Film Review #3: The Way Way Back

KC rating: **

Film: The Way Way Back (2013)

Directors:

 Nat Faxon, Jim Rash

Writers:

 Nat Faxon, Jim Rash

Stars:

 Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janne

Coming-of-age movie with an awkward fourteen-year old, Duncan, in an awkward situation: a vacation with Mom (Toni Collette) in her new boyfriend's house in the beach  (Steve Carell).  The title of the film is intriguing.  Is Duncan longing for a father that left him and his mom for a younger girl in California? Or is it referring about remembering how we found our paths and discovered ourselves in our teen years? Or is it the physical space in the car where Duncan finds himself sitting, an old station wagon with one seat looking towards the past, the family that was, while other seats to the future, the family that may be.  Or not.  In fact. it may have all of these meanings and more.  While the title may be multi-layered, the film is a bit too familiar.

Steve Carell plays his role straight and deviates from his likable characters.  He has played assholes before, but usually they are counterbalanced by goofiness or silliness.  Not this one.  He's just an asshole and sometimes quite mean.  What mom sees in him, is exactly what Duncan is wondering throughout the movie.  

In this film, adults behave like teens (they are on vacation...) and teens are more like adults. No family seems to be in balance.  The neighbor also is divorced (but she has no one else), another couple has no children (and the wife likes to screw around).  To counterpoint Duncan's gloom he escapes by biking around in a girl's bike (less humiliating then staying with Carell) and finds another father figure in Sam Rockwell. He also finds an older girlfriend.  She also can not stand the adults, her goofy but hapless mom, and just about all other teens.  But she does like Duncan.  His awkwardness fits well with her aloofness.

Sam Rockwell is the owner of a Water Park and he is one crazy fun guy.  Obviously, Rockwell chews the scenery every chance he has.  There are shadows of Fanny and Alexandria here, the vacation house means dread and gloom while the water park is fun and games. But here there is no Magic and of course, no Bergman, and this is where the film begins to falter.  It is that road well travelled of "finding yourself" and "being someone" movie.  This is where I have a problem with American films of this nature, it does not know where it wants to go.  There is good acting, good lines, character well defined, but saturated in common place.  This is an independent film (or at least it has that feeling) so why fall into the formulas?  The dramatic scene of Duncan exposing the not-so-virtuous Carell in the middle of a BBQ and realizing a feat in the water park that "no one has ever done before" is like feeding candy to a kid.  It gives us a sugar high, but a meal would have been much more satisfying.  

Carell in the beginning of the film tells Duncan he is a "3", regretfully this film is a 2.

Português 2 - Porque virei São Paulino

Pois é, virei pó de arroz.  Quem diria.  Mas assumo.  Eu sou são paulino.  Que melhor época de afirmar minha morumbice quando o São Paulo passa por uma das suas piores fases.  Assim, ninguém diz que sou São Paulino para não ser perdedor.

Engraçado chegar a essa realização depois de tão longa data.  Afinal, não cresci São Paulino.  Torcia para o Guarani...o de Campinas... o Bugre... o dos brincos da princesa... para satisfazer todos os estereótipos dos campineiros.  Mas não sou de Campinas...mal conheço...acho que fui três vezes... uma quando tinha dez anos e as outras vezes a Viracopos (aliás, que nome interessante para um aeroporto... provavelmente pelas longas esperas e só nos resta virar os copos... de cerveja).  Nasci no estado de São Paulo, na cidade de São Paulo, a duas quadra da Avenida Paulista.   Guarani? Qual o nexo?

Para entender isso, tenho que contextualizar a minha vida.  Filho de americano com carioca, neto de Argentino católico e Polones Judeu e, neto também, de Protestante americano com Judeu Austriáco, isso sem contar o bisavô Escocês e o tataravô Italiano (misturado com Grego).  Além da nações unidas sanguineas, uma salada religiosa (só para apimentar a salada, o avô protestante era ateu), e um recombole político (capitalista, socialistas, democratas, republicanos, comunistas...pelo menos não tinham fascistas...).

Meus pais, confusos com a religiosidade, me colocam em colégio católico sem ser batizado.  Vivi minha fase agnóstica.  Quando tinha aula de religião, as freiras repetiam... Quem não é batizado não é filho de Deus... eu levantava minha mão indignado...E eu? Eu não sou filho de Deus? A freira me olhava... olhava para o teto...olhava para a janela... olhava para o relógio... Bom... vc...ah... bom... vc é sim... mas não exatamente... mas... opa, Recreio! E saia pela porta rapidinho... 

