Recent lessons

1) It’s hard to realize that you can love something, but despite the quality of your love, something doesn’t have to love you back. It’s also difficult to realize that stupid dating techniques of treating people poorly - like my favorite, the a couple of good dates and then disappearing fadeout - are fully applicable to all sorts of categories in life, not just person-looking-for-someone-to-love. These love metaphors are even more difficult to wrap your head around when you’re dealing with things in the category of “career” and “apartment” as opposed to “relationship.” Courtship has its roles in all sorts of facets of your life! Even when you feel like you’re done with courtship in the traditional sense.

2) There’s something really dissonant about finding award-worthy performances in mediocre television shows. Exhibit A: Ian Hart realistically - it’s disturbing, really - embodying a schizophrenic in “Courtney Cox runs a Tabloid,” or the show that you may remember since Cox and Jennifer Aniston kissed during one episode (the only real promotion it got, right?), Dirt.

3) In the pantheon of films women my age grew up on (Pretty Woman, Pretty in Pink, Dirty Dancing, Empire Records, Reality Bites) Dirty Dancing was never my fave. It always just seemed like abortions and endless dance montages. But I never really gave it a chance. I never sat down and watched it the whole way through, and I didn’t grow up with it playing on an endless cable loop. However, recently, I decided to rewatch it, since it popped up on Hulu - and it’s kind of good! Particularly the first 45 minutes or so. You can tell, just by the very personal, intimate tone, that it was written by a woman. It’s a shame that by the halfway point, it devolves into about 8 dance montages in a row. That’s what turned me off the film as a kid. I understand why it’s been called “Star Wars for girls.” I can’t imagine a remake.

Avoid this movie!

Because I care, I want you to know: Friends With Benefits is so limp, so flaccid, that I walked out of the theater after 40 minutes. The promise of glorious AC couldn’t even keep me in the building. And it was marginally better than No Strings Attached!

The sort of tragic thing about the movie was the giant poster of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, situated behind Kunis’ bed. Kunis and Timberlake were jabbering, bantering, and it wanted to be screwball comedy but it was mostly just bad jokes, back and forth, forever. The lines, they felt like lines. Even though Kunis has charm and screwball timing - to a degree, mind you - Timberlake was just a big smug zero. When Patricia Clarkson walks in and spells out “L-O-M-B-A-R-D” for some reason (Carole Lombard shoutout, obvs), there’s actually a smidge of fizz between her, Timberlake, and Kunis, but then it went away again. Kunis actually had a little chemistry with Bryan Greenberg, who plays some doctor she dates, and it just made Timberlake’s suckiness all the more obvious. But really, Emma Stone screaming on the phone in a cameo, or even her glowering picture coming up on an iPhone, was funnier than anything here, as she is actually someone with some screwball DNA.

If screwball jokes are going to be funny, they kind of have to be coming from a place of wit, whether it’s wordplay, acute observations about characterization, whatever, anything, but these were just words. It made me think fondly of the Gilmore Girls (better jabber, better actors who could handle said jabber) and In the Loop (actually the best screwball comedy of the past whatever years… and it was about politics! What?). And the actual titillation of having sex with your impossibly good-looking friends wasn’t there at all - what I don’t understand about both of these movies is that they make sex seem so boring. Shouldn’t there be some fizzle? Some intellectual verve and chemistry? Something in the eyes? People talking about sex before they do it makes it seem like such a transaction. Something Pulp would’ve sang about on This Is Hardcore. Come on! I would buy it more if these characters have a hot sexy time and then sort of argue on the parameters.

I didn’t even get into the repeated flash mob jokes, the lame 90s references of Third Eye Blind and Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” and the fact that the film was muddy and ugly. The extent of the film’s ugliness was really pretty appalling - exterior shots of New York, made to make the city seem glorious and inviting, had digital noise and grain on the edges. Most of the acting two shots seemed to be in front of a green screen, with New York city scenes added afterwards. (Probably the case!) There was nothing seamless about it. A few lame jokes doesn’t make it ok. A glorious New York-set rom com is a lovely thing to aspire to!

