The Oncoming Hope

Silver Linings Playbook earns its ending in a way few movies do, let alone recent ones. The film concentrates on something that's usually treated as a simple waypoint in other movie journeys: finding a way to peek your head out from behind the Sisyphean boulder, even when all the signs suggest you should continue to hide. The boulder causes continuous crushing pain, but at least it's pain you're familiar with.

And speaking of crushing pain, do not be mistaken; the first 30 minutes of the movie are profoundly uncomfortable. You will be squirming in your chair, especially when "the incident" is revealed, the moment that lands Patrick Solitano Jr. in the mental hospital.

Patrick (and who knew there was an actor hiding inside Bradley Cooper?) gets out of mental hospital, only to land in a more abstract prison. He suffers from dreams he can't let go, he's oppressed by his parents, he's written off so often that when anyone shows him kindness, he can't even recognize it (and notice that these moments are when he's most explosive).

When he meets Jennifer Lawrence's Tiffany, the real fireworks happen (and not the good kind). They need each other's help, but it's dark and desperate - Pat can't see beyond his own need to reconnect with his estranged wife, and Tiffany never loses sight of her own needs for even a second (take THAT manic pixie dream girl meme). She's not gonna put up with his blindsided bullshit, and if that's the side of himself he brings to work, she doesn't hesitate to manipulate him outright.

It's a complex situation with no easy solutions, and would have been a disaster without Jennifer Lawrence's nuanced performance. Also stay tuned for Robert De Niro, who actually acts for the first time in thirty years (and he's just as terrific as you remember him being).

Mental illness is often treated as a plague upon other people - an affliction for the weak or the mutated or the poorly raised. But when it comes down to it, who hasn't felt the atmosphere become so tight, so oppressive, that you feel like space is literally closing in? When you can't see anything inside your head, let alone outside of it? We write those moments off, "I was stressed," "I haven't gotten enough sleep lately," but as soon as a doctor puts a name to someone else's bad moment, we cease to treat it as a natural part of human experience, but as an unforgivable failing.

At the end of the day, you still have to live, you still have to function. But that isn't easy, and Silver Linings Playbook doesn't pretend it is. Go see it. It deserves all it's Oscar noms (and if there's a God in the academy, it will win Best Picture).

Every review I've read of Les Miserables compares it to the musical that birthed it, which feels slightly like comparing Texas to Louisiana without any mention of the rest of the United States, let alone the world. So I'm gonna be the nerd who talks about the book, which only seems fair since, at the end of the day, the movie is a translation to a new medium, just as the musical was a translation from a novel, which in turn was translated and mistranslated from the original French.

What we're seeing on screen, ultimately, is the videotape of the videotape of the videotape. They've taken the original text and carved it up into strangely shaped pieces, excising character and context and leaving in the glossy bits. This approach worked fine for Mamma Mia (disagree in the comments) because at least Mamma Mia was a fun romp. Oscarbait Les Miserables is a series of soul-destroying set-pieces grounded in not even an iota of human agency.

It finds a humanity with its side characters (Thenardiers, Enjolras, many other nameless revolutionaries) that it never matches with the leads. There goes Anne Hathaway's snotty nostril, there goes the ever-pinkening bags under Hugh Jackman's eyes, and Cosette? Oh Cosette. I never knew you (though I knew you so well in the novel).

What frustrates me most is how little this film paid attention to the prime rule of film - economy in storytelling. Now, economy doesn't simply mean cutting out portions of the text, it means that you boil the story down to the essentials.

Character Slaughter

At the end of the film, here's what I'd have thought of the characters if I hadn't read the novel:

1. Jean Valjean is a Panglossian do-gooder whose relentless commitment to "morality" has no foundation in reality (which couldn't be further from his character in the novel, who's deeply conflicted at all turns. If you remember, when Jean Valjean goes to the battlements, he's undecided whether to save Marius or to kill him).

2. Marius is the shallowest romantic on the planet (this hurts, because Novel Marius was my first great love, the literary reflection of my idealistic/suffering 12-year old self). Seriously, what a wet wanker is FilmMusical!Marius.

