Elle

As I was watching this film, I felt as though this was made for an American Gaze, like a De Palma film set abroad. So, I was unsurprised when I discovered that Paul Verhoeven of Basic Instinct fame directed this film, and it was initially intended for an American lead actress alongside an American setting. Though pretty tame for a revenge psychosexual French thriller, it came a bit too late for the political climate of today’s American cinema. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but find myself engrossed and really drawn to the macabre story. The movie begins immediately with a woman being brutally attacked and assaulted by a masked intruder inside her home. After the assault she cleans up the mess—broken shards from a fallen vase—that was made while she was struggling against her attacker. She takes a bath and meets with her ingrate son. This is Michelle LeBlanc, played with remarkable prowess by Isabelle Huppert.

  

Michelle is a mother, an ex-wife, and a CEO but also an unusual choice of protagonist for a rape-revenge feature, not just in the stoic way she reacts to the assault but also because of her particularly prickly character traits and because of the violent past that might hint at there being a secret darkness inside of her. But like they say: there is no such thing as a perfect victim.

 

Michelle endures horrific slings and arrows with a seasoned deftness and a Teflon exterior. Troubles seem to hardly rattle her. But she is still unnerved and angered by the attack as anyone would be. She envisions a redo where instead of being violated by her attacker she bashes his head in repeatedly with the vase. 

  

Her character's handling of adverse circumstances has been dubbed masculine by some critics. I found this interesting since there’s something about Elle that reminds me of an old-school horror flick that’s been turned on its head. In those movies, the protagonist is often a virginal girl( In Elle it’s subverted, Michelle is a middle-aged adulteress) and the heroine must take on masculine traits and symbols to defeat her monster. But in Elle, her monster is defeated in a submissive, ‘feminine’ way. As though Michelle had to reject the manly and stoic defense mechanism that she built to protect her from audacious men in order for her to destroy the most brazen, monstrous man she’s ever encountered.

 

When her attacker makes another attempt later in the film, she does manage to thwart him by spearing a piece of glass through his hand. He is so distracted from the pain, that Michele manages to remove the ski mask and finds herself staring into the face of her attractive next-door neighbor. Flummoxed and angered, she drives him out.

 

Michelle has been plagued by the derision of strangers and the crimes of familiar men, since the inciting moment in her childhood when her father committed a string of murders in their neighborhood and may or may not have encouraged Michele to aid him in those crimes.

 

In a way, Michelle seems to be more bothered by her connection to her father than her assault. The film tries to keep it ambiguous as to whether she was an equally culpable participant in the murders like her father, but it seems to me that whatever ignorant enjoyment she might have taken, is irrelevant; she was a child. She was under the authority of someone who was meant to protect her, who empowered her to submit to his tainted desires. So, of course, she never forgives him for this. For taking advantage of a daughter’s natural desire to be subservient to her father and using it for something abhorrent and wrong. It’s twisted! Twisted is also the word Michele uses to describe what has existed between her and her neighbor Patrick AKA, the masked rapist. Going from a not-so-innocent crush and attraction for a seemingly affable happily married man to a strange sadomasochistic cat and mouse encounter in his basement.

 

He tries to assault her a third time and is this time successful, but it is the circumstances that enable this act of violence that makes the question of consent more nebulous. It’s unclear why Michelle didn’t report Patrick immediately and even seems to permit his violent fantasies further. Perhaps the frustrations in her life have driven her to feel that by engaging in this twisted affair, she is demonstrating an act of deference and strength. Or perhaps like Patrick, victimizing herself is in her nature, as rape is in his, and she cannot help but make herself both the subject and co-author of her trauma. Regardless, of what the true story is. In the end, she does choose the truth, though. This truth is achieved under the guise of a lie. As with most disadvantaged groups, women seldom have the luxury of achieving justice through a straight path. Even women who are also chic Parisian CEOs. 