At least I don’t have to see the preview for Crazy, Stupid Love anymore. I have it memorized by now. I kind of can’t buy Ryan Gosling as a boring metrosexual superstud, I have to admit. Timberlake, on the other hand…

“Even though [Miranda] July is often lumped in with directors like Wes Anderson, Jonze or Baumbach, the face of independent film — really, the face of film — remains distinctly male. Her work is highly personal, delving into the emotional, inner life — in other words, it’s girl stuff. Criticism of July often carries a whiff of sexism. “Precious,” “light,” and “twee” all describe conventionally feminine qualities, and all have been tossed July’s way as insults.”

— I could unpack this quote from the New York Times Magazine piece on Miranda July all day long. It’s in the right ballpark, but tonally imprecise, I find. For example: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach get called “twee” all the time. They should be. Anderson has the most twee, precious art direction in the world, and it doesn’t always suit his films. Is twee necessarily gendered? Isn’t it more of a “hipster” term? Lets talk about this! I do think that as a director she’s been… not included in an “auteur” conversation - and here is where the innate dismissiveness of “precious” and “light” matter - partially because of gender, and also partially because she’s so artistically omnivorous. When you think of Miranda July, do you think of her strictly as a film director? Or a writer? Or an artist, performance and otherwise? I think that complicates the critical view on her as well. It’s there in the piece but this particular quote is just imprecise. Sometimes I wish the words twee and hipster could be retired, since they’re increasingly meaningless.

Celebrating America w/ Beginners and Midnight in Paris

The Fourth of July is generally one of my least favorite holidays, sneaking up on me every summer and reminding me that no, I don’t have a beach house, or much in the way of access to a beach house, or friends with beach houses. In the way that some women will always and forever romanticize Paris, I think I will romanticize a beach house, which probably comes from growing up by the beach but never with my own slab of land. In order to while away some hours on the sand, I have always needed strategies.

This year, the Fourth of July came on quickly. We had come up with plans, but they had all felt a little bit off. Our best friends up here had just had a baby, so we ended up seeing them on the third at a mutual friend’s lakeside cottage. A lovely lakeside cottage/redneck riviera (seriously, we got so many “yer not from around here” glares when we drove up the narrow dirt roads), but it was cloudy and chilly that day. Then, on the fourth, we had kind of forgot about what was open and what was not. Whether there were fireworks at places or whether they’d take Monday off.

Which is to say, we ended up at the movies. We saw Beginners and Midnight in Paris. Running away from a rainstorm, we ended up at a showing of Midnight in Paris that was far too early to avoid the post-apocalyptic fireworks-related shitshow nearby home, so we ended up driving away to a delicious restaurant bar where we had a lovely dessert made with wild strawberries and the finest of scotches. I think my favorite traditions on the Fourth of July is either - finding a rooftop party with wonderful people in a real city, or hiding out from it all in the air-conditioned heaven of the movies, if I am stuck in a variation on suburbia.

Beginners was a truly lovely, empathetic film made with real feeling. I loved it. Bruised, human characters heavy with emotion, learning to love in a life that can seem alternately whimsical and cruel - it was beautiful to watch. Christopher Plummer’s performance as the father who comes out of the closet at 75 was just so vivid and touching. Ewan McGregor was newly hot again (I was reminded of the fact that I’ve loved him for, like, 15 years, since I was a hormonal high schooler) and was charismatic enough that you could relate to his sad, passive character. Melanie Laurent was annoyingly, perfectly French, making dowdy clothes chic and generally seeming like a real girl.

The structure of the film was impressionistic, rooted in memory, and I think that’s where it faltered a little bit. By the fourth act, I was squirming. I expected the film to end so many times; I was under the false impression that the father’s story was more major than the love story. I was wrong, and the love story whirred on and on, to irrational breakups and makeups and more. It simply wasn’t as strong as the father-son relationship. The film kept hitting notes that, if fine-tuned just slightly, probably would’ve made me cry, but instead, I was on the verge of tears the whole time. The difference felt significant. Nevertheless, the film’s been whirring around in my head and I’m so glad that I saw it and that it exists.

Now Midnight in Paris was on a whim. It was basically the only film that we were sort of interested in playing nearby. You know what’s playing at drive-in theaters right now? Cars 2 and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. It’s gross. Our only other option was Tree of Life at the crappy indie theater, and their screens would just be insulting to Terrence Malick’s vision.

