New American Movies This Summer

This is a summer's worth of films - a grand total of 4, since June. The thing is - not very many of the big releases look even remotely interesting. I suppose Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is promising; I'll get around to seeing the Toy Story movie sooner or later. But there is no power in heaven or earth that could get me to see Life During Wartime, despite various degrees of support among sane movie commentators... And for all the internet chatter, Inception is only barely more appealing - not even David Bordwell himself has been enough to move me so far... I'm a lot more likely to see The Expendables than either of those... there haven't been that many films pulling me - it's been very easy to do other things this summer, and when I have gone to the movies, it's been a struggle, sometimes, to find something to see... So what have I seen?

Cyrus (9/15) - the Duplass brothers with famous, professional actors. John C. Reilly plays a doofus pining for his ex - who left him 7 years ago, though she still has a key to his house. Of course she's Catherine Keener, so this is believable. He goes to a party, mopes, drinks, and meets Marisa Tomei, who for some reason likes him. They hit it off - but she flees like Cinderella at dawn, so he follows her home, and meets her son - Jonah Hill in the person of Cyrus. Cyrus seems friendly enough, but things are just off - and the more time he spends with them (and he spends a lot), the weirder things seem... Needless to say, Cyrus is a nut, and hates him. Things go from bad to worse... All this reasonably interesting, and takes some slightly unusual turns - it seems like Reilly's doofus is going to be saved by a Good Woman - but it turns out, she needs to be saved, not him, though she never quite seems to realize it... It was billed as a comedy, but it's more of a downer than it seems - the Duplass brothers are in their element. There was a lot of complaint on the net when it came out about the way it looks - especially about the odd little zooms the brothers indulge in. I didn't mind the style - it's basic, simplified indie style, all closeups, nothing but closeups - and those little zooms function as emotional punctuation, and sometimes just as - almost timing devices - like cuts do in more conventional films. A modest style, but not a bad one, and in some ways, more interesting to look at than the general run of American indie films...

The Kids are All Right (10/15) - new film from Lisa Cholodenko, about a lesbian couple with two kids, one for each mother, both from the same donor. Well -t he marriage is in trouble - and the kids look up dad, who proves to be very cool (if a bit self-satisfied.) But then one of the moms starts landscaping his house, and - let's just say, landscaping his house might be code for hiking the Appalachian trail, er, you know... Anyway - adultery will out, especially if you have a neat freak around... Great distress follows, but what can you do. The filmmakers do a nice job of making sure everyone has good reasons - Renoir would be proud. It is made in the plain style of contemporary American indie films, but for some reason, this did not annoy me as much as it usually does - it is plain and direct, and always well marshaled in the service of the story. I think Jim Emerson's comments on the editing probably get to what exactly the filmmakers are doing right. Timing and precision in everything... It helps to feature as good a cast as it has - Bening and Moore and Ruffalo are hard to beat, and the kids hold up their end as well - quite a film.

Despicable Me (10/15) - witty if rather slight animated film... starts with someone stealing a pyramid - Gru the villain (who uses his evil powers mostly to cut the line at starbucks and improve his parking spot) is jealous - he plans to steal a shrink ray gun, shrink the moon, steal it. Or he would if he could get funding - he can't, and is particularly annoyed to discover that the nerd in the lobby - Vector - is the one who did steal the pyramid... Well - soe Gru steals the shrink ray gun, but Vector steals it from him, and thwarts all his attempts to steal it back - but Gru notices that the three little orphan girls selling cookies can get into Vector's lair... So he adopts them. Hijinks ensue, but they do get in and he steals the shrink ray gun - but he also bonds with them at an amusement park. And - starts to like them. But he must stay true to his calling as a villain.... Anyway - it's all very amusing, sufficiently ridiculous, and cute, the sentimentality honest enough and not quite cloying... It's gags tend to come from the Wall-E mode of silent cinema gags, here filtered through loony toons and the like - character development is mercifully left to the side. Fun stuff.

