A Filmmaker Drowning: Lady In The Water

[Just a few days away from M Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, The Cooler offers a review of the filmmaker’s previous effort, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

A day after it had opened nationwide, and with more than an hour of the 110-minute movie remaining, the entire audience watching Lady In The Water at a well-attended Saturday afternoon showing in Washington, D.C., got up and walked out of the theater in unison, me among them. We were, I think it’s safe to say, disgusted. Some of us, I guess, because a pleasurable movie-going experience had been interrupted by a fire alarm that forced the evacuation of the entire multiplex. But most of us – at least me – because a second trip to the cinema would be required to finish a film that’s hardly worth watching in the first place.

The fifth original creation from writer/director M Night Shyamalan, Lady In The Water is an utter disaster, a truly awful film by any standards, but especially by his. It is a movie without grace, intrigue or common sense. It is poorly realized and shoddily written. Shocking me like he never has before, the imaginative Shyamalan, who since 1999’s watershed The Sixth Sense has dazzled audiences with intricate surprise endings, has managed to make a movie so muddled that it feels unplanned, as if the director made it up as he went along.

That might not be far from the truth. According to reports, Lady In The Water is inspired by a bedtime story that Shyamalan created for his daughters. It tells the tale of Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), who as the manager of an apartment complex called The Cove discovers a sea nymph living in the swimming pool. Her name is Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), and her ashen skin and matted golden locks make her look like the missing link between Daryl Hannah’s mermaid in Splash and Samara from The Ring. She is naked, as sea nymphs tend to be, but dons one of Cleveland’s “beautiful” button-up shirts after dragging the stuttering building manager back to his poolside bungalow when a fall renders him unconscious.

Needless to say, we don’t actually see the dragging episode. This is a PG-13 film; besides, the sight of an unclothed Howard struggling to tow a portly Giamatti across a pool deck would certainly fit the Seinfeldian definition of “bad naked.” Still, in Lady In The Water we see too much. Chiefly, we witness a filmmaker running out of ideas. As Cleveland looks to solve the mystery that is Story, Shyamalan seems to be scrambling for answers. He decides to hide them in an old Asian woman who grew up hearing a bedtime story about sea nymphs, which in this case are called narfs. It’s key that the old woman is apparently the only non-English speaker at The Cove, because the language barrier forces Cleveland to spend the whole movie learning what I’m about to tell you in a few sentences.

Story, like all narfs, is from the Blue World. She has risen from the depths to make contact with a specific someone who will get a “pins and needles” feeling inspiring him to change the course of his life and, with it, that of humankind. But Story has a limited window to do this. She’s being hunted by a wolf-like creature with grassy fur and red eyes called a scrunt, and she’s not getting much help from the peacekeeping monkey-like creatures called tartutics. To get back to the Blue World, Story has to be safely away from the scrunt so that she can be picked up by a giant eagle-like creature called an, um, eagle. She also has to be mostly alone, but she can be assisted by human guardians empowered to help her.

Of course, the humans meant to assist Story don’t know that they’re so empowered, and Story doesn’t know who they are. Or, if she does, strict Blue World rules don’t allow her to say so, which is odd considering Story’s penchant for telling people their futures. Get someone alone, and Story is like a drunken palm-reader. Or maybe drugged is a better word. Sedated. Howard plays Story with the same empty stare she used as the blind Ivy Walker in Shyamalan’s previous movie, The Village, only without the enrapturing verve. Story is so lacking in personality that she’s virtually comatose. She speaks in monotone as if possessed. And if she’d had the misfortune of popping up in a Georgetown pool, folks wouldn’t be looking for a giant eagle, they’d be gathering for an exorcism.

Which might not be a bad idea for Shyamalan, because this film makes you wonder what’s happened to him. Like his surprise endings or not, Shyamalan has always been positively Spielbergian in his ability to blend reality and make-believe. Yet somehow the film in which he dives deepest into fantasy is the one most deficient of magic. Lady In The Water deals in Shyamalan’s usual themes of fate and the extraordinary abilities of ordinary people, but the thrill is gone. Nowhere is there a scene even approaching the wondrousness of the weight-lifting sequence from Unbreakable, for example, where Bruce Willis’ David Dunn so memorably tests his limits.

Beyond Giamatti’s brave and impassioned performance amidst a doomed voyage, there’s nothing memorable here. But there’s plenty to forget. Like the way Cleveland is forced to go about his investigation into Story entirely illogically to serve Shyamalan’s tenuous plot exposition. With the cranky Asian woman, Cleveland is initially all too pleased to let translation inconveniences keep him from interrogating The Cove’s only resident narf expert. Meanwhile, with Story, Cleveland makes inquiries that would be totally inane if they weren’t completely divine, like following up Story’s revelation that she’s there to meet a writer by asking, “Is he writing something important?” Or returning from Story’s underwater lair and wondering if the cracks in the walls are there by design, to allow the room to collapse.

In that last case, Shyamalan is on damage control, hoping to repair loopholes that naysayers will all too eagerly try to identify. No film deserves such scrutiny, but it’s sad to see that Shyamalan has lost his nerve. Fantasies needn’t bend to earthly laws. They must only remain faithful to their own rules. Lady In The Water spends its entirety trying to draft its constitution and establish its boundaries, but the world created here is constantly under construction. Built on a foundation of mud, it isn’t Story’s lair that collapses on itself, it’s Shyamalan’s film.