But man, Midnight in Paris. I think I don’t like Woody Allen movies. Please don’t hate me. It’s funny, too, all the men in my life tend to hate Woody Allen movies and what he stands for. My family didn’t raise me on Woody Allen (the same way they didn’t raise me to care about the Red Sox), and consequently, I have a hard time caring about any of the whiny - if smart! - rich people that populate his world. It helps that, as a man, he’s obviously a terrible person, too. (And probably a genius. Example A: his dreamy, brilliant, estranged son Ronan Farrow, your new boyfriend.)

The plot of Midnight in Paris is so great: ennui-filled writer who thinks he’s a hack travels through time to the golden age of Parisian literary culture, the 1920s. It is an English major’s dream and I laughed, heartily, at the ridiculousness of Ernest Hemingway and the zippiness of Zelda Fitzgerald. The 20s are such a pleasant visual feast for the eyes - men were required to dress well, and flapper dresses are generally flattering on all women, with baubles and beads and a shape that swings.

But there’s a latter-day Woody Allen movie surrounding that idea, where the dialogue is all on the nose and the women are shrewish harpy bitches. It’s just so exceedingly unpleasant! And, yet, on the other hand, there is also the return of Owen Wilson, where he takes his surfer dude delivery and winds it around the Allen-manque character, an effect that was weirdly appealing. Or tolerable, at the least. Between Wilson and the Hemingway character, we didn’t walk out of the movie. So there’s that. However, I learned one thing this Fourth of July, and that is this: I don’t think I’m ever going to see another latter-day Woody Allen movie again, unless there’s alcohol involved.

Stop it

Movies take on a certain amount of importance in the humid, sticky, gross months of summer. They’re your ticket to another world, a world of magic and dreams: a gigantic room blasting air conditioning.

And dear me, this summer of terrible movies just means that the world of air conditioning, of thinking straight, of not feeling like a humid blob is denied to me. Thanks movies! Since I hadn’t seen Bridesmaids when it came out, I got to see it last week. Great, wonderful, A-number-one movie that you can see when it’s 100 degrees outside. And it was really wonderful to see a movie about a lady fuck-up that had a lot of emotional truth (people getting married always throws your life into sharp relief, doesn’t it?) even if the movie’s actual structure was sloppy and uninspired.

But, god, if I had seen Bridesmaids the week it came out, since it was my social obligation as a woman? Then I would have to choose between The Hangover 2 (on four screens), Kung Fu Panda 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, X Men: Mocking My Life… ugh. It was bad. Seeing movies during the summer is more of a mercenary act. There are ones that look passable enough for air conditioning’s sake - Super 8, Horrible Bosses, Tree of Life (playing in a tiny, crappy theater in two weeks), Midnight in Paris (I guess, if I have to, but, you know, fuck Woody Allen), Beginners (doesn’t come out until July, and I desperately want to see it) -  and you have to wait until the weather demands it. You can’t use up all your chances to hide from the heat in the movie theater, because then you’re stuck seeing Green Lantern or Larry Crowne. And that’s just not treating yourself well.

“

So why is Brody so smitten? The uncharitable view holds that, in his unwavering support for Swanberg, Bujalski, les frères Safdie, et al., he has the air of an elderly uncle trying to appear groovy with the kids, whose music he tries to love despite his better judgment. But I think it goes deeper than that. I believe it’s sincere. Like many of the better American critics, Brody is an auteurist at heart, and is therefore eager to find and consecrate homegrown examples, in order to sustain this worldview.

The problem is, as he well knows, the entire mechanism of US filmmaking, in all but its most handmade manifestations, is inimical to auteurism; rather, it emphasizes the efficiency and superiority of the industrial process. In so hostile a climate, one must take one’s heroes where one can. Hence the rabid over-praising – and not only by Brody, I hasten to add – of every Bright Young Thing that comes alone [sic]. All of whom, amusingly enough, are compared to European models, from Lance Hammer (“an American Dardenne!” we were assured) to Sofia Coppola (“Somewhere” was just like Antonioni, doncha know?). And of course, Swanberg himself, whom Brody regularly likens – not entirely without justification – to Philippe Garrel. But it’s telling, I think, that no one ever compares these guys to, say, an Anthony Mann, or a Frank Tashlin, or indeed any other product of the US studio system, since that would negate the argument being advanced.

(This, incidentally, is why the career trajectory of someone like David Gordon Green, from the exquisite lyricism of “George Washington” to the baked stupor of “Pineapple Express,” is such a bitter pill for his early admirers to swallow, representing as it does not only one very gifted filmmaker’s flight from the salons to the marketplace, but an entire narrative of U.S. indie filmmaking in the last decade.)

