Fudging Holly Golightly | The New Republic

First Emma Thompson, now this:

What Audrey does in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not uninteresting, but it is far from the modern woman, even the one introduced to American audiences in the persons of Bette Davis, Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullavan, the other Hepburn (though she could talk herself into a self-centered corner, too), Carole Lombard, Rosalind Russell, Jean Arthur, as well as Barbara Stanwyck. Instead Audrey rather resembles her physical antithesis Marilyn Monroe (who wanted to play Holly) in that they have very distinctive voices, but not voices that are good for talking to people.

Was Audrey Hepburn ever anything more than a style icon? Was she too cute for her own good?

Olde School: THE NOTHING THAT REFLECTS: Post-Postmodernism and "Crank 2"

Roger Ebert recommended this blog article on the movie Crank: High Voltage and post-postmodernism. Both of which seem horribly wrong headed at first glance. And for better or worse, I'd read it three times before I began to get an inkling that there was something to its arguments (or that it was actually making an argument).

What I understand so far is this: where postmodernism expresses the "tragic dimension of modernity," post-postmodernism asserts that "nothing matters anymore." Where the former "reifies modernism with its sense of humor", the latter "does not laugh for or at us." One is a red giant, the other a black hole. The postmodernist is a "critic," the post-postmodernist a "crank." Pure noise. Grand Guignol standing in for detached absurdity.

And so we can read stuff like this:

Yet, Post-Postmodernism is not any of those old styles ('Surrealism,' 'DaDa,' or any of that) from the European ancien regime, but is simply indeed, "mash-up" and nothing any more pre-supposing than that. If late Tarentino often slips into a mawkishly backward-gazing Postmodernism ("Kill Bill") then Tarentino's good friend and fellow 'grindhouse' autuer, Robert Rodriquez is far less mawkish about race, identity, and essence, as would be any colored man with good sense who must deal with the vagaries of artistic expression within the cut throat Hollywood system. At any rate, Rodriguez seems more certainly a direct influence on Neveldine's and Taylor's style than Tarentino is. Witness the offensive bathos of Tarentino's "Jackie Brown," workerly talents of veteran actors Pam Grier and Samuel Jackson notwithstanding. Rodriguez's far more laconic, more polymorphously perverse style (for he presents violence in a filmic world that suggests a cold medium where Tarentino's implied medium is more pubescent, breathless, and hot). Rodriguez's cinematic sensibility is closer to that of Nev and Tay than to that of the more adolescent Tarentino. One need only consider that Rodriguez's embodiment of female sexuality and eroticism is the fulsome, fecund Salma Hayek, while Tarentino's embodiment of female sexuality and eroticism is the homoerotic, flatly androgynous and vaguely Aryan Uma Thurman. Not that Nev and Tay's choice of bland blonde, Amy Smart is any more colorful than Thurman, but one simply notes the obvious similarities between Neveldine/Taylor and Rodriguez, where ouvre are concerned.

Which is to say, that the hothouse atmosphere of Tarantino's postmodern imagination is sickly and closed-off from the world. It is nerdy and weak. Rodriguez's post-postmodernism by contrast is robust and virile, and encourages participation through its recklessness and thoughtlessness. It's High School. Glee for people who misunderstand Nietzsche.

(And of course while Tarantino pines for Uma, Rodriguez always gets the girl. Jocks win.)

Violence, cinematic violence, in this view, has no tragic dimension. It neither wounds nor redeems. It cannot transform, it only metastasizes. Post-postmodernism therefore simultaneously plays with and destroys our ability to organize ideas. It gives us too much. It overproduces, overgenerates. We can formulate any number of associations, catch countless inside jokes, navigate six degrees of referentiality, but when there is no organizing principle, no disputed truth, no symbolic order, there is nothing to be learned. The play of meaning never ends, the story has no satisfying resolution. And in the end, if we have lost the primordial wound, then there is nothing to heal, nothing to overcome. So on with the vivisections!

Like all anti-art, it reminds us of the vitality, indifference, and ugliness of the world outside our heads.

Maybe.

Because not only is the imagination here secondary and fanciful, but it seeks to brutalize and bully us with its post-post-post-ness. It is ecstatically cruel, and not really all that good. What people really respond to is the unseriousness of it, the over-the-top-ness of it. It is drunk on its own stupidity and cheapness. But so is everything else in this culture (from the Palins to Youtube to Jersey Shore), so who needs it?

The unwitting celebration of the what-the-fuck-edness of it all is not an aesthetic. It's just the internet. It's cable. It's the Tea Party. Every soul-crushingly infantile meme, mash-up, and LOL.

So we need more art, more glamour, more existential angst. Not less. We need more shows like Mad Men and Deadwood and yes even comedies like Party Down where tragedy permeates everything, the language, the time and place, even the furniture. We need something that reminds us that the nightmare of history is still one from which we'd like to wake up.

