Friday, July 03, 2009

It's a Gift


In a way, I can admire the WC Fields film It's a Gift for having the wherewithal to ignore the concept of plot or necessity for, frankly, there is none: the fact that Field's character seeks to own his own orange farm in California does not really matter. I cite this fact not to condemn the film - as I would with a Michael Bay film - but to acknowledge that cinematic comedy is full of texts that exist despite their lack of any important narrative force. Think Monty Python and the Holy Grail or many short features from Buster Keaton or Laurel and Hardy: plot is secondary to the gag or the set-piece.

But what makes a film like It's a Gift problematic is that the plot, in this case, appears to add a layer of parody to the viewing experience that is rather uncomfortable to watch. The promise of an orange grove that lures Fields to give up the grocery business and move his family across the country would have had all too obvious a tragic element in the 1930s, perhaps even more so in a modern context (as Steinbeck and Ford have let us know). Of course this narrative element exists to undermine Fields' character, as well as the other characters of his family, but there remains the very unfunny action of attempting to mine humor from a seemingly humor-less situation.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Stage Door


Sometimes as you watch a film, you ponder the film's deeper meaning and place in critical discussion - or, if you're like me (someone with a bit too much information), you become paranoid if you cannot make a 'bigger-picture' argument about what you're watching. "Okay, I understand what's going on in this film, but how does this relate to concepts of Hollywood cinema pre-1940".

Case in point: Gregory LaCava's 1937 film Stage Door. Tried as I might, I really couldn't fashion any larger argument about this film despite considering it from any number of angles. Certainly one could (and perhaps should) interpret the film as something of a feminist statement about the nature of women's relationships with one another: after all, the girls do fight and snarl, but end up becoming fast friends in the end and Adolphe Menjou is the less-than-reputable showman and the main figure of masculinity.


But this is also the sort of film that leaves you wondering about its intended meaning and its audience reception; to put it another way, is this the sort of film that leads you to one interpretation when it's really operating on another level - perhaps working as something less feminist and more conservative or reactionary than you might think.


That being said, it's still an engaging film in many ways and it's always nice to see Lucille Ball in such an early role.

Follow the Fleet


Linda Williams has famously compared the structure of the musical with that of the porno: in short, one is always waiting for the spectacle to occur and half-heartedly interested in that which bookends the set-pieces. Does anyone really remember the reasons why people are singing and dancing? Does anyone remember if the tv repairman managed to fix the tv after engaging in an erotic threesome with two blondes?


As I watched Follow the Fleet, I couldn't help but think of Williams' work as I began to seriously consider fast-forwarding through most of the narrative just to get to the "good stuff" - in this case, the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Sandwiched in-between their lively dances is a rather boring plot of a Navy officer attempting to become the captain of his own boat, a comely yet bookish school teacher who wants adventure and love, and....ya know what, it's not really that important. Let's just say the supporting actress role is rather offensive to anyone with any hint of a feminist sensibility, and the navy officer might be coded as gay - an interesting fact given that Astaire's masculinity is prividledged as the dominant ideal of maleness.


But the spectacle in the film is entertaining and peppy - especially Rogers and Astaire's symbolic foreplay in several numbers that lead to a parallelled erotic coupling in the film's final number. That's the trouble with sex: it just might lead to dancing.

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Sunday, May 31, 2009

You Can't Take it With You

I have a love-hate relationship with Frank Capra: sometimes I find his films engaging and funny, while other times I read his works as uber-cynical - cynical in the sense they almost seem too perfect in their moralizing, as if their message as been calculated as carefully as can be.