Dinner for Schmucks - here, however, we come on a bit of a problem. You would not think so, but this proves to be the hardest film of the summer to rank. It is, overall, idiotic but oddly appealing high concept bullshit - a bunch of asshole executives have a dinner where they invite losers to make fun of. Paul Rudd is in line for a promotion, so gets involved over the objections of his girlfriend - he sort of tries to resist, but when a schmuck runs into his porsche and won't go away - well... but of course Barry, the schmuck, does more than that - he manages, as he must, to ruin Tim's life - messing up his love life, getting him in trouble with the IRS, causing him trouble at work - finally bringing Tim to the point of saying what he really thinks of Barry. Oh - how sad. But of course, they both end up at the dinner anyway, where Barry triumphs... Lessons are learned, etc. - in fact, it might be classed as the latest entry in the "Paul Rudd learns life lessons from nerds and losers" subgenre, which seems to grow larger each year. But - it's still fun, mostly because of the supporting cast. Zach Galifianakis sneaks off with his scenes with Steve Carell - but Jemaine Clement steals the film from everyone, in the person of an artist by the name of Kieran....

That's one way to look at it. The other is to see it as a trash art defense of trash art, that is, in fact, an emblem of Art itself. That is - from beginning to end (I mean literally - from the credits to the tag at the end), it celebrates artists, who make things - not by sentimentalizing them, Art Will Save the World - but by making artists, people who make things, and do things - more interesting and alive than anyone else in the film. It's conception of "schmucks" is such that the "losers" are basically people with interesting hobbies and personalities, while the people who laugh at them are boring uptight businessmen. "Stock broker Tim" as Kieran says... That's where the film thrives, the oddballs and weirdoes - who happen to do things - Kieran the artist, Zach G as a mind controlling IRS agent, Lucy Punch as a tall woman in bondage gear who stalks Tim... bird fanciers, blind fencers, secretaries who pick up men even though they smell like cabbage... The weirdoes - and the schmucks - steal the movie. Dumb as they are, they are all imaginative, creative - the people who make fun of them have nothing except their sense of superiority and their money - all they can do is collect things and date hookers.

Carell, in all this, has a rather thankless role. The plot is stupid - the middle of the film, when he ruins Tim's life, is derivative and tiresome and saved only when Kieran or Darla come on screen... Carell soldiers on, in full Brick mode, oblivious and impervious, and utterly game... But then again - when push comes to shove - Barry is an artist himself, and he wins the dinner by showing his art. And I rather get the impression that this is quite intentional. Why not? The film opens, with a long montage of Barry putting together his mouse dioramas - that is - with art - on the careful craftsmanship of building things. Silly, strange, a bit disreputable things (when you get down to it) - but - not unlike the film itself. A piece of total junk culture that celebrates, from beginning to end, junk culture. It makes fun of itself, in the process of justifying its own existence.

So why not think it's intentional? I think there is a mini-genre of films like this around - films about junk culture, homemade culture - think of Michel Gondry's films (especially Be Kind Rewind, but not exclusively) - think of Jered Hess' films. Films about people making their own art - homemade, handmade art... It can be a bit ironic, of course - the full weight of Holly wood production brought to bear on the kind of thing YouTube is full of (Be Kind Rewind is a notable offender), but there are far worse things to put the weight of a Hollywood production behind. I love that stuff - I love the idea of people making art in their basements, who cares if it's any good? That sort of thing should be encouraged, and the people who make it are automatically deserving of some respect, even if they are (otherwise) idiots. Though - as a great man once put it - "why are Elvis fans so much nicer than the people who laugh at them?" It is a wise point...

(One more thing though - the real schmuck at the showing of this I saw was the projectionist - the film was projected wrong from beginning to end - people's heads consistently cut off... I suppose it didn't matter much - there's not much to look at in the film, it's not that kind of film... still...