Scott Fairley

It’s been quite a while since my last update. Truth be told, while I’ve only seen a handful of movies over the last few months, I’ve still been lacking the energy to keep up a steady posting schedule. It turns out that directing two plays and working full-time doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of time to write. So officially, the site will be on a de-facto hiatus until October. Why October? That’s when my theatrical commitments for 2009 end. In October, new content will appear, including a new feature where I attempt to re-read all the assigned books from my undergrad.

So be patient, loyal readers. New posts will be coming, and hopefully they’ll be worth the wait.

I recently saw Slumdog Millionaire for the second time, making it and Juno the only movies in recent memory I’ve trekked down to a theatre to see twice.

The main thing I noticed is how much the music ties the whole thing together.  It draws on a pretty limited score (there’s a handful of themes and recurring motifs, but it’s primarily songs), but it’s arranged in such a way that it enhances the scenes.

Similarly, the scenes that really struck me on an emotional level still did so; the evil orphanage keeper gave me the willies the same way (maybe even moreso), and the final scene at the train station still required restraint to not weep like a baby.

Do I have any caveats that popped up a second time around?  Maybe.  Some story arc elements are more obvious the second time around; but the movie still hit me on an emotional level the second time around.  That’s the mark of a great movie, in my opinion.

And as such, I’ll be buying the DVD when it’s released tomorrow.

Millions – Dir. Danny Boyle (2004)
It’s so incredibly rare that I see a “family film”.  I suppose if you qualify Pixar’s animated features as family films, I see maybe one per year.  Part of this is because I’m neither a child nor a parent, but partly is because family movies are so rarely made to appeal beyond the youngest audience members.  When asked if he was being too harsh on a kids movie after giving Star Wars – The Clone Wars a particularly bad review, Roger Ebert said that if anything, kids movies should be better than mainstream movies.  And he’s absolutely right.  And that’s why I was so impressed with Millions.  It fits into the “family film” genre fairly easily, and even could be classified as a Christian movie (which are, by reputation, notorious for being creatively and even spiritually lacking), but it has the same level of creative intensity as anything else Danny Boyle has done.  It occasionally does flirt with cliche, but it never relies on it and the cast never overplays their hand.  It’s similar to what he did with Slumdog Millionaire in allowing the scene to inspire emotions rather than just present emotions.  The result is always stronger than a heavy-handed emotional scene, and even with some flaws, Millions is a very strong film.  B+

Waking Life – Dir. Richard Linklater (2001)
I enjoyed A Scanner Darkly quite a bit, and like countless others, really enjoyed Dazed and Confused.  So naturally, I was interested in Waking Life.  It has the same sort of visual hook as A Scanner Darkly.  What it lacks, however, is a narrative structure.  It’s essentially a collection of dialogues about heavy philosophical concetps, and for what it is, it’s about as interesting as it can be.  However, some of the scenes play a little awkward, or aren’t quite as effective as others.  The whole film fully disregards realism, and I can appreciate that, but by the same token, I still find it a little unusual to see an academically-sourced conversation about reincarnation between a couple in bed, especially when the dialogue feels stiff.  When the movie works, it’s very interesting.  The visuals certainly make it more watchable than it would have been if it was filmed traditionally, but it’s not quite as consistent as it could be.  Granted, just due to how outside the norm Waking Life is, it could very well grow on me after multiple viewings, but the first go around left me a little cold.  But it’s certainly more interesting than your average Philosophy textbook.  B-

Disclaimer: this entry contains some minor spoilers of somewhat recent movies.  So don’t say I didn’t warn you.

There’s a very good reason that the vast majority of men (and to be fair, a good number of women) cringe at the mention of date movies.  And there’s always a deluge of them either released on video or in theatres around Valentine’s Day.  And they’re generally intellectually insulting, overwhelmingly sentimental, and almost always pandering to what (predominantly male) writers and directors think women want to see onscreen, almost always at the expense of realism and truth.  And they make copius amounts of money and have even proven to have altered the psychological makeup of North America.