Chic Flick: Sex And The City

I am a smoking hot female who goes to Star Trek conventions. I am a black guy who quotes Seinfeld. I am a nun who has all of Eli Roth’s torture-porn flicks on DVD and watches them, you guessed it, religiously. Or I might as well be. Because I, Jason Bellamy, am a straight guy who likes Sex And The City, and – according to some reviews and recent blog chatter – that makes me as unusual as a photo of Matthew McConaughey with his shirt on.

I find this strange. After all, Sex the movie is based on a TV series that thrived for six seasons on HBO and now can be caught in (significantly edited) syndication on TBS. Yes, the show’s audience initially was limited to those with expanded cable, but with an evening air-time its potential viewership was far more diverse than that of a daytime soap, normally the domain of the stay-at-home mom. Men had ample opportunity to become fans of the show, and presumably some of us did. Why wouldn’t we? Here was a show about four attractive females who were often obsessed with sex and talked about it frequently and frankly. Sex was like the aforementioned Seinfeld, except from an R-rated and female perspective, with some nudity thrown in for good measure. What was not to like?

Admittedly, I’m speaking from marginal experience. As one of those without HBO, my exposure to the show during its 1998-2004 run was limited to a few peeks here and there – maybe seeing two episodes start-to-finish in hotel rooms while traveling. Sacrilegious though it is, I’ve seen more of Sex in its sliced-diced-and-dubbed format on TBS, finding the show to be agreeable background accompaniment to household chores. Clearly the show never overwhelmed me to the point of becoming must-see entertainment, yet I always found it entertaining.

Apparently some, though, found the show to be a chore. Over at Scanners, Jim Emerson said he had “no objection” to the new movie, but only after offering: “sadly, nobody has enough money to pay me to go see Sex and the City.” That’s a pretty heavy statement, and it echoed Roger Ebert, who more or less disclosed that he reviewed the film only as a job requirement. In message boards and comments sections across the blogosphere, many defended Sex and were elated about the film, yet at least as many regarded the movie with a lack of fondness usually reserved for a colonoscopy.

That not everyone finds Sex to be their cup of tea is no problem for me. There’s a new Adam Sandler movie out this week and, no, I won’t be seeing it. We all have our own tastes. In her Sex review, the Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday put it this way: “Think of the clothes, shoes and accessories simply as the movie's version of Iron Man's robot suit, Speed Racer's cars or Indiana Jones’s fedora and bullwhip. And judge not others' escapist fetishes lest ye be judged.” Indeed. But about those clothes, shoes and accessories: As much as Sex’s couture obsession may characterize the series, I’ve never found the fashion to be the brand’s dominant characteristic. That’s why Hornaday’s take is so astute. True, Indiana Jones wouldn’t be Indiana Jones without the whip, yet the whip doesn’t make the man.

Try explaining that though to the New York Post’s Lou Lumenick, who admitted that his screening of Sex enjoyed an “ecstatic” response and yet still concluded that heterosexual males will be “bored by the movie’s endless fashion montages, shameless product placements, lethally slow pacing and utterly predictable plot.” Hmm. Seems to me, those same words could apply to last year’s Transformers, but even though the target audience for that Michael Bay film was obviously young men, I don’t remember a lot of reviews pronouncing unequivocally that women would be bored. And I wonder: Could a female critic be so forward to say, as Ebert and Emerson did with Sex, “I am not the person to review this movie,” and still keep her job? I doubt it.

I’m skeptical about the last part because, as we know, movies are predominantly made by men, about men and for men. I’m not going to spend any time getting into a moral debate about that here, I’m just acknowledging the truth. And so in my mind that’s part of what makes Sex so interesting. I can’t speak with great detail about the show, but in the film the male characters are as undeveloped as the sperm they carry. Chris Noth’s coveted Mr. Big is, in the words of Ebert, “so unreal, he verges on the surreal.” Quite true. In my limited exposure to the character I’ve never understood Carrie’s fascination with him (is “Big” a reference to what I think it is?), unless it’s his insistence on wearing collared attire at all times, even to bed. Then there’s Evan Handler’s Harry, a bald bubble of cheeriness and affection. And Jason Lewis’ Smith, all smiles and sex appeal. David Eigenberg’s Steve is granted a few whiny emotions, but other than that these men are … well, like objects, props, scenery. Now, where have we seen that before?

Oh, that’s right, it happens to women in movies all the time. That’s why it’s nice to see men put in the corner for a change. Sex bashers often say that they don’t know people who dress like Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) or who are guided through life by their vagina like Samantha (Kim Cattrall). Or they criticize the characters for their self-absorption, their penchant for partying and their materialism. Fine. But I don’t remember hearing such complaints about the gangsters in Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino movies. Characters achieve genuineness based on whether they fit into their world of reality, not ours. I find myself drawn to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) because they have such a good time together, not because I admire them or their fashions (honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck a “Manolo” was until seemingly every critic felt the need to mention Carrie’s obsession with the designer shoes).

All of that said, I think Sex’s good times are better delivered in small doses. At 148 minutes, Sex the movie is overlong, particularly as an addendum to the TV series. In your average film, Carrie’s entire relationship with Big would carry out over two hours. Here, instead, we get just one unusually long chapter. Likewise, Sex struggles in the way that many TV adaptations and even TV series finales do: there’s too much pressure on its plot. Each joke seems as if it needs to be extra witty or hilarious. After six seasons of setting high expectations, it’s hard for Sex to succeed against itself.

