While visiting family in the US, we made an effort to see the truly bizarre Step Brothers, a very funny movie that feels like it might be the final stage in the Ferrell/McKay/Reilly comedy experiment, so effectively did it stretch narrative logic and audience sympathy with its wilful disregard for the rules of storytelling, hewing close to them only to satirise them (at least, that's how I saw it). It was not quite as good as we had hoped (though perhaps good enough to silence some crazy haters), and it's already been eclipsed as comedy event of the year by the genre-bending brilliance of Pineapple Express(aka the American Hot Fuzz), but memories of it are still making us laugh; I'm still occasionally saying, "Boats and Hos" with no prompting. Plus, the finale, spoofing happy cinematic final act resolutions with Dada-esque rigour, was worth the ticket price alone, and it finally made us totally embrace Adam Scott (aka Palek The Vulcan Inseminatron from Tell Me You Love Me). His insane performance as Ferrell's asshole brother is possibly the highpoint of the film.
After the film we conducted a post-mortem (punctuated by uncontrollable giggling over Richard Jenkins' dinosaur impersonation), and realised we needed to rewatch both Anchorman and its "sequel" Wake Up Ron Burgundy for, like, the trillionth time. Due to complications in life (i.e. playing Half-Life 2 and Mario Kart Wii) we only managed it this weekend, and it was much fun. As we are that type of couple that enjoys randomly quoting films we love in out-of-context ways, Canyon has been shouting, "I'm gonna... rip the lid off of it!!!" ever since, and I've been saying of just about everything in the house, "It's the pleats, it's an optical illusion," referring of course to Ron's explanation for why he appears to have an enormous erection while talking to his soulmate Veronica Corningstone.
So why am I bringing this up now, and what has it got to do with Mad Men?
Holy Secret Beatnik Sympathies, I don't think that's attributable to the pleats. My God, Don's packing! No wonder everyone defers to him. This sight totally distracted us for the next few minutes of screentime, which is probably a good thing as not long after that the recording went flooey and we missed the rest. Damn. I guess our modern machinery is no match for Don's fearsome 60s-era genitalia. As for the rest of the episode, he amused us greatly with his weariness and existential ennui caused by too much booze and sex and not enough spiritual and aesthetic nourishment.
Poor guy. Truffaut! Hurry up and make Jules et Jim! We want Don back on top, and pronto.
Another swift post, this time about my belated discovery of a new project by Lib-Dem youth affairs advisor Brian Eno and secret Scot David Byrne, called Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (I'm a sucker for long album titles). It's their first collaboration since the ground-breaking My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and here is the opening song, Home, as a taster.
If that whets your appetite, it can be downloaded from this site, in such a way as to bypass the music industry and its evil grasp. Indeed, they have put their album out there in a way similar to Radiohead's In Rainbows (and I love that they are following in the footsteps of a band named after a Talking Heads song), though the difference is you can't elect to pay what you want for the album. That's not really that much of a problem, though. I think they're aware that, despite their Amazing Powers Of The Brain and the exponential talent co-efficient that exists because of that fearsome combination of hyperintellects, they're not going to sell as many copies as Radiohead did, and besides, it's still cheaper to get it via their site than it would be on iTunes, and you can choose to purchase the actual-not-virtual CD copy when it comes out in November for a couple of $s more. Besides, this is all part of Byrne's plan to save music itself from exploitation by corporate scum. What a guy.
Is it worth downloading? I've only listened to it once, and it is certainly pleasant enough, and a far cry from their more discordant collaborations, with high praise going to the lovely Life Is Long, which is adorable, but then their recent albums have been fairly muted in comparison to their early works, so it comes as no shock. It reminds me of Paul Simon's underrated Surprise, released a couple of years ago with "sonic landscapes" by Eno. I'm confident that is an example of his computer-generated wit.
Speaking of Eno and his other projects, I'm kind of nervous about dipping my toes in the official website of The Long Now Foundation (a typically forward-thinking project from the great man, and several other great men), though my research has inspired me to get a pack of Oblique Strategies cards. However I did have a good look around David Byrne's less imposing and highly entertaining site, and was filled with regret that while in New York a few weeks back I didn't get a chance to check out his Playing The Building installation. Whenever I ponder the works of men like Eno and Byrne, I realise how much I envy and admire people who have such creative energy and confidence and education that they can just sit around conceptualising crazy shit all day long, and then implement it with the help of other intelligent and ambitious people. It would be a much better life than one spent in a gray office like the one I was stuck in today.
And yes, I'm aware that I'm being particularly whiny and pessimistic this week. Apologies. This post, written in Byrne's trademark innocent and guileless voice (as familiar to anyone lucky enough to have seen his wonderful directorial debut True Stories) really did make me smile though. Please read it. It's quietly funny, and perceptive.
It gives me no pleasure to tell you a tale of waking to a grey day, of almost no sleep (goddamn Joker nightmares) and a miserable commute on a damp train to find my job is going flooey at a faster rate than I had previously thought. Obviously this is a typical morning for many. Perhaps mine seemed worse knowing that today was the day Happy-Go-Lucky came out on DVD, which meant more people becoming exposed to Poppy Fever, which is just like overdosing on heroin except with no beneficial side-effects. It also meant, yay, more of Mike Leigh's sunny, benevolent interviews.
I don't want to become one-note at all, especially after really going off on one last week, but I thought this was worth quoting, as it made me verbalise on the train loudly enough to wake up the Monday morning slumberers:
Q. Why do some people say Poppy is irritating? A. I don’t know. I think she’s delightful. Right at the beginning, you could be forgiven for thinking she might be irritating but, once you get to know her, she isn’t like that. I don’t know why people say that. Maybe it’s lazy journalism.
Perhaps Leigh said it while laughing, and then pointed out, "Oh, I don't mean you, dear boy, you're very clever," but I doubt it. Beyond the fact that he seems to assume that disliking Poppy can only be caused by some kind of inability to engage with his incredible vision, he really is rude to his interviewers. While trying to find that online I stumbled across this old interview, conducted when he was directing the stage version of Abigail's Party.
Q. You studied at Rada. What made you move from acting to directing? A. I was never an actor in any proper sense, so the premise of the question is ridiculous.
