Movie Review: Money Ball

            I wouldn’t pay any more of my hard-earned cash-$ to see Money Ball in theaters again. I wouldn’t go out of my way to Net Flix, On Demand, or Red Box it. But I also wouldn’t necessarily fight it off were it to show up on the old Buub-Tube. Money Ball isn't bad, it’s actually pretty good (I mean, Aaron Sorkin did co-write it).

Brad Pitt, compelling as Billy Beane, basically plays a more introspective version of his character from the Cohen brother’s Burn After Reading--you know, that guy (always eating...):

Jonah Hill proves yet again that he’s just very easy to watch on screen, even in a baseball movie (“I know nothing about sports. I don't even know what a sport is. I have to confess that I'm a little afraid of birds. I am...whatever”).

Wait, was Philip Seymour Hoffman even in Money Ball? He so convincingly and totally just disappears into the character of Oakland A’s manager Art Howe that I had to pay super-close attention to the credits (“He was in the movie!”).

The story revolves around questions I love to see addressed on/in film-- questions of class (New York Yankees: haves; A’s: have-lesses), resentment (Brad Pitt/Billy Beane’s resentment of the scouts that scouted him, back in the day), and, one of my personal faves, the “Should I stay or should I go now? Bow-now-now-now-now-now-now...” question.

             And yet, at the end of it all, Money Ball just seemed like less than the sum of its parts. Yours truly thinks this was probably a function of what seemed to be the story’s interest-in/need-to see Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane as a kind of Game-Changer and Good-Man (the sh*t with his daughter, I mean, come on!?!), the latter part of which was almost entirely absent in another recent quasi-biopic, Sorkin’s far, far superior The Social Network.

Novel+ Review: You Deserve Nothing

This is the first in what will hopefully be a long line of lit reviews. Weather permitting. I say “lit” and not “book” or "novel" because I want to leave it open for me to review books (fiction and non), but also essays, philosophical treatises, long-form journalism, the occasional (like Haley’s comet occasional) poem. You get the idea.

The one and only rule that I’m going to give myself in the days/months/years to come is much like the rule I’ve given myself for movie reviews, ergo, FROM THIS MOMENT FORWARD: If I read it, I review it. No exceptions!

The one exception to the one and only rule is that it’s only really going to be applied to novels. So, like, every novel I read FROM THIS MOMENT FORWARD I have to review, and anything more than that is just like icing on the proverbial cake that I can sort’a add or not add as I see fit. So this isn’t really going to be a “lit” review or a "book" review, more a “Novel+” review.

Novel+ Review: You Deserve Nothing

I’m on vacation down in LA, writing, reading, hanging out with my brother, exploring the Concrete Jungle by foot and by trusty steed, i.e., my bicycle, Baruch:

This past Tuesday, I was exploring the Los Feliz/Vermont area of Los Angeles. Clothing, restaurants, a bookstore. Skylight Books. Walking by their store-front, determined not to enter (I have too many books already), a book actually managed to catch my eye. Or it’s title did: You Deserve Nothing. What a title!

And lo, the author, one Alexander Maksik, was going to be coming to Skylight to do a reading on Wednesday, October 12th... Tomorrow night! So I walked right in there, checked my bag, and checked the book: “A gripping story of power, idealism, and morality... Sartre, Camus...” Sold, 14.99 (plus tax).

I began reading You Deserve Nothing on my walk home from Skylight and basically didn’t stop reading until like five minutes before the next night’s event, about twenty pages from the end, and I had two questions that I absolutely had to ask the author.

            In case you can’t tell, I really liked the novel. It reads fast and easy, in a good way. It’s provocative (also in a good way). It’s jam-packed with EXISTENTIALISM (ditto, which in this case means that the existentialism is fun and accessible without being dumbed down). And it’s very French, i.e. broody/romantic, best appreciated while polishing off a few bottles of wine. Red wine.
            Did I like it enough to read it again? Probably not. Did I like it enough to recommend it others in the hopes of being able to discuss it with them, i.e., you? Sure, if you’re into stuff that makes you feel... sexy. Did I like it enough to be willing to loan it someone else without regard for ever getting it back (the true test of ones love for a novel, in my opinion)? Yes. Everybody? No, definitely not...