But as someone with an arm’s-length understanding of the series, it suited me just fine. The writing is indeed obvious in places and the hilarity only minor, yet the characters win out: Carrie’s heart, Miranda’s cantankerousness, Charlotte’s wide-eyed princessness and Samantha’s lasciviousness. I would have enjoyed seeing more range and complexity from the latter two characters – the inexplicable addition of another female character to the story, Jennifer Hudson’s Louise, makes that impossible – just like I would have preferred a more profound plot, perhaps specifically dealing with the characters outgrowing their lavish lifestyles. But these are quibbles.

I never once checked my watch during Sex, and not just because I was worried I’d miss Carrie prancing around in her underwear (just for women, my ass). That’s a lot more than I can say for the latest Indiana Jones flick, which is just as superficial but with far less charm. Is Sex a cultural breakthrough? Some people, including feminists, sure hope not. But we’ve been cheering less-than-refined men for years, and I’m up for something new. Underneath it all, the best thing about Sex is that it doesn’t care whether I, the straight male, like it or not. I find that confidence sexy.

The Schlong Way Around: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I have a bone to pick with Jason Segel’s penis. Or maybe with Judd Apatow’s. I’m not quite sure which. Confident as I am in my heterosexuality and comfortable as I am with the human body, I didn’t give either dangling member detailed examination when the filmmakers’ went all Harvey Keitel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, respectively. Thus, I couldn’t identify those flaccid suspects in a lineup of cinematic criminals. (By contrast, an aside: Remember when DVD players first came out and actually touted the fuzz-free pause of DVD over VHS as a reason to upgrade? How many copies of Basic Instinct do you think that advertising strategy sold?) That said, the audaciousness of those recent genitalia exhibitions is largely to blame for what until recently was my firm resistance toward watching what turns out to be the funniest movie of the year. And that has me pissed.

Truth be told, the problem isn’t with either penis per se but with the cockeyed reactions they inspired from the entertainment media, critics included. Segel’s awkward full-frontal display in Forgetting was a topic of such considerable buzz that it became the nudity equivalent of Samuel L Jackson’s one-liners in Snakes On A Plane – notorious before the film even reached theaters. Meanwhile, few writers could discuss Segel’s Full Monty without also referencing Apatow’s twig-and-berries cameo in Walk Hard late last year. This was to some degree understandable: Apatow produced both films and had recently vowed to include a penis shot in all his future movies. Yet on the whole this penispalooza turned out to be misleading. In the rush to demonstrate Apatow’s influence, many critics spent so much time focusing on the similarities between Forgetting and other Apatow-touched films that they failed to note the significant differences – differences that allow Forgetting to succeed.

I imagine this was meant to be complimentary; for better or worse, due to genius or lack of competition, Apatow is comedy’s current golden boy. The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, which he wrote and directed, were both critical and box-office triumphs, as was Superbad, which Apatow produced. Not to mention that, yes, Segel is from the Apatow troupe (like Superbad co-writer Seth Rogan). And, yes, Forgetting, like those other films, is about a less-than-Clooneyesque-looking guy stuck in some form of arrested development who, at one point or another, tries to land himself an attractive woman. All true. But …

1) Segel’s Peter Bretter isn’t a loser. Sure, he likes to laze around his apartment in sweatpants eating Froot Loops from a large mixing bowl. Sure, his Gandalf impression indicates that he enjoyed Lord Of The Rings. Yes, as already mentioned, he doesn’t look like a candidate for People Magazine’s annual “most beautiful” list. And he cries like a girl when his heart is broken after a 5-year relationship ends in betrayal. And he isn’t smooth with the ladies. And he likes puppets. But this is the worst we can say about him. At the same time, Peter has a paying Hollywood job, plays an instrument, aspires to better things (though, yes, admittedly “better things” does include vampire puppets), is secure with his girlfriend’s public career and is willing to wear (without complaint) the goofy hats or man-purses that his girlfriend gives him as gifts.

Compare that to Steve Carell’s titular character in Virgin. Andy is sweet and well-meaning, which is why the film is endearing and why Catherine Keener’s Trish sees something in him from the very start. But Andy’s house is filled with action figures, and he’s so clueless about the opposite sex that he imagines that a breast feels like a “bag of sand.” Then there’s Rogan’s Ben from Knocked Up. Here’s a guy who prefers the company of his pink eye-infected, knuckle-dragging friends to spending time with the super-hot, super-understanding Alison (Katherine Heigl). Here’s a guy who has no job whatsoever, except to catalog nudity in movies for a planned subscription website, which means he’s both slacking and stupid: he’d rather watch naked women on TV than get frisky with the flesh-and-blood babe next to him. Andy may be a diamond in the rough, but Ben is an inconsiderate slob. I have no explanation as to why Alison, or any living creature advanced enough to be able to make tools, would want to spend time with him, which is precisely why Knocked Up doesn’t work. In relation to these Apatow creations certainly, if not also society as a whole, Peter is a catch.

2) Segel’s film is better written. Forgetting may not win any screenplay awards, and it isn’t a comedy classic to be revered by future generations, but it’s leaner and more consistent than Apatow’s latest screenplays. Virgin on the page really isn’t all that funny (save the brilliant joke about David Caruso in Jade). Instead, the film is carried by Carell’s performance, highlighted by the wordless scene in which Andy stares with astonishment at the model of a woman’s reproductive organs. Knocked Up, meanwhile, has some amusing jokes about marriage, as seen through the characters played by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd, but otherwise it’s little more than crude gross-out humor.

