Movie Maven

In the absence of "having seen any good movies lately" I am relegated to the task of digging up some coherent movie news. I would have given various vital body parts to be able to report on Cannes, but unfortunately I was forced to forgo the French paradise for the dizzying natural beauty and star-power of, er, Toledo, Ohio.

While about my rounds of merciless celebrity gossip and box office numbers, I stopped by Neddie Jingo's, a blogger of whom I am quite fond. Neddie Jingo, as you will see by clicking on the link, has a habit of referring to Mrs. Jingo affectionately as Wonder Woman. This sparked in my memory a reference I had heard to a possible Wonder Woman movie coming out. I hastened to IMDb for confirmation, and lo, there it be in all its glory!! In pre-production, and helmed by none other than my darling Joss Whedon himself! From reports derived from various comic book geek websites, Whedon is currently writing the script for the movie and is set to direct. The question on everyone's mind, of course, is who will play the Amazon princess-warrior, and the forums are abuzz with names, both plausible and ludicrous. A favorite of mine, of course, is Lucy Lawless, but I think she might be a little old for the gig. People have mentioned the usual lolli-pop headed trolls, Mischa Barton, Rachel Bilson, as well as Lindsay Lohan as other possibles. I heard a very funny story in which Kate Beckinsale was asked if she was set to play WW- she laughed hysterically and said, "I think Wonder Woman's supposed to be quite tall."

But the name that keeps popping into my head hasn't really been mentioned: Gina Torres.

Torres is actually a Joss whedon favorite- she premiered on his brilliant-but-cancelled show Firefly as co-captain Zoe, and later played the role in his film version of the series, Serenity. She's also appeared on Angel as a malevolent demi-god. Can you imagine anyone better?

I know what you're thinking- wah?? A black Wonder Woman? Well, why not? Last I checked the Amazonians were a race all their own- they didn't hold with the preconceptions of race within the world of Man. So they'd have no problem with an African-American woman being their divine princess who wields a golden lasso.

According to Whedon, whoever gets the gig will be playing it OSWW- Old School Wonder Woman. "I can tell you that the film will be about introducing you to Wonder Woman," he said to Empire Online last March. "She'll be wearing the outfit and there will be the bracelets, the golden lasso and Greek gods." While comic book purists will be happy with that, what I really want Whedon to keep is the sense of fun and irony that Lynda Carter instilled in her portrayal of the Amazon. There was a whimsical sense of humor that emanated from the 70's era TV show and if Whedon can keep that going, I think it'll be a fabulous addition to the summer movie line-up of 2007 or 2008.

...yes, you read that correctly.

Seven different actors, in fact, will play the folk icon in a biopic entitled I'm Not There, according to Yahoo News. Each actor will take on different facets of his life and personality. Others who have reportedly signed on include Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Richard Gere (Blanchett is to play Dylan during his 'androgynous' stage, natch.)

The movie will be directed by Todd Haynes, formerly of Velvet Goldmine, a biopic of David Bowie.

So how fabulous is this entire concept? Mainly I find it fabulous because of the risk involved- this is one of those projects that will either work splendidly and make gobs and gobs of money, or will flop horribly and messily like a fish on a line. I haven't seen Velvet Goldmine, but I have seen another Haynes flick Far From Heaven with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, which was beautifully done and haunted me for days afterward. So I'm hopeful that the Dylan impersonators will be in good hands. I'm a little surprised Dylan even consented to a film about his life, judging from his hermit-like personality. Most writers call him an "enigma," which is how they refer to any public figure who doesn't constantly shill for them. Even in his recent forays into public life- his radio show on satellite radio, his documentary with Martin Scorcese, his autobiography Chronicles: Volume 1, as well as rare TV interviews- still leave him very much a mystery. Dylan has a truly spectacular knack for allowing the musician to be in the spotlight, while the man himself stays in the shadows. What this will mean for the content of the movie remains to be seen, but you can bet I'll be first in line on opening day.