Hostel

 I put on Hostel one day as background noise to keep me company while I was going about my day, taking care of business, doing homework, et cetera. And that really tells you a lot about my expectations of this movie. But I had heard someone compare it to Fresh, essentially demoting Fresh and declaring Hostel as a superior contender in what I suppose could be dubbed ‘the genre of dismemberment’. I would be inclined to agree with that person before I watched the sequel, which makes me question Roth’s intention a lot and backpedal on some but not all of my love for this film. I had no preconceived notions about this film beyond the horror aspect and I could ascertain pretty quickly the gruesome fate that would await these three characters in Slovakia.  But there were many clever subversions I did not expect. The movie is trying to say something and I’m not sure if it knows what that is or if this is just an ‘all the above’ case. Here is what I’ve managed to glean from my viewing:

We’re all just consumers in one way or another. 

Maybe we should think more critically about the images we consume ( and maybe, also our food?)

We should put ourselves in the shoes of the prey that we casually gorge down in a hedonistic rush. 

There is a clear correlation between sexuality and actual food consumption, no? One character even mentions that he is a vegetarian. And it is, of course, the one whose hedonism is most apparent. In other words, he refuses to eat meat, to abuse animals, but women are fair game. Josh seems to be the most virtuous of the three men, but he recoils at what might have been an advance from another man, a stranger on the train.

 His killer and torturer are the same man, which is very fitting, as the torturers seem to get off on this. So food is sex and so is violence. Very standard slasher stuff but the execution is interesting to me. First Roth tortures and kills the innocent, the prototypical final guy but I suppose his lack of sexual appetite combined with the scene on the train could be read as repressed homosexuality in which case it’s just a bury your gays' situation but I doubt this. I do think we are supposed to question Josh’s sexuality but his less chauvinistic personality, and his celibacy is supposed to be his dominant trait. And we are supposed to latch onto that in the sea of exposed bodies so when he is killed it sends a message. He was just a Marion Crane. 

The Scandinavian friend’s death was interestingly offscreen, which I think was smart. So when the carnage finally happens, your imaginings of his demise are likely to be more terrible than an actual depiction not to mention this type of film works best when the mutilations are spaced out. Otherwise you get fear fatigue. It just becomes a barrage of dismembered bodies onscreen and remember, the film wants you to feel the weight of the bodies you are ‘consuming’, the images that you may or may not be watching while folding clothes. So I felt it. Surprisingly I felt it. I was so looking forward to Paxton’s death at the start but by the time the movie crawled closer to that set piece, I was hoping for the guy to make it out. I audibly yelled for him to step on it when the girls who essentially sold him and his friends appeared in the street.

 The way everything kind of escalated at the end was so thrilling and cathartic and strangely comedic at times. I’m surprised I haven’t heard that line—you know what line—used in third-wave feminist spaces, totally ignoring the context of selling humans to be abused. ( Albeit, I could get behind some ironic usage) Maybe that’s the point of the film, maybe this is a modern man’s secret dread, women weaponizing their sexuality so that they can have power over them by letting other men act out their fantasies. And maybe that’s why I feel the second movie misses the point, maybe even more than the third does. This movie presents itself as chauvinistic but it is truly feministic. It respects bodies. It debases them, maims some, and spares others. 

It posits that men will perish at the hands of other men and women will stand amid the carnage both orchestrator and victim. Bitch and pimp. Meal and cook.

I dunno; that’s what I took from it. Kind of gross but in a good way.

The Harvey Girls (1946): A Musical/Western Confectionary…and Scarecrow too!

In honor of one of the most celebrated MGM stars in heaven’s centennial birth year–and as you know there are several, even outnumbering the heavens–this review will focus on The Harvey Girls starring Judy Garland. The film was directed by George Sidney and released in 1946. It became the first film to begin his career of making big technicolor musicals with iconic songs and stars. These included films like Show Boat, and Bye Bye Birdie, along with later youth-marketed pictures like Viva Las Vegas. But the trend first began with The Harvey Girls.