As far as I’m concerned, the way to evaluate a comedy is not by its best joke but by its worst ones, and with Apatow’s films it’s hard to tell one from the other. In Virgin, for example, there’s a lengthy and unnecessary “You know how I know you’re gay?” debate between Rogan’s Cal and Rudd’s David. Apatow must think it’s hilarious for all the attention he gives it, and yet each barb sounds like the unpolished material of an opening-act comedian. Take this one: “You know how I know you’re gay? You have a rainbow bumper sticker on your car that says, ‘I love it when balls are in my face.’” Quality stuff, eh? Perhaps not as witty as this observation from Knocked Up: “You look like Babe Ruth’s gay brother: Gabe Ruth.” Priceless, no? I’m not sure about you, but I like my comedies to tell better jokes than your average wasted frat boy. And don’t even get me started on Knocked Up’s tripping-on-mushrooms Vegas episode – a spectacularly stupid scene that scrapes the bottom of the comedy barrel in a pathetic attempt for cheap laughs.

By contrast, Forgetting’s worst joke is actually Peter’s much-discussed bit of full-frontal nudity at the start of the film. True, the male anatomy is a joke from God that never stops being funny, but in the end it’s just a lazy sight gag that offers nothing more than shock-value snickers (which explains why the laughter is tempered when the audience knows what to expect). On the other hand, Forgetting’s best joke isn’t a one-liner at all. It’s a character: Russell Brand’s scene-stealing Aldous Snow, the self-absorbed, sex-obsessed British rocker who screws Peter’s girl out from under him. Aldous doesn’t say funny things so much as he is a funny persona, and so in this respect Forgetting follows the format of Superbad (written by Rogan and Evan Goldberg): it creates entertaining and individualistic personalities to enjoy, rather than distributing mediocre one-liners at random amongst undeveloped joke-spewing drones (all of Andy’s friends in Virgin; any male character in Knocked Up).

Another supporting character of note is Peter’s love interest, Rachel, played with spunk and poise by Mila Kunis. Whereas Knocked Up never satisfactorily explains how Alison tolerates Ben’s presence, Peter’s relationship with Rachel makes sense. Is she more attractive than him? Absolutely. But Peter is hardly ugly, and on top of that he has experience dating beautiful women. More importantly, though, Peter is an open book to Rachel, who seems attracted to his emotional vulnerability. Kunis plays Rachel like the kind of girl who has heard all the polished lines before and enjoys discovering sincerity, even in an imperfect package. Should Peter count himself as lucky to land Rachel? Sure. But the reverse is true too, which is more than you can say for Ben and Alison.

Having said all of this, don’t get me wrong: Forgetting Sarah Marshall is far from perfect, and some of its best jokes are crass and plain silly. Still, at least it’s memorable for all the right reasons, and Segel’s penis isn’t one of them – not that you’d get that impression from all the press it inspired. Do I wish for a day when cinema is so packed with penises that we don’t notice them anymore? Well, no. I can’t say I’d go that far. But it would be nice if we could all look beyond the penises when they present themselves. Maybe that would convince shock-dependent writers like Apatow to try a little harder. Maybe that would remind Segel that he’s at his best writing characters who bare their imperfect emotions, not their imperfect bodies. Maybe that would ensure that worthy comedies aren’t reduced by critics to a single absurdity. Forgetting turned out to offer a much more impressive package than I’d been led to believe. I’m glad I saw it.

Beyond the Frame: Standard Operating Procedure

Janis Karpinski looks into the camera and speaks quickly yet not hurriedly, forcefully yet not belligerently. Her voice is filled with passion. Her stare suggests conviction. Her testimony is dotted with dates, names and ranks. Laying out a case of government duplicity in Standard Operating Procedure, Karpinski sounds a lot like Kevin Costner’s Jim Garrison making his breathless closing arguments in JFK. How fitting. Because while the subject under the microscope is different in Errol Morris’ documentary about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the underlying discussion is the same. Like JFK (unintentionally), Morris’ film (intentionally) demonstrates how our emotions, biases and prejudices influence the meaning of unemotional, unbiased, unprejudiced historical documentation. Simply put: Standard Operating Procedure is about how our perceptions distort reality.

It all starts with the images. Just like John F Kennedy’s assassination is remembered through a famous amateur film (shot by Abraham Zapruder), the Abu Ghraib scandal is imprinted on our common historical record through notorious snapshots (taken by members of the U.S. military). In actual reality, these images are just what they are: pictorial representations of a specific place in time, as captured from a specific point of observation. But in practical reality, the images are what we perceive them to be. The first reality never changes. The latter reality never goes away. Our perceptions give the images context, filling in the picture outside the frame, thus giving the images the only meaning that counts, flawed though it sometimes may be.

If a picture speaks 1,000 words, some of those words lie. In JFK, Garrison argues that the back-and-to-the-left motion of the president’s head, in reaction to the shot that killed Kennedy, eliminates from consideration the possibility that the shot was fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s supposed perch in the Texas School Book Depository. Recent computer simulations, however, indicate that the kill shot came from precisely that location. Thus, we have two mutually exclusive interpretations of the same event, based on the same unchanged visual evidence: One film. Two theories. One truth. And that brings us to Abu Ghraib.

If you haven’t yet seen Standard Operating Procedure, I suggest that before you do you take another look at those unpleasant photos from 2003. Snapshot: There’s a hooded man standing on a box with his arms outstretched and wires wrapped around his fingers. Snapshot: There’s a woman and man in military garb smiling and flashing thumbs-up poses from behind a heap of naked men. Snapshot: There’s that woman from before, a cigarette in her mouth, flashing that same right thumb while pointing with her left hand at the exposed genitals of a hooded man. Snapshot: There’s that man from before, his right arm cocked as if poised to strike the hooded head of the figure cradled in his left arm. These are just some of the pictures from Abu Ghraib, and this is what they show. But look at them. What do you see?

