HOM:

Giving you something to read on the toilet since 2009.

"The mistake lies in seeing debate and discussion as secondary to the recovery of meaning. Rather, we should see them as primary: art and literature do not exist to be understood or appreciated, but to be discussed and argued over, to function as a focus for social dialogue. The discourse of literary or art criticism is not to recover meaning, but to create and contest it. Our primal scene should not be the solitary figure in the dark of the cinema but the group of friends arguing afterwards in the pub."
-Don Fowler (1996) "Even Better Than The Real Thing"

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Prometheus

Ridley Scott's Prometheus is a film that has been nudged into new territories by the Alien Franchise, Greek Mythology, David Lean, and Science Fiction all at once. There is a lot of cash money flowing from this cohort and each wanted its due in the film. As a result, this film appropriated Titanic funds easily yet set itself at a sprinters pace, moving through alien insurrection, creation myths and neo-positivism as if the three intertwine seamlessly in our real world. If you're like me, you'll spend most of the movie thinking about how great that last scene was and then freaking out and getting anxious cause you're not paying attention to the scene at hand, all worried that you're going to miss something life changing.

This started for me in the first few moments of the film (take a deep breath now) as a ripped, pale white humanoid ingests a cough syrup stolen from the set of The Mummy, turns to ashes on top of that famous Iceland waterfall, tumbles into the water while the camera super zooms to the molecular level where we see humanoid DNA strands performing reverse transcription, 3 prime to 5 prime, while a hovering spacecraft departs into warp speed in the horizon. Don't think I forgot David Lean, cause a few moments later, 'David' a robot from late 21st century, embodied by Fassbender, combs his hair like Lawrence of Arabia (a pyro) and rehearses quotes from the movie of the same title as he eavesdrops on the dreams of the passengers on Prometheus (a titan tortured for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to his creation, humans), the ship, who are in an induced two-year sleep while traveling to a distant moon, L-223, thought to be the landing point for creatures that 'Engineered' sentient and non-sentient life (exhale now). By the time I realized how much I was enjoying the Lawrence of Arabia shout-outs (third on my top 100) I was in the process of missing shout-outs to the original Alien flick. It was just too much too fast. But I think this movie was great, especially the more I think about it and the new ground it might be laying.

There is everything you could ask for in a science fiction movie directed by Ridley Scott. The associated questions with a movie titled 'Prometheus' are dealt with respectfully and creatively. "Where did life come from? Why was it created?" The acting is top notch. The sense of fight or flight dictates all the action as characters fly when you wish they'd fight and fight when you wish they'd fly. The future is infused with humanity as we know it and heaping doses of, "Whoa, that machine that performs surgery sans-physician is cool." I don't know what it is though, and maybe this is a question that deserves its own HOM post/conversation, but have all of Ridley Scott's movies been, I don't know, less than Blade Runner? I'm thinking maybe or most likely. I'm just not sure this movie was really great, though, I'll say it again, I think it was great, especially the more I think about it. Most of all, though, this movie reminded me that there wouldn't have been Blade Runner without it's predecessor, Alien.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Drive, the Dissenting Opinion - Rob Culpepper

Everyone I've talked to Drive about thinks I'm nuts. I suspect the women really just love Gosling (or the idea that if they were in a room with him they'd have a chance; not likely). I suspect the men really just want to be Gosling. Hop in, do cool stuff, hop out, don't get hurt. I get it, he's a solid actor with good looks and the right amount of weirdness to let us know that he's an artist.

But seriously, everybody loved this movie. Everybody. The critics were crazy about it because it gave them a chance to refer to movies we all should have seen except that we have jobs and families and lives apart from the movies (alas). Google reviews of Drive and in every single one you'll find some reference to Godard or Eastwood, or both, and about a dozen references to obscure films from the French New Wave, 60s Italian Cinema, and 70s American Cinema.

Here are the parts I liked: Driver's jacket, Driver's car, the cinematography (which, in my opinion holds the film together), the silences, the long driving sequences, the 80s influence, and the SHOCK of the first violence. You know, the film runs a lot like Elliott Smith's Either/Or record. Give it a listen from start to finish and tell me if I'm not right about when the second chorus of Cupid's Trick hits. That's the elevator scene.

I also like the actors and the acting. I think it was superb. They really explored the unspoken nature of their relationship (Hitchcock once said he was afraid that movies with sound would just show people talking). Drive did a good job of showing us how Driver felt in the moment; Irene,too. I think the actors made the relationship work in their subtle gestures and expressions.