 

This movie seemed to combine two of the most popular genres at the time: musicals and westerns. So, in a sense, it is not only a time capsule for an era when musical movies were en vogue but for the bygone era of western expansion in the way of railroads, land, and franchises. The Harvey Girls gets its name from the Harvey Houses founded by Fred Harvey in 1876. They were a chain of restaurants put along various railroad stops in the west, promising warm meals to travelers, and respectable waitresses serving them (i.e., ‘the girls’). And they were profitable! Extremely so, Fred Harvey is credited with creating the first successful chain business and with “civilizing the west”. The Harvey Houses even outlived him and were a staple of the west until the 1940s.

At a time when nostalgia for the west was being depicted in film and television more often, it seemed a smart move for this film to do so as well and to combine musical numbers led by one of the studio’s most profitable stars, Judy Garland. Judy Garland’s fluttery contralto had a hold on audiences and critics alike. She leaves you in awe with ballads like "In the Valley (Where the Evening Sun Goes Down)” and inspires excitement in ensemble numbers like the “On the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe”. Altogether this film is like being in a candy store. A confectionary of musical wonderment, humor, romance, and spectacle.

 

The technicolor is just the cherry on top of a satisfyingly saccharine sundae. It works best in the service of the period-appropriate costumes. Now the uniform for the eponymous Harvey Girls is rather monotone, keeping in line with how the waitresses were actually dressed in the 1890s. The dance girls at the saloon however are very stylish, with risqué designs and boas. It is a shock to see the leader of the dance girls be played with a lovable ruthless charm by a very young Angela Lansbury. The scene where the colors really pop out is the ballroom scene, as seen below.

                                        Ray Bolger and Judy doing what they did best in a vivid musical sequence

This scene is such a perfect example of delectable costuming, music, dancing, and talent. And the talent! I have already mentioned Judy Garland as the star, she plays Susan Bradley, a young Ohio native who answers a lonely-hearts ad and finds herself on a train going to Arizona with newly employed Harvey Girls. Angela Lansbury is her sort of foil, a local coquettish saloon dancer called Em who has a soft spot for Ned Trent, the male lead played by John Hodiak. These three characters, it’s fair to say have the most character development and personality dedicated to them and are played wondrously by each of these actors. The only deficit is the unnecessary dubbing of Angela Lansbury for Em’s signature song “Oh, You Kid”. But she still plays Em very charismatically even as she is unnecessarily catty to Susan and it’s hard to not enjoy her villainy.


Ned Trent is the saloon owner and, on that basis, alone he and Susan have a conflict of interest since she shortly after realizing her fiancé-to-be was not an ideal match, decides to join the Harvey Girls, his competitors, essentially. Their conflict actually first arose when it was revealed that Ned Trent wrote the letters that had driven her to Sandrock, instead of her actual betrothed. So, she starts off quite angry with him, feeling as though he made a joke of what she thought was a legitimate courtship. She later comes to respect and secretly pine for him, after seeing how he has no animosity towards her and the other Harvey Girls, and how he means for their competition to be amicable, unlike Em and his business partner, Sam Purvis. He develops feelings for Susan as well.


Judy Garland and John Hodiak have great chemistry in this film. He plays Ned Trent, who is written as an incorrigible businessman with a secret romantic side, in a very realistic way. Another actor might have veered too close into caricature, but he delivers his lines with no airs, with complete believability and an arresting smile. Personally, she never found a better match as far as romantic co-leads (though there are definitely some more suitable in the song and dance department) and it’s a shame to this writer that he was not cast opposite Judy again in A Star is Born per her request, but I digress.

John Hodiak and Judy Garland. Judy still was using Dorothy Ponedel, the makeup artist who brought out her natural beauty in Meet Me in St Louis and she similarly does a good job here

 

Judy again along with her vocal strength is quite moving, particularly in the scene towards the end of the picture when Susan implores Em to teach her how to be a dance-hall girl too, believing that that is what Ned Trent desires. Her desperation at that moment felt very raw and real and did not at all match the lightness of most of the film, and as pitiable as it was, the unrequited pangs are relatable and make her reunion with Ned even more blissful. Garland though most beloved for her musical performances was quite adept at tapping into sadness, and one can’t help but wonder if she imbued these performances with her own personal well of sorrows.