Perhaps you see torture. Perhaps you see abuse. Perhaps you see appropriate prisoner treatment. Perhaps you see sadists. Perhaps you see victims. Perhaps you see people getting what was coming to them. Perhaps you see “emotional release,” as Rush Limbaugh put it. Perhaps you see, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it, a few “rogue” soldiers. Perhaps you see the representative tip of a despicable iceberg. Perhaps you don’t know what you see. In any case, you only really see what the photos show. Exactly that. Nothing more. Yet it’s essentially impossible to keep our brains from classifying those photos by one of those above definitions, or others.

So no matter what you see in those photos now, your interpretation is sure to change after watching Standard Operating Procedure. Morris’ film expands the margins of the photos via talking-head interviews with the people who were there (and in some cases in the photos), providing factual context to better inform our emotional responses to the images. Yet even then we don’t have the whole story, and the photos may continue to mislead. If you’re looking for illumination, you won’t find it. This documentary is sharply focused, but it is understandably incomplete: There are witnesses Morris would have liked to talk to but couldn’t. There are key players Morris might have talked to but didn’t. Like the Abu Ghraib photos themselves, Standard Operating Procedure is nothing more than a snapshot. It just happens to be 2 hours long.

Thus there’s a degree of irony to Morris’ film. Megan Ambuhl, one of the soldiers from the photos, might as well have been outlining the director’s thesis when she says of the famous images: “You don’t see forward. You don’t see backward. You don’t see outside the frame.” This is equally true of Morris’ film. Using the same interviewing technique as recently seen in The Fog Of War, Morris leaves his subjects alone to look straight into the camera, where Morris’ face looks back at them, posing questions. His voice-of-God presence is limited in the finished film, and that’s the problem, because as refreshing as it is that Morris doesn’t mug for the spotlight like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, cutting his questions from the film leaves his subjects’ answers as vulnerable to misinterpretation as the photos they are discussing.

As anyone who has ever interviewed someone knows, an interviewer’s questions – in their phrasing, delivery, sequence, etc. – influence the subject’s answers. Without knowing the questions, it’s difficult to put the answers in proper context. We don’t know which statements were made voluntarily or which came after considerable badgering from Morris. For example: When Lynndie England speaks with anger and bitterness, is her anger directed at the events at Abu Ghraib or at Morris for making her discuss them? When Javal Davis speaks with levity about “conditioning” prisoners with loud music, is that a result of a friendly rapport with Morris or is it indicative of a lack of remorse over what happened in 2003? When Sabrina Harman pauses at the end of an answer, is she contemplating the actions she just described or is she simply waiting for the next question? How you read such moments will determine how you read these people, which will determine how you read those photos. It’s possible that you’ll come out of Standard Operating Procedure further from the truth than you were going in.

In my mind, that’s what makes the film so fascinating. As much as Standard Operating Procedure tries to resolve some misinterpretations, it also invites us to play armchair psychologist. Take, for example, England and Harman, who in one way or another suggest that they wouldn’t or couldn’t change the events that have marred their service careers and their reputations. Do such statements reflect the heartlessness of evil people, or do they reflect the helplessness of low-ranking soldiers who got caught up in a situation they lacked the power to resolve? Are we hearing what England and Harman actually believe, or are we hearing what they try to convince themselves they believe, as a matter of moving on with their lives? As we try to understand how England and Harman could do some of the things they are caught on camera doing, it’s only natural that we try and understand them.

For Morris, that human element is the primary focus. Still, his documentary isn’t without sobering analysis of the prisoner mistreatment itself, with Brent Pack, the man who first investigated the photos, pointing out the very fine line between criminal behavior and “standard operating procedure,” which might look criminal but isn’t (at least as far as our government is concerned). Then again, if you want to watch a documentary that explores torture in depth, rent Oscar-winner Taxi To The Dark Side, which makes for a natural companion piece. Standard Operating Procedure isn’t quite as ambitious as Taxi, but that doesn’t prevent Morris from his typical overproduction, as evidenced by his unnecessary B-roll reenactments (in slow motion, of course). Like too many documentary filmmakers these days, sometimes Morris can’t get out of the way of his story.

Yet in the end, Standard Operating Procedure makes its point, because when I look at the photos from Abu Ghraib I see them differently now than before. Where I once saw arrogance I now see insecurity. Where I once saw callousness I now see naiveté. Other things remain the same. I still see a horrific disregard for mankind. I see abuse. I see what I consider torture. I see racism. I see the seeds of retaliatory terrorism. But that’s me and that’s now. My perception might change again over time and repeated viewings of this documentary. But forever the photos will remain, unchanged and undeniable.

Messaging Through the Medium: The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson’s films have the visual air of a Scooby Doo episode and a children’s activity book rolled into one, and yet to dismiss the films for their stylistic cuteness is to miss the point. At the center of that cartoonish ball, Anderson always provides some very dark, very adult themes to explore. You just have to take the time to find them. Then again, it’s either underlining Anderson’s unique genius or exposing the shallowness of his storytelling to note that his films’ sets and costumes often do more to reveal his characters than those staples we know and love called dialogue and acting. In none of Anderson’s films is that dynamic in better display than in The Royal Tenenbaums, and thus this narrow analysis of that movie makes for my submission to the Production Design Blog-a-thon wrapping up over at Too Many Projects Film Club.

