter Virgil and Everett, gun-toting friends who roam the Southwest looking for little towns in need of peacekeepers. Tired of Bragg’s band of mischief-makers, Appaloosa’s three suits, who often appear to be the town’s only citizens, immediately enlist Virgil and Everett’s services. But if you figure this sets up Appaloosa to be a gritty battle between the lawmen and the lawless, you figure wrong. It’s just about this time that a train comes into town bringing with it the fine fashions and empty purse of Renee Zellweger’s Allison French. And immediately, Appaloosa takes on a new identity.

From here, Appaloosa is a love story, or perhaps a collection of them. Whatever it is, it’s poorly executed. Sitting in one chair we have Virgil, admittedly uncomfortable with even the concept of emotion, finding himself stirred by this newcomer. In another chair is Everett, equally quiet but obviously attracted, and yet bound first to Virgil. And last there’s Allison, who we grow to learn has an eye for everyone and is willing to take on all comers (pun intended). Her appeal, beyond being female, is never made clear. She has no money, no skills beyond the piano and, worst, no real personality. Without many lines to speak, Zellweger spares us a return to her hammy antics of Cold Mountain, but her performance is ghastly nonetheless, a collection of smiles, grins and beams. Allison is fool’s gold, but that doesn’t keep the character from being the underlying motivation of almost every scene following her introduction.

The other characters aren’t any more interesting. Villains usually make for ripe roles in Westerns, but Bragg is more bark than bite, and beyond that he’s a bore, thus continuing Irons’ recent streak of unmemorable bad guys. Meanwhile, Mortensen is given just one good scene as Everett, and it comes all too late to make an impact. For the most part, Everett is little more than Virgil’s mustachioed shadow, and the soulful Mortensen is routinely upstaged by the 8-gauge shotgun he carries. Then there’s Virgil, clad in black as if to highlight his lack of transparency. For Appaloosa to succeed, it needed to be driven by the perversity of Virgil’s twisted ethics and urges, but Virgil’s character seems made up of screenwriting concepts rather than actual emotions. Harris the writer fails Harris the actor, leaving Virgil looking more empty than distant. Frequently, shots of Virgil and Everett that are meant to suggest depth or poignancy merely evoke aimlessness.

To Harris’ credit, the gunplay in Appaloosa is thrillingly quick and vicious. Trouble is, that’s exactly the wrong kind of gunplay for a film that rarely feels worthy of our attention. As a frequent critic of the drawn-out “action” sequences that typify most adventures these days, I will have to dodge lightning bolts as I write this, but Appaloosa needed at least one free-for-all in which the shots pop like fireworks and the supply of ammunition is bottomless. This wasn’t the time to go for realistic minimalism. To imagine this film done right is to think of something closer to Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid – another Western with two men in love with the same woman and yet more in love with one another. “Who are those guys?” is the famous refrain from that film. I might ask the same question about Virgil and Everett. After almost two hours, I still didn’t know. Or maybe I was never made to care.

Announcing the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon!

[Nov 4 Update: The Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon has commenced here.]

The 2008 race for the White House has gone on so long that even Barack Obama is starting to look old. And, sure, the whole drawn-out affair has recently gotten a bit more interesting, thanks to a certain hockey mom from Alaska who is so intent on staring down the Russians every morning that she apparently can’t remember the name of the newspaper that’s spread out next to her bowl of cornflakes. But, like it or not, in just over a month the spectacle will end.

Come Election Day – er, maybe a few days after – some of us will be celebrating and some of us will be sobbing. But, assuming we’ve been keeping up with the coverage, all of us will find ourselves with a little extra free time and a pang of regret that the whole blessed affair ended so quickly (just go with me on this). So on that note, in the spirit of keeping the rash of political mania burning just a little longer, or if only to provide a welcome diversion from the election’s outcome, The Cooler is pleased to announce the Politics & Movies Blog-a-thon, taking place right here November 4-9.

Bloggers: Consider this your invitation.

The parameters are these: Your post must deal with politics and movies. Simple as that. If that means you write an appreciation of a political-themed drama like The Candidate, perfect! If that means you analyze a documentary like No End In Sight, that’s great, too. If instead you want to dive into the deeper political themes of a blockbuster like The Dark Knight, be my guest. Politics and movies are the essential ingredients. Go forth and be creative.

Per usual, post your contribution on your blog and send me the link via e-mail or the comments section the week of the blog-a-thon. If you don’t have a blog and would like to contribute, e-mail me your contribution and I’ll post it here at The Cooler.

In the meantime, if you would be so kind, help spread the word.

See you on Election Day!