Later on:
Q. Because nothing's written down beforehand, when I bought the screenplay for Naked, was I buying someone's transcription? A. Oh, don't misunderstand, as you obviously do, the whole thing.
Dear God, where does he get off? He has to be just chuckling all the way through, right? I mean, there's this question and answer as well. This tends to suggest he's not just being an incredibly rude, pompous, conceited jerkoff, right?
Q. If you were an actor, would you relish the chance to work with yourself? A. Oh, I'd love it. It would be fabulous, great. But it's a very academic and slightly looking-glass question [laughs].
See? Laughter. He's like Santa, if Santa thought the lower classes were composed entirely of stylised stereotypes. The quote that interested me most, however, is this [italics mine]:
Q. Which directors influenced you when you were studying? A. I came from up north, where I never saw anything except Hollywood and British movies until I was 17, when I came to London. It was the early 1960s, the time of the French Nouvelle Vague, so I discovered French cinema - Renoir; Italian cinema - Fellini and De Sica - who are influences in different ways; the Japanese cinema of Ozu and Kurosawa; and Satyajit Ray, the Bengali film-maker, who made fantastic family films, domestic studies of real life.
This is relevant as Canyon, who read my previous rant after I had finished it, commented on Leigh's dismissive attitude to having a bike stolen (where he said, "If they’ve nicked something, there you go basically. What are you going to do about it?"). In furious anger, she asked aloud if Leigh, the great film buff, had seen The Bicycle Thief, a movie about how an entire life can be ruined by the theft of a bike. And here he is praising Vittorio De Sica. I'm beginning to think he would say anything to defend his movie, including being pissy with interviewers and maintaining that he is a lot like Poppy in order to pretend such a sunny outlook is possible and not just a thought experiment gone horribly wrong. Still, I could be miles off base, and interviews with Mike Leigh could be a joyride, but even if I fluff that one, I was weirdly on the ball with this one. Again, italics mine:
Q. Do you rate any directors working at the moment? A. Oh yeah, sure. I love Quentin Tarantino. I like Steven Soderbergh and I think Lynne Ramsay's great; I like her new film [Morvern Callar]. Todd Solondz's Happiness is a film I absolutely resonate with.
I''ll let you, the reader, make up your own jokes about his love of Happiness, but perhaps Morvern Callar was an influence after all. Shame he can't use his considerable clout to get Ramsay working again, seeing as how her IMDb page is depressingly static.
So yeah, that put me in a bad mood this morning, a mood that was surface-level and would have evaporated if I hadn't arrived at work to find out, the literal instant that I walked through the door, that my job had become a galactic-level clusterfuck the types of which are written in the holy books of aliens. This would have carried on for a while, but thankfully the cosmos heard my cries of misery and delivered this news to me; Laurence Fishburne will be the new lead in CSI after William L. Petersen leaves! Here he is investigating a freeway shoot-out, looking for shell-casings using a metal detector that looks suspiciously like a samurai sword.
If I were a religious man, I would sing hosannahs! Apparently:
Fishburne will play a former pathologist who is now working as an itinerant college lecturer, teaching a course in criminalistics. His focus is on understanding criminal behavior, how and why people commit acts of violence -- tendencies he disturbingly sees within himself. In the course of a murder investigation, he comes into contact with the CSI team and ultimately joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level-1 CSI.
Though today's woes were real and worrying, this news about something as inconsequential as a TV show still brightened my day, simply because I am crazy about Fishburne. He IS gravitas. Though many haters and fools think the cod-philosophy of The Matrix was risible and simplistic, it worked because when Fishburne says something, you damn well better take it seriously. Along with Hugo Weaving, the dialogue that annoyed so many worked just fine as far as I was concerned. Endless chatter about what purpose is, wordy threats of violence, discussions about the difference between knowing the path and walking the path; this stuff makes my heart soar when said with that booming voice. Seriously. So the thought of Fishburne talking about evidence, CODIS, and chemical residues is almost too much for me. I CANNOT WAIT! ::hyperventilates:: Here he is saying, "Meet my wife. Yeah, my hott wife. That's right. I walked the goddamn correct path, alright."
The fact that he has never seen the show doesn't faze me in the slightest. It's going to be The Balls, and will totally make up for him having to appear in one of the worst movies of the year (even though he was the best thing about it by some distance). Believe it.
Some quick thoughts on Dave Filoni's Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Episode Two and Three Quarters: Battle Of The Space Wars: In Space, which I just saw along with a lot of old people and their grandkids.
It's not terrible.
It's not particularly brilliant either.
I appreciate that this could have something to do with me having a baseline level of nerdery that means I get something out of even the most wretched sci fi movies, but seriously, this is not a catastrophe. It's a leaden but passable kid's film with a couple of fun action scenes. I'm glad I saw it, but I probably won't ever watch it again.
The animation is quite stiff; characters move less fluidly than most in CG animated movies, but it's not a deal breaker. It might account for all of the cut-scene comparisons the film has been getting, though.
I did like the character designs, though. Screenshots made their stylised features look silly, but seen on the big screen you can see lovely details. They look like moving clay statues that have been roughly painted, and as such almost have an analogue charm to them.
The clouds of the various planets also look painted, resembling the slowly morphing backgrounds in the superb Xbox Live Arcade game Braid, though they are not as expressionistic. It's not a spectacular visual orgasm or anything, being made for TV and therefore being cheaper than Pixar movies, but the budget constraints haven't stopped Filoni and his animators making the most of what they've got in order to create something that looks interesting.
The dialogue is quite dreadful, mostly comprised of flat exposition, bland jokes, and first draft clunkers, which is a very clever move on the part of the writers, as it exactly matches the dialogue in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. I have a feeling that a lot of the vitriol poured on this movie for having dialogue that works on a Age 5-8 level is that it reminds the audience that the prequel films, heavily anticipated and watched avidly by original prequel fans, were meant for kids first, adults second. Fans probably don't want to be reminded that they had invested a lot of energy in something that was not meant for them.
Disclaimer: I was one of those fans. I'm right there with you, nerd brethren, but I'm over it now, thank God.