           I didn’t wind up asking the author the first of my two questions, and I’m not going to tell you what it was (it has to do with the reason I wouldn't lend it to just anybody and has something to do with why the book's provocative). However, I did ask him my second, which went something like this, “Since your novel deals so much with existentialism, I feel like it’s only fair to put an existential-question to you: On page 241 Mickey tells Will, ‘Will, listen to me. If you don’t remember anything else, remember this: Anyone you can fool isn’t worth loving. You understand me? It’s a young man’s move’--alright, so my question is: Have you been able to successfully follow Mickey’s advice in your own life?”
           The author's answer (and this isn't a spoiler, I assure you), which was, in light of the struggles one of the novel's three narrators, quite... 

Movie Review: Drive

Nicholas Wending Refn, whose writing/directing credits already included two movies I really wanted to see (Valhalla Rising and Bronson), is the man behind Drive, the almost equal parts cool/exciting and disturbing new film starring Ryan “I’m ready for Mainstream, Again!” Gosling, the ever-talented/beautiful Carie Mulligan, and a refreshingly de-typecast Albert Brooks, to name a few.

If you’re someone who considers themselves a film enthusiast and you haven’t seen Drive yet, well, what the hell else do you have going on in your life? Work? Relationships with people? Some other form of hogwash?

 

Drive made me madly-deeply excited to go down to Los Angeles. Drive made me want to be/be-with Ryan Gosling (in almost equally confusing measure). Drive made me want to buy driving gloves and wear my shiny Starter Michigan jacket and cruise around in my ‘84 BMW while wearing sunglasses (at night). Drive made me want to get my watch fixed so that I could have it ticking away while my left (gloved) hand rested on my '84 BMW's steering wheel. Drive made me want to live next door to Carie Mulligan and help her take care of her kid and make out with her in our apartment complex’s elevator. Drive made me wish I could actually write stuff like Nicolas Winding Refn without feeling like a shameless poser. Drive made me happy to be a movie-goer (one of two films to successfully accomplish this feat this year, the other being Midnight in Paris).

In case you can’t tell, I really liked Drive and would gladly fork over some more of my hard-earned $-$ to see it again in theaters. The cinematography, the music, the acting, all of it just totally effused cool, even if Winding Refn’s story suffered somewhat from what I’d call a “closed loop” problem (i.e., its universe was definitely a closed one and I was made awkwardly aware of that fact at a crucial turn in the film; for an explanation of why this is be a problem in/for a story, go watch yourself some Inception).

           Mark my words, Drive will be one of the defining films of/for our generation. The reason I say and believe this with such pompous conviction is because Drive managed to (1) successfully tap into one of what I understand to be our generation’s core problematics/fantasies and (2) proceed to develop said problematic/fantasy into a Hero and a Hero-Arc to match. This is precisely why yours truly, in addition to thinking Drive was super cool/exciting, also found it quite disturbing.
   

What’s the problematic? How to respond to our culture's hyper-manic Awareness of Audience, i.e., our hysteria. In the event that you have absolutely no idea what I mean about when I say “hyper-manic Awareness of Audience” go and check out Andrew Foster Altschul’s Deus Ex Machina, or, if you’re not a big reader, go and watch like two minutes of literally any “reality” TV show. Still not quite sure what I'm talking about? Then ask yourself the following question: How many times a day do I, in order to figure out what to do/how to act/what to say, try and figure out what others' percepctions of my doings/actings/sayings may/may not be? How many times a day do I adjust my doings/actings/sayings accordingly? If your answer to this last question is either "a lot" or "isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" then go and read David Foster Wallace's "Good Old Neon" to see where this ethical-train is probably leading you. If you're not a big reader, then, well, just take my word for it: This is one of our generation's core problematics.
             What's the fantasy that Drive gives us that's rooted in the above problematic? Well, of course, it’s multivalent...

First valence (for The Guys in the theater, so to speak): That someone Wonderful, someone Worthy (Carrie Mulligan’s character), will become Interested in us (Ryan Gosling’s character) and see through our pronounced, intentional Autism--an Autism that seems to increasingly be put forward as one of our generation’s best and only available responses to the above problematic and which amounts to nothing less than a refusal to "play the game"--and actually do something to get to Know/Understand us better (e.g., C. Mulligan’s tracking R. Gosling down at his work place).