But they’re not all unwatchable.  I’d consider myself something of a recovering Romantic.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a cynic when it comes to love, but the pie-in-the-sky ideal of romance as a panacea simply doesn’t ring true to me anymore, and I’ve come to resent the traditional Hollywood Romance myth.  At the age of 24, my view is now as such: Relationships can’t solve problems by virtue of simply existing.  They offer the advantage of solidarity when facing them, which can be an enormous feat, but they don’t have magical powers that can move mountains or make ordinary people break into song.  Romance is wonderful, don’t get me wrong; it’s just not a panacea.

But if you, faithful reader, identify as a romantic, here’s some onscreen love stories that’ll appeal to both head and heart, cynic and romantic.

Once – 2007, dir. John Carney
Once is one of those movies that’s hard to look at and scoff.  It subverts so very many conventions of both musicals and romance movies, but it’s a beautiful little movie about two people who come to something bigger and better than just jumping off into bed together after falling for eachother.  Starring musicians Glen Handard (of The Frames and Swell Season) and Marketa Inglova (also of Swell Season), this little Irish flick doesn’t offer the sort of big romantic end you expect, but it doesn’t disappoint either.  It’s incredibly refreshing as a whole, the performances feel spontaneous and natural, and the music is top-notch.  It’s a far cry from a chick flick, but it’s legitimately romantic by freeing itself of Hollywood conventions and fully embracing the relationship it portrays.

Garden State – 2004, dir. Zach Braff
Garden State juggles genres a fair bit.  It’s a meditation on post-modern malaise, it’s a buddy movie, it’s a bildungsroman of sorts, and it’s (ostensibly) about falling in love.  Zach Braff (he of Scrubs fame) and Natalie Portman (she of Star Wars fame) spend much of the movie learning about eachother and shaking loose their neuroses during a week in New Jersey.  Most coming-of-age movies add a little romance to the mix, and Garden State is no exception, but for whatever reason, it feels a bit more fresh here.  Maybe it’s the music, or maybe it’s how slowly it sneaks towards it’s final act, or maybe it’s how gosh-darned adorable those two crazy kids are, but the movie resonates emotionally, and stronger than you might expect.  It’s not free of convention like Once, but it knows how to use convention to tell a story right.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall – 2008, dir. Nicholas Stoller
Judd Apatow used to be known for his much loved but little known TV series Freaks and Geeks, but then came a little movie called The 40-Year-Old Virgin that made Steve Carrell a star and mixed raunchy comedy with legitimately sweet romance.  The mixture doesn’t sit well with everyone, but Apatow’s second directorial effort Knocked Up proved that it’s effective.  Apatow has also produced a number of similar movies, such as Superbad.  In 2008, however, actor Jason Segel (from Freaks and Geeks and How I Met Your Mother) bared his soul (and other parts) in his debut screenplay, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  It leans much more towards the cynical end of things, and very much earns it’s R rating, but it still provides enough of a heart to keep from turning into the most depressing breakup comedy you’re likely to see; and it’s pretty funny any way you slice it.  If you’re feeling bold and don’t mind a little splash of romance in your schadenfreude, it’s worth a look.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – 2004, dir. Michel Gondry
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet nearly completely deconstruct the romantic comedy in this one, and it’s the sort of movie that could easily be just plain depressing.  But between Andy Kaufman’s script and the flashes of beauty thrown in, it manages to be a strong romantic film in it’s own right.  It’s by far the most ambitious and challenging movie on this list, and it’s central thesis is effectively “relationships can be so horrible that you’ll want to wipe them from your memory”, but there’s a beating heart to be found here and it’s got an enormous amount of depth and truth.

Shaun of the Dead – 2004, dir. Edgar Wright
I’ve said a few times that the key relationship in Shaun of the Dead isn’t between Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Liz, but between Shaun and his bumbling best friend Ed (Nick Frost).  And I maintain that this is the case, but I also can’t deny that there’s a strong love story to be found in here.  After all, take away the zombies, and you have a movie about a man who finds out the hard way that he needs to shape up to win back the woman of his dreams.  Keep the zombies in, and you have a movie about a man who’s willing to take on an army of the undead armed only with a cricket bat to win back the woman of his dreams.  And seriously ladies… what could possibly be more romantic than that?

