Cold Weather

(originally published in the Roosevelt University Torch, 3/20/11.)

Cold Weather, which opened in Chicago last week after premiering at the Chicago International Film Festival last October, is a bit of a mystery. That is to say, there’s a bit of a mystery, which the characters are tasked with unraveling. But only when the film finds time to get around to it.

The film opens on a wet windowpane, giving the viewer a chance to luxuriate in the ultra-crisp images captured by the Red One Digital Camera, the same camera used by David Fincher to shoot The Social Network. These images have much of the same chilly, ultra-crisp character of Fincher’s film, which suits this story equally well.

The film’s plot concerns Doug, a twenty-something forensics school dropout, who has returned home to Portland to live with his sister. Terminally listless, he accepts a low-wage job at a local ice packaging plant with a shrug, and the movie takes its time painstakingly detailing Doug’s shallow, boring existence before finally dragging its feet into “whodunit” mode.

When writer-director Aaron Katz lets the movie simply be a movie, his characters, along with the film, are invigorated. Just about the time you’re wondering when (If ever) the mystery element will come into play, it finally does. The twist goes like this: Doug’s ex-girlfriend is in town, but when she fails to show for a meeting with friends, things take a suspicious turn, and Doug, an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, finds himself in the middle of a caper.

Even in its high points, though, Cold Weather is annoyingly anachronistic. The jaunty musical score juxtaposes oddly with the dreary, wet color palette of rainy Portland, and visually stunning landscape portraits are too-often butted up against lazy, boring two-shots.

Cold Weather has occasionally been lumped in with the so-called “Mumblecore” movement—a recent slew of American films which feature awkward, non-communicative post-grads fumbling quietly through early adulthood. Admittedly, this film does fall prey to many of the same tropes. Many viewers might find themselves resistant to the idea of these supposedly college-educated characters expressing themselves in a manner just a few IQ points away from mouth breathers. I assume these filmmakers are aiming for an ultra-realistic style, but I have to wonder—is anyone actually this awkward in real life?

Doug, his sister Gail, and his Ex-girlfriend Rachel all seem to be cluelessly stumbling from one encounter to the next. To its credit, the film never tells us how were supposed to feel about these characters, but my guess is Katz is plenty sympathetic to their plight.

Stripped of their “umms” and “I dunno’s”, there are likely interesting characters buried under the actors in Cold Weather. Unfortunately, we only get to see them in too-fleeting glimpses. Cold Weather is a pretty crackerjack little thriller when it wants to be, but that’s clearly not what Katz is interested in, which is a shame.

True Grit

At some point over the Thanksgiving holiday, as my family waited impatiently in the living room for the turkey to roast, the TV spot for True Grit came on.

 
               "Looks interesting." someone said. (It wasn't me.)
 
               "Yeah.. but it's by the Coen Brothers!" my father blurted out in disgust.
              
               Knowing my dad, this unprovoked burst of poorly articulated grumpiness didn't faze me. Nor did I feel the need to counter (my dad couldn't name three films by the Coens if his second helping of pumpkin pie depended on it.) Anyway, I had a pretty good idea why he felt compelled to voice his skepticism. He seemed to think a pair of artier-than-thou writer/directors in their $500 penny loafers were out to track fresh mud all over the hallowed grounds of his cinematic hero, one John "Duke" Wayne. And THAT he simply could not stand for.
 
               It's doubtful that too many would share his vague angst, though. After all, who could think of a more audience-friendly replacement for Wayne's Rooster Cogburn than Jeff Bridges? Having long ago endeared himself to generations of movie fans, last year Bridges cleared the final hurdle to American film immortality, successfully courting the don't-rock-the-boat crowd and snaring an Oscar for his role in Crazy Heart. That film played by the Academy rules, alright, and for the most part True Grit does as well. As usual, however, the Coens ennoble the film with the formidable strengths of their direction and writing, and with their choice of collaborators.
 
               In True Grit, the Coens have everything and nothing up their sleeve. The film is a tale of man-hunting in the Old West. Young Mattie Ross (played with convincing, plucky bravado by Hailee Steinfeld,) has lost her father at the hands of a bandit named Tom Chaney. She recruits Bridge's drunken Marshall Cogburn to find Chaney and bring him to justice. Matt Damon's LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger, completes the posse. Chaney is wanted in Texas, too, and LaBoeuf is out to see him caught as well.
 
               True Grit is more spared-down than any western in recent memory. There are a few gunfights, and a chase or two, but more often the Coens are content to lean on their strengths, filling the screen with oddball characters and darkly funny encounters. This lends a welcome tone of playfulness to a story that might otherwise have been an austere guilt-and-redemption-fest, like John Ford's The Searchers. Cogburn and Company are out for blood alright, but they're not filled with bloodlust.