The Notorious Bettie Page
Starring: Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Lily Taylor, Sarah Paulson
Written by: Mary Harron and Guinevere Taylor
Directed by: Mary Harron
Official Website

When I went to see The Notorious Bettie Page, I began to think about light. It is not something one normally thinks about for long lengths of time, unless one is a Director of Photography, but this lovely, simple film was drenched in it.

It moves back and forth between black and white and a luscious technicolor, all the while putting Mol in a halo light- very similar to what they did for actresses in films during Page's reign as the pin-up queen (primarily the 1950s.) The whole atmosphere becomes like the flipping of an old photo album. This is synchronized with the plot, which does not show any of Bettie Page's experiences in-depth, but flips through them too, to see a beautiful overview of a highly singular life. There's a refreshing unpretentiousness to Harron's film, something pure and tame (ironic, considering the material.)

For those who don't know, Bettie Page was a model, of the swimsuit category, the nude category, and, most notorious of all, the bondage variety. The film chronicles her life from her childhood in Kentucky, to her move to New York City and beginnings in the modeling world. Mol as Page is simply fantastic. Page was a plucky girl, taking everything that happened to her in stride. It's obvious that her past played a role in her modeling and entrance into pornography. She was molested by her father as a child, and was gang-raped when she was a young woman- both events are apparent, but not shown, exhibiting a restraint that's uncommon in today's filmmakers. Her relationships and her career were all affected by this, but they are not dwelled upon, as it's apparent that Page herself didn't dwell on them. She moves to New York City, and finds the Klaw siblings (touchingly portrayed by Chris Bauer and Lily Taylor) who introduce her to the wonders of bondage modeling.

The modeling scenes are both hilarious and even kind of sweet. It didn't seem to register with Page what bondage really is. At one point a director asks her what she thinks God thinks of her work. "Everybody has a talent," she says. "Mine is posing. If what I do makes people happy and doesn't hurt anyone, isn't that what God wants?" Indeed, early bondage films and photos were tame compared to what can be uploaded today (it usually involved riding crops and girls in giant black corsets with high heels- one can see worse on cable TV any day of the week.) But this primitive form of modern bondage attracted the ire of several men in the Senate, including then senator Estes Kefauver (played by David Strathairn, fresh from his glorious turn in Good Night, And Good Luck.) In the end, Page is made to wait for hours at the Capital Building to testify at a pornography hearing, only to find, as usual, that the men in the room will make the decisions about what is decent, with no input from her.

America has always had a rather twisted view of sexuality, alternately being titillated by it, and trying desperately to pretend it isn't there. Bettie Page was a symbol for that paradox- everyone said they despised it, but the truth is somebody out there was buying. Page was the cheerful, unknowing contradiction of all the 50s stood for, something that comes across perfectly in the movie without Mol (or Harron) having to beat you over the head about it. It's a glorious little film, one well worth having a look at.

The Da Vinci Code
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan
Written by: Akiva Goldsman
Directed by: Ron Howard
Official Website

Photo by cinematical.com

WARNING: I have scattered spoilers throughout this post with reckless disregard for people's feelings. If you have not read the book or seen the movie and still give a damn, skip this post.

A thousand apologies for my regrettable absence. I've been struggling with two movies I saw last weekend- Da Vinci, and The Notorious Bettie Page (review on that delightful little muffin to come soon.) An unfortunate case of writer's block had me in its stubborn grasp, and I have just now been able to break free.

But I digress...

No doubt all of you have read the harrowing reviews of the film- or at least heard about them. It's boring, it's ludicrous, it's pompous, it's flat. The reviews have been written with a certain manic glee- they're not just panning the movie, they're beating it over the head with a two-by-four, throwing it against a wall and kicking it until it lies cold and limp on the floor.