Film is all about appearances.  While it does rely heavily on sound, no matter how a movie sounds, it still needs to resemble something coherent and consistent to matter.  While there’s a great deal of movies that are flawed from the conception stage onward, a strong, unwavering visual concept can go a long way.  Take, for example, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married.  The story is dead simple:  Recovering drug addict Kym (Anne Hathaway) leaves rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding.  The visual hook?  The whole thing is presented as though it’s someone’s home movies.  It’s a far cry from a glossy epic with sweeping crane shots; it even looks rough compared to The Wrestler.  But it absolutely draws the audience in.

The strength of the movie is that it seldom looks scripted.  And even when it does, it’s not performed that way.  The performances are far and away the best thing Rachel Getting Married has going for it.  Nar-Anon meetings look almost as though they just sent a cameraman and a handful of actors to the real deal, rehearsal dinner speeches look very much off-the-cuff, and the most raw emotional scenes look painfully legitimate.

The sense of handycam realism is assisted by the fact that a handful of characters are actually videotaping the whole thing.  Whether those cameras are props or actually shooting isn’t always easy to tell, but that’s not really important.  It makes the setting absolutely real.  Unfortunately, the DIY presentation is the film’s biggest weakness.  While it does capture some amazing performances by nearly anyone with more than a paragraph of dialogue, it too frequently lacks the sort of cohesion one would expect from a movie; even one edited on someone’s laptop.  While I can forgive the handheld shaky-cam as much as it typically bothers me, the movie is at least 10-15 minutes too long and loses it’s focus towards the end.

The appearance of spontaneity, however, does propel the story, and to say it turns the typical wedding movie on it’s head is an understatement.  It’s by no means a comedy, there’s no predictable plot turns, and it denies the audience full closure just as much as it denies the characters the same thing.

Anne Hathaway deserves an Academy Award for her performance, and it earns major points for making zero concessions in terms of realism.  And perhaps most importantly, even the most intense scenes don’t result in overacting or hamming.  But the final half-hour really should have been a final 15 minutes.  It’s a flawed film that can be afforded a lot of grace by virtue of it’s cast, but it’s still not quite what it could have been.

Verdict: B

The Oscars make mistakes.  A lot.  Granted, they are subjective awards, but Stankey Kubrick never won an Oscar, and nothing changes that.

This year, the biggest snub is generally considered to be The Dark Knight receiving neither a Best Picture nor Best Director nomination.  While I agree with the masses that it’s deserving of both nominations (Slumdog Millionaire should win both in my opinion), it still received eight well-deserved nominations, and will more than likely win (and deservedly so) Best Supporting Actor for the late Heath Ledger.

The other big snub was Wall-E for Best Picture.  Again, I agree, especially since the Best Animated Feature has devolved into a Pixar Appreciation award.  But it will win, and it stands a pretty good chance of winning Best Original Screenplay and Best Song.

My biggest beefs with the academy are found within those two categories though.

First and foremost: Best Song.  What the hell have they been doing with that award lately?  Any film with more than one song generally has all of them nominated, and it leaves a number of songs in the dust.  This year, though not agregious as Enchanted or Dreamgirls dominating the nominations, two from Slumdog Millionaire were nominated, while Bruce Springsteen’s song of the same name from The Wrestler was ignored entirely.  Likewise with Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino.  Only three songs were nominated from two movies this year, and those two songs wound up ignored.  Madness.

My second beef is that In Bruges only recieved a single nomination.  Yes, it absolutely deserves at least a Best Original Screenplay nomination, but it’s a challenging and satisfying movie that ranked on a lot of critical top-ten lists and earned Colin Farrell a Golden Globe.  It’s not a movie that’s easily categorized (it ranges from laugh-out-loud funny to bittersweet to downright tragic), but it’s an incredible movie.  Perhaps it proves that there’s a real need for a Best New Filmmaker award, as it was Martin McDonogh’s first theatrical effort, and proof that there’s still a lot of great stories left to be told.

Beyond that, I don’t have any major issues.  It’d be nice if the nominations for blatant Oscar-bait (I’m looking at you, The Reader and Milk) would once and for all give way to validation of more original and creative works like In Bruges, but the movies I’ve enjoyed most this year have, by and large, been nominated.