Pois então o que eu era...era o que todo mundo não era.  Sem tradição futebolistica na família... apelei para o sentimento agnóstico.. vou ser algo sem ser nada... e assim virei Bugrino.  Mas o Bugre da época de ouro, com Renato, Careca e Zenon.  Capitão, Mauro, Gomes e o grande Neneca no gol.  Ate assisti um jogo de Guarani e Ponte Preta no Pacaembú!  (Campo neutro).  E assim foi por muitos anos.  

Aí mudei para o exterior.  E cada vez a indefinição se foi defnindo.  Brasileiro? Sei lá.  Quem sabe.  Definir o indefinido não cabe a mim.  Agora, Paulistano Zona Sul... até o úlitmo folego... não tenho como negar.  .. mulher Mexicana... filhos Nova Iorquinos... mas sempre... a paulistanidade ....injetado em cada célula do corpo, em cada descarga do neuronio, em cada copo de uisque, no fundo do poço e nas estrelas.  Paulistano. Até a puta que pariu.  

Mas poderia ter sido corintiano ou palmeirense.  Nahh...Estava sempre do meu lado,  aí, me esperando, sem que eu notasse.  Na zona sul, ao lado do colégio que estudei, onde vi por primeira vez Queen e Supertramp.  O Cicero Pompeu... me olhando... sorrindo...deixa ele ser bugrino, diz ele... deixa ele ir ao exterior...vai se achar... e vai descobrir que a resposta estava do teu lado o tempo inteiro.  E assim estou... São Paulino...De São Paulo, tenho o nome, que ostento dignamente...Posso não ser filho de Deus... mas São Paulino agora sou.

É porisso que bebo.

KC

Film Review #2: Pacific Rim

Film: Pacific Rim

Director:

 Guillermo del Toro

Writers:

 Travis Beacham (screenplay), Guillermo del Toro(screenplay)

Stars:

 Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi | 

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KC's Rating: ***

Summertime.  For Hollywood that means releasing blockbuster movies.  And blockbuster movies means nothing more than action films.  Pacific Rim is not different then most in the genre.  Civilization rather than being threatened by space invaders, is threatened  by monsters who appear from within the depths of the sea called Kaiju.  To fight these gigantic Godzilla-like monsters are giant mecha-like machines called Jaegers (hunter in German).  

An unifying theme this summer is the post-apocalyptic science-fiction action films such as Oblivion, After Earth and the soon-to-be-released Elysium (not to mention Star Trek).  Once again, Hollywood taps into our fears. The way we are conducting ourselves in this planet will result in a technologically advanced society that has destroyed so much of earth that it  no longer can sustain the current political structures or, at times, even human life.  Pacific Rim actually is set in the apocalypse itself.  Civilization is fighting for its survival. Barely.

What makes this a better film that it could have been is Guillermo del Toro.  Del Toro in fact created a retro-futuristic film.  It is a homage to all the Japanese Godzilla-like films and TV series that were created in the late sixties and seventies.  I, for one, grew up watching the tokusatzsu tv series such as Ultra-Man and Ultra-Seven.  In fact the Kaiju, is a direct reference to such films.  The stories are basically that monster appear, destroy cities, hero appears, monster kicks hero's ass but his courage and skill overcomes his limitations and he destroys the monster.  

The interesting fact about these monsters is that they are always produced by pollution or radioactivity.  Pacific Rim is no different.  The monsters appear because the sea is so polluted that they now can now find a way into earth.  Apparently clean water is unacceptable for monsters.  The Kaiju was a creation of a post-war Japan.  With the H-bomb destroying cities and creating "monsters" of their own, these films and TV series were a way to deal with those horrible event.  The Kaiju film message was clear: we created the monsters but we can still defeat them.  Del Toro continues with this tradition except now its all of humanity that must deal with it, not just Japan (and not just Tokyo!).  

Some Del Toro touches elevates the film from the fray: the "symbolic" significance of the shoe,the bleeding noses, Ron Pearlman's character, the comedy of the mad scientists, the Mech's being driven by "families" and representing all regions of the earth: Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania (though poor Africa did not receive its Mech).

Regretfully, in the end, Hollywood formula wins the day and the audience goes home satisfied with the endurable moral message that will last until the last drop of consumed soda.  