China Mieville explains theology, magic, and why JJ Abrams hates you

And so he does:

I've never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams' projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging - sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I'm not a child - I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there's something about [JJ's projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who - even when there are misfires - I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don't feel that way about JJ Abrams.

He also "abjure[s] the comparison between leftist groups and cults" which is good enough for me.

Interview with Helen Mirren :: rogerebert.com :: People

Mirren on The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. I saw it at the time in the theater and was blown away. Didn't realize there were actual famous actors in it.

Helen Mirren remembers that she took a deep breath after she read the screenplay for "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover," and then she thought, "Well, yes, it is a dangerous film. It's deep and complex and we're not skating around any issues. It's on the cutting edge, quite apart from the content -- look at the style of the filmmaking, the artificiality of it, the strangeness of the dialogue. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn't think it was that dangerous. You know, that X-rated thing, because that's a different kind of thing altogether."

The Playlist: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen & Natalie Portman All Offered Roles In Tom Tykwer's 'Cloud Atlas'

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to be a movie?

Considering how cinematic his novels can be, it's almost surprising that his work is yet to be adapted for the screen. At least it would be, were it not for the immense scope of many of his books. For instance, "Cloud Atlas," the book he's best known for, has six main characters, and spans thousands of years and several genres, and would seem unfilmable to most.

The week in geek: should Khan be played by an unknown in Star Trek 2? | Film | guardian.co.uk

This is fun casting, but I don't want Khan in the next Star Trek. And just so we're clear, it would be an alt-universe version of "Space Seed" not Wrath of Khan, right? Or Khan and the crew of the Enterprise are all dead and trapped in Purgatory? I'd just like to know ahead of time.

Avatar and the Broken Main Character - Story Analysis -- StoryFanatic

Jake Sully is no Luke Skywalker:

When any film begins, an audience implicitly places their trust in the authors to deliver something of substance. When certain potentials are set up, as in the case of Jake’s dilemma regarding his legs, the audience expects a certain outcome to be played out. They may not know how he’ll answer that question or what the outcome will be, but they do expect it to come. Unfortunately, Jake never grew to a point where he could trust in something else; he never had an opportunity to turn off his own targeting computer. Instead, that need to trust fell into Neytiri’s throughline, needlessly breaking the structure of the story and destroying any trust the audience had that the film would deliver a concrete and meaningful story.

Avatar and Star Wars: Spectacle Over Substance - Story Analysis -- StoryFanatic

Jim Hull writes:

It is clear now that Avatar will have the same effect on the next generation of filmmakers. Back in December, when the film first premiered, the question was whether or not today’s audiences are too progressive, too well-informed to embrace a story based on Archetypal Characters. Five months later, in spite of all the criticism leveled at the story, the overwhelming positive response to this movie cannot be ignored. Kids (and grown-up kids) today love this film just as much as kids in the 70s loved Star Wars.

Among the older generation, Avatar will become the film they love to hate. It will have to be seen whether or not a greater understanding of the mechanics of story structure will somehow allow them to look on Avatar with different eyes, and somehow re-capture that spark of imagination they experienced when they first sat down with Skywalker and company.

All true. In the 70s folks over 35 thought Star Wars was a clever retro-spoof of those bad, bad serials of yesteryear. Today the hip response to Avatar was that it was a shameless retread of just about every movie you've ever seen. If you're 12, that's probably a feature, not a bug.

Born of Hope

Fan produced Lord of the Rings prequel:

Machotaildrop Trailer

Avatar vs. Pocahantas

Obviously,

Avatar

Everyone agrees that Avatar is a beautiful movie that is cliched in its storytelling and racist in its politics. Good job internet, you win again.

If you've seen The Abyss or Aliens, you've seen John Cameron make this movie before: gung-ho militarism and corporate greed failing to comprehend or control whatever exists beyond normal experience.

If you've seen Dances With Wolves or Pocahontas, you know what everyone's complaining about: white guilt, white assimilation, white privilege. Paternalistic attitudes toward the "primitive" other.

The problem with the social-historical reading of Avatar is that it fails to account for Cameron's science fiction concerns. What interests Cameron is the way that an unchanging human nature deals with and conflicts with both technology and the natural world.

Epic Fail

Some psycho deconstructs The Phantom Menace. 70 minutes of genius. Aka, this why they invented the internets.

General Cinema Logo

Another win for the internet:



I've been humming this song for years and only recently recalled that it was from going to the movies as a kid (late 70s).