All of the nerd-hatred poured out about Ziro the Hutt (i.e. the hatred not inspired by his perceived sexuality) might be justified if you are steeped in Star Wars continuity and are furious that he is meant to be the uncle of Jabba but ZOMG Hutts procreate asexually and only have one child each so how could Jabba's father have a brother?!!!?11!!?1!!@/@1!#???!! However, it's a really accurate impersonation of Truman Capote, which has struck many as a derogatory statement against homosexuals, but besides that is so out-of-place and eccentric (actually, "demented and immune to logic or rationality" sums up Lucas' decision-making processes) that it momentarily transcends sexual politics and ends up getting an astonished laugh from the audience (well, me, anyway).
Ziro is a godawful and poorly-judged caricature, though. What the hell were they thinking?
Lucas is apparently quite insane, and I think the Star Wars movies and forthcoming TV show would benefit from other celebrity impersonations, especially if it stops him creating characters that sound like awfulracialstereotypes. Why not have a Neimoidian who sounds like Ed Sullivan? A Mon Calamari who sounds like Bette Davis? A Kaminoan who sounds like Groucho Marx? The Star Wars movies would have been so much more entertaining with more of these inexplicable whims from Lucas, the beardy-weirdy.
Hey, Lucas, Amidala was boring, is boring, and always will be boring. Plus she gets rescued by C3PO. Space fail!
Too! Much! Boring! Plot! (Again, keeping in line with the other prequel movies.)
The biggest crime of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, one that I can't blame the actual filmmakers for, is that it is not Star Wars: Clone Wars, which, if you are filled with nerd blood, makes more sense than it seems. This movie, The Clone Wars, is unremarkable and overplotted (though watchable), while Clone Wars, directed by the incredible Genndy Tartakovsky, was magnificent. It moved as fast as a rocket, almost entirely eschewed lumbering plot discussions, and featured many of the most innovative and exciting sequences of the entire filmed Star Wars series.
In fact, this might rank among my favourite moments of nerd cool ever committed to film and accounts for why my favourite Jedi ever is Mace Windu (well, that and the casting of Samuel L. Jackson, who I won't hear a bad word said against). Whenever people complain about ADD editing in action movies, complaining about Michael Bay and his ilk, I want to show them that clip to prove that there are still people who understand how to construct, block, and edit an action scene so that it not only makes sense but also generates the majority of its emotional charge through rhythm and escalation.
There is nothing even vaguely as cool as that in the new movie, and by the end of the film I was falling asleep from the repetitive fight scenes, but early on there are some fun moments. As I said, I probably won't ever rewatch this, but I keep watching the Tartakovsky version over and over again because it is so unbelievably cool and fun and fast-paced and even, at times, epic in a way even the live-action movies forget to be. It's kind of an insult to the great man that Lucas never thought to bump his work onto the big screen, but was happy to do that for something that is bland and underachieving in comparison.
It struck me mid-way through the current Clone Wars movie that it's very odd to be watching a story told in this order. First the last three films, then two prequels, the previous Clone Wars series, the last prequel, and now another story set between the series and Revenge of the Sith. As a result we've had to deal with a lot of cognitive dissonance as we are expected to feel empathy for a bunch of Clone Troopers we know have been subconsciously programmed to kill Jedi on command, and overlook the fact that the hero of The Clone Wars, Anakin, has been given a Padawan trainee, the obnoxious Ahsoka Tano, who is only a little older than the "younglings" he massacres in Sith. I doubt that introducing a young character is a way to foreshadow that, as the film never hints that that is to come, and she seems merely to be an audience surrogate for the kids the film is aimed at, but it did make me a bit uncomfortable.
Nice touch getting Christopher Lee back to play Count Dooku. He added some class to the proceedings. Sam Jackson, on the other hand, got to say nothing particularly interesting. Wasted opportunity.
The conversations between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka are endlessly dull, going around in circles and never containing even an atom of wit. Midway through one of these seemingly infinite back-and-forths (many of which repeat information from earlier on, betraying its multi-episode TV origins), I realised that if the terrifying hyper-sensitive Political Correctness Gone Really Mad future world of Demolition Man ever came to pass, Lucas-style banter would be what replaces humour. It was an epiphany that chilled me to the bone, and made me want to see Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder even more than I already do (i.e. a lot).
Clone troopers know martial arts? Whuh?
Er...
That's it.
Oh, and Moriarty continues to be the best thing about Ain't It Cool News. Lucas should send him a bunch of flowers or a few hundred thousand unsold action figures for treating with such childish disdain. Lucasarts, though it might occasionally strike gold, has no class. ::Prepares for hissy fit from visionary director of THX 1138::
As I said on Tuesday, it's Anger Week here on the international network of computer people (abbr. InterNetComPeeps), and on that day I figured I should offer an alternate perspective by jumping up and down on the spot about yet another book about how the Republicans have spent the past eight years secretly carving chunks out of the planet so that it resembles a big Space Dollar Sign. Though these books are ten a penny, if they're written by Thomas Frank they are essential reading. His humour and intelligence set them apart from the rest.
However, seeing posters for Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky in almost every Tube station in London (that I have visited), it has now become too much effort to appear jolly or attempt to hold off the tidal wave of heated commentary and subsequent opprobrium that has replaced the internet's usual blend of celebrity schadenfreude, leaked pictures from Transformerators 2, and George W. Bush blooper updates.
Time to add a little drop of Grouch Juice to the ocean that is the internet. A couple of weeks ago we were unfortunate enough to watch Happy-Go-Lucky (which is coming to DVD in the UK next week and opening in the US soon), and though I will admit we were watching it on a flight that was running nearly two hours late, with the seats in front of us pulled so far back they were almost inside our heads, and the air conditioning drying my eyes out so much they squeaked when I blinked, I'd like to think that I was still able to objectively assess Leigh's experiment in testing audience patience to destruction.
I may have said in my overlong Dark Knight post that seeing it in such uplifting conditions may have influenced my feelings towards it, but I've enjoyed several movies in similarly cramped and unpleasant circumstances, such as Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, Breach, Kung Fu Hustle, and, on the last two transatlantic flights I've taken, The Brave One and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Chronicles in particular is a beautiful movie, with autumnal colours lovingly captured by Godlike Genius Caleb Deschanel, and the intricate detailing on Phil Tippett's character designs apparent even on a tiny screen, so Dick Pope's bright photography was going to be perfectly fine.