Music 1: Lent et Douloureux

Many years ago I saw the film "Tout les Matin du Monde".  A small beautifully shot film about an almost unknown composer of the 17th century: Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, a master of the viola de gamba who also composed many pieces to the instrument.

Though I could write a laudatory review of the film, or speak about the brilliance of Sainte-Colombe, or even explain the strange and haunting sounds of the viola de gamba, or how Les Pleurs is a small masterpiece beginning with the instruction to the viola player "lent et douloureux".   And yet.  This is not why I write this piece today.

For what moved me, what, in fact, really moved me, almost beyond words, beyond expression, beyond a rational thought, was the music.  This music that just seeped under my skin, and filtered into my blood stream, pumping into my heart with such beauty, sorrow and sadness, that for that moment, time and space withered away, and this three hundred year old Frenchman poured his soul into mine.

And how to explain such personal connection? I can not.  For what I feel, I can only feel myself.  My experience is limited to my finite existence.  And yet, there is this music, decoded into its own language and then uncoded and transmitted into another.   And suddenly, that which I thought to be my own, no longer is.  The confined space ceases to have limits, the concrete and the abstract converge, the "I" becomes the "We".  And for a moment, in this most particular, singular and personal moment, everything suddenly connects. Every atom to every star.  Every breath to every lung.  And this slow and painful crying spins the world into meaning.

This is what music can do.  This is what art does.


É por isso que eu bebo.

KC

Ao vencedor, o blogue de batatas (Primeiro Texto em português)

Esse é o meu primeiro texto em português.  O meu blog vai ser assim.  Em inglês muitas vezes, em português outras.  Afinal o blogue tem que expressar o bilinguismo do escritor.  Aos psicanalistas de escrivaninha deixo decidir o porquê de alguns textos em uma língua ou outra.  Aos amigos que não falam português ou que mal entendem português, favor utilizarem "Google Translate".  Que talvez modifique o sentido do que estou escrevendo... algo que sou bem a favor!  Quem sabe melhore essa efusão de texto mediocres ... alias recomendo ler os textos no banheiro no seu Ipodi ou Androide ou o que for.  Meus textos são como um cafezinho, ajuda a digestão, alem de que o resultado será um critica bem merecida.

Em minha opinião, o blogue nasce no Brasil com Machado de Assis (e talvez um século antes na Inglaterra com o Sterne).  Afinal, muitas das novelas são uma conversa com o leitor.  Como se alguém tivesse batendo um papo com o Machadão e tomando uma cervejinha no barzinho do seu Manuel.  O que mudou não foi a maneira de escrever mais o veículo de transmissão.  Claro que comparar o que eu faço com o que o MDA fazia, é comparar uma Ferrari com um Lada.  Os dois tem motor, quatro rodas e portas.  O resto não tem comparação e espero que pelo menos em cada blogue possa chegar ao destino sem o motor explodir.

Penso que meu blogue em português vai ser direccionado a coisas que me interessem no Brasil.  Um pouco de política (sou pela volta da esquerda festiva!), pouco de futebol (virei são-paulino... em outro blog explicarei o porque da mudança) e comentários sociais gerais.  Obviamente uma visão de fora para dentro.... na verdade, de dentro para fora para dentro outro vez.  O que não for naturalmente em Português será em Inglês.  A opção é puramente pessoal, sem ufanismos, nacionalismos baratos e patriotismo besta.

Afinal sou o que sou e o que não sou.

É por isso que bebo.

KC


PS: For my non-portuguese readers, just through the text in Google Translate and hopefully you can get a flair of my blogs in Portuguese.   I will be alternating depending on the topic.

Dream a little Dream.

It is astonishing how dreams linger on, way into the conscious world.  You wake up and it haunts you. Brush teeth, drink coffee, work, tv, computer, games, gym, whatever... but behind it all is that dream you had.  You can't shake it out.  Like an annoying gnat.  Just enough to unbalance you a bit in the everyday life.  A moment cringe during a routine conversation.  A quick tingle while in the shower.  A sudden spasm while driving.  And there it is.  That dream you had.

There are dreams that you do forget at a blink of an eye.  When you seem to hold on to a very thin string and suddenly... boom... all lost.  That heavy dream.  So exciting.  So terrifying.  Made you happy and sad.  And then you drop the string.  Where did it go?  You try in vain.  Lost.  Frustrating.