 
               It’s a canny little film--It feels small and insular, even as it unfolds against vast western landscapes. It is frequently hilarious, occasionally violent, and it doesn't hit any wrong notes. If it has anything bigger on its mind, however, it's not giving it away. But if you’re desperate for some kind of deeper meaning, it's likely right there in the title. Cogburn, in the employ of the 14-year-old Hattie, and Damon's LaBoeuf, all are working for what is clearly the right cause, and each has a separate burden to bear. But the ways in which their various axes do and don't get ground may have something to say about revenge and redemption.
 

               There's no denying that, on first viewing, True Grit has a distinct air of slightness to it. Coens diehards will probably like it, not love it, if they're being honest with themselves. But mostly, True Grit is a satisfyingly tasty meat-and-potatoes affair. The Coens, like their contemporary Steven Soderbergh, have proven themselves expert craftsmen, able to churn out well-crafted, often excellent work even in the employ of the major studios. Their well-realized hybrids of brilliance and accessibility have endeared them to a diverse crowd of film-goers, and their careers are all the better for it.

               Roger Deakins is a legend in his time, incapable of lensing an uninteresting shot. The music, by frequent collaborator Carter Burwell, is occasionally cloying but mostly standard issue. None of the actors are in particularly unmapped territory, excepting possibly Bridges, whose vocal gymnastics in gargling out Cogburn's guttural expectorations are as impressive as they are entertaining. Coens fans will ultimately return first for the screenplay, packed to the brim (as usual) with dazzling and arcane yokel-isms.
 
               Would my dad actually hate True Grit? It's possible. The dialogue is a far cry from John Wayne's slow-as-molasses drawl, and he'd probably have a hard time keeping up. Apart from that, however, the structure is neat and tidy, the film closes with actual closure (he hates those damn indecisive endings,) and the Coens don't directly impose anything on the viewer that they might not want to deal with.

               True Grit is product, no question--but it's excellent product. Think of it as a really choice cut of Grade A, organic, grass-fed steak. If you're inclined to notice, you'll quickly pick up on the superior flavors, and you'll patiently savor every bite. But if you just came to scarf down a big steak? Well, you'll go home happy too.

Catfish

     If you’ve seen the much-derided trailer for Catfish, you’ve already seen too much. The film tells the story of Yaniv, a handsome young New York City photographer, who is befriended via Facebook by an 8-year-old painter from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her name is Abby, and she loves his photos. They forge an unlikely artistic partnership, and before long Yaniv is receiving paintings in the mail, fielding phone calls from Abby’s mother, and “friending” Abby’s entire family online. Gradually, though, things start to feel amiss.

     Much more than The Social Network, which was mainly concerned with the genesis and business undertakings of the site, Catfish is a film about Facebook. Specifically, Catfish is about the ways in which people present themselves virtually, and the dangers of putting emotional stock in virtual interactions. Yaniv goes on a whirlwind virtual journey with Abby and company--posting, liking, texting, tagging, and eventually even talking. But the folks on the other end of the wires may not be exactly as they say they are. Something doesn’t add up.

     This is where reviewers of Catfish generally shut up, as a good amount of the pleasure of watching the film comes from the anticipation and tension of not knowing what will happen when Yaniv and his cohorts finally decide to investigate the matter (he is accompanied throughout the film by two friends, filmmakers who are documenting the event.) The film builds terrific tension as it approaches this reveal. In fact, it’s so good you begin to wonder if, perhaps, the film itself is not exactly telling the full story. 

     Catfish presents itself as a product of the information age, constantly referencing the gadgets and widgets that fill our lives, like Google street view, Facebook, YouTube, Google Chat, and others. The secrecy surrounding the film had me wincing a bit when it failed to deliver the over-the-top, twisty turns it seemed to promise. It has only one twist, but it's a doozy, if not all that outlandish or outrageous.

     So—is it “real?” Certainly, some elements of the film are wholly verifiable (characters, names and places; others far more intrepid than me have already done that leg work,) but the events are staged and staggered in such a way as to often feel a bit too crafted. It seems incredibly likely that the filmmakers knew exactly what they were getting into, and molded their filmmaking style to accommodate their ideas for a story arch. It’s not acting, exactly, but it’s not far off.

     In the end, though, it really doesn't matter. It's a great fiction film, masquerading as documentary, and the ways in which it masterfully blends fact and fiction only bolster its ideas about the nature of “truth,” online and otherwise. Often, the filmmakers skirt the line well enough that even hardened cynics will briefly second guess their skepticism.