I've sat through some stinkers on planes too, but nothing of the magnitude of Happy-Go-Lucky. I can sit through real dreck, really dire films made by people with no understanding of how to tell a story or approach a subject from a new and interesting perspective, and merely shrug. Happy-Go-Lucky, on the other hand, might not be as bad as Cassandra's Dream or the flabbergasting 21 (a film that is 100% recycled and utterly dishonest), but it made me angrier than any movie I've seen in a long time. Yes, even angrier than Southland Tales.
It seems pointless to give a rundown of the minimal plot, which is summed up with pith at IMDb, but it's worth looking at several key scenes. The movie follows the adventures of a primary school teacher called Poppy, whose relentless upbeat twitterings are exhibited in the first few minutes as she parks her bike outside a bookshop, wanders in, makes insipid, content-free comments to the shop owner (who is either rude and dismissive or probably busy doing something and unhappy to have someone come in and ruin his concentration, depending on your interpretation of the scene), and finally walks out to find her bike gone. Her response? "Oh, I never got to say goodbye!" This, my friends, is not the reaction of a sane person.
I'm not saying looking on the bright side of life is not a healthy way of approaching this setback. I'm saying that the human being, built as it is, would react to the theft with a mixture of emotions, the majority of which would be negative, and not a sentimental anthropomorphisation of the lost object. To react like that instead of being flushed with anger that someone had made a conscious decision to steal an object that belonged to you, with all of the feelings of frustration, disappointment, and violation that go along with that anger, would take a conscious effort to suppress those negative emotions which, as I'm sure anyone who reads this post will have experienced, flash up instantly with no cognitive effort involved. If Leigh is saying we should replace those feelings with acceptance, then I agree, it almost certainly is healthier than stewing over it indefinitely, but if he is saying we should never feel like the nasty feelings and must suppress them immediately, he doesn't understand human beings, and is touting a pure fantasy, and a cloying one at that. In fact, he does say that explicitly.
Q. How much of Poppy’s happy-go-lucky philosophy do you take on yourself? If someone stole your bike, would you shrug your shoulders? Mike Leigh: Oh, yeah actually I suppose I would if I’m honest. If they’ve nicked something, there you go basically. What are you going to do about it? But I wouldn’t want to make too much of that.
Thankfully he then follows that up by admitting he also shares character traits with Scott, the furious driving instructor, otherwise I would have to think of him as some kind of saint. In a revealing Guardian Q&A that I shall be going back to later in this post which has expanded way out of control like a big blob of Oobleck, host Sarfraz Manzoor asks:
SM: I found Poppy slightly annoying at the beginning - sort of unnecessarily and overly perky. Even when her bike gets stolen that doesn't faze her.
ML: Why is that "unnecessarily, overly perky"? She's cool, philosophical. The bike gets nicked, but what else can you do about it, life goes on. So defend your statement.
[Audience laughs]
SM: Initially, I thought she came across as a bit one-note - as in she's perky and nothing fazes her. But over the course of the film, she does become more complicated and reveals different levels.
ML: As far as I'm concerned, you could be forgiven, especially with the scene where they've gone clubbing and they're being silly having had a few drinks, you could be forgiven for thinking at that point, "Can I actually spend a couple of hours with this person?"
SM: You almost agree with me then?
ML: I am agreeing, but I'm saying that it's pretty much straight away that you start to get the hang of what she's actually about, and I don't think there's any real reason to go on thinking that [she's one-note]. When she gets into the car with Scott - I mean, he's so ludicrous that she just deals with it, her sense of humour takes over.
SM: He's a fascinating character - he comes across as somebody who's just a joke but ends up like the love-child of Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips.
ML: I don't know them.
SM: Probably better off that way.
Beyond his snippiness (yes, the audience laughed, but the rest of the interview features other instances of him losing his patience with his adoring fans), and his ignorance of those hateful columnist scum mentioned by Manzoor, which must be a joke, the fact that he says there is nothing you can do about having your bike stolen startles me. You could report it to the police, obviously. Will that get results? Almost certainly not. Will it be a waste of your time? Very probably. However, we're talking about the loss of property, the violation of your space by some ne'er-do-well, and you're just supposed to shrug it off? Though I understand that forgiveness is far healthier than seething over a slight and becoming a bitter jerk (I speak from experience), doing nothing is a dereliction of your duties to yourself and those around you. Though the odds are against the return of your property, there is still some chance your actions following the theft will generate some chain of events that might be beneficial to many, not just yourself. Perhaps Leigh thinks this because, oh well, it's just a bike. If you can afford to just lose one, congratulations. How about if your car was stolen? Or your house broken into and an item of personal significance was taken? What about if Leigh finished a movie and the only print of it got stolen? Would he shrug then?
As for the later points he makes after fronting on Manzoor, he admits to making Poppy hard to like in those opening scenes. In this interview he reiterates the point that Poppy is meant to be irritating at first, and he succeeded at that by making her seem like a parody of a human whose personality is one step away from some awful form of mental aberration, but finding her lovable by the end of the movie? I think not. Here is the trailer. If this annoys you, avoid avoid avoid.
We're not the only ones driven to distraction by Poppy, played, by Sally Hawkins, with an impressive method dedication that eradicates every vestige of actual humanity from the character. While the majority of press and user reviews appear to have fallen under her spell, there are still some, like us, who were of the totally opposite opinion. Many of Poppy's exploits drove us to paroxysms of fist-clenching fury, and if that wasn't bad enough, Leigh throws in a few more caricatures for good measure, my least favourite being her older sister Helen (played by Caroline Martin). Settled down and pregnant, lumbered with a mortgage and immature husband (this immaturity expressed as a wish to play on his Playstation, a machine that is demonised throughout as if responsible for the dreadful state of The Youth Of Today), Helen is quite obviously miserable, and takes this out on Poppy.
In one of the most poorly performed and written scenes of the year, the sister needles Poppy with talk of babies and mortgages and responsibility and growing up, talking of them as duties that all adults must face. When Poppy laughs that off and says she's perfectly happy as she is, her sister screeches, "You don't have to rub it in!" and storms out of the room. Thank you, Mike Leigh and his repertory of actors, for illuminating the malaise of those who follow the mandatory rules of life laid down by The Man in such elegant and eye-opening terms. It is truly a lesson I would have to have been in some kind of suspended animation to have not absorbed. This is the great British artist Mike Leigh at work? I could have sworn it was an amateur dramatics group run by pre-teens.
