Occupy Q&A! Purposefully Bad Acting & Post-Movie Etiquette

Roughly one hundred years ago on November 18th, 2011 I took questions for the next Q&A and after what was meant to be a short diversion answering the oddly abundant small screen questions I am now answering them. I am many things but I am nothing if not punctual. This is Part one of two as there is much to answer. Tomorrow's edition will actually arrive tomorrow night as it's already written. Yay me!

Just to stretch out the variety a bit I asked y'all to refrain from any questions about legendary actresses this time -- my favorite topic and apparently yours since many of you didn't listen ;) -- so  in this week's column, the men get a little time to shine. Let's go!

ANNIE: What was your favorite experience of seeing a movie with an audience, where the audience's reaction actually enhanced your viewing?

I've had many screenings like this that have enhanced my love of the movie we're all watching together. Which is why I believe so emphatically in the sanctity of moviegoing, and why I wish studios and theaters would lower prices before they price themselves out of populist relevance. TV is free and home theaters are getting larger so the movies really need to understand that they can't be making it so difficult for families to hit the multiplex or who will go? Movie attendance is a fraction of what it once was no matter how big the box office numbers seem and that is sad.

Jack and Leo discussing how awesome Barbra Streisand is in "Funny Girl"In terms of special events almost nothing beats Funny Girl's revival at the Ziegfeld several years ago here in NYC. It must have been sold out and that theater is HUGE. I saw at least one semi-famous person in the crowd and everyone was obviously there because they loved the movie. Seeing such a legendary star-making performance super-sized in a historic theater that had actual ties to the movie? Bliss. Nobody was raining on anyone's parades in there. It felt like oxygenated euphoria in that house. Also you know what movie was fun to watch with a typical noisy multiplex crowd just a few blocks from there? The Departed ! I still relish the audience reaction when you-know-who gets shot so mercilessly without fanfare or warning. It was as if there were tiny rugs under every individual theater seat and diabolical trickster Martin Scorsese had yanked them all at once and all OH.HELL.NO broke loose in there; the most fun you'll ever have watching someone get shot in the head!

How's that for a double feature: Funny Girl and The Departed ? Hee.

JOHN-PAUL: With three summer releases still alive in the Best Picture race (The Help, Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life) and fall Oscar-bait movies seemingly underwhelming left and right (J. Edgar, The Ides of March, Carnage, A Dangerous Method, etc.), do you think the so-called "Oscar season" will become less relevant in the coming years?

I wish I could say "Yes" but this happens on a fairly regular basis and nothing changes. What's more this year has even more "one week qualifiers" than usual (4 or 5 by my count), so the system is definitely not changing for the better. I hate to be a broken record but I firmly believe that AMPAS should change the rules drastically. I don't think a film should be eligible for the Oscars unless it has allowed regular moviegoers to watch it in at least the top six markets. The current system gets called elitist on a regular basis but for stupid reasons ("Hey they didn't vote for that lame-ass blockbuster sequel that audiences flocked to for habitual lemming-like reasons!") and never for the actual elitist problem which is that you can show yourself for seven days in one theater in LA and ignore moviegoers totally and still be eligible for Best Movie prizes. That's all kinds of elitist, suggesting that the only audience a movie need concern itself with is 6000+ voting members of AMPAS. 

Mr. W: Any thoughts on Jean-Jacques Beineix' 'Diva'?

Have you ever seen DIVA (1981)? It's quite a time capsule.

Love it. Saw it three times at least in the 80s on VHS. Unfortunately I remember little about it other than its distinctly 80s new wave aesthetic and the fantastic diversity of the cast (black, asian and white characters on equal footing in the narrative? So rare in the 80s! And even now). I also liked that the story was built around something as mundane but unusual as a bootleg concert of an opera singer who refused to be recorded. No one speaks of "bootlegs" anymore -- they were put out of business by illegal downloads and leaking. 

JOHN T: Which legendary male actor would you like to pull a Christopher Plummer and make a comeback and get his first nomination-must be 65 or older to enter.