     Far more than The Social Network, Catfish thoughtfully comments on the way we invent personalities for ourselves and people we don't know online. It’s a film about the difference between our virtual selves and our actual selves, and the way our human desire for contact can manifest itself in disturbing ways, particularly in the often consequence-free virtual world. We often do and say things on the web that we would never do or say in real life. Why? What do our virtual selves say about our real selves?

     "There were moments when it really felt genuine," Yaniv says at one point in the film. It’s not stranger than fiction. It's just fiction. ( ..I think.) 

     But, given the subject matter, it really wouldn’t have done it justice any other way.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

Werner Herzog gets off on making you wonder if he's finally lost it.  The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans  (punctuate it how you will, it hardly seems to matter,) directed by Herzog from a screenplay by former cop-show scribe William M. Finkelstein, is as inscrutable and superfluous as its deliriously stupid title suggests, and equally grating.  Towing the line between sublime subversion and paycheck-cashing , the film exists as a bizarre, ill-advised lark on the part of Herzog, but one nonetheless rife with critical armor chinks.  The film is, in its way, as much a blatant provocation as Von Trier's Antichrist.  Herzog’s reputation has buoyed him this time, but wrongly so; Bad Lieutenant is trifling and puffy, and it deflates at every turn at the hands of its own dopey bravado.

The original Bad Lieutenant, an excellent if somewhat self-serious cult noir starring Harvey Keitel and directed by Abel Ferrara, does not figure one way or another in Herzog’s film.  What Werner lays on us is (as it has rightly and loudly been touted in the press) not a remake or a reimagining of the original film, except perhaps in the hoping eyes of its producers.  It is a film with a stupid name that follows with a stupid plot, of Cage’s bad lieutenant working his beat in the Big Easy and juggling his hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes, who is a surprisingly great bright spot, very reminiscent of Erin Brockovich-era Julia Roberts) and his drug addictions, crack cocaine being principal among them.  Right here we can gauge a big part of your tolerance for this dalliance. If you're OK with the idea of Herzog making a wacky, totally-tripped-out-man cop movie with Nicolas Cage pinballing around the screen like a Vaseline-coated superball, then you'll probably love it and not think twice about why.  For me, however, it's like getting talked into sprinting through the funhouse when you'd rather be chilling with a few rounds of ski-ball.

Nicolas Cage remains a problem for which there is no solution.  As has been noted, this is a performance he has been building up to for decades, and undoubtedly a new modern watershed in American screen-actor ridiculousness.  The question is: where does he go from here?  The comparisons to Klaus Kinski, Herzog’s long-time co-conspirator and also a noted basket case, only get you so far. (Although I would concede that both men often found work in spite of their limited abilities as actors.)

 The cavalcade of ridiculous merry-go-rounding that must have had to take place for this film to become what it became is astonishing.  First, Finkelstein writes his lame NY cop movie script and lobs it into the no-doubt waiting jaws of Hollywood.  It's formulaic and easy and, with his background writing for TV, it gets purchased in no time. Somehow it ends up in the lap of Edward R. Pressman, who owns the title rights to the original Bad Lieutenant, having produced Ferrara’s original.  Looking to snowball the uninterestingness of the script into even greater uninterestingness, he, in a flash of brilliance, decides to marry the two.  They start pitching it around to actors, and Nicolas Cage gets it.  They start pitching it to directors, and Werner Herzog (?) gets it (I would pay money to see the contents of his PO Box...)  Neither agrees to commit to the film until, apparently, they hear of each other’s involvement and get a hard-on for working with eachother.  Yet **STILL** what we have on our plate is a dumb-as-shit cop movie mindlessly pimping the title of a bonafide non-classic in a crystal clear attempt to hatch a franchise so ill-conceived it makes Steve Martin's Pink Panther remakes look like works of genius.  But Cage is never one to give pause when a producer waggles a check in front of his face.  And Herzog, obviously enamored with the luxury of basically picking his leading man, signs on as well with a toothy grin.

I must impart what I took away from having the good fortune of seeing this film in a preview screening, as introduced by its two producers, Gabe and Alan Polsky.  Even they seemed at a loss for what they had.  Well, their stupidly brazen devil-may-care shot in the dark has paid off, as critics have lined up in neat little rows to smooch at the feet of their beloved Herzog.  It's as if American critics are so glad to now have this master working in their native idioms that they are inclined to lick up anything Herzog might deposit, as long as he can summon up another of his patented irreverent apologies, fellating his own film in the press like a tarted-up Red Light District madame, as if he somehow needs to.