That angered me enough, but the final scene was the one that, in retrospect, irked me the most. As the anti-plot reaches its natural denouement, Poppy realises that her driving instructor Scott (an excellent performance from Eddie Marsan) has been stalking her, his addled, paranoid brain unable to see that her depthless chirpiness is an automatic and unthinking state of mind and not a come-on. He rails against her for "leading him on", Marsan's performance lending conviction to a pretty basic speech, not helped by his character seemingly being a lazily constructed (but brilliantly performed) hybrid of the unpleasant men played by David Thewlis in Naked and Mark Benton in Career Girls. Though I was glad something had finally happened, and was pleased to see what seemed to be some reflection in Poppy as she ponders his reaction to her personality. Sadly, after about 30 seconds of shots of Poppy looking ruminative, the film ends on her reverting to type, merrily rowing a boat with her equally silly flatmate and blithering on about her usual content-free nonsense, unchanged and determinedly jolly to the last oompah-oompah drenched frame.
Before I continue to discuss the movie in Shouty Mode, I have to address the opinion of its many fans. Lots of people have been warmed and uplifted by the film, and of course that's great for them, and it makes me happy to know others are happy. Obviously. However, critics of the movie have been painted as unduly negative and riven with fashionable cynicism, nothing more than cranky-pants who have forgotten the simple pleasures in life. Daring to suggest that the film is muddled, poorly made, vapid, cloying and pointless is considered evidence of a malfunction of the joy chips that Leigh and Hawkins have kickstarted in the rest of the audience. While I will admit to a mostly negative worldview, and a personality that just last night Canyon compared to Cartman (it was his rant against Family Guy that triggered the comparison, though I wish I had been able to articulate my feelings for that show so eloquently), I am capable of joy, and sometimes my critical faculties can be so overwhelmed by the experience of a work of art or popular culture that I turn into a leaping, gurning Poppy-esque parody of a human being.
Disliking Happy-Go-Lucky and the character of Poppy might well be a matter of personal taste and disposition, but that doesn't mean I can't have an objective, unemotional response to her and the movie as well. Though I'm a believer in a lot of what McKee says about story structure, I'm not so firmly wedded to it that I blindly think all stories have to follow some formula to be considered artistically valid. Happy-Go-Lucky might start with what could be seen as an inciting incident (the theft of her bike), and it might feature a showdown with an antagonist who exactly mirrors her, but otherwise the plot, such as it is, meanders back and forth, sometimes for little apparent reason. Again, though I could see little point in that other than the possibility that Leigh was being purposely obstreperous, it's certainly not a strike against the film.
However, Poppy's ultimate reaction to Scott's meltdown, to ponder it for a couple of minutes before blithely returning to her default position of chirpy simpleton, was a step too far. Once more, I'll stress that the antagonist doesn't necessarily have to learn a lesson at the end of a movie, or undergo much in the way of change, but it certainly helps, and doesn't have to be a big, "My God, this adventure has shown me how to love!" revelation either. What Poppy does is remain the same throughout, even when faced with evidence that her behaviour, innocent though it may seem, might have a negative impact on the world. Scott's psychosis is certainly not Poppy's fault, but a moment of reflection earlier on in the story might have shown her that purposely goading the man, making unfunny quips, and ignoring his instructions - the instructions of a very volatile man who is excessively anal about the following of said instructions and has shown a propensity for intemperate flashes of hostility - would eventually lead to a confrontation. She also upsets her sister, disrupts a flamenco class, and generally pesters people who are just trying to go about their day without being hassled by a hippy with a mouthful of witless, useless banalities.
Some fans of the film have commented on Poppy's wisdom, but I saw very little evidence of this. Again, I'll stress that Poppy doesn't have to learn. That said, surely an actual human being would finally realise upon being confronted by Scott that having a happy outlook is one thing, but having blundered along, oblivious to the consequences of a persona that might be negative as often as it is positive, is an entirely different matter, just as the expression of any other personality type would potentially have a range of consequences between positive and negative. That she laughs it all off as less than an inconvenience shows monstrous arrogance on the part of Leigh. We're being asked to side with someone who is oblivious to the feelings of those around her, other than to note that they are different from hers and must be altered immediately, preferably through the insistent and reflexive use of trivial, wit-free quips and cloying, unthinking platitudes. How is this laudable? I'm all for a bit of cheering up now and again, but if this half-wit tried to make me smile with her eye-rolling and intrusive questioning I would be calling the constabulary in a trice.
Such an confounding ending and ultimately impenetrable character reminds me of the far superior Morvern Callar, with Samantha Morton at the height of her power as the blank and amoral eponymous heroine. However, whereas Poppy is compelled to interact with everyone she meets, Morvern is utterly uninterested in the world, preferring to grab any advantage life gives her while hiding from almost all interaction, ears filled with headphones, becoming little more than a self-sufficient anonymous clubber on the continent. She's a perfect encapsulation of modern isolationist tendencies in some anti-social section of The Youth Of Today, and remains an enigma even after repeated viewings (or readings). Though I think Hawkins deserves praise for her total commitment to the role, on an aesthetic level I'd much rather watch Morton's icy, enigmatic performance than sit through the endurance test that is Happy-Go-Lucky. Morvern Callar is a true work of art by a true artist, one who is sadly undervalued.
Now that I think about it, Lynne Ramsay's movie is the perfect antidote to the forced chirpiness of Leigh's film, with its perplexing and compelling main character. Plus, that soundtrack, inspired by the tracklistings contained within Alan Warner's remarkable book, is a lot better than the upbeat comedy farty noises that pass for a score in Happy-Go-Lucky. Can + Boards of Canada + Lee Hazlewood > random cloying hurdy-gurdy any day of the week. I wish it had been on Virgin Atlantic's roster of films so that I could cleanse my mental palette.
Just as Morvern Callar appears to be a character study of a person whose motives and emotions are as mysterious to us at the end of the movie as they are at the start, Happy-Go-Lucky could be taken merely as a portrait of an alien being, the eternal optimist, a Pangloss wearing lipgloss, a hypothetical state of mind given form but no reason just to show what would happen if someone had a brain malfunction that made them perpetually chirpy.