But it's what the reviewers are not saying that's really interesting. They're completely ignoring the real problem with the movie. The camera-work is not extraordinary, but up to par. The music is fine, the plot developments are coherent enough. The settings are often very beautiful. And the performances are actually quite good. Ian McKellan is especially wonderful, very funny and gets the movie going at a good clip. Alfred Molina does a fine stint as a creepy Cardinal And Paul Bettany can play a murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk like nobody's business.

Do you see the problem yet?

I'll say that again: "murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk." That's the problem. The content, the plot, the entire book upon which the movie is based on, is STUPID! I don't know how else to put it- it's stupid! S-T-O-O-P-I-D! Make an anagram out of that, bitches!

And the monk's just the beginning. The symbologist (if that's an actual word) meets up with the cryptologist at the Louvre where the cryptologist's grandfather has just been murdered. They go on a wild, mad-cap chase, involving the "murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk," go to an extremely weird Swiss bank with blue lights and conveyer belts with boxes with clues inside to find the Holy Grail. Which is not actually a cup, by the way. It's a person. Or a secret. Or a sarcophagus. Or something. One of the main characters ends up being the direct descendant of Jesus Christ, and there's a shoot-out and the corrupt policeman sees the error of his ways and there's this really cool thing buried under the pyramid in front of the Louvre.

See my point? The movie is slow, because the plot is so convoluted it needed to be explained ad nauseum to make any sort of sense at all. And when you think it's about to end, it's not, because Dan Brown, and likewise Ron Howard, can't let anything be a mystery in this story. Nothing can be left to our imagination. Every last damn gritty detail must be laid before our feet. And explained. Preferably twice.

In many ways I actually prefer the movie to the book, much in the same way I prefer the Lord of the Rings movies to the actual literature. In a movie, all of Dan Brown's ravings and endless, badly-worded descriptions can be bypassed. Do I need and 20-page account of what the Mona Lisa's smile looks like? Nope, cause I got the real thing right in front of me. Do I require a sermon about the Church's supposed cover-up of the truth about Christ. Nuh-uh, cause Ian McKellan can say the same damn thing is about two minutes. All adaptations must be compressed for time. Most of the time, this means that something important gets lost in the transference. This time, all it means is that Brown's stilted, wearying literary fat has been trimmed away, for leaner, sexier storytelling.

But there's only so much trimming one can do without becoming unintelligible, and I still stumbled out of the movie feeling like I'd been watching Tom Hanks' greasy hair for about nine hours. It's very unfortunate. I like the themes that both the book and the movie address. The question of faith, the corruption of a legitimate religious institution by fanatics, the fight over who or what Christ was and what that has to do with the message he tried to give us. And, in the end, the subjectivity of history. All of these are wonderful things to write a book about. And make a movie about.

I only wish it had been written by someone else.

I'm really trying not to hate The Da Vinci Code yet. I'm really, really trying. I'm seeing it tonight, and I'm really trying to keep an open mind.

Yet I can't help but feel a little savage glee at the recent reviews of the film at the Cannes Film Festival. Among other things, it's called "talky," and "boring," and The Hot Blog cited a "clusterfuck of attention seekers wanting to be proclaimed The First to Pan Da Vinci!" It's almost startling the voracity at which the reviewers turned on their media darling, like wolves on a weak member of the pack.

I did hear one positive review. Half asleep at a friends house, I watched a very surreal episode of Entertainment Tonight with botoxed, speed-freak Mary Hart at the Cannes. After taking about an hour to talk about what dress she was wearing and how much her necklace is worth, she went to the movie and said afterward (quote) "I have just one word for it- WOW!"

I really am trying to keep an open mind. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the word I'm going to think of after the movie won't be "wow." Just a hunch.

People don't understand the concept of a guilty pleasure. Most label chocolate, or grande mochas from Starbucks as their guilty pleasure. Some say television or Lindsay Lohan. I had one guy tell me his guilty pleasure was Harry Potter.