She was known for her tardiness and sometimes altogether missing a day of shooting and the filming of The Harvey Girls was not an exception. One character played with deadpan charisma by fellow former child actor Virginia O’Brien had several of her scenes cut as the shooting delays made it harder to hide her pregnancy. Her character Alma is noticeably missing at the end of the film, but she does get a song performed in a scene with Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow himself, reuniting with Garland again since they first starred together in The Wizard of Oz. He and Cyd Charisse get to show off their dancing skills, and they are both a joy to watch in their respective styles. Bolger shines in the aforementioned ballroom scene in a very impressive and humorous tap number. Charisse, who plays fellow Harvey Girl, Deborah dances in an interim to a song performed by Kenny Baker in his beautiful tenor voice. He plays her character's love interest and the song he charms her with is called “Wait and See”. It is such a gorgeous song and performance.


The choreography was done by Robert Alton, a renowned choreographer at the time. He worked with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and choreographed many other musicals. He had his work cut out for him as the film was conceived as a response to Oklahoma, a very dance-heavy musical, and it should be said that he succeeds with both ensemble numbers and solo displays. The dancing perfectly complements the music written by Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren. The song “On the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe” actually became a big hit after the film’s release winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Black film actor Ben Carter has a brief role in the film along with a solo in this spectacular number. He was the first Black actor to have a seven-year contract with a major studio and is most known for booking many of the black extras in Gone with the Wind.


It’s understandable that this film is not mentioned nearly as much compared to other MGM musicals, particularly Garland-centric MGM musicals. One might interpret it as a clear cash grab, and true, the story itself is sort of facile. But it functions well as a vehicle to propel the spectacle of cinema, which at the time had to compete with the small screen as well. The colors and the talent and the spectacular eye-popping hues of the period costuming were a major draw. It's a scrumptious feast for the eyes, a sweet blend of genres, just the epitome of a Hollywood movie musical.

 

                                               A gun-slinging Judy Garland and no-nonsense Angela Lansbury

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breathless

  

A Bout De Souffle or Breathless was Jean Luc Godard’s directorial debut. I have heard this title often mentioned in film circles and referred to as being the seminal French New Wave film. Jean Luc Godard wrote for the famous Cahiers du cinéma film magazine, along with other directors (Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, etc.) who would also become associated with the French New Wave movement in the sixties. So, there is this romantic backstory to it in that sense and prestige, since it started as a passion project by a man who loved movies, who opined them, and it became this revered, pivotal work that every film student is made to watch and write about. So, it is very much a template, a historic one at that too. And often, those types of movies are not so engaging outside of the historical context, because as times change, people’s tastes change. And I admit the first half of this movie was not completely engaging.

 We are first introduced to the protagonist Michel Poiccard played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, a car thief, who shoots and kills a police officer who was in pursuit of him. Michel reconnects with an American Expat named Patricia, played by Jean Seberg, and asks her to go to Italy with him. He is enamored with her and it’s not hard to believe, since Jean Seberg is the epitome of French chicness which is funny considering she wasn’t French. She works for the New York Herald Tribune and likes Michel but also engages in trysts with her boss. Overall, her emotions seem to skew capricious but (at least, this was my interpretation) seemingly because she wanted to be sure of Michel’s true affection for her. He comes across as extremely chauvinistic and in fact, throughout most of the movie, he is just begging her for sex. Apparently, this movie started the jump cut technique and I do see them being used often and with great effect. 

But there’s also this one scene where Michel breaks into Patricia’s flat. She is nonplussed and is just being her charming self while he keeps begging. They have this whole Pepe le Pew chasing a coquettish Penelope pussycat dynamic. And the scene consists of that and nothing else of import or significance to the larger plot (Well, Patricia does reveal she is pregnant by him in this scene but that is not really addressed subsequently.). 