But the characters were poorly drawn, and even with the incredible nuance of the actors, we still don't understand their motivations. This is a script issue. Where does Driver come from? What changes in his world to make him want to attach to someone? Why does he attach to the boy? What draws him to this hopeless situation among others? Where does the nature of Driver's interest in Irene come from? Should we go fully feminist theory and ask if he's blowing off steam because he's sexually impotent? Do we know enough to raise that question? Or more simply, how did he get so good at driving, or why? What does it mean when the garage owner says "he's the best I've ever seen"? Compared to what? And why do the thugs who want to invest in Driver as a racer happen to be the same thugs he coincidentally tangles with shortly after they meet? Did we run out of time to introduce new characters, so we stick to the ones we already know? Perhaps none of these is the right question, but they point to existence.

Godard once said that Breathless was about a man who only thinks about death and a woman who never thinks about death.

And that's the difference between Drive and the movies it wants to be. It's simple, but strangely significant.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Moonrise Kingdom - James King


An Interview with the Characters
Sponsored by Broadway BBQ & Club 280

Youngsters pointing their Astrola reflecting telescopes at the Birmingham sky last night might have noticed the absence of those glittering, glowing orbs we call stars.  Save that boring rock called Moon or the occasional bit of floating cosmic dust, the night sky would’ve been a big blank. The reason, of course, being that the stars had truly fallen right here in Birmingham, Alabama, lending their glow to the Oak Mountain State Park Amphitheatre’s premier of the critically-acclaimed/publicly- adored Moonrise Kingdom. 

Later than night, when the hum of the reel stopped and the film’s spell was broken, hoots, hollers, and applause roared the audiences approval.  Chaos at the Club 280 Pavilion, as the characters signed autographs, lost bits of costumes to overzealous fans, and linked hands to finally overcome the crowd and enter single-file into the press tent.

Due to the impending storm, all of the interviewers, including myself, deferred to the famous local meteorologist, James Spann, for the first question:

James Spann:  My sleeves are rolled up.  The storm is coming.  Social Services, have you kept everyone away from tall, isolated trees, open fields, the tops of ridges, water, metal objects, and tents, which would offer no protection from lightening?

Social Services:  “Where’s the boy?  I’m told that he’s just been struck by lightening?”

Scout Master Ward:  “It’s true.”

HOM [bumping Mr. Spann out of the way]:  Hi there!  James with http://hashingoutmovies.blogspot.com/.  Our readership loves your work and no doubt will find Moonrise Kingdom a great achievement.  But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve met each of you before.   
For instance, you, [pointing] young, psychotic scout on the motorbike, look a lot like Mr. Eli Cash.  Also Sam seems to inhabit the body and soul of the precocious love-struck youth from Rushmore, while Bill Murray plays the sad dignified, time-worn Bill Murray character that we’ve come to expect, and look forward to, in a Wes Anderson film.  Should these films be appreciated as a multi-volume collective work rather than as any one individual movie. Care to comment, sympathetic authority figure, Scout Master Ward? 

Scout Master Ward:  “This is the best-pitched camp that I’ve ever seen.”

HOM: Hmm.  Thank you Scout Master Ward.  Club 280 does do a good job with their pavilion, but did you not understand the question?  

Sam: “Dear Suzy, walk four hundred yards due north from your house to the dirt path which has not got any name on it. Turn right and follow to the end. I will meet you in the meadow.” 

HOM:  Wo there!  No need for name-calling. I’m not looking for a fight!

"Royal: “Well, sweetie, don't be mad at me. That's just one man's opinion. 
[Margot gets up and gathers her presents just as Ethel comes in with the birthday cake and everyone starts singing Happy Birthday, which trails off as she leaves the room. Ethel glares at Royal]” 

I left the pavilion confused and in a huff.  I could still hear the inexplicable birthday party in the distance, as I began to transcribe these events for the HOM readership.  As my fingers banged away on the typewriter, however, I began to realize that I shouldn’t be offended or threatened by these strange events.  Those weren’t just random fictional beings saying weird things out of context in order to hurt me, rather they were a community—the brothers on a train to Darjeeling, the Tennenbaum family at Royal’s grave, the island community risking their necks to save an orphan scout— who were simply answering a question that I was too dull to ask: How do you bring together what dysfunction, confusion, and hurt pull apart?