But these are not true guilty pleasures. First of all, they are all extremely popular things, which many people love and adore. A true guilty pleasure should be relatively unpopular, or at least unpopular in the sense that people don't like to talk about it. It must be specific: television, for example is too broad. There are loads of fabulous and reasonable things to watch on TV. Well, maybe not loads, but at least two or three. And the guilty pleasure must be something indulged in rarely. If you're scarfing down Hershey kisses every day of your life, it's not a guilty pleasure, it's your diet.

Plus the whole point of a guilty pleasure is the guilt. If you're telling everyone you meet that you really like grande mochas from Starbucks, how guilty do you truly feel about it? You're paying lip service to the guilt: I'm on a diet, I know this is bad for me, but it's so good, oh I'm being so bad, etc. etc. But true, deep guilt is not voiced aloud, or at least not voiced regularly. No- a true guilty pleasure has to be genuinely embarrassing.

So, after that long and particularly patronizing introduction, I find I have a confession to make. I know this will probably come back to haunt me, but what the hell, I don't know most of you in real life anyway.

I have a guilty pleasure. It's name is Passions

Passions. You know you know it- the soap opera on NBC, modeled a little off the earlier soap Dark Shadows. Every day at 2 pm for the past six years or so it's been on. It involves the natives of a small New England town called Harmony (one's not quite sure what state it's in, kind of like The Simpsons.) Besides traditional soap opera fare (murders, amnesia, forbidden love, children who go away to boarding school and come back one month later as adults) it also has a bizarre spiritual/mystical component, which weaves in and out of the plotline as necessary. There's a witch, for example, named Tabitha, played by veteran British actress Juliet Mills, looking like she's having the time of her life. When the show first began, Tabitha had a living doll named Timmy, who became a real boy, but then was killed, and then she got pregnant by Julian Crane of the Crane empire and had Andora who's a witch, but she has a conscience and is a hopeless romantic and just wants her half-brother Fox to be happy with Kay, but Kay still loves Miguel, who right now is having a thing with a mermaid, and....

um, never mind.

The plot is relentlessly complex, and yet one can leave it for months to go to school, come back to it in the summer and know within ten minutes what's going on. They basically tell the entire back story in their dialogue. Like, "I can't believe Whitney's in Rome! We need to find her before she gets hurt or runs into Chad, her half-brother who she had a relationship with before she knew they were related and fostered an illegitimate child with him. Now she's gone crazy and thinks that monk is God, and is doing his nefarious bidding."

The best plotlines on Passions always have to do with the Cranes- the family that runs Harmony and has amassed a huge amount of wealth and influence from what appears to be a fish cannery. One of the best lines I ever heard on Passions was from Sheridan, talking about her father Alistair Crane, the evil patriarch of the Crane Empire. "You don't understand," she says. "He's so powerful. He could bring down governments with a single phone call."

That's right. A fish monger can bring down governments with a single phone call. He doesn't even need a second call to confirm it.

He knows it's done.

I don't know how this show has survived. Perhaps it's mainly due to people like myself who know its absolute crap and yet cannot look away. It's like a freak show- we are repulsed and yet amazed. We know we're wasting one hour of our lives we could be spending doing meaningful work. We could be working on a painting. Helping the poor. Teaching inner city children how to read. Finish that book about global warming we've been meaning to get to. But we don't care. We sit. And watch.

We watch with friends and loved ones and giggle like schoolgirls at how bad we are. We make fun of the show, of the acting, the writing, the production values. And yet there's something in its complete vanity and emptiness that we find comforting. We indulge in its cheerful, airheaded nature for an hour, before having to wander back to the painstaking muck of everyday life.

Now that, my friends, is a guilty pleasure.