They’re petits riens, little nothings that serve as a short interim to the main action and conflict, which is really just a standard cop and robbers' narrative that becomes tangential and less of a focus in the end. Because this is the focus. This relationship. These people. They’re little things that seem sweet and ineffectual but become grand everythings. I can tell that so many auteurs have been inspired by the simplicity and beauty of this scene. Sometimes, the best answer to the question of what makes good cinema is the simplest: two people sitting in a room talking, listening to music, grooming themselves, and being intimate. It doesn't have to be complex or difficult. 

We’re shown that the police seem to suspect Michel of being the man who murdered their fellow officer, and they continue to search for him with much difficulty. Michel is doing everything in his power to evade. He even adopts a pseudonym Laszlo Kovacs which was actually a reference to a character Belmondo played in a previous film. The movie has many metatextual moments like that. Another is when a woman asks Michel to buy her magazine to support young artists. Which magazine was she selling? Cahiers du cinéma.

After their lovemaking, Michel and Patricia leave the apartment so she can attend a press conference (but not before making a fabulous costume change, in a cute striped dress). Michel drops her off and goes to confront someone about some money he is owed. That actually backfires as his criminal identity becomes more and more known. Michel tells Patricia the worst flaw is cowardice. Despite his arrests probably being imminent, he doesn’t appear to be very much concerned with getting out of dodge. Michel lives for the moment and the moment is Patricia. 

Another favorite part in this movie for me is the press conference Patricia attends for this famous French novelist. These reporters treat this man like he’s an oracle. They ask him the most existential questions and he gives such chauvinistic responses; it verges on satire. He’s like the male gaze personified. When Patricia asks her question “Do women have a role to play in modern society?” He answers with just as much quickness and humor (this time intentional) as the other responses: “If they’re charming and wear striped dresses and glasses.” She smiles in response to the obvious flirting. She also asks him “What is your greatest ambition?” He responds: “To become immortal and then die.” Patricia removes her glasses and ponders that response and stares directly into the viewers' eyes. The score is more raucous now. Vibrating with it’s something to negate the little nothings. This is what I feel is the turning point of the film.

Patricia is questioned by the police the following day about her knowledge of the whereabouts of Michel, but she doesn’t give him up. Instead, she sneaks off to rendezvous with him at the cinema. They steal a new escape car and hide out at Antonio’s, a friend of Michel's. But Patricia unexpectedly decides to betray Michel and reveal his location to the police. She admits this to him, saying in essence, that she did it because she no longer wishes to be in love with him and believes this can sever her attachment. He is incredulous at first but then resigns to his fate, and immediately after tries to make a run for it. When he is shot by the police, Patricia saunters into the frame, emotionless. “You disgust me”. He tells her. But she doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She traces her lips with her thumb the way Michel always does, which was apparently a tic of Humphrey Bogart, and stares into the camera again. It reminded me of a quote her character spoke in an earlier scene: “We look into each other's eyes, but what for?”  

What was the final glance for? And the emulation of her fallen lover, what was the point? The questions raised by A Bout de Souffle might leave one perplexed and annoyed, but I love that its profundity is so ambiguous. It definitely poses questions about the nature of men and women. And the desire to pursue your desires and dreams even if it results in perilous consequences. Maybe I’m projecting, but I can imagine the production of this film mirrored in a lot of ways Michel’s tireless pursuit of Patricia. Except for the former, it paid off! A Bout de Souffle has cemented itself in film history, it has become immortal and evaded death. I really enjoyed my viewing experience of it, overall.

Under the Silver Lake: A Neo-Noir for the Millennial Voyeur

Under the Silver Lake was written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and stars Andrew Garfield and Riley Keogh. It was distributed by A24, a production company known for taking on films that larger studios might pass on. These films tend to be more cult-like or even experimental. Something that might only appeal to a niche audience so it’s curious that films bearing that A24 logo have now garnered a  massive following from even casual moviegoers. For many, it appears to be a marker of quality. But this does not precisely apply to critical response for Under the Silver Lake.