3. Cosette? WHAT COSETTE? All I see is an OBJECT who is barely even half of a person (In the novel, she gets her own book for a reason. She's the optimistic striver who is tired of being an object, and makes choices. CHOICES). This hurts even more because Amanda Seyfried sounded TERRIFIC. Couldn't you give her a role, you guys?

Les Miserables as a Film

There's plenty of commentary elsewhere on Les Miserables filmic failures (oh those closeups. What really burns me is that Tom Hooper actually had multiple cameras on each actor, AND STILL CHOSE THESE DAMNED CLOSEUPS. Like, "Guys, forget the plot. What we really need now is an establishing shot of Eddie Redmayne's nasal freckles.").

Guys, this burns me to say. I really looked forward to the movie, and am sad that it isn't something I can rewatch over and over. But quite frankly, by the time we hit Valjean's seventh song, I was ready for him to die, and die swiftly (and don't get me started on Russell Crowe's "singing").

I've seen the musical, and I don't remember it being such an poorly thought out adaptation of the novel. But perhaps this is a reflection of the rule of Chicago - you can't just film the damn stage musical, you have to alter it to fit the new medium.

Oncoming Hope out. Play nicely in the comments.

There's no way to discuss this without talking about the ending. In other words, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

Let me start by saying that I loved Skyfall. I can comfortably state that it's one of the top two Bond films (I'm unable to declare it better than Goldeneye without seeing that old favorite again). Skyfall finds the perfect balance between acknowledging the tropes that make Bond such a treasured film commodity and acknowledging their quaintness.

But the problem, as the film so ably points out, is that Bond (and the whole of MI6) can't be judged by its activity in the past, but must be judged by the needs of the present. As a result, it becomes impossible to ignore that Skyfall gives us the most regressive gender politics since the Sean Connery era.

Two female characters are bedded and disposed of (quite literally in one case) with zero fanfare or sentiment. One is LITERALLY TOLD TO SHUT UP by her male colleague during a court proceeding. Meanwhile, in series regular territory, we're back to having a posh toff male heading up MI6, while our clever and highly competent field agent suddenly reveals her life's aspiration to be "sexy secretary". That's zero for five, Skyfall.

Let's start with Eve, who inspired this post. She spends the entire film being punished for a small mistake she makes under M's orders, while Bond goes around screwing up so badly that he can't even pass the physical fitness exam. Even worse, despite saving Bond's (and everyone's) lives twice in the interim, she somehow decides that she's not competent to be a field agent, simply based on a throwaway comment from Bond. The kiss of death? It turns out that she not only decides to be a secretary, she's actually gonna be that secretary (you remember the one. In fifty years of Bond films, she's notable for alternating "sexy" and "nagging" and "why don't you ever return my calls?".

To be honest, if she started the film as a secretary who went out into the field and then decided she wanted to stay behind the desk, I might have hand-waved it. But to invite the audience to smile knowingly as a capable agent surrenders her power to a man who was once her equal palls.

And why the hell did she end up shaving Bond? Is she his wife? Fail.

The head of the government inquiry may have been a touch long-winded, but her points were neither hysterical nor invalid. And as any student of the British government knows, long-windedness is not an affectation, but an expectation. Mallory's flippant shutdown of her right to speak (she's the fucking head of the inquiry!) is both against the way government inquiries work, and just flat offensive. And also, the audience is supposed to laugh. Women talking too much! Hilarious!

The whole Séverine subplot was incredibly bizarre. Bond finds her both traumatized and full of fear from being sold first into sex slavery and then to Silva, and nonetheless chooses to have her by sneaking up on her in the shower. Of course, James Bond is basically male privilege made flesh, but come on dude, she's TERRIFIED. She doesn't want your dick. Also, if he was so desperately taken with her, one would think he'd have slightly more of a reaction to her death-by-dick-measuring-contest. But la-di-da.

M comes closest to success, but we've spent enough time with her to know her pretty well (remember her fantastic introduction in Goldeneye?) Nonetheless, she dies pretty stupidly. She has no facility with a gun, knows it, but still sits out as a target, despite a wonderful escape route? Sure, she set off some exploding chandeliers, but what was the plan here? She's the head of the MI6, not some domestic terrorist. So we not only get Mallory accusing her of incompetence, she proves him right. M, who never makes a false step, makes a series of them in Skyfall. So she dies, freeing Bond of the only female who can stand up