It's almost as if Herzog has grown tired of serving up slices of his patented ecstatic truth pie.  Fair enough.  Fair enough too that we may be disposed to like or dislike it as we see fit.  He's following his whims, and that's why we love him, right?  Well.. Yeah.. But I reserve the right not to like the direction he may be pointed in at any given time.  Certainly it is true that all sacred cow directors have dusty skeletons in their cinematic closets, and that no director worth anything in the grand scheme of cinema has ever batted a thousand.  But I think it is the duty of those who might cherish his work to inform him when he has possibly lost his way.

As long as it's all hypothesizing anyway, let us attempt to wade into the mind of the 70 year old Herzog.  Burden of Dreams comes quickly to mind, Les Blank’s documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo.  I have surmised before that were Fitzcarraldo to have been made as originally intended with Jason Robards and Mick Jagger, Herzog's career might have taken a sharp turn right then and there.  Burden of Dreams is, in a way, a document of Herzog's shot at the big time being pulled out from under his feet (although this is not the primary focus of Blank's film.)  So, in a way, Herzog has been fishing for a wider audience since nearly the very start.  He now has it.  And yet, there is still that compulsion in him, as can be seen from some of his very earliest filmic experiments all the way to recent films like Encounters at the End of the World, to document some kind of ecstatic truth.  Bad Lieutenant is nothing if not an ecstatic lie; the tacky turns of the American cop movie subverted with a casual flip of the wrist.

I find myself interested in Herzog's already completed follow-up picture, produced by David Lynch, called My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done.  My gut tells me that it will be played more for keeps, contrasting and emphasizing the comedy of Bad Lieutenant. The question will be, even in the absence of the wackiness: does it work?  Don't we ask the same of journeymen or even hack directors working in these genres?  Don't we expect certain things, a certain standard of quality?   If Herzog's goal is to subvert the American cop film genre, I guess my question would be, why?  It's as simple a target as the broad side of a barn.

 At the very least, Herzog has given us a film to be argued about, although, at the moment, no one seems up to the task.  In his director’s statement, he all but begs for our scorn, preemptively scolding: "I challenge the theoreticians of cinema to go after this one.  Go for it, losers."  Umm.. I'm sorry.. What??  Werner, you have made some of the greatest movies of all time. Why bother with this skanky posturing if you yourself weren't in some way concerned about the film's reception?  Would YOU watch your Bad Lieutenant?  Are you so enamored with Cage's recklessness?

In his great films (of which there are so many,) Herzog does not have time for the sloppy scenes this film and its screenplay saddle him with.  When things are superfluous in a Herzog film, they are generally mood-invoking or at least beautiful, not formulaic and lazy, like many of the beyond-standard cop drama moments in Bad Lieutenant.  And, at the absolute end of the day, though we might enjoy ourselves with this one to a point, how much can we really allow ourselves to like it?  I’ve seen the film three times now, and I have found myself laughing at it at various points each time.  But I am certainly not going to force its tired ideas and sloppy executions on myself on principal alone (and believe me, if any director could inspire me to drink their Kool-Aid, no questions asked, it's Herzog.)  It's funny and it's somewhat memorable, but unfortunately it’s just not that good.

Maybe Herzog is genuinely up to something I'm just not picking up on.  But I've got even money that he's just playing with his food. It's Herzog 2.0, expatriate German maverick turned American, well.. “maverick,” bringing home the bacon on thirty year old stories that still get printed ad infinitum.  Bad Lieutenant is just a new craziness for us all to marvel at, so go ahead and marvel.  It's his American Even Dwarfs Started Small, I guess.  But, lest we forget, he followed up that film with Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and that is why we know his name, and his films. 

Here's hoping that Herzog has got a few American masterpieces in him to go along with his German ones. So far, I haven't seen one.  And I've been looking.

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer is a movie that is desperate to relate to you. Yes, you. It is a film, following in a grand and old tradition, which attempts to define and condense a generation's romantic zeitgeist into a tidy, ninety-minute package. In this case, it's aiming at our generation. And at our hearts. Does it hit? Regardless of some of the careless comparisons being thrown around, 500 Days is not nearly on the same plane as something like Annie Hall. It takes fewer chances, and its story is less remarkable. But on the whole, it's almost as irresistible. Very good, not great, even if the punches it lands are often clock-cleaning knockout blows. Still, it's a little tough when a not-all-that remarkable movie quickly reduces some of the deepest feelings of your life into a neat little pigeon hole of a character, without a whole lot of effort. But that’s exactly what 500 Days does, and does well. Let's consider how. And why that sucks.

First, let me level all the way: I had big fat ulterior motives for seeing this movie. There's not a lot I can do for 'objectivity' on this one, and so I'm not going to try all that hard. I wanted to see this film because I've been living some all-too-similar situations this year. And because I knew it would hit home in some way, and I felt like I was interested in having that experience, for better or worse.