The story is a blend of genres: part noir, part stoner comedy, part horror. Director David Robert Mitchell wrote the script quickly on a caffeinated high, with according to lead Andrew Garfield, enough detail and length to rival an Aaron Sorkin script. There is also a satirical element as the protagonist Sam (Garfield) rambles through various parties and hotspots in L.A., each more outlandish and vapider than the last. And Sam himself is no exception. He functions as a sort of millennial Travis Bickle, as loathsome as he is pitiful. But whether he committed the most horrible transgressions is left ambiguous. What is evident is that Sam is an unemployed man-child with a crush on his neighbor Sarah (played by Riley Keogh) that soon turns into an obsession after her very sudden disappearance. 

 

So, the rest of the movie just involves his sort of conspiracy theory-driven odyssey even as he is on the verge of being evicted, and there is some crazed dog killer on the loose that may or may not be him. Inexplicably surreal events occur and it’s not altogether clear whether Sam’s nostalgia is clouding his perception of events. This film gets a lot of flak for its depiction of women, which is only understandable when you consider the vast number of films that also lean overtly into the male gaze, even those that espouse a toxic masculine criticism like Under the Silver Lake. 

 

This writer however agrees with Mitchell that it’s not done in poor taste, since all central and side characters, Sam included, have an unfavorable depiction. And it’s from Sam’s perspective, a misogynist. Leads run dry, people die, Sam gets sprayed by a skunk since apparently Silver Lake is full of them, and he continues his quest, stinking of naive desperation. He believes Sarah and two of her friends have been kidnapped by a famous older celebrity, and that there must be a vast organization run by the elite who are faking their death and disappearing with young escorts. 

 

The plot appears simple and pays homage to other similar narratives and films of a quixotical nature with a modernized spin and many details and clues that keep the audience engaged just as Sam himself searches for Sarah in various ciphers and clues. Several fans of the film have taken to decoding these ciphers and sharing their findings online. This seems a strange takeaway considering the theme of the film does not frame Sam’s obsession with finding hidden meaning in pop culture as healthy.

 

He searches for clues in movies, music, and other media because his life is in shambles. And the movie contains so many clues for the viewer to also decipher.  This I believe is intentional, likening zealous viewers to Sam. This is so interesting because Sam is a repugnant, depraved, objectifying, murderer. Sam is basically all the overly clever movie fanatics who have ever obsessed over a piece of media to the detriment of their own existence. Sam neglects to pay his rent and his car note for this quest. Only when confronted with his misdeeds does he confide in someone about the hurt underpinning his actions. Like everybody on the planet, Sam wants love but instead of doing what he needs to do, he takes the easy way out and chases castles in the air. Except now he knows that’s it all meaningless. There is no answer.

Nevertheless, I too spend too much time overanalyzing this film. There is a draw to Under the Silver Lake that has eluded several of its critics that I don’t think they’ll get even if they play the film backward for proper effect. 

 

The casting is fantastic, first off. When Dakota Johnson could not commit to the role of Sarah, Riley Keogh replaced her and dyed her hair blonde to emphasize the Hitchcock allusion. The film lost out on Tippi Hedren’s granddaughter, but I think any Old Hollywood Nepotism baby would do and Keogh does a decent job for her limited part. In one scene she mimics the last remaining footage of Hollywood’s most revered and most tragic blonde in Something’s Got to Give. This is one of the more surreal moments of the film that is confirmed to be a dream sequence, that Sam only picks up on once Sarah/Marilyn starts barking (This is not the first scene in which women are given canine attributes)

 

The casting of Andrew Garfield seemed especially inspired to me as well, but not for the reason most people have picked up on. There is one scene in which Sam accidentally gets an issue of the Amazing Spiderman stuck on his hand (An accident, Mitchell claims) that a lot of people have read too much into. Closer to the end of the movie it is revealed that Sam’s ex had achieved a bit of success in the industry and is engaged, meanwhile, he is…decidedly not successful. Admittedly, it is a hyperbolic comparison to make to Garfield and his career post-breakup with Oscar winner Emma Stone. I like to think he related in some small way to the character. I’d also like to think that’s why director David Robert Mitchell sent him the script, but he’s been cryptic on that along with most theories associated with the film, keeping in line with its messaging, I suppose.