This one looks like it comes from the early 90s:



[Inspired by lonelysandwich]

Dr. Strangelove Opening Credits

[Via ArtsJournal]

Not with a bang but a whimper

Reviewing 2012:

John Cusack deserves his reputation as a likable actor. Back in 1985, you wanted him to get the girl more than most teen actors. But 2012 is so dumb you only want to cheer, Die Cusack, Die! Ditto Amanda Peet. And their children. You don’t want this family to reunite, to make good on broken promises, or to carry the American flame forward into the reset future. You don’t want them to do any of that. You just want them to do what they’re supposed to do at the end of the world, and that is experience a brief moment of bone-chilled terror, then die like everyone else.

Redemptive endings too cheap even for Americans.

Roman Holiday (1953)

Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert, William Wyler, Dalton Trumbo, Edith Head, Rome

Fight Club Appreciated

From The New York Times:

The secret to the enduring allure of “Fight Club” may be that it is, as Mr. Norton put it, quoting Mr. Fincher, “a serious film made by deeply unserious people.” In other words, a film as willing to take on profound questions as it is to laugh at and contradict itself: what is “Fight Club” if not the most fashionable commercial imaginable for anti-materialism? A movie of big ideas and abundant ambiguities, it can be read and reread in many ways.

It's something we inherited from the anti-anti-utopians. The impulse toward ha! ha! just serious.

Stuff I've Been Watching

Mini-reviews:

• Death Proof
  The easiest way to ignore a Tarantino movie these days is to complain that you were bored by the dialogue. Fair enough. But I admired the symmetry of the movie's seemingly simple structure and the way that the longing and vulnerability of the characters in the first half (an adolescent restlessness that's implicit in the horror movie set-up) is transformed into empowered kick-assery in the second (nuts and bolts film-making being Quentin's skewed version of adult professionalism). In the end, Despair becomes Joy by way of fast cars and another classic soundtrack.
  
• Kung Fu Panda
  Cute. Funny. Short.
  
• Point Break (1991)
  Keanu. Swayze. Busey. There should have been Oscars handed out for this thing, it's so genius. The FBI tracks down The Ex-Presidents, a gang of bank robbers who just happen to also be deeply spiritual surfers and adrenalin junkies. It's John from Cincinnati meets The Bourne Identity meets The Dark Knight with Dr. Perry from Scrubs. Groundbreaking in almost every way. Even the meatball sandwiches sound good. Two.
  
• Quantum of Solace
  An unwatchable blur of burned out images. What should have been the Empire Strikes Back of neo-Bond is so boring and overly stylized that it leaves almost no impression whatsoever. Even Judi Dench's M seems perplexed by the odd turn of events.
• There Will Be Blood
  It's sort of a masterpiece, possessing all of the grandeur of The Godfather and, in the character of Daniel Plainview, the tragic monomania of another Citizen Kane. But there's no joy in the movie, and nothing resembling human life in the thinness of the supporting characters. The character of the young preacher is simply no match for the ferocity of Daniel Day-Lewis's oil man.
  
• Tropic Thunder
  A movie that builds all its comedy into the ingeniousness of its many premises and set-ups, but is sometimes too knowing and self-aware to be actually funny. Robert Downey Jr. is genius. Tom Cruise is crude. It's funny to watch Matthew McConaughey play Wii Tennis, but he's no Ari Gold. The manic third act is indistinguishable from a bad Chuck Norris flick.
• Watchmen
  There is a dulling sameness to the imagery and pacing that ultimately derails the adaptation. When every image is this beautiful and every moment this grand, it leaves you with nothing to hold onto and nowhere to breathe. The movie works best when the flashbacks are able to stall the narrative and restore the episodic feel of Alan Moore's original. The comic, after all, was not just a cold-war story, but a modernist artwork that relied on the accumulation of a thousand tiny details over 12 chapters, the juxtaposition of incompatible images and ideas, and the poetic rhythms of free association.
  

Donnie Darko - Quick Take

Donnie Darko is an amazingly effective and ambitious movie when you consider how modest and indie it must have been in its initial lease. Thus its cult status. Jake Gyllenhaal is really good as Donnie, the brooding, angsty teen and the plotline is so geeky that it can't even be contained within the movie's own context. So you have this nice pairing of teen alienation and suburban ennui married to eerie supernatural psycho drama and science fiction paradoxes. Like Lost or Twin Peaks at their best. What could be better?

Well a few things, because the story doesn't really make sense. We get way too much about conservative hypocrisy, way too much about the talent show, way too many scenes with Donnie's Therapist, and not nearly enough about the actual time travel, the book, or Roberta Sparrow.

But that's what makes the movie so interesting: it gives you just a small peek into a much larger and more complex fictional universe. The rest is left not only open to the audience's interpretation, but the audience's ability to imagine or project into the narrative all those missing but hinted at pieces of the larger puzzle. The experience is like placing a time/space portal over a movie screen as you watch Evil Dead.