I didn’t realize it until about a month ago, but Danny Boyle is one of my favourite filmmakers.  And I’ve only seen a handful of his work at this point.  I recently watched Sunshine, his 2007 sci-fi offering that’s equal part claustrophobic thriller and psychological space drama.  Visually, it was easily one of the most involving movies I’ve ever seen.  I have no hesitation in adding it to my (still quite short) list of movies I’d consider buying Blu-ray for.  Slumdog Millionaire, of course, has incredibly little in common with Sunshine.  I think the only comparisons are that both are in colour.  Danny Boyle’s back catalog is diverse to say the least.

There’s theoretically a lot working against Slumdog Millionaire.  For one, it has no recognizable actors.  Dev Patel is fairly well-known in the UK for his work on Skins, but Boyle’s leading lady is an unknown, and the bulk of the film uses child actors.  Second, a good deal of the dialogue is in Hindi.  And third, it’s plot, though appearing complex, is at least somewhat cliche.

But thanks to a smart script, incredible visuals, and strong performances, it not only works, it works almost perfectly.  Much like The Dark Knight, it’s one of those movies that is able to completely shut out the rest of the world while you watch it. It’s an almost pitch-perfect example of every element working to serve the story.  While there are some very strong elements (the cinematography/editing and music are outstanding), there are also no weak elements, and most importantly, no superfluous ones.

Much like The Wrestler, the strongest elements are the most prominent.  It’s impossible to ignore how gorgeous the movie looks and sounds.  Cinematography is something that Danny Boyle has always paid special attention to, even in 28 Days Later, which was shot on DV cameras (for both logistical reasons and creative reasons), but it stands out all the more when paired with AR Rahman’s Bollywood-inspired score.

Slumdog is still character-driven though.  The visuals, unlike a Bax Luhrman movie, don’t distract from the story so much as they add to it, and the film’s cast, especially the child actors, carry the complex screenplay admirably.  When paired with Danny Boyle’s less-than-mainstream sensibilities, the screenplay manages to subvert the usual expectations of a tale-of-destiny style love-story and replacing them with something more powerful.  There’s no tear-jerking monologue about lost love, and Boyle denies them a grand, romantic reunion.  But it manages to deliver on an emotional level despite that, and that deserves celebration.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a conventional movie made by an unconventional filmmaker, and as such, it manages to be more powerful than it’s story alone.  Slumdog Millionaire, however, takes it further and takes a conventional story and tells it in an unconventional way through an unconventional filmmaker.  The results of both films speak for themselves, but Slumdog speaks louder.

Vertict: A

Less is more.

It’s an ageless maxim, especially in the arts, but is it always true?  I’m a fan of simplicity myself.  As I get older, I find myself less and less interested in spectacle; especially if it’s at the expense of characters.  This is a major reason why Transformers was as boring to me as it was.  All some movies have going for them are special effects.  They’re great to watch on the big screen, but ultimately, there’s no attachment to the characters or their circumstances.

On the exact opposite end of the filmmaking spectrum is Darren Aronofsky’s drama The Wrestler.  No special effects, no quick edits, no fancy cinematography.  Unflinching realism is the order of the day, and absolutely everything is at the service of the character.  But does it work?

In this case, it does.  Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler two decades past his prime and doing matches for cash while working part-time at a grocery store.  He lives a relatively lonely life; he’s estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and really only communicates with a stripper (Marissa Tomei) and his fellow wrestlers.  After a brutal hardcore match involving barbed wire, staplers, silverware, and plate glass, Ram suffers a heart attack and is forced to face a life without wrestling.

The Wrestler is driven primarily by Mickey Rourke’s performance.  He’s very rarely not on-screen, and he’s only absent from two or three scenes.  Rourke is, thankfully, up to the challenge.  His performance is powerful in it’s own right, garnering sympathy even for his stupidest decisions and most avoidable mistakes, and making the most of his sparse dialogue.  His speech to the crowd in the film’s final match could have been played as cheesy and intentionally tear-jerking, but Rourke sells it without a trace of self-awareness.  How much of his performance is technique and how much is therapy is a matter of debate, but the product on-screen speaks for itself.  I’m going to join the chorus of film critics demanding a Best Actor win for this performance.