You Can't Take it With You won best picture in 1938 - Capra also won for best director - yet I really hated this film on a number of levels (it drags, it isn't funny, etc. etc.). But what strikes me the most about this film is the interplay of fantasy versus reality: on the one hand, the film has a realistic bent, as the presentation of class and classist attitudes are done rather competnently (if not cliched). Yet Jimmy Stewart's father's moral transformation seems to superficial on so many levels (the blistering critique of his life by Lionel Barrymore does the trick?) and the musical-esque reconiliation of the couple and the families during the film's conclusion just seems bizzare in a sense. Plus Mr Barrymore's rather folksy - and idotic - response as to why he has not paid taxes is odd, even for the late 1930s (what have taxes gotten you? really?). In the end, I can't help but wonder if we as an audience are even supposed to believe what we see on screen - again, is this a feel-good fantasy? If so, then dangerous as the illusion of fantasy can be, I think I can ease up on my Capra-Contempt. If, however, this film is supposed to be a realisitic parable, then I'll put the pedal to the floor.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Step Brothers


This film has a strange, yet lyrical aura about it that I cannot really detail. To describe it as an Artaudian vision might be a tad pretentious, but the film succeeds because of its total embracing of the absurd. The fight scenes between John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell - especially their blow-out on the front lawn - only hints at the hyper-violence witnessed by the neighborhood and their family: Ferrell's comments about yelling 'rape' illustrate how a better comedy avoids 'showing' everything and lets some aspects to the viewer's imagination. Step Brothers really exists in its own aesthetic world and reveals in that fact.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Far From Heaven


This is a tricky film for me to comment upon. I can't really say whether or not this is 'parody' or 'blank parody' (big shout out to Freddy Jamesion; big holla down in Duke-land), though it is uber-aware of the films it's referencing - Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows mainly. I just can't help wonder what's the point of this film: is Haynes attempting to reveal the seamy-underbelly that is the 1950s or....hmm...even then, that hardly seems like a refreshing or unique argument.

I remember seeing this film when it first came out, and I though, back then, 'what a brilliant film'. Now, I'm not so sure. That being said, I still would love to cuddle with Julianne Moore.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Lookwell!


I suppose we could title my week thus far - aside from my viewing of Mamma Mia! last night - Adam West Week. With that in mind, I finally was able to view the nerd-candy that is Lookwell! last night on YouTube. What's Lookwell! you ask? Well it's a now legendary pilot made for NBC in the early 1990s starring West as a former 70s television detective who believes he can assist the police in solving crimes by, well, 'going undercover' as a gay car-painter, a race-car driver named Dash Carlise, and a hobo. I won't give too much away in terms of how the gags and jokes are constructed in this pilot (think part Simpsons, part Batman, part Police Squad), but this is well-worth the 23 minute run-time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBQ3HbB0c8Y.
"If you need me again, here's my headshot."

NBC never picked-up the pilot for full-time development, even though Brenden Tartikoff - the head of NBC at the time - loved it (a feeling he also shared for the pilot of Seinfeld). And like what happens to that show's ficitional Jerry!, the new management at NBC decided to go with their own projects and burned off Lookwell! during a summer showing in 1991 (I believe).

There is, of course, a sense of 'what could have been' when watching Lookwell!, espeically considering how 'on' West is with his now trademark self-parodying performance. Of course the fact that the two producers and writers of the pilot were none other than Robert Smigel (creator of Trimuph the Insult Comic Dog and writer for SNL) and some Boston-guy named Conan O'Brien have given this episode added mysticism over the years, but it's really West who brings it together (no disrespect).

Mamma Mia!


Mamma Mia! is the story of a bunch of really, really happy people, including a bride-to-be who gets excited at the prospect of everything and anything, including her upcoming root canal. Her mother, played by Meryl Streep, owns a hotel on this quaint Greek island and, apparently, has made indentured servants out of all the Greek islanders. As preparations for the wedding progress, the island is swamped with about 500 or so happy, suburban kids who do nothing but dance and maintain their level of happiness because they 'just gotta dance'; mind you, everyone of these shiny, happy, people look as though they just wandered in from a Abercombie & Fitch catalog shoot, especially the guys, whose only words spoken to one another might be "bro" and "awesome". The wedding guests are from all over the world, including Ireland, England, England, England, USA, USA, USA, and I think one or two wedding crashers from Canada. There's even an Irish-American priest who makes the journey...for some reason.