As we begin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a weary and worn-down twenty something, biding his time at a menial job at a greeting card company in L.A. He subsists, without very much apparent resistance, on occasional bar nights with the office crew, work time, home time, and some kind of very vague, loose grip on his former high hopes of a career in architecture. Right off the bat, a sign of the times; how many of these people (us) are there? Slaving away at some laughably uninteresting and unworthy drone work, sheepishly sidled into arrested development, personally and professionally, by the nagging realities of the paycheck life. If you don’t know this guy’s life, you know someone who knows it. And if it all feels a little mundane, that's because it is, but that certainly does not make it any less true. It does explain why these types of revelations have so often failed to make their way onto movie screens. Audiences, generally speaking, are not headed to the movies to feel like they are staring into a mirror. For this bravery, 500 Days is laudable.

Here we find a suitable point to begin to pick at this film’s myriad comparisons to Annie Hall, a bold and, frankly, lazy proclamation with which I take some umbrage. It’s an interesting exercise to examine the films’ differences. On their surfaces, the dual plot lines (guy meets girl from out of town, unlikely romances blooms, flourishes, sours, ends) would certainly seems quite compatible. They even employ (500 Days straight up quotes) a lot of the same filmic quirks (direct-to-screen dialogue, animation, etc.) But there are key differences.

First and foremost, and crucially, Allen’s character in Annie Hall was a lot more likable of a guy. As Alvy Singer, Allen’s hero-self at least had delusions of himself as partly remarkable, which ingratiated that film further to those males (read: all of us) who have a hard time letting go of the idea they truly are the best thing that could happen to anybody, including pretty ladies. Indeed, Joseph Gordon-Levitt only partially steps out of the slimy shadow of Keanu Reeves he has been crouched under for the last few years. As a performance, it’s probably perfect. He does major justice to the role, but alas, the film affords him precious few opportunities to show us much other than what we have already seen from him.

Ditto and likewise for Zooey Deschanel, whose character remains the most troubling, if perhaps for reasons which remain mostly unclear, by design or otherwise. For all the films perceived posturing about how right everything could have been, Summer, as a character, is nowhere near as memorable to us as should perhaps could or should have been. The script seems to too often hedge its bets, perhaps an attempt to bridge the audience through generality; get too specific, and it's not relatable anymore, apparently. Contrast this with Annie Hall's various very specific, very pointed moments; Annie on stage in the noisy restaurant, or Alvy on her bed after a late night call to kill a spider. Woody, for all the other misgivings that have been laid on him, at least had the balls to get real with us. 500 Days mostly just wants to approximate real, or perhaps wholly underestimates its audience’s capacity for anything outside the straight lines of Tom and Summer. Or maybe that’s not right. Maybe Annie Hall’s realities were too heightened, too elevated, removed from truth. Can you decide?? I sure can’t.

Even within the kept realm of Woody Allen, love this grand always was a young man's (read: fools) game. Compare Annie Hall to more recent Allen films, such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona, with Scarlett Johanssen vamping her way across Spain, or even worse, to Whatever Works, which casually bandies around some of the most ridiculously unearned and unnecessary sexual motifs since Caligula. Even Allen himself, it seems, has given up on all his old romantic preoccupations. He’s moved on. And yet.. Annie Hall is still the one we talk about.

On one hand, we should perhaps be at least somewhat grateful that our generation’s seemingly ubiquitous, (??) fumbling journey toward Gen-Y love has been cataloged, imperfectly or not, and committed to celluloid for posterity. For all its inviting of your personal baggage to color the frames, 500 Days remains on track, telling the story it needs to tell, and telling it well. More than a few moments will ring more than true for nearly any viewer who has ever found themselves in any kind of similar predicament. It's like a choose-your-own old adventure. If this scene doesn't remind you of When, the next one probably will. There is a lot of awful, messy truth about love in this movie. But if it really is the truth, how bad is it, really?

Marc Webb’s direction is good, in an average, tentative sort of way. Rightfully, his focus remains on the story, and so we are spared all but a few super-cutesy, gratingly zany moments, and they are paced out well enough that it never gets to be too much. Contrary to the buzz, 500 Days is actually remarkably unflashy for at least 70% of its run time. The flairs that do turn up mostly work, even if it's clear that music video director-cum-filmmaker Webb certainly does not possess the brilliance of a Gondry or a Jonze, try as he might to emulate their quirky sensibilities. If 500 Days is his flash in the pan, I wouldn't be that surprised. When the kookiness fades out and the movie shows us its true feelings, it's all about Summer and Tom. And that's good. A couple of very nice, bravura moments, particularly the much talked about split-screen “expectations/reality” scene, will certainly be enough to place this film firmly in the hearts of many. Including myself.

Now, to get personal.