What is the value of a production designer (responsible for a film’s visual aesthetic, from sets to props and sometimes costumes, too)? It depends on the film. But on an Anderson set, the production designer is arguably of greater significance than the actors, because for better or worse the director’s visual compositions are often more indelible than the stories underneath. To think of The Darjeeling Limited is to recall the titular blue train and Owen Wilson’s bandaged face. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou brings to mind Bill Murray in the Jacques Cousteau-esque orange knit cap and the bright blue wetsuit. And just before that in the Anderson collection is The Royal Tenenbaums, a film literally separated into chapters that fulfills its children’s book motif with costumes fit for paper dolls and sets that seem inspired by pop-up books.

The production designer for The Royal Tenenbaums was David Wasco – who also worked with Anderson on Bottle Rocket and who paired with Quentin Tarantino on Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill flicks – but the source of inspiration was clearly Anderson. Clearly, because Anderson’s films have some consistent visual themes despite working with multiple production designers. Clearly, because the Criterion DVD release includes a fantastic color foldout of detailed diagrams that outlines how the Tenenbaums tableau came together.

The drawings (samples below) are by Anderson’s brother, Eric, and the filmmaker explains their genesis in the pamphlet: “When I’m writing, I keep notebooks of ideas for sets, props, and clothes. I incorporate some of these ideas into the script, but I set the majority of them aside to give privately to the different department heads during preproduction. In the past, I have occasionally forgotten some of my favorite ideas until it was too late … To prevent this from happening on The Royal Tenenbaums (which contains more perhaps unnecessary visual detail than both of my previous films combined), about three months before we started shooting, I asked my brother, Eric, a skilled illustrator, to help me create a set of drawings that would include much of the information I wanted to communicate to the crew – and that would also suggest the overall look and feeling of the movie.”

The experiment was a tremendous success. To view the color sketches – many of which Anderson says weren’t entirely finished until after the sets were built and furnished – is to appreciate the director’s imagination and auteur influence as well as Wasco’s ability to turn dream into reality – an accomplishment that shouldn’t be diminished by Anderson’s detailed demands. With the exception of the exterior of the brick building at Archer Avenue, the Tenenbaum house is pure fantasy, the temporary stuff of movie magic, and yet for all its intentional quirkiness it feels lived-in to a degree that many sets don’t.

Anderson is derided by his detractors for being a gimmicky filmmaker who is more style than substance, but those detractors often overlook the significance of style as a storytelling device. Tenenbaums places so much emphasis on the physical spaces inhabited by the characters that the film begins with a labeled tour of the Tenenbaum house in order that we might understand its occupants. Does this cheapen the narrative or expose a weakness in Anderson’s ability to write old-fashioned character exposition? Only if you think that the medium is never the message.

For me, Anderson’s bric-a-brac obsession in Tenenbaums brings to mind a moment in High Fidelity when John Cusack’s Rob opines, “Books, records, music – these things matter. Call me shallow, but it’s the damn truth.” That couldn’t be more correct. Sure, we tell one another that it’s what’s inside that counts, yet at the same time almost all of us go around using our exteriors as billboards to advertise our desired (not always genuine or accurate) inner selves. Sometimes our attire or home furnishings aren’t evidence of who we are so much as they are symbols of who we want to be, which is equally significant, because one folds into the other.

In the passage quoted above, Anderson freely admits that some of this is “unnecessary visual detail,” and that’s true, too. In that respect, Anderson is just having fun. But the attention to life’s accouterments in Tenenbaums (and other Anderson films) is far from a frivolous pursuit. Often these visual cues are the first steps to knowing someone – sometimes better than they know themselves.

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The Diagrams
Click any of the following to enlarge:

Chas' Room


Margot's Room


Gallery, Etheline's Study, Misc.


Dreams Made Into Reality
Click any of the following to enlarge:




















(My favorite "set" in the film: the game closet!)

A Shadow of Adventure: Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Congratulations, Temple Of Doom! You’re no longer the black sheep of the Indiana Jones saga. Now that dishonor belongs to Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, which is the cinematic equivalent of a deadbeat illegitimate child – resting on the laurels of its parentage while only barely resembling its ancestors. The key players from Indiana Jones’ glory years are all here – Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford and John Williams – but the spirit is all gone. Not quite 30 years since Raiders Of The Lost Ark swung in on a whip and helped create the boilerplate for the modern action movie, while paying homage to adventure serials of the 1930s and 40s, this final (please, lord) Indiana Jones movie finds the frenzy that has defined the series but not the thrills. Its sins are many, but the biggest one is this: it’s a drag.

I saw Crystal Skull on its opening day at Washington, D.C.’s beloved Uptown Theater, an AMC-managed monoplex that’s been around since 1936. My afternoon showing wasn’t sold out, but its sizeable crowd was made up of film fans so eager to see Indy on the Uptown’s curved 70-foot screen that they knocked off work early, many of us arriving an hour beforehand so that we could land our favorite seats on the ground or balcony levels. It was a spirited crowd, to be sure. But that was before the movie started. After that, if not for a few chuckles here and there, you might have thought we were watching The Terminal. We were lifeless. Instead of taking our breath away, Crystal Skull left us without a pulse.

This from a film that tries so hard to be a rollercoaster that it comes across less like a sequel to the original Indiana Jones trilogy than a follow-up to the Disneyland ride that the trilogy inspired. And even then it disappoints. Whereas Raiders combines the motif of The Jungle Cruise with the freefalling speed of The Matterhorn, Crystal Skull rumbles and roars but never moves fast enough to let the wind blow through our hair. It simulates adventure without actually achieving it. Making his first Indy picture of the CGI era, Spielberg gets pulled all the wrong directions by a greedy desire to reap the benefits of the available technology. The result is a collection of extravagant impossible-in-the-80s action sequences that frequently come off as exactly what they are: studio-bred.