 

Garfield does well in his role. To evoke ambivalence on whether he is the notorious Dog Killer, he plays it in different ways: overtly villainous, clueless, and too dumb to even be considered. It reminds one of Willem Dafoe’s character in American Psycho. The dog killings are incidental to the plot but somehow knowing Sam was responsible for them in addition to all his other deficits would make him a little too hard to stomach. Of course, the script lends a lot of credence to that theory. But you also gather that Sam is just a product of the time and the image-obsessed industry which it is alluded to that Sam works in (or used to, as he is unemployed). In one scene he chillingly assaults some kids for vandalizing his expensive car and in the next, he is dancing like a lovable doofus in an underground club. His menacingly guileless approach to the character works in this neo-noir film where the trauma is not from war but from lack of war, a lack of anything but pop culture and its romanticized depictions of the world.

 

Sam’s quest is scored by composer Disasterpeace, who worked with Mitchell on his previous movie, It Follows. He chose Disasterpeace for that film for his ability to capture 80s nostalgia, especially video game sound, a medium Disasterpeace was known chiefly for before his collaboration with Mitchell. Similarly in this film, the score has a synth, videogame quality to it which matches the tone. Sam goes to so many places, he does heinous things and meets fantastic people but each of these events doesn’t seem to impact the other. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure game in the style of David Lynch. The score also at points seems very reminiscent of Bernard Herman, which also adds to the Old Hollywood homages that are scattered throughout the film. Sam clearly wants fame. He confesses to someone that he believes the rich and famous know things that ordinary people do not, which mystifies her, and she responds “Yeah, maybe good takeout.” Most of the people around him do not share his complete reverence for the elite even as they work and posture for a taste of stardom. Sam’s friend played by Topher Grace, another great meta casting, says it best: “We crave mystery cause there’s none left.” The sound also is accentuated well in scenes like the Balloon Girl’s dance or when Sam violently cracks an egg in a young vandal's face and most notably in the scenes where the sounds of women have been replaced by raucous dog barks.

 

The production designer Michael Perry along with Director Mitchell and cinematographer Michael Gioulakis worked together to craft a vision inspired by Cinemascope musicals from the 50s. An interesting choice for a neo-noir but also understandable since music seems to permeate the film, and Sam specifically searches for clues in the lyrics of a popular band. The colorful sets are also juxtaposed against the darkness of some of the scenes and make for a transcendent visual experience. Just the choices of certain shots add to the mystery of the film, the way the camera lingers on something truly absurd, that you just know the director put in there so that he can laugh at the fact that viewers are questioning the significance of panning to a literal pile of excrement. Then there are the overt references to Hollywood films, like the pool scene, and numerous Hitchcock references. There’s a very surreal allusion to Vertigo when a squirrel falls to its death in front of Sam. Sam’s mother calls him often and tells him how much she loves the silent film actress Janet Gaynor and wants him to watch Seventh Heaven starring her. Janet Gaynor also starred in A Star is Born, a film about a rising star and her washed-up boyfriend who loved her but also couldn’t deal with the fact that he was washed-up. Sounds familiar?

 

The costuming and makeup also match the neo-noir tone of this film. Sam usually dresses casually in tees and jeans, and messy hair. Sarah is always in white like a good Hitchcock Blonde girl is wont to do. His friend played by Topher Grace, known only as Bar Buddy wears a fedora and Hipster specs, and his other friend Allen played by Jimmi Simpson, an eccentric industry type wears a woman’s blouse to a Hollywood party. The various girls he meets are usually in some colorful one-piece with makeup in the vein of Euphoria. In fact, one of the trio girls he meets known as Shooting Stars is played by Euphoria actress Sydney Sweeney. Sam meets these girls in a cemetery that is screening a movie they starred in. A scene is shown from the film which bears similarities to a scene from Mitchell’s critically acclaimed first feature The Myth of the American Sleepover. There’s also a fantastic makeup job done with the Songwriter character played by Jeremy Bobb in prosthetics down to his hands to give the appearance of an old, weathered man. The Homeless King looks…as a Homeless King should, complete with a cardboard crown and soot on his face. 