It's probably not fair, but it's more than a little nice that the movie takes Tom's side through all this. After all, all the Summers in the audience aren’t paying attention anyway. Guess what? It takes balls to be Tom. For every Tom, a genuine, if imperfect, and totally normal guy, there are a hundred other guys out on the fringes that would be more than happy to give Summer the no-strings-attached attention she so adamantly proclaims she wants. And why not? What’s wrong with all that? What the hell does a guy like Tom have to offer, anyway? (Um.... don't get me started.)

Being so close to it, I can quickly pick apart 500 Days’ many misdelivered arrows, like a Star Wars fanboy maniacally spotting the shot-for-shot differences in Boba Fett's face masks. If I may- *ahem:*

If we want to believe that a certain one is 'the one,' then we will believe it.

And if we believe that they are 'the one,' then.. They are.. Aren’t they?

I have no doubt that I will return to 500 Days, and I have no doubt that there is much truth in what it conveys. How and why the things it portrays do or do not apply to my life (or yours) is certainly a fair question. But, if you're anything like Tom (or me,) you'll have no trouble figuring out where the movie ends, and what you lived (or are living) begins. If nothing else, it may be of some comfort to know that, yup.. You’re not alone, cowboy.

I say- be proud, Toms. Stay the course. Your day will come, and so will mine. And if, when it does, it ends up being some version other than that pie-in-the-sky one you dreamed up with your Summer, that is a reality you will simply have to deal with. For, as you know, the alternatives will certainly not suit you any better. In the meantime, there are lots of morals you can pull out of a film like 500 Days of Summer. It’s quite malleable, actually. Take the pieces you want, and leave the rest. That’s what Tom and Summer did. Well, Summer did, anyway.

Now it’s your turn.

Gran Torino

Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino could be your dad. He sure is mine, or some version of mine, anyway. And if he's not your dad, he's your friends dad, or your girlfriend's dad. Trust me. He loves his dog, not his kids. His house is cleaner than it needs to be. Everything is organized and arranged just-so. He uses arcane expletives. Takes great pride in his lawn. And he's got a souped-up old car in the garage that he never drives. Sounding familiar yet? Perfectly rounding out this laser-etched archetype, Walt is a man filled up to the brim with a vaguely defined hatred of just about everything he encounters in his daily life. His kids and grand kids have been spoiled by his meager success and are now too busy for him. His neighbors, whom he calls 'gooks' and 'zipperheads' (as if those were still the preferred slurs even amongst racists..) are immigrants from Laos with a strange way of life that he tells himself he has no tolerance for or interest in. And his wife (whom we do not have the pleasure of meeting in Gran Torino,) has just died. Walt is a man isolated with his own rage.

The film opens on a cookie cutter Catholic funeral, one like we've all been to, where the Pastor has nothing new or extraordinary to impart, and everyone knows it, but plays along in some kind of vague spirit of honoring the dead, even as the kids fumble with their video games, and the adults mumble quietly to themselves about it all. Walt stands up front, greeted passively by each visitor, seething with resentment. He sees the moment for what it is; an empty ritual more useful for assuaging the guilt of the attendees than for condoling his loss. From here, we begin our journey with Walt, which will end up in unexpected and barely believable places. Walt will do things that ordinary men, even desperate, challenged or 'brave' ordinary men, do not do in today's world. And we, the audience, will lap it all up. Why? Because Walt is played by Clint Eastwood.

In anyone else's hands, Gran Torino would probably be dismissed as just a bit too drama-by-numbers. A bit too easy and a bit too safe. But in Eastwood's, it's a portrait of a generation. HIS generation? Clint's charms, even at 79 years old (which he will be at the end of this month) are many. In Gran Torino, he growls a lot, and his scowl, decades removed from his Spaghetti-western roots, is as gruesome and gnarly as ever. Even all these years later, Eastwood is still delighting in his badassness. He's the "Last Cowboy," and he knows it. But lest we forget, Clint is also a cultured man, and he has let in show more and more in recent years. A lover of music, particularly jazz, Eastwood has hopped into and out of various genres in his career, ever since his white-knuckle directorial debut Play Misty For Me. Mystic River in 2003 proved a milestone, earning numerous awards and a renewed interest in his filmmaking, as well as signaling a shift towards the more bracing, "serious" dramas he continues to produce. His films since have not disappointed, and Gran Torino proves to be no exception.