[The answer and more questions after the jump including awesome bad acting, Occupy Wall Street and post-movie etiquette.]

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"Speak as you might to a small child or golden retriever"

This past week I've become concerned with the awards prospects of Shame (is Carey Mulligan going to win anything?) and Martha Marcy May Marlene (which I loved) on account of its loss of every breakthrough actress and best first film contests thus far (in the admittedly young awards season.)

I began to wonder if the problem wasn't the constant withholding of the comfort food that is exposition. So I put in my screener to Margin Call, which keeps beating MMMM to prizes and while I enjoyed the film, I was immediately struck at the ginormous difference in verbosity. One movie tells you everything through it's play-like dialogue. The other tells you only so much and nearly always through its visuals.

So I wrote about ambiguity vs. directness in my Oscar column for Fandor.

There's even an infographic! Apparently I believe in both showing AND telling.

The No Longer Mighty Patty Jenkins

Hi folks, Glenn here wanting to discuss the troublesome case of Patty Jenkins.

As you may have heard, the Monster director was all set to take over the director’s chair for Marvel’s Thor 2, but things got derailed within the last 24 hours and now Jenkins is out citing that old chestnut of “creative differences” and will be replaced by somebody else, presumably quick smart since the film has a release date of November 2013.

As much as I adored Thor, the fate of its sequel is far from the biggest concern to come out of this news. No, I am more worried about what will happen to Patty Jenkins, the woman who broke through in 2003 and helped win Charlize Theron an Academy Award. Since directing Monster, Jenkins hasn’t made a single feature film and has seemingly fallen prey to the terrible female director curse that also afflicted Kimberley Peirce (Boys Don't Cry... 9 years between films) and Courtney Hunt (Frozen River... 4 years and counting). Why can’t these breakthrough indie women who were responsible for providing Oscar wins and nominations not get secondary projects up and running? Oh sure, Jenkins directed some TV recently – Emmy nominated for The Killing – but Thor 2, as strange as it sounds, was to be her return to films and I was mighty excited. 

An even more disappointing angle to the story is that Jenkins’ appointment was a significant notch in the ever-fluid trajectory of the plight of female directors in Hollywood. Not since Mimi Leder and Deep Impact has a woman been given the job of directing such a big property (or none that I can think of) and now with Jenkins out of the game, I wonder where that leaves her. “Creative differences” tends to be code for “difficult to work with”, doesn’t it? I have no worry that Marvel will find a suitable replacement for Thor 2, but wasn’t the idea of a Jenkins-helmed Thor sequel just curious and curiouser? While Sofia Coppola is making movies about Hollywood thieves, Julia Leigh is caressing controversy with Sleeping Beauty (my review), Phyllida Lloyd paints beige portraits of Margaret Thatcher, and Kathryn Bigelow does everything but give James Cameron a run for his money, it was nice to know someone of Jenkins’ status could be given the keys to such an important vehicle. What could have been will now never be realised.

I do wonder, however, what other left of centre female director choice could Marvel make for Thor 2. Maybe Mimi Leder could be brought back to big budget blockbusters? Perhaps Lisa Cholodenko is secretly just biding her time to direct a superhero movie? And you just know Gillian Armstrong has nothing to do right now. 

Who would you like to see direct Thor 2 if only they’d be given the chance?

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Three Stooges"

Andreas here. After over a decade in development, the Farrelly Brothers' tribute to their slapstick idols became its own sad punchline, swapping out the bizarro dream team of Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Jim Carrey for a more conventional, less A-listy trio. Revivals of decades-old franchises always make me nervous, especially when those franchises relied on specific performers with very specific talents. But let's give the trailer a look, shall we?

YES...

 

• I've been a Stooges fan since early childhood. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the Farrellys seem to get their style of comedy... by which I mean nonstop, mean-spirited violence augmented by cartoonish sound effects. They're clearly not afraid to go as lowbrow as possible to replicate it.
• The actors subbing in for the long-dead Stooges do some pretty accurate impersonations, especially Mad TV veteran Will Sasso as the blithely animalistic Curly...