Much of the film is staged around women and girls breaking into spontaneous fits of screaming when everyone isn't just dancing around and jumping into the ocean off the pier (sadly the local Greek women are docked half a day's pay for dallying about by their Mistress Streep). This leads to more screaming and dancing of all involved, save for the three male leads (Stellan SkarsgÄrd, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan) who, at points, seem to be simply afraid of the tumult of happiness around them. Skarsgard appears to be the most shaken by his surrondings, but as the man who played the sleazy producer / director who slept with Salma Hayek in Timecode he deserves it; She was mine Stellan!!!

From a formalist perspective the film is very uneven and clumsy: there are a few sequences where the direction reminds me of the episode where Homer Simpson 'directs' a dating video for the newly widowed Ned Flaunders and utilizes the 'star-wipe' function over and over on his home editing machine: during one dance number, we see more use of slow-motion film than a typical NFL broadcast, and during another every second or third shot was an arching overhead view of the happy dancing people.

The location of the film, being a Greek island, makes for beautiful shots, but there's such a disconnect between the real beauty of the isle and the action of the film that I was left with an aura of phoniness that I haven't been able to shake. Musicals by their very nature are not realistic and are incredibly stylized, but usually the contractions of the genre are compensated for and offset by the overall motif and staging (see West Side Story or Sweeny Todd). To be effective, musicals must draw you into their universe - which Mamma Mia! doesn't do.

One last thought: Brechtyette mentioned she was encouraged by the acknowledgement of Baby-Boomer sexuality present in the film and I would agree with her wholeheartedly: the mothers and fathers of this film are not wilting away - so to speak. But I was really bothered by much of the visual desirability here, especially concerning most of the dancing, happy people who were, to a shirtless tee, hyper-muscular and overly fit men and women. The 'ugly' people were the native Greeks who, by contrast, were not 'fit' and looked like the pictures of my Greek ancestors my great Aunts have in their homes. Certainly our gaze was to be directed toward the 'beautiful' dancing northern Europeans, which certainly didn't endure this film to this product of Italian and Greek heritage.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Adam West: Pure West

One of things I really want to accomplish with the re-birth of my blog is rip-off the Onion's AV Club and publish my own series of pop culture lists from time to time. I don't really have any grand scheme for this lists, except that I really love reading myself write (narcissist I am) and to perhaps get a conversation going with all my loyal readers....all three of you.

Anyway, the first list I'm going to attempt - albeit in a rather piecemeal fashion - will be a listing of my all-time favorite - and therefore best - guest stars on The Simpsons. To be more precise, this list won't simply be determined by who I admire. Instead I will attempt to provide a reasoned argument as to both why this performance should be considered great and why I enjoy said performance. That's what we in the bizz (academia) call methodolgy (sorta).

And since it is Adam West week here at Sitting in the Stalls, let's kick things off with one of the best guest-bits in the history of the show: Mr. West's appearance as himself.

Long before he began appearing as an uber-surreal parody of himself as 'Mayor West' on Family Guy, the star of the iconic Batman series appeared on the iconic "Mr. Plow" episode as the 'Adam West'. To be fair, neither Bart nor Lisa knew who he was - or who Robin was for that matter - but West manages to make his mark by decrying "the new Batman" for wearing a padded Batsuit and making it known that he never had to "accentuate his physique"..."Pure West". "And how come Batman doesn't dance anymore? Remember the Bat-toosie?"

I'm normally not a fan of guest-stars playing themselves, but in this case it works on so many levels. One of the things I've always admired about West is his uncanny ability to mock himself while making his persona that much hipper and cooler at the very same time; the logic of 'if I claim to be uncool then I'm cool' fits here. When West tells Mr. Plow (Homer) that he had a job him "when I called you, forty-five minutes ago" he perfectly parodies the over-the-top stylized line readings that made West's Batman so famous.

But what really makes this guest-slot stand out to me is how memorable the appearance is. I've been repeating "Pure West" and the "forty-five minutes ago" lines since I saw this episode 13 years ago. Just today, after lifting some weights I couldn't help myself from dabbing my chest and deeply speaking "Pure West". I suppose that this was one of those moments when I realized the intertextual possibilites of The Simpsons (though I wouldn't have had any idea about that term back then): I understood the bizzare camera angles, the self-depreciation, the references.