Walt is a reverse-Peter Pan, a fully grown-up man who refuses to grow up into any other kind of man. Or does he? (dot dot dot... the film plays on.) About halfway through Gran Torino, glugging down a Tsing Tao, now slowly warming to the affections of his immigrants neighbors, Clint/Walt lets his guard down and cracks a smile. So it's the 'old bastard with the heart of gold' story, right? Fine, but should we really swallow that pill so easily? We have by now come to grips with the nature and implications of Walt's various ill-defined hatreds and prejudices. Some are bullshit, just talk and nothing more. Some are very real, very deserved, and totally logical. And so we, as viewers, must allow ourselves a moment to determine for ourselves if we really can excuse Walt these myriad imperfections. But before we can muster up our argument, we are swept up into some unpleasantly violent circumstances, which of course serve to hammer home the "we're all in this together,' flag-waving banner that Gran Torino seems to have no qualms about shoving down our throat.

Maybe Eastwood doesn't apologize for Walt. But true to his Hollywood roots, Clint can't resist a few hilariously easy and uber-schmaltzy pock shots to tug at the heartstrings. A true blue entertainer, just givin' us what we want. But in the process, the 'message' one might take from Gran Torino loses most of its credibility. Are we are allowed to ponder how all this relates to Clint himself? To the characters he has made a living playing for 50 years? To Dirty Harry? If I had to guess, seeing as Eastwood himself has never been necessarily averse to change, enduring at least three career 'revivials' and reinventions, I would say that Eastwood is not 100% sympathetic to Walt. Walt is a man, a part of a generation, who's lives, actions and demeanors might just have been influenced by the tough-as-nails portrayals of such characters as Clint practically invented. In this way, Gran Torino can be cautiously viewed as some sort of back-handed denouement, a conscience-clearing admission on the part of Eastwood that being a cranky, snarling son-of-a-bitch is only as good as the baggage you bring along to it. But didn't he already handle that in Unforgiven?

In the end, as an entertainment, Gran Torino is a complete success and a film to relish, even though Eastwood (and screenwriters Nick Schenk and Dave Johansson) mostly just hint at the real emotions at play in these very real scenarios. When push comes to shove (and, in Gran Torino, it very literally does,) Walt just wants what's right in the world. Or so we are led by the hand to believe. It's worth asking why these emotions had laid dormant in Walt for so long. Why, in fact, he gives what he gives, when he gives it, to his sons, to his Pastor, and to Tao, the neighbor's young son whom he takes under his wing. And whether or not any of that is actually OK. But Gran Torino doesn't approach these details. It offers only the things we want to see, the things we WANT to believe about Walt. Perhaps even about our own fathers. And, let's be fair; Eastwood never did play no angel, did he?

Make no mistake, this is not realism, and not fantasy. It's Hollywood, Eastwood style. Where boys become men, and men.. are men. Everybody learns their 'valuable lesson,' and Walt (and Clint) have their last laugh, their scripted version of 'justice,' all the way up to the films laughably corny ending moment. And then, the credits roll.

Whatever you say, Clint. You nutty-ass Mick bastard. Tell me another one.


(note: I am well aware that I am writing reviews of movies on this site that are already well past the sights of the movie reviewer world. There is a multi-faceted explanation for this: 1.) It takes me a while to catch up to these movies, sometimes. 2.) I like the idea of being able to review something a little bit past it's buzz-generating opening. I like to let the dust settle and then see what I see. So.. stay tuned for my review of Iron Man! (you think I'm kidding..)

WALL-E

Once in a great while, the cinema is graced with the works of a pure poet, for whom filmmaking is less about storytelling than about conjuring the most breathtaking visuals and surreal environments that they can muster (Jean Cocteau is the standard example.) More often, however, discerning movie-goers are left to hunt for sparse parcels of poetry in more traditional "commercial" cinema offerings. Of this, Pixar studios is perhaps the reigning champion. The majority of their nine feature films (from Toy Story up to Finding Nemo and The Incredibles) all feature beautiful landscapes, artful storylines, and at least one supremely sad sequence. Pixar may have hit critical mass in this trend, however, as it's hard to imagine how a G-rated film could incorporate any more heartbreak, foreboding and despair than WALL-E does and still somehow remain fun. But WALL-E is fun.

And that's not all it is. The film has broken new ground for Pixar (and for family films) in several ways perhaps never to be breached again. Consider the elements. Our hero, WALL-E, is a robot. Right off the bat, Pixar has denied the kiddies something soft and cuddly, the plush doll they can ask for for Christmas. No, WALL-E was not commissioned to be a Happy Meal toy. Cute as he is, there's no snuggling up to this dingy, dented little dude. Call that Strike One. The film opens on a desolate landscape, barren and dry, with mustard-discolored soil whipping up and swirling around in the wind. Not a word is spoken. WALL-E enters alone, spins, shrieks, beeps, jumps, and so on, but he doesn't speak. Thus, there's no words for the kiddies to listen to. No catch phrases, no "To Infinity, and Beyond!" Strike two. Then, the story follows WALL-E as he is unwittingly caught up in the battle over (*gasp*) ..a plant. Who cares about a stupid plant!? That's gonna save the world? Strike three. And just like that, the kiddies, I suspect, are back to their Wiis and their text messaging. But not so fast, mom and dad. Don't pop that Blu-ray disc just yet. Even if the kids don't get it, sit back and let it spin. It's really quite good. Romantic, too. And very beautiful.