There's even an argument that the movie is a study of psychosis. If I were to be uncharitable about her, which I intend to be, Poppy certainly seemed to be unhinged, being unable to comprehend the consequences of her actions or the ramifications of things that happen to her, like a sociopath overdosing on Prozac. Scott is paranoid, racist, and so socially stunted by his own self-loathing that he cannot understand what others are thinking. Leigh has had characters like this in his movies before, so there's a possibility he thinks all men (of a certain class and background, which I will charitably leave hanging in the air for fear of offending his fans) are prone to fantasising about women and/or the Illuminati, but I'm willing to grant that he does think this behaviour is evidence of mental health issues and not just what men are like (Neil LaBute, take note).
The tramp that Poppy meets midway through the movie, in a scene that many people thought was superfluous, is another broken human who cannot function in society. It's debatable that Poppy's attempts to communicate with the tramp are successful, which is a good thing. Having her even partially cure him would turn it from a character study into a weird Camden-based messiah tale. Poppy heals the sick and teaches man and woman to embrace happiness! I would have hated to see her Sermon on the Mount, filled as it would be with tic-like eye-rolling, reflexive chuckling, and exhortations to just cheer up, it might never 'appen, innit! We can be grateful for small mercies.
However, though that alternate interpretation is a potentially interesting take on what is otherwise a Sesame Street song about happiness dragged out to feature length, I'm unsure about whether Leigh really is trying to paint a picture of what a fractured, unfriendly society has done to us and the differing ways our brains have tried to cope with it, as only a handful of characters show any signs of mental malfunction. That is, unless you add Poppy's elder sister and husband, who have turned their back on pure anarchic, heedless joy for that most poisonous of mind afflictions, Leigh's pet peeve since Abigail's Party, class-jumping aspiration! Look at them in their grotty suburban home, with their grotty suburban mortgage, arguing about Playstations and resisting Poppy's stream of unconsciousness which would save them from their pit of misery! Burn the bastards at the stake!
These alternate explanations, giving Leigh the benefit of the doubt, might work if Leigh didn't insist on claiming that Poppy's manner was admirable. While I am not so desensitised by playing Grand Theft Automatic on my Gamebox and listening to that modern Gangster Ramp stuff with the witches and ho-bags that I can't see the benefit of maintaining a brighter outlook, Poppy's blinkered viewpoint is not an option anyone should consider. Being a flighty gurning happiness machine might work out okay if you're a primary school teacher, but I don't want a policeman or a doctor to be incapable of serious interaction.
::rolls eyes:: I dunno, getting mugged for your phone? Who needs 'em anyway? More trouble than they're worth, eh? Hur hur! All that money you'll save, not paying for calls, save up and buy yourself a nice sweater, innit! Hur hur! Or a wheelchair, seeing as how you've been terribly injured by your attacker. Still, mustn't grumble! You can still play basketball in one. I seen it on the telly! Ooooh, it was dead exciting! Hur hur!
::rolls eyes:: Yeah, we got your x-rays back, and look, it's your bones! The left bone's connected to the right bone! Hur hur! Look at 'em! Look at how many there are! Millions of bones! Wow! Bloody brilliant, innit. So yeah, that smashed-up one there, that's called a vertebra. Ooh! Big word! Hur hur!
And yes, I appreciate she does have the nous to recognise evidence of abuse in a bullying child, but whereas many critics have pointed this out as evidence of a greater wisdom and maturity in Poppy than we had previously assumed, it's not backed up by any other displays of seriousness anywhere else in the movie, and tends to suggest it was slotted in as a means to prove her capacity to be high-functioning and capable of constructive compassion, as a pre-emptive riposte to arguments that she's just a halfwit who doesn't understand the hardships and cruelties of the world. Even if I bite, and accept that, she's still reckless and thoughtless in other contexts, as I complained earlier, like the miserable life-hating bastard I am.
Plus, the other alternative explanation for that scene is that Leigh added it so that she could meet someone in a professional manner who she could have a cloying and sappy relationship with, the alternative being meeting someone at one of the nightclubs she goes to with her raucous friends, which Leigh would never have countenanced for fear of making Poppy seem like one of those tawdry working class hussies having a drunken shag like the Daily Mail says they do. And hey, Leigh surely wouldn't want to come across as someone making uncharitable comments about entire classes of people that are dissimilar to his own, now would he.
Of the many comments Leigh has made about the film, the one I find the most interesting is this, from that Telegraph article linked to earlier:
It's about education: how we learn and how we teach. It's about responsibility. About trust, about men and women, and about commitment. I felt it would be a good time to make a film that would be, in some way, anti-miserabilist. These are tough times we're in; we are destroying ourselves and the planet, but there are some people who care enough about the future to be teaching kids.
Ignoring the fact that I don't think the human race has become so suicidal and reckless that it has decided not to even bother teaching kids anymore, thus making anyone who decides to do it part of some dying breed, the movie does hint at some interest in exploring what education is, and Scott has some things to say about it that, when stripped of their crazy conspiracy trappings, might amount to a rare moment of insight, but I do think a lot of his grumbling about modern education concerns gaming and gadgetry, and how kids are reacting to them. There are numerous other problems with modern education beyond that, which is the sort of feeble argument trotted out by the handbag-clutching readers of the Mail who have no understanding of what the technological age can offer. There is a place for Leigh's Ye Olde Worlde thinking, and I would never argue it doesn't. However, saying "those games is bad for the kids" is not an intellectual position, at least as expressed in Happy-Go-Lucky. There are grave problems with education in England, but lumping the blame almost exclusively on gaming is a dead end, and is intellectually lazy.
Speaking of which, remember the obvious connection I made earlier between Scott and David Thewlis' character Johnny in Naked? As you can imagine, I was not the only one who thought there was a similarity between the biblical rants spouted by both misanthropic characters, and this poor chap tried to ask Leigh about it at a Guardian Q&A.
Question 10: The taxi driver, Scott ...
ML: He's not a taxi driver, he's a driving instructor. Loads of people keep calling him a taxi driver, but there's nothing that suggests he is that. It's a very strange thing. You're about the 70th or 75th person who's said that. However, please continue.
Q10 add: Well, the way Scott made reference to 666 conspiracy theories, it just made me think of Johnny in Naked talking about a similar thing. Just wondering if there was a connection at all.