”

— Shane Danielsen on IndieWire, using the work of American filmmaker Joe Swanberg debuting at the Berlinale to make a provocative point about why we need to believe that American film directors are the next whatever. Reblogged for the David Gordon Green reference.

Women in film

I have been enjoying This Recording’s conversation on sexism and gender roles, in movies, tv, and in life this week. It’s good to talk about these things, even if they make you uncomfortable or piss you off - in fact, that’s when you know it’s working. And these ideas relate to anything when you’re fighting the status quo as an “other.”

It’s funny, to me, how old these conversations seem. How the VIDA list of female contributors to magazines and media was non-existent, and it wasn’t a surprise. They’re statistics showing you what you’re up against, in what you’re trying to pursue. And they’re statistics that show you that you’re not alone - in realizing that you’re up against a lot - and what you’re doing may have some purpose, because maybe you can affect those statistics. I remember being a kid and learning about feminism and that “women were equal now,” and feeling terribly cheated when I got in the workplace and dealt with things that were patently sexist and condescending.

Anyways, since I have somewhat of an expertise in film (stupid brain!) I can share some observations I’ve made regarding female film directors. (Warning: it’s long.)

1) The discussion of female film directors, when you’re at some media thing and talking about “women in film,” is, often, not a conversation that people want to engage in, or want to spend the time talking about, particularly when they’re trying to sell their film. And that’s completely fair and understandable. Conversations about representation in your field can be tiring when you’re just trying to represent in your field. It’s a meta-thing best suited to media people who should be talking about it.

The only women who add to the women in film conversation have tended, you notice, to be legends. Dame Helen Mirren talking about roles, for example. Whereas a Kathryn Bigelow, to me, seems to want to push the conversation along by doing kickass work, post-Hurt Locker. (Despite the fact that - oh, look, first woman to win an Oscar for directing - she’s in the history books now.) And in order for her to get back into the system and back into a position of power, notice, she had to go outside the system and rock it. The Hurt Locker was a comeback film, you know. She hadn’t done something in 7 yrs and was in “director jail” thanks to some big budget flops, I believe.

2) To me, it doesn’t seem like the problem is women making films. Anyone can make a film, and get it distributed in some form or fashion, and make it happen. You can do that, once. The problem, to me, is that the American studio system (indies and majors) doesn’t seem to be hospitable to women making careers in film. I don’t understand why a Nicole Holofcener isn’t getting to make films at the rate of a… Wes Anderson, let’s say. (And he’s a slooooow boy genius. And these two are both post-Woody Allen directors of “rich” people ennui, so there’s that.) You know that part of it is - Holofcener has done TV (including Gilmore Girls episodes) between films, Anderson has not - and part of it is… what, exactly? Is a Wes Anderson movie more of a guaranteed money maker than Nicole Holofcener, because it has Bill Murray in it and not Catherine Keener? I believe they’re both equally niche, in their way.

3) Do you need female directors working in the studio system even if it’s corrosive to the soul? Is a Catherine Hardwick a director to root for?

4) Funding for female-directed films is interesting to observe. In Europe, a Susanna Bier or Catherine Brelliat can make films like an auteur. And I think part of that is due to European government support of films.

5) I have found that there are far more female directors in the documentary world than the world of feature films. (Every year, look at the Oscars. Where do you see the females? In documentary.) The reasons for this, to me, seem to be twofold: first, when you’re making a documentary, it’s a passion project. A story you have to follow to its end point. It’s an exercise in empathy and observation. It makes sense that women can excel in these sort of situations. Secondly: when you’re making a documentary, you are, more often than not, getting grants. Is that kind of fundraising easier for women? And yet, you know - give me the name of three documentarians. I guarantee it they’ll be men, and maybe Michael Moore.

I do think that the new guard of women sneaking into films is pretty exciting, and I’m curious to see where they go and whether they sustain careers. (Anyone else think Natalie Portman’s going to be a Drew Barrymore when it comes to producing and getting films made?) I’m just really looking forward to when the system is dismantled completely, so new voices can come in and build their own structure. Maybe it could happen in my lifetime. That would be a gift.

(Yes, this post is full of generalizations, rooted in truth. I would love to write something more in-depth and researched on this in the future.)