"No"s "Maybe So"s and the trailer after the jump.

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Distant Relatives: The Apartment and Sideways

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film.

Nice Guys Who Don't Finish At All

Consider the Romantic Comedy as made for men. In this day and age, the genre is so associated with being poor in quality and aiming only for a female demographic, you could easily forget that they used to make 'em good and with male protagonists. Of course, Hollywood making movies by men for men shouldn't be a surprise. And even today, most romantic comedies made to appeal to women are made by men (which is one small part of why they're so bad). That said, the male hero of a Romantic Comedy is quite different from the male hero of any other kind of movie. "Nebbish" is the word that comes to mind. Possibly also "schmuck." Both 1960's The Apartment and 2004's Sideways subscribe to this setup. Both Jack Lemmon's C.C. Baxter and Paul Giamatti's Miles are serious sad sacks, and both films play hard with the "nice guy finishes last" dilemma painting our heroes as upstanding men smeared merely by the actions of their peers, those cads who would seek to give all men a bad name. But the reality in both cases isn't as simple, and these films know it.

 

As The Apartment opens, C.C. Baxter is one of many nameless office clerks. But what sets him apart is a sly deal he's cut for himself. By lending out his apartment for the affairs and liaisons of his superiors, he's set himself up to ascend the corporate ladder with ease. The rub comes when he discovers that Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) the adorable lift operator for whom he pines has been regularly visiting his apartment with his boss, cad of cads, Mr. Sheldrake. In Sideways, Miles too is one of the nameless lonely who trips through life toward increasingly vanishing dreams. He's a writer but not quite fit for success. He's a wine connosieur but not quite enough to be a pro. When his friend Jack suggests he open a wine store, he scoffs. When Jack compliments his writing, he shrugs it off. By comparison, Jack isn't particularly talented in anything other than picking up women which he does... lots. Jack and Miles head for California wine country on a two-man Bachelor Party for Jack where Jack anticipates and finds plenty of tail. Miles, not anticipating it, finds Maya (Virginia Madsen), perhaps his perfect woman.

Turning a Blind Eye to the Not-So-Nice Guy

So what happens to our nice guys? Does C.C. Baxter steal Miss Kubelik away from Sheldrake? Does Miles woo Maya without complications from Jack? First they must overcome a truth of themselves that the women in their lives are sure to discover, and that we the audience slowly come to realize after their charming patheticness wears off. These two nice guys aren't all that nice, not really. Oh they're not terrible people or anything. Theirs are sins of omission. Heck, theirs are lives of omission. Miles and Baxter don't do anything bad because they don't do anything, period. If they seem like nice guys it's often only by comparison. Under the looming shadow of Jack and Sheldrake, Miles and Baxter seem perfectly gentlemanly, but they are really enablers of the behaviors of the men whose lives they seem to eye with jealousy. Not that they want to lie to and betray women. They'd just prefer to not finish last. But they've given up the race, conceded victory to the cheaters and stopped caring about who gets used up on the way to the finish line.

 

With both of these films ending on an ambiguous note, it can't definitively be said that these are stories of the guys who get the girl. More accurately perhaps, these are stories of guys who, with the help of the women they want, come to understand and overcome their own timid failings. They realize that their inaction is in fact approval of all the action being gotten around them. In what may be a telling difference of expectations after forty-four years of cinema, Baxter is asked by his film to make major alterations to his life and abandon his sly apartment deal. Miles isn't expected to overtly reject Jack or any element of his life, just to understand, and to make a choice. Whether the choices these men make eventually finish them ahead (or at least not last) in the race of life is unknown. But at least they come to learn the difference between being a good person who fails and being an ambivalent person who fails to try.

 

Other Cinematic Relatives: Cyrano de Bergerac (1950/1990), The Graduate (1968), Broadcast News (1987), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)