(Photo courtesy of Passions website- see above)

The ads are everywhere. On the TV promos, pounding instrumentals accompany shots of the Louvre glowing ominously in the distance, Tom Hanks with bad hair and Paul Bettany skulking in the shadows of some sort of crypt. I hear mentions of it on the lips of passers-by. It is referenced at gatherings and dinner parties that I attend. I read newspaper articles devoted to the subject, watch as network news shows are forced to shill for the thing by their parent company.

It's everywhere.

It's a conspiracy.

I read The Da Vinci Code after a recommendation by several people who had similar literary tastes as myself. I read. And I read. And I read. Through pages upon pages of description of the Louvre, to the lurid details of self-mutilation, through the preposterous conspiracy theory and irritatingly condescending tone of author Dan Brown. I read and I read. I read through being offended as a Catholic... Well, not really. I'm not a very good Catholic, and I was offended mainly because if someone's going to knock my faith they better have the decency to do it with talent. But still! I finally got through the whole thing, after putting it down on several occasions in favor of more entertaining fare. It boggled my mind how such a convoluted and ridiculous novel managed to garner so much attention and love. All I could hear was the whiny high-pitched voice that I imagine Dan Brown having. "Ooh, look at me!" Brown says. "I'm Dan Brown. I'm the smartest little boy in the whole world! I know sooo much about cryptology! Eat it up, you sheep!"

I hated the book with a fiery passion that is unmatched by any other I have known.

And yet I want to see the movie.

I know what this is. It's the peer pressure of adulthood- a marketing war being waged on so many fronts you can't hide from it. I'm blasted with promos in surround sound at my local theatre. I see them at home. Articles, pseudo-news stories, word-of-mouth, interviews with talk-show hosts... It cannot be escaped. Especially not by me, a self-professed media whore who gobbles up every morsel of marketing like subliminal creme brulee. If drug dealers had this kind of PR I'd be snorting, injecting and smoking everything I could lay my hands on. I admit it. I am a sheep. It's the only explanation for why I have a burning desire to see a film adapted from a novel I hated. With a lead actor I don't like all that much. With a director I don't like all that much.

So what to do? I could give in to my unholy, media-created desires, see the movie, take it for what it is. Many adaptations are completely different from the book they're adapting, and it would be interesting how the script diverts from the original text. I can sometimes enjoy Tom Hanks' company and I'm quite a big Paul Bettany and Audrey Tautau fan, not to mention Ian McKellan and Alfred Molina, all of whom are in the film. At the very least it would make excellent fodder for a post. But I also want to resist the temptation, to stand up and say no, I will not go to a movie just because the whole world is telling me to. I can think for myself, thank you very much, and I have limited funds which I can spend on better things. Food. New clothes. Diamond-studded collars for my dog. I could see a different movie, a better one. Hell, even M:I:3 has Philip Seymour Hoffman in it! And I could go to bed knowing that I'd resisted the marketing, I'd refused to sit through two hours of Dan Brown's ego-tastic extravaganza.

Oh, who am I kidding? Baaaaahhhh.

Thanks to Whedonesque and SMRT-TV.com for this hilarious "Modest Proposal" about a Law and Order set in space. Plus the oh-so-dreamy Adam Baldwin is on the graphic. What more do you need?

One of my final projects for Online Journalism class (from whence this blog was spawned) was to create a multimedia package using photos and audio. I did mine on the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, which you may remember from earlier postings. Here's the link to the finished product, in case you're interested. I do apologize for my voice in the introduction- I believe I recording the narration in my apartment bathroom at 2 o'clock in the morning the night before audio was due, while The Roommates slept soundly in the room beyond. Anyway, creative director Ned Hinkle is far more pleasant to listen to. Here again is the link.

I also apologize for my absence for the past few days. Mother Maven and my dear Auntie Mame picked me up from Beantown on Tuesday for a few days of gallivanting in the city. I am now returned safely to the bosom of my family and friends for a little holiday and will continue to blog regularly from the Toledo Bureau of Movie Maven. Alas, The Heartland of America offers far less interesting films, but I shall do my very best.