          Second valence (also for The Guys): That someone else (Bryan Cranston’s character), perhaps a group of someones (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman’s characters), perhaps a group of someones with Money (ditto), will also see through our pronounced autism and see the Skill/Gift/Power, i.e., Value that we've hidden away and reward us with recognition and/or with Money.
          The fantasy's first two valences are best captured/most typified and played-into by two of the film’s songs, both of which are given full plays within the film itself:

• First the Kavinsky song “NIGHTCALL”, which for yours truly highlights the film’s damn-near perfect score (composed by Cliff Martinez), whose chorus, as sung by a female vocalist (Lovefoxx), goes, “There’s something inside you, it’s hard to explain... They’re talking about you boy, but you’re still the same.”
• Second the Desire song “Under Your Spell”, whose chorus, as sung by a female vocalist, goes “I don’t eat... I don’t sleep... I do nothing but think of youuuuu... You’ve got me under your spell, you’ve got me under your spell, you’ve got me under your spell...” (which had a somewhat ironic part of it edited out in/for the film-version of the song, for those of you who’re curious).

The third valence (for The Ladies, so to speak): That in seeing through someone else’s Autism and actually doing something to get to Know that person better, we won’t be making a tragic and/or fatal Mistake (i.e., wind up under the spell of a psycho-killer, e.g.).

            The fourth valence (again, for The Guys): That we will (1) be given an Opportunity to break out of our Autism and do something Heroic, i.e., manifest our Skill/Gift/Power/Value for the sake of the somebody or something actually Worthy and Wonderful (i.e., Carrie Mulligan and Fam. and not Albert Brooks and Co.), and (2) that we will then actually go and do said Heroic thing, thereby Proving the Worth of the Worthy's almost entirely speculative Interest/Investment in us.
            The third and fourth valences of the fantasy of the film really culminate in the other of the film’s big three songs, this one by the band College. It’s called “A Real Hero”, and the chorus, also sung by a female vocalist, goes, “Back against, the wall is ours...With the strength of a willing cause... A pursuit some called outstanding... Or emotionally complex... Against a grain... Left to stop at claims... Of the thoughts your actions entertain... And you, have proved, to be... A real human being... And a real hero.”

The fantasy that Drive gives us is thus two-fold: for "the guys," it's that we can address our generational-cultural Hysteria by adopting kind of intentional Autism and not only still be Valued by someone/something Wonderful/Worthy, but also eventually be given an Opportunity to do something Heroic and, thereby, Prove our own Value/our Inverstor’s initial Speculation r.e. us; for "the ladies," it's that we shouldn't be afraid to be interested in *gulp* Autistic people, they're probably the people with the most to offer in return for our Interest/I... n... v... e... s... t... m... e... n... t.
             As far as fantasies go, this is some pretty powerful sh*t. It's also precisely why I think Drive has been a movie on so many people's minds these past few weeks, and why it will continue to be a movie on our generation's mind for years to come.

   

The reason why I find Drive and its/our fantasy so disturbing isn’t merely because it signals the total reduction of the romantic relationship to the dynamics of an almost entirely speculative investment model (it does, f.y.i.), nor because I think it ultimately locks people into exactly the kind of appearance-driven relationships they were trying to get away from when they decided to go into Autistic-Mode (ask yourself: Would C. Mulligan's character have taken any interest in R. Gosling's had he not been fricking RYAN GOSLING?!?), but because it used to be my fantasy and I know where it took me and what life was like when I got there:

Movie Review: The Debt

            I have a friend, who shall remain nameless (unless he decides to name himself), who didn’t want to see The Debt because he thought it was going to be a piece of “Zionist propaganda.” Well, I convinced him otherwise and we went to see it together with some other friends and, well, it wasn’t Zionist propaganda, not quite.

The Debt, starring Helen Mirren (always great, great here), the new It girl Jessica Chastain (whose It-ness I totally understand as I get lost in the milky-etherealality of her skin and ocean-blue depth of her eyes and burning red passion of her hair and ahh...), and one of my very favorite actors whom I hardly ever see in anything. No, not Avatar-Boy (Sam Worthington). I’m talking about the villain from the second Mission Impossible:

No, not Tom Cruise. The other MI: 2 villain, actor Marton Csokas...

Wait, sh*t, I just found out that I’ve totally confused the New Zealand born Csokas (who is NOT in MI: 2 but is in The Debt) with Scottish-born actor Dougray Scott (who is in MI: 2 but NOT in The Debt).

Csokas:
 


Scott:
 


Wow, that was embarrassing!
            Anyways, The Debt is sort’a like Munich: an action-y film about super bad-a$$ Israeli Mossad agents going after people who messed with The Jews who then sort-a kind’a start to second guess themselves/feel bad.

In Munich, the Mossad agents go after Black September and start to second guess themselves as a function of the brutality they use in exacting their Justice; in The Debt they go after an evil Nazi doctor hiding in East Germany as a creepy gynecologist--

--and start second guessing themselves only after they have successfully perpetrated a (SPOILER!!!) “noble lie” for almost thirty years.