 

The editing is so stylistic, especially in scenes like the Balloon Girl’s dance at the rooftop party. A quick succession of clips like a snapshot shows every inch of her body (which is, of course, covered in balloons) being popped. Some believe the film goes on too long. The runtime after all is a little over two hours, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitchell cut out a lot more. But I believe every moment of runtime offers insight or at least entertainment.

 

His writing and direction overall are so engaging. I honestly could write page after page about the references that could be gleaned from the film and the meaning that is suggested.  I’ve barely emphasized its humor. It fuels the mind of the Illuminati-obsessed moviegoing crowd who relate to Sam along with the crowd who relate to laughing at people like Sam or the other archetypes featured like the Brides, Jefferson Sevence, and Sarah. Mitchell also creates his own archetypes in mythical representations like the Homeless King and the Owls Kiss, a balletic nude woman with a CGI owl’s head for a face who murders those who come close to cracking the ‘conspiracy’. 

 

One wishes David Robert Mitchell was more vocal about his intentions, but that would also defeat the purpose of the film. I think this is why many critics panned it for its seeming ‘lack of meaning’.  It criticizes those who demand and search for meaning in media, but it also celebrates them. It celebrates and satirizes Hollywood and Hollywood folk.  Despite its critical and box office failures, I’m certain it will go on to achieve cult status and have a fine life on through DVD and streaming. I’m curious to see what David Robert Mitchell churns out next.

 

Review: Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Where do I even start?


None of this story makes sense

They accept black students basically just to get them to drop out? Why would they accept them into the school in the first place? I am flummoxed by its popularity beside representation because it does such a poor job. It is just an inconceivable conga line of trauma that really makes me weep for black ya writers if this is the kind of novel that gains praise. The racism is so overt and cartoonishly evil, it really makes it hard for me a black American to accept the existence of such a school and such a group of idiotic characters.

Even the small details like why did Chiamaka have her mother’s surname instead of her dad’s seems weird. I don’t know why, but that just surprised me that it was never explained or that the name wasn’t even hyphenated?(I know it’s nitpicky but it seemed indicative of the author who presumably has African heritage and wanted a part African part European character projection of herself and forgot that she was also part Italian somehow… ?) This was just so bad. Almost offensive.

I am also confused by what plot twist people kept referring to in reviews? There was no plot twist. The thing that you expected to happen, happened. When you compare a book to Get Out, I’m just gonna believe all the white people are racist and plotting and my expectations were confirmed to be true in a way that somehow less feasible than the twist in Get Out.

My worst complaint is that it’s not an accurate representation of racism and instead of allowing readers to empathize with black characters in a new and novel way it does it in a way that it always has. It uses our pain as entertainment. Racism is way more insidious and covert than how it’s portrayed in this book.




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Review: Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lyle calls this case a “Whodunnit” which was my exact thought as I was listening. This one differed greatly from Sharp Objects in that the mystery is not as solvable. There were too many suspects in Dark Places. But it still carried that same ‘everybody is fucked up’ trait of Gillian Flynn’s. Her characters inhabit a world where cynicism and lewdness reign supreme which is really the perfect setup for a murder mystery because it seems as if anyone has a dark side to them capable of murder. In some ways, I admire this more than Sharp Objects because the mystery was not so obvious(well…partially true. Her go-to inclusion of a female psychopath reared its head into this story as well). But it was sort of dumb. A big Deus ex debt assassin murdered the mom and then murdered the other sister for reasons…? But even prior to that, it felt awfully gimmicky with its commentary on toxic true crime communities and the McMartin case. But Gillian Flynn’s writing and her commitment to shocking readers and exploring the darkness of her characters is something I cannot help but praise in spite of those aforementioned shortcomings. I will forgive the gimmicks because I can admit I crave a good gimmick. It’s just that mine don’t include an oopsy daisy murder epilogue. Just a lot of internal monologues about misanthropy. Yes, I am a delightful person.


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