ML: There is, only in so far as they're talking about the same thing. But the huge difference between Scott and Johnny and Brian, the night security guard in Naked, is about as massive a difference as between Poppy and Beverly in Abigail's Party, I would say. Johnny, and indeed Brian, understand what they're talking about. They've made connections, they've got ideas on the go, and they're perceptive. Scott is none of those things. He doesn't understand anything that's in his head at all. It's all this stuff slopping around in the tank of his brain but he hasn't added it up at all. It's a very superficial experience for him, which isn't the case at all for Johnny.
But how are we supposed to know that? One biblical rant sounds much like another, and never really seem to be connected or unconnected, sounding more like a series of shouty quotes from old books linked in with some contemporary references. Scott sounded no more or less connected than anyone else, and the movie gives no hint that Scott is having a "superficial experience". While many critics and Leigh fans are quick to praise him for his method of generating plot and character by getting his actors together and thrashing out ideas prior to writing a script (though only a few seem to think the actors should get more credit for their contribution, weirdly enough), that process is not available for us to view.
While Leigh can bat away criticisms by commenting on the true feelings of his characters, it seems to me he is not remembering the events of the movie, but remembering the inner life of the characters that he and the actors have constructed. Though I understand the movie is open for interpretation, I can see no evidence in the movie that would lead me to believe what he is saying is correct, and not just a way of avoiding critical comment (or a inaccurately retrieved memory). Even worse than that, his rude comment to this questioner beggars belief. [Italics mine]
Question 5: I was looking at Poppy's character in that scene with her sister and brother-in-law. Should she have gone down the path of being a proper adult, having a family and so forth, do you think she would have any similarity to Beverly in Abigail's Party?
ML: I think Poppy's extremely grown-up, but she's being measured about it. There's no way, as I read her, or indeed as Sally Hawkins read her, that she's somebody that's going to stay juvenile forever. She's not. She's simply a mature but measured person who's taking life steadily and enjoying it and being fulfilled. It's only her sister Helen's perception of her that she's not being responsible, that she's not being sensible. I hate to say this, and don't take it personally, but it's really a silly question, and I say it with the greatest respect. [Translation: "You're an idiot. I say it with all due respect, and please don't take it personally, but you're a drooling imbecile who can never understand my art."] She won't stop being an intelligent, sensible person with a sense of humour, politics, life and a sense of values and a love of children - none of which is Beverly. Beverly hates children, and hasn't got any of the perception or applied intelligence or education or the ability to care that Poppy has. They're absolutely chalk and cheese.
There are two options: Leigh is lying and being a bit of a jerk about it, or Leigh and Hawkins really attributed these inner feelings to their creation during rehearsals. If it is the latter, that's perfectly fine, and I'm curious to see the DVD extra that shows them creating Poppy. However, in the film, there is no hint that she is going to mature. Saying that she is and treating his audience like fools for not reading his and Hawkins' minds and understanding that is sheer arrogance. If he wants us to interpret the movie any way we want, let us do that. If not, then don't be so rude about it. Cheer up Mike, it's all gonna be alright in the end, innit? Hur hur.
Still, it was not such a traumatic experience that I have not become immune to happiness in film form. Just yesterday I suddenly remembered my deep and abiding love for Theodore Flicker's satirical hodge-podge The President's Analyst, with James Coburn playing Dr. Sidney Schaefer, on the run from various evil-doers after giving up his job as the psychoanalyst of the President of the United States, and coming across a wide selection of 60s cultural icons, all of which are mercilessly lampooned. Coburn, who could portray joy with more enthusiasm than almost any other actor (and not just because he had an incredibly bright and wide smile) is the perfect person to play the doctor who tunes in and drops out, set free to just go crazy on stage with his beloved gong.
You should look pleased with yourself, Don Draper. Not only are you the archetypal Alpha Male, but the show you appear in just got good. Really really good.
Just as Six Feet Under and Big Love really hit their stride in their second seasons, Mad Men just kicked off the last scraps of its metamorphonic cocoon and properly fluttered its wings for the first time. I've had issues with itin the past, but most of them are resolved now. The season premiere disappointed me, losing some of the goodwill the end of the first season had generated, but the last two episodes have pushed us past "like" and into "love".
Things that pleased me greatly include:
Don's showdown with the obnoxiously confident Bobbie Barrett, played with singular odiousness by Melinda McGraw, last seen being almost as odious on Journeyman as Dan Vassar's sister-in-law. It was shocking, graphic, erotically confusing (I thought he had stubbed his cigarette out on her leg or ladyparts or something equally awful), and amazing. He sure has got his mojo back at last.
The weak link in the show for us remains Betty Draper, an interesting character played by an indifferent actress (January Jones), who is either underplaying horribly or overplaying someone who is meant to be dead in the soul. While she looks the part (Grace Kelly-esque is insufficient to describe her perfect 60s blonde ice queen aura), she murmurs her dialogue in the most unconvincing way. To make things worse, her scenes are often almost parodic in their silliness. Last season she was almost having an affair with a young boy (well, not rally, but she did seem awfully drawn to him). Her confrontation with Arthur, the supposedly handsome horse-riding student who looks more like Judge Reinhold's consumptive kid brother to me, was overbaked, with the words "profoundly sad" bandied about way too often (though her response, that it was down to her people being Nordic, was a gem). Maybe the scene was meant to run as a parody of seduction speak, especially with a previous scene featuring Don and Bobbie being so slick as a consequence of their experience with extramarital dalliances, but no matter. It ended with the return of Betty's Shaky Hands! They've been missing since the second episode of the first season, but they're back, and shakier than ever!
The reveal that art is becoming Don's kryptonite. After his experiences with Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain last season, and Frank O'Meara poetry collections in the second season premiere, he's now sneaking out to catch La Notte in the afternoon. Next time he goes after Bobbie, she should throw a copy of Catch-22 at him. He'll shriek, fall to his knees, and then start reading it, oblivious to the world.
Actually, there is a bit of a back and forth on The AV Club Mad Men talkback about whether it is La Notte or La Jetee that Don is secretly watching on company time. It's probably the former, but Chris Marker's sci-fi slideshow is a good fit too, as the movie Don is watching looks like a series of static shots. If so, is this linked to Don's seemingly growing realisation that he is lying to himself if he thinks he is an out-of-time 50s businessman and not a 60s hippy? Or a psychopath, which is also possible. Even more shocking, perhaps he is a time-traveller! Only those pesky season one flashbacks with him hanging around with Ryan Chappelle from 24 disguised as a hobo renders that theory invalid.