For example, Crystal Skull’s most elaborate action sequence features a vehicular chase that would have seemed right out of Raiders had its wheels ever touched the ground. Instead, Western-style stunt work is traded for greenscreen choreography. Ford’s Indy and his cast of fellow do-gooders, including Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams, shake and rattle in trucks going nowhere as the camera darts about trying to bring motion to the motionless. At one point LaBeouf’s Mutt straddles a pair of moving vehicles for a preposterous bit of inconsequential swordplay with Cate Blanchett’s villainous Irina Spalko that looks all too realistic, which is to say that it looks staged. As if acknowledging that there’s no real danger there, Mutt’s exhibition of derring-do morphs into a comedic gag, with digital shrubbery repeatedly punishing his exposed groin.

Over-the-top action and tongue-in-cheek playfulness are hallmarks of the Indiana Jones brand, but the antics of Crystal Skull seem largely insincere. Much of the blame must be placed on an awkward screenplay by David Koepp from a story by Lucas and Jeff Nathanson that fails to pinpoint the passion and recklessness of our hero. An argument could be made, of course, that the character has softened with age, and understandably so: the last time we left Indy he’d rekindled a relationship with his father after a life spent trying to win dad’s approval. Fair enough. But, dare I say it, Crystal Skull could have actually benefited from a scene similar to the “You know what you are” bit in this spring’s Rambo, wherein the professor would look at himself in the mirror and acknowledge the adrenaline junkie raging inside. This Indy doesn’t get too worked up over anything, as evidenced by his come-and-go collaboration with Irina and his repeated forgiveness of turncoat buddy Mac (Ray Winston). If this Indy isn’t the Indy we fell in love with, what’s the point?

On that note, Ford’s portrayal is adequate given what little he has to work with, though it is a genuine shock to see a much older man in Indy’s trademark duds. My first impression was that Ford looked more like a contestant on The Amazing Race than the guy who slid under a moving truck, but it’s amazing what a crack of the whip will do to awaken nostalgia. After a nicely imagined opening bit that places us back at Raiders’ warehouse of crated government secrets, my fear wasn’t that Ford wouldn’t be able to keep up with the adventure but that the adventure might never get moving. Koepp’s screenplay makes for an especially talky Indy flick, even with the familiar falling-dominoes approach to action set-piece implementation. The downfall is that the characters are constantly telling us their emotions instead of just showing us. No one, including an in-her-prime Blanchett, is ever really asked to act, unless you count the crazed mutterings of John Hurt as the possessed Professor Oxley, and I don’t.

That saddest part of all, though, is that this movie is entirely without romance. Oh, sure, Karen Allen is back as Marion Ravenwood, so there’s a love story of sorts. But the original trilogy’s yearning to turn over rocks and explore the hidden worlds underneath has been replaced by a retrospective fondness for the time when it was fun to turn over rocks, and that’s not the same thing. If The Last Crusade is evidence of just how much Spielberg cared about the legend of Indiana Jones, Crystal Skull is a love letter that he and Lucas wrote to themselves. It’s a celebration of adventures past (not all of them from the Indiana Jones series, by the way) rather than an advancement of the saga. Thus, it fittingly plays like a high school reunion, with folks sucking in their guts and mistakenly providing evidence of their rapidly eroding vision by telling themselves that they’re just as vital as they used to be.

How bad is Crystal Skull? Well, the aforementioned Rambo filled me with more reverence. And had Star Wars prequel-killer Jar Jar Binks wandered into the film (not as unlikely as you might think), it would have done nothing to detract. In the interest of full disclosure I must note that a smattering of applause broke out at the Uptown when my showing ended, but that could have been because we didn’t have to sit through it anymore. Especially compared to its predecessors, there is little here worth celebrating. If Raiders was a B-adventure brought to life with A-level effort by filmmakers eager to prove themselves, Crystal Skull is what happens when storytellers who once explored the known world and outer space with zeal decide to settle for their faded memories of it.

Random Cracks of the Whip

In a matter of hours, I’ll be watching Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. As the minutes tick away until the big event, some random thoughts ...

What’s in a name?
As I said in my previous Indiana Jones post, I haven’t seen the trailer for the new movie (never mind the movie itself). So, who knows, as far as titles go maybe Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull will turn out to be a worthy mouthful. For the moment, though, it seems pretty lame. I know, I know: You’ve heard this before and thought it yourself. But what you might not know is that one the film’s working titles, according to IMDb, was Indiana Jones & The City Of The Gods. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems infinitely better. Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is one of those titles that you can’t say without feeling like you’re leaving out a word or adding one that doesn’t belong. And even when said correctly, somehow it doesn’t quite ring true. Kind of like The Phantom Menace. Let’s hope it’s not an omen.

What’s in a face?
Watching Raiders Of The Lost Ark this week, I found myself fascinated by one of Arnold Toht’s henchmen, pictured below. Just look at that guy. What’s his deal? Was he unlucky in the gene lottery or is that a bad makeup job? And if it’s a bad makeup job, what’s the ethnicity of the actor, and, more importantly, what’s the ethnicity of the character? I’m sure someone should feel offended by this portrayal, I’m just not sure who or why.