Marissa Tomei, however, deserves any awards and accolades that come her way as well.  In many ways, Cassidy is Ram’s female counterpart.  Neither are in careers that reward seniority, and both are no stranger to pain.  She serves as both a comrade and a foil, and is more than up to the task of matching Rourke’s performance.  Evan Rachel Wood is largely limited by the size of her role, but she too manages to produce a strong performance, albeit not as dynamic a performance as Rourke or Tomei’s.

The overall style of the movie is somewhat hit-or-miss though.  It’s shot almost entirely handheld, documentary style, and looks very low-concept.  It bears a strong resemblence to the 1999 pro wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat.  While this greatly enhances the effectiveness of the cast and Clint Mansell’s guitar-driven score, it’s minimalism and realism doesn’t always play out quite right.  Some cuts and edits feel awkward, and while the background characters add a lot of colour, it feels as though there’s some distinction from the written dialogue and improvised lines, whether that’s the case or not.

But it’s fundamentally a character study, and it’s a fascinating study of someone who put everything on the line until there was nothing left.  While it’s not a perfect film, it’s strengths simply can’t be dismissed, and that makes it’s weaknesses pretty easy to overlook.

Verdict: B+

This review contains some minor spoilers.  Proceed with caution

I’ve been a big fan of David Fincher for a while.  I even liked his (long disowned) chapter in the Alien franchise, Alien 3.  I certainly liked it more than Alien Resurrection, despite Joss Whedon’s participation.  I’ve yet to see Fincher’s The Game, but Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac rank among my favourite films.  In fact, I was bewildered that Zodiac received little to no attention when 2007’s awards were being handed out.  Zodiac, aside from being masterfully shot, acted, and paced, was able to make lengthy scenes about the mechanics of handwriting interesting.  It’s his best movie.

And after seeing Benjamin Button, I still feel that way, but Benjamin Button is a more than worthy follow-up.

The story of Benjamin Button is fairly simple, and based (very loosely) on a short story by F. Scott Fitgerald.  Benjamin Button ages in reverse.  He was born a wrinkled, arthtitic, near-blind and deaf, and given mere weeks to live in 1918.  He spends his childhood in a nursing home in New Orleans, growing younger while those around him grow older.  The old adage “Youth is wasted on the young” is oddly inverted, as Benjamin not only goes through his elder years with a child’s curiosity, but he winds up retaining that curiosity until 1985, when he ceases writing letters to his one true love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett); letters that serve as the primary narrative device.

In the hands of a lesser Director and lesser actors, this would come across as painfully sentimental and heavy-handed.  But Fincher didn’t earn his reputation by making epic love stories or melodrama.  He earned it by making gritty thrillers and challenging narratives.  He takes both that aesthetic style (there’s no shortage of both gorgeous and complex shots to be found in Benjamin Button) and the confidence of having tackled works like Fight Club and Zodiac and applies them to a love story that’s less about the couple being together and more about how they got there.

Curiously, Benjamin is by no means the most interesting character.  Obviously, his condition has a built-in depth, but Pitt underplays that if anything.  His dialogue is only slightly less sparse than his narration.  He’s given no big scenes of cursing the heavens for his affliction.  Not even quiet moments of breakdown.  It’s an incredibly understated performance, and wisely so; aside from Blanchett (who’s fantastic as Daisy), the characters Pitt encounters during the movie are nothing short of, well, characters.  The movie is more about the journey than the destination.

The fact that the audience can’t really connect to Brad Pitt (who bears an uncanny resemblence to Robert Redford in many shots, intentionally or otherwise) but can to Cate Blanchett or Julia Ormond appears to undermine the movie at times, but by the end it becomes clear that while it is a journey movie, it’s also a location movie.  While there are scenes in Moscow, the Pacific Ocean, and New York, the movie plays out as if it was all a grand elegy for New Orleans; a subtle tribute to what Hurricane Katrina took away.  Fincher and Roth never overplay this, but the final scene makes this clear.