So what is WALL-E, anyway? Actually, you'd better ask 'who,' as Pixar endows WALL-E with the full spectrum of human emotions; fear, longing, a sense of pride in his work, etc. Take equal parts Johnny Five, R2D2, and E.T., and you'll have a pretty good idea of his demeanor. He's been outfitted with a quaint little cargo hanger for a house, filled with shelves of bric-a-brac he collects with wonder from the heaps of rubble just outside. He's even somehow found a working VCR (!) and a tape of "Hello, Dolly," which sends him into little robot fits of forlorn longing as he sings along and blips around the room. He's the last left of his kind, and apart from his cockroach buddy (ha ha), his is a lonely life. Until, at last, a ship lands, depositing EVE, a robot on a mission. EVE falls for the sheepish little WALL-E, of course (I will not attempt to detail their courtship, as it is best experienced with rapt wonder and disbelief). And after that pesky little plant arrives on the scene, WALL-E gets caught up chasing EVE through space and onto the Axiom, the massive space cruiseship which now harbors the former human inhabitants of planet earth.

WALL-E is absolutely dripping with barely-buried eco-socio-political commentary. It's not overbearing, but it's kind-of unrelenting. The Axiom is a full-out attack on the lazy consumerism of America, and it's a bulls eye. Basically, if Costco built a flying shopping mall/cruise ship and launched it into space, it would be the Axiom. It's passengers all float around on hoverchairs, complaining about the food, fat, lazy and unquestioning. Just the way they like 'em. Indeed, the act of depicting a story where robots, not humans, are the heroes, exhibiting emotions, saving the day, shows a remarkable dissatisfaction and separation from the human race as a whole. WALL-E never really comes right out and states it, but the implication is clear as day; this is the world that could exist if all these experts predicting grave consequences for the future of Earth are correct. This, children, is what could happen. It's almost become fashionable to include (or base a film on) grave prophesizing about the pitfalls of man, but no film has yet put it in terms such as these, and no film has targeted this message to those who will need to hear it most: future generations.

Progressive and forward-thinking as the film is, it does shy away from a few punches it could have landed. I wondered at first if Pixar might have the balls to leave gender out of the equation in the romance of WALL-E and his paramour, Eve. Alas, his maleness and her femininity are made very clear. It's a slight shame that they didn't, as I can't think of a better way for Disney to make it's first tiny step into acknowledging non-hetero relationships without having to really own up to it (robots ARE genderless, are they not??) Even so, in the end it's hard to argue, as the play of the two robots is irresistible, even downright romantic.

WALL-E is as memorable as Toy Story, as thrilling as The Incredibles, and somehow even more beautiful than Finding Nemo ( it cost nearly twice as much.) Got a Blu-ray player and a nice big TV? Buy it. It's beauty is simply unparalleled. This is perhaps the first film that even die-hard fans of old school hand drawn animation cannot deny to be absolutely stunning, a work of art the equal of anything in the Disney canon. It is, however, somewhat less fun and certainly more cerebral than it's older siblings, and perhaps less attractive for the little ones. Though I feel certain that any thoughtful, attentive young movie watcher will find themselves just as glued to the screen as I was.

The films of the Pixar studios exhibit a wonderful old-fashionedness found almost nowhere else in current family entertainment. This is most likely a credit to John Lasseter and his cabal of talent, who possess a childlike sense of wonder which seems totally out of step with today's fast-paced youth culture. It's as if they cradled the spirit of classic Disney, carefully and lovingly extracted it from that studio, took hold of it and raised it up once again as their own. Today, Pixar IS Disney. The torch has been passed, and Disney proper has become something else.

Pinning down exactly what makes WALL-E the best Pixar film yet (and perhaps the best movie of the year) is nearly impossible. To say that it is a combination of irresistible charm, tender budding emotion and effective commentary is to barely scratch the surface. WALL-E screams and demands to be experienced. It took a huge leap of faith to make this film, as seemingly unpalatable and uncommercial as it is. And its bigger ideas will not be lost on many. What does it say about us as a society, that we are able to produce great art such as this about our impending demise, yet still somehow seem unable to prevent it? While every Pixar movie succeeds in being some degree of wonderful, WALL-E is perhaps first that can be called not only essential, but also truly important.