Toht you so!
As far as I’m concerned, movie villains are best played by actors we’ve never seen before and will never see again. It makes their villainy all the more authentic, as if they couldn’t be any other way. That’s why Darth Vader is the greatest movie villain ever, because, sure, you can put James Earl Jones’ voice in The Lion King, but that black-masked figure that is the ultimate symbol of evil will never terrorize another story.

Also from that family of here-and-gone bad-guy creations is Raiders’ black-clad Toht, played by Ronald Lacey. Who? Exactly! Lacey died in 1991, and a quick scroll through his filmography at IMDb suggests that if I’ve seen him in any other speaking part it was probably within a 1984 episode of Magnum P.I. (not that I remember it). That said, Lacey did make a dialogue-free appearance in The Last Crusade, sitting in as an uncredited Heinrich Himmler in that Nazi book-burning sequence where Indy bumps into Hitler. As far as unrecognizable cameo casting goes, that’s absolutely brilliant! And what’s equally fun is to note that the previous year Lacey played Winston Churchill in a TV movie called The Great Escape II: The Untold Story. Digest that for a second: Churchill and then Himmler. That’s delicious juxtaposition! Yet it might not as good as this: In 1983, just after his frightful turn in Raiders, Lacey appeared in a Margot Kidder flick I’ve never heard of called Trenchcoat playing, no joke, “Princess Aida.” Huh? That might merit further investigation.


In the meantime, let’s pause long enough to pay tribute to Lacey’s portrayal of Toht – the character I think of every time I touch something that’s too hot to handle. Toht’s most memorable moments would have to include the chilling revelation of his scarred hand, the comedic bit with the collapsible coat hanger and the climactic face-melting. Yet Lacey’s best moment as an actor might be one where Toht in the background.

The scene in question comes late in Raiders when Indiana appears on a bluff with a rocket launcher. When Indy yells down at a phalanx of Nazis, all the bad guys turn at once to gaze up at him as he issues his threat to blow up the Ark. All, that is, except for Toht, who takes a seat against a rocky outcropping like a guy waiting to hit his tee shot on a busy and backed-up Saturday at the local golf course. He’s totally unfazed. And though I’m sure Spielberg had a lot to do with Toht’s actions (or, rather, lack of them), Lacey is brilliantly disinterested. As a child, wrapped up in the action, I was blind to such subtle genius. Now I see it for what it is. Tremendous!


Not so special
Considering that The Abyss and its groundbreaking digital water tentacle hit theaters the same year, it’s somewhat shocking to go back and observe the rudimentary special effects of 1989’s The Last Crusade. The implementation of matte drawings is frequently obvious. The rapid decomposition of Walter Donovan is no more impressive than the face-melting in Raiders from the beginning of the decade. And then there’s the scene where the Nazi goes over a cliff in a tank and manages to hold on to the gun turret even as it rolls over and breaks free from the rest of the metallic beast (gotta love models!). Then again, given the spirit of the series (a tribute to the B-adventure serial), it works.



On that note, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Spielberg said that he considered using the same old-school technology for Crystal Skull. Instead, he’s gone CGI. “We have just as many matte-painting shots in this movie as we had in the other movies,” Spielberg says in the interview. “The difference is, you won't even be able to tell that there's a brushstroke.” Hmm. I’m doubtful that the CGI will be so seamless that we’ll confuse actual on-location shooting with stuff fudged via greenscreen, but it’ll be an upgrade, no question. That said, there would have been no shame in settling for the old-school approach to remain consistent with its predecessors. And even though Spielberg has opted to go digital, that he even considered otherwise underlines the major difference between him and co-producer George Lucas.

In a different excerpt of the same interview, Lucas admits that he pestered Spielberg to shoot the entire film digitally on a soundstage, ala the Star Wars prequels. Why? Because while Spielberg is still in love with making movies, Lucas is in love with movie technology. The typical tableau of the Star Wars prequels features bland, lifeless sets in the foreground (made all the worse by bland, lifeless acting) as accessories to overly-active CGI backgrounds. As a result, whether by accident or by design, the backdrop becomes the focal point. Which is another way of saying that Lucas is more concerned with how a story is told than how a story is experienced. His Star Wars prequels – as well as his selfish, foolish “enhancements” to the original trilogy – were meant to thrill an audience of one: himself. Spielberg, on the other hand, wants to thrill the masses. For him, the experience rules. The methods are superfluous. Too bad more filmmakers don’t think that way.



Not so last
For the record: I’m not overly concerned with the fact that the actor playing Indiana Jones is almost two decades older than the last time we all went on archeological adventure together. Harrison Ford knows the spirit of Indiana Jones inside and out, so the success of the Crystal Skull will likely come down to whether the script understands the character just as well. It’s a gamble (see: Temple Of Doom), but success is attainable (see: The Last Crusade). With that established, the real reason Spielberg is stupid to make this movie is that he can’t possibly retire the Indiana Jones series as poignantly as he already did in The Last Crusade. I’m not talking about the film as a whole (though between the early creation legend with River Phoenix and the late father-and-son squabbling with Sean Connery, The Last Crusade is wonderful). I’m talking about how that third movie actually ends: with the gallop through the canyon and the ride into the sunset. It’s perfect. Crystal Skull won’t match it. Can’t match it. And that’s a shame.






This is it!
Well, off to the theater. I’m positively pumped. Sure, it could be a flop. Sure, I’m nervous about Shia LaBeouf as Mini-Indy. But Crystal Skull can’t be worse than some of the dreck I’ve sat through so far this year. We really need Indy to swing in on his whip and save 2008! In the least, I’ll have John Williams’ music.