The Debt is, in so many words, a strongly acted, inconsistently paced, often exciting meditation on the problem of the “noble lie,” i.e. the lie that one tells for the purported sake of others.       

Insofar as The Debt problematizes a group of Mossad agents telling of a noble lie for the sake of the state of Israel/their children, The Debt is an interesting, fairly entertaining film that I wouldn’t mind seeing again were it to accidentally show up on the old Bube Tube.

However, insofar as The Dept, like Munich before it, seems to be a film suggesting that the agents of the state of Israel feel bad sometimes doing what they have to do in the name of their justice, well, perhaps it really is a piece of Zionist propaganda like my friend feared. As a wise old woman--

--once told me, feeling bad doesn’t make you a good person.

Movie Review: Contagion

           I can’t say that I’d ever really want to watch Stephen Soderberg’s first post-retirement film, Contagion, ever again. Yeah, it stars everybody. Yeah, it’s good in that it's well told, entertaining/anxiety inducing. Yeah, it can be viewed as a metaphor/commentary on the current financial crisis and one of its primary motors (fear and its tendency to spread very, very quickly, especially in light of how connected all of us are, today). But the effect of whole thing was to make me just want to throw up my hands in a feeling of near-total hopelessness/powerlessness. After I’ve washed them.


Of course.

Movie Review: Warrior

            Maybe it was the fact that this reviewer had just broken up with his now ex-girlfriend only a few hours prior to seeing the UFC-themed, sports-drama Warrior, and/or that he identified on multiple levels with the film’s older-brother/every-man/fighter character “Brendan” (Joel Edgerton), but damn, Warrior was an emotionally powerful film.

Sure, Warrior was occasionally contrived, hard to believe, and over-acted (particularly by Tom Hardy as the younger-brother/fighter “Tommy”), but isn’t that what sports-dramas (“spramas”?!?) are supposed to be? This reviewer sure thinks so. And damn,  this reviewer loves himself some Nick Nolte--

   

--as the brothers’ abusive, recovering alcoholic father “Patty.”

That said, I almost went to see Warrior again a few nights after seeing it the first time. Yeah, my second viewing would have been a free one with buddies, but I still would’ve considered seeing it again even if it hadn’t been for free.

I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to Net Flix, Red Box, or On Demand it, but if it happened to be on TV or if somebody I knew were watching it and asked me to partake, this reviewer’d have no qualms watching Warrior at least one more time.

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses

            I probably wouldn’t pay any more of my hard-earned cash-money to rewatch Horrible Bosses (although I didn’t really pay to watch it the first time because I watched it at the Lake Twin, where I work); I probably also wouldn’t On Demand, Net Flix, or Red Box it; but I definitely wouldn’t mind rewatching it were it to show up on the old Bube Tube. Horrible Bosses is, often, very, very funny.

Sure, Horrible Bosses is stupid and crass and, well, crass, but it’s also funny, and, occasionally, hilariously so. For example, the scene in which Colin Farrell, brilliant as Jason Sudeikis’s horrible boss, “Bobby,” is shown amongst what one assumes are prostitutes and sh*t-tons of drugs in what turns out to be his (Bobby’s) office is, in this reviewer’s opinion, hilariously funny. Charlie Day is also, even though one knows that he’s merely being his It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia self, impossible not to be constantly amused with/laughing at. EVEN Jennifer “I should’a quit LIFE as soon as Friends ended” Aniston is humorously grotesque/sexy as Charlie Day’s horrible boss, “Julia.” And then there’s Jamie Foxx as “Mother-F*cker Jones,” which, I mean, come on, just his name (and the story of how he got it, in particular).

             For me, the one, big detractor in the whole film was Kevin Spacey, and not because he wasn't not good as Jason Bateman’s horrible boss, “Dave,” but because he was just so much better in almost the same role 15-20 years ago. I’m talking about the incredibly dark and insufficiently remembered Swimming with Sharks, in which Spacey plays a maniacal film producer who pushes one of his assistants--a young Frank Whaley, whom I just love--a little too far.

If you want to see a smarter/darker/more poignant version of Horrible Bosses, and a truly sick/brilliant Kevin Spacey, check out Swimming with Sharks. If coke, Jennifer Aniston’s titties, Mother-F*ckers, and tooth-brush-ass-wipings are more your cup of tea, stick with Horrible Bosses.