But this one I did not forget.  How could I? I woke up and stared at the wall and every element was there.  Not only had I the string, but the whole ball of string.  That's the one.  That will keep you awake.  How to explain this emotion.  You can explain the dream... but not the emotion.  That bit of personal life that only you and your unconscious know so well.

An so was this dream.  Can't shake it out.  Hence will blog it out.

Background: A good friend of mine died of Leukemia over a year ago.  Horrible.  I was in Houston.  He in New York.  We had spoken in the phone several times.  I bought airline tickets to see him.  But he dies before my flight.  I get there after.  The eulogies had been made.  His ashes were scattered in the Hudson.  I missed everything.  Had to mourn my friend in my own way.  We were good friends.  We were planning... or at least we thought the idea would be cool... to have a manhattan cable program called "Two Guys on a Sofa".  We would say whatever we wanted and polish out a bottle of scotch.  A bottle for each show.  Seemed like a good show.   But now there is only one guy... and the sofa seems so large.

So back to the dream.  My friend, who has been dead for a while now, calls me up.  I see his number in the cell.  Think its his wife.  Nope its him.  "Hey K.".  I answer: "D.?" "But you died!  How is that you are calling me?".  "No.  Not dead.  They were wrong.  Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you!  I am still alive and well.  Come on over and lets have a drink". So I meet him.  We have a great time.  Then he changes the tone.  "I'm sorry.  After all, I am actually dead.  But its been fun".

And then I wake up....   Can't shake it off, man, can't shake it off.

Film Review #1: This is the End

Film: This is The End
Directors:
Writers:
Stars: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen | See full cast and crew Seth Rogen (screenplay), Evan Goldberg(screenplay), 3 more credits » Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen

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KC's Rating: **1/2

So today I begin with my first Film Review.  And as many things in my life, I begin with The End...

Most of you know that film is what I studied and still enjoy.  But since those that don't do, teach. Those that don't teach, criticize (or review...)

I am a great believer of Ebert's philosophy that a film must be judged on its own merit and only compared within its genre. Can you compare this film with Bergman's Wild Strawberries?  You can, but it makes no sense.  A film should be judged on the experience of the viewer and on its merits.  It is of course attached to so many other forms and genre that reach back to its original theatrical roots in Greece.

This is the End is a post-modern comedy to a very post-modern crowd.  Maybe post-modernism is a notion of the past, but only to the extent that we now have digested it and it is now part of our sensibility, of our psyche.  It is a film laden with self-references and ironic asides for the "YouTube" generation.  If you knew nothing about Rogen, Goldberg, Judd Appatow and their group of friends, you still may enjoy the film's wackiness albeit something would be amiss.  Otherwise, how can you appreciate the reference to Pineapple Express and the video reenactment (with shadows of "Be Kind, Please Rewind", an overlooked jewel of a film) or the numerous cameos from such actors as Michael Cera or Paul Rudd.

So lets go back to the basics.  The comedy.  The film is funny but its a bit on the "Wouldn't it be funny if..." type of comedies.  Films like "Wouldn't it be funny if Danny DeVito and Schwarzenegger were twins?",  "Wouldn't it be funny if Adam Sandler could control his life with a TV remote?", "Wouldn't it be funny if Jim Carrey couldn't tell a lie?"... "Wouldn't it be funny if Rogen, Baruchel and friends have to live through the Apocalypse?" In essence, films of this nature tend to be a bit gimmicky.  You need a Woody Allen type comedy to transcend the gimmick and not a string of "funny situations" or jokes that become tiresome after the first ten minutes.  However, in this film the Apocalypse works in many parts precisely because of the satire on the character's themselves.   Here James Franco plays James Franco, Seth Rogen plays Seth Rogen, Jason Hill plays Jason Hill, etc. They play, of course, not their real selves, but  their "projected" selves, the self that the viewer thinks he knows and then twist that notion around a bit: Rogen is cowardly, Hill is envious, Franco is vain (playing off the seven sins, one assumes).

This is where the comedy works best.  When Aristophanes makes fun of Socrates in The Clouds it is funny for the modern audience, but it must have been even funnier for those who knew Socrates and saw the play.  What makes this a funnier film is the layers of self-references and expectations that the filmmakers assume its public will understand.  Some of it, is very funny and smart.  And when it works, it may even be hilarious.   But it is very specific. Take that away,  and the film is only mildly funny and, for the most part, dumb.