The movie works because of what it doesn’t do more often that what it does.  The CGI used to age Benjamin as a child is used sparingly, and as impressive as it is, it’s still not 100% seamless.  Similarly, it avoids scenes that are heavy on stated emotion.  Julia Ormond has the most emotionally-charged performance, and it’s appropriately subdued.  She’s not battling grief; she’s been defeated by grief.  But how disconnecting this is may vary from viewer to viewer.  All the same, Fincher deserves credit for making a choice that goes against the grain.  Removing big emotional scenes maintains the film’s consistency, but goes against audience expectations.

Fincher might finally get a Best Director nod for his work in Benjamin Button, and he deserves it.  It’s beautifully shot, incredibly paced, and well acted.  It’s an award-worthy movie as made by a filmmaker who has no real interest in winning awards.  While it doesn’t emotionally connect as strongly as it perhaps should have, it’s still one of the best movies of 2008.

Verdict: B+

I’m not really a fan of Jay Leno.  No sir.  While I recognize that he effectively needs fresh material 300 or so days per year, and I certainly respect his work ethic, he’s still my least favourite of the late-night hosts.  So when word spread that Conan O’Brien (my favourite of the late-night hosts) would be taking over The Tonight Show, I was most pleased.  But Leno didn’t go quietly into that good night.

Jay Leno has signed a deal with NBC that adds a fourth (yes, fourth) late-night talk show to their lineup, in the 10-11pm slot.  This was, as many have pointed out, the longtime home of the prodecural drama.  ER has spent 15 years in that timeslot on NBC, but that’s largely been all.  And with ER slowly circling the drain for one last season, and NBC struggling commercially, it makes sense on a number of levels.

For one thing, the budget of a talk show is exponentially lower than a prime-time drama.  Build one set.  Hire a band.  Done.  No expensive effects shots (like CSI), no expensive locations (like Lost) and no actors demanding seven figures per episode (like… well, nearly every show with a well-known cast).  While a talk show in that hour might not significantly increase ratings, it definitely offers more ratings for NBC’s money.

But does it really mark the end of the prime-time drama like many are saying?  Perhaps.  The elimination of the 10pm slot is relatively inconsequential.  Fox, who produce almost exclusively 1-hour dramas these days, have never had a 10pm slot, and they have some of the most expensive (and best rated) shows on TV.  House pretty much rules the ratings, and Bones has a good sized following in it’s own right.  24 is returning after a strike-induced hiatus.  When Fox shows fail, it’s generally spectacular, but when they get it right, their big shows are generally driven well past the point of shark-jumping as long as they draw ratings.

CBS have most of their biggest shows in the 10pm slot though, and they’ll probably see a big jump because of NBC’s move.  Two CSI spin-offs are in that time slot, and only one of them has serious competition, and it was never from NBC.  ABC is in an interesting position, however; Lost is really their only big drama, and due to it’s direction and structure, it’s incredibly unlikely to gain new viewers, but it’s proven very likely to lose them.  Not to mention that after 2010, Lost is finished.  ABC might heavily consider either moving Jimmy Kimmel to 10pm or adding a 10pm talk show, or they’ll take a chance on a new drama, but losing Lost really expands their options, and they may very well follow NBC’s lead.

But what NBC’s doing is much more interesting than “killing the prime-time drama”.  They’re merging it with the prime-time comedy, if anything.  Take a look at The Office.  Since Paul Feig started writing and directing the show more frequently, it’s taken a noticably darker turn.  Episodes like The Dinner Party and Moroccan Christmas are generally lighter on laughs and have some legitimately heavy drama.  And Chuck often resembles an hour-long single camera sitcom with bursts of action and (from time to time) legitimate drama.  Having seen the majority of their high-concept dramas fail, NBC aren’t simply cutting their losses.  They’re actually trying something new.  The great irony is that NBC gave the prototypical TV dramedy Freaks and Geeks the shaft in 2000, and Scrubs was straddling the line between comedy and drama a great deal in it’s earlier seasons (with a large dose of surrealism), but as it became more of a straight comedy, NBC became less interested in it.

So kudos to NBC.  Frankly, I’d rather they do more shows that go for quality storytelling with no regard to maintaining genre forms and be consistent within the rules of the show.  The hour-long drama and the half-hour sitcoms couldn’t maintain separate lives forever, and I for one welcome our new hybrid overlords.