The reaction of Harry after realising Kenneth was being paid far more than him was almost as good as his hesitant slapstick attempts to open his payslip and then reseal it. And then, to put a cherry on top, Harry makes the error of going to see Salvatore, whose withering sarcasm was beautifully judged. Though I had enjoyed the second episode, this scene in the third episode was the one that pushed me over the edge. It was spot on.
Don's awful demotion of his secretary in an act of sublimated rage and shame after Roger Sterling criticises him for sneaking off to watch a movie. Lois' responses, a mixture of fear and grudging acceptance, were superbly played by Crista Flanagan, whose demotion hopefully won't cut her out of the show altogether. What was most pleasing about the scene was that Don's monstrous behaviour was borne not just of his inherent 60s-era sexism (which has always seemed to be in conflict with his attraction to powerful women), but because of a character moment; his weakness for art (or the promise of some foreign erotica, if indeed La Notte contains any) is something he is truly ashamed of. His other vices of infidelity and drinking, are accepting as normal behaviour by his colleagues, whereas this could be seen as a sign of weakness or, more probably, evidence that he no longer fits in with the boys (several of whom seem to be evolving as the decade progresses without him being aware of it). And so he takes it out on Lois. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time.
The jawdropping scene from Flight 1 featuring Joan's racism and cutting criticism of faux-boho Paul made my head spin, and sat in stark contrast with the thoughtless racism of previous episodes. Joan isn't someone who takes African-Americans for granted; she is actively hateful. Plus, she still doesn't look quite the same as she did on Firefly and I can't put my finger on why. Good to see that the show has given us an unrepentant bitch to root against. Moral haziness is one thing, but right now she's just a horrible person, who is either unforgivably dreadful or entertainingly catty depending on the context. Paul's revenge (posting a photocopy of her driving licence on a bulletin board with her birthday highlighted) was fun too.
For the first time ever, despite Canyon's continued aesthetic annoyance over Don's flat butt, we're looking forward to next week's episode, which features Don and Betty taking the kids away for a weekend of awkward silences, chain-smoking, and maybe even some tears from Betty due to her Bottomless Nordic Sadness. Let's hope this newfound enthusiasm of ours isn't thwarted.
I'm all a-dither with excitement. In the past I have railed against the iniquities of The Market, and the peculiar popular belief in its impassive, emotionless benevolence, which is something that has irked me long enough that I can remember being very uncomfortable watching pretty much any movie or TV show from the 80s featuring Michael J. Fox in a shirt (i.e. almost all of them). Maybe that discomfort is why I have such a problem with money, and talking about money, and any kind of economic thinking. Or maybe it's the other way around. It's hard to say. What is obvious to me, though, is that my understanding of what money is and how to make it work is so embarrassingly immature that any kind of balance sheet or bill or bank statement looks to me like this.
In an attempt to get over this I read two books that I have mentioned before; The Lexus and The Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman, and One Market Under God, by Thomas Frank. The utter worthlessness of the first book was obvious even to someone like myself who once thought that newspaper headlines about the IMF were referring to The Impossible Mission Force (I really really wish that was a joke). One of Friedman's arguments, that The Market is riddled with democracy-germs that rub off on countries that make out with it, is backed up with statements barely more substantial than, "this is what will happen because... because... just because, damn it!", not to mention conjuring up the image of goat-herders in the Middle East giving up on their traditional work in order to sit on a rock with a laptop and trying to eke out a few tiyin here and there by day-trading (an exaggeration, but not much of one).
There was a lot of other unconvincing stuff in there, but don't take my word for it. My man Paul Krugman dishes out an entertaining review of it here. My dislike of Friedman's populist drivel is such that recently I potentially alienated a friend of Canyon's after seeing a copy of The World Is Flat on her shelf, which triggered a ten minute rant from me that scared her cats and made her back away from me while reaching for a baseball bat. If you ever read this post, Friend of Canyon, I apologise profusely. The anger management classes are going well, you'll be glad to hear. The point I was trying to get across, behind all of the "GRAAAAR!" and "Noooooo!" and "Banish him to Uzbekistan!" statements, was that if Lexus was anything to go by, I wouldn't be surprised if Friedman was actually trying to argue that the world really was flat. That's how little I respect him.
One Market Under God, on the other hand, was a revelation; funny, angry, and filled with shocking examples of pro-Market propaganda hurled at we, the people, by those who would benefit most from our mute acceptance of the status quo. It was just the tonic I needed. His next book was called by two names What's The Matter With Kansas? in the US, and, rather uncharitably, What's The Matter With America? in the UK, because we Brits have never heard of Kansas and might think he is talking about some village in Greenland or something. It might be even better than One Market. I don't know. I tend to have internal debates about which book is better, like the comic fans who debate whether Superman or Thor would win in a fight (it's Thor, obviously). That said, while One Market made me angry, What's The Matter just made me depressed. Recently I read Matt Taibbi's disappointingly slender but undeniably hilarious The Great Derangement, and it conjured up similar feelings of desperate misery of a "Hell in a handbasket" kind of way.
The Wrecking Crew might make me feel just as bad, but I can't wait for it anyway. I thought it was coming out next week, but it's out now, and I've already ordered it, though my eagerness for it is so intense it's even made me crave a Kindle so I can immediately download it and read it instead of chunter on about it. Until then, check out Frank's homepage, and watch the interview with Stephen Colbert. As a big fan of both of men and their Amazing Powers of the Brain, it was a treat to see that last night (what? Our PVR is full of old Daily Shows and Dexters and we got behind with watching!).
(aka the American Hot Fuzz), but memories of it are still making us laugh; I'm still occasionally saying, "Boats and Hos" with no prompting. Plus, the finale, spoofing happy cinematic final act resolutions with Dada-esque rigour, was worth the ticket price alone, and it finally made us totally embrace Adam Scott (aka Palek The Vulcan Inseminatron from Tell Me You Love Me). His insane performance as Ferrell's asshole brother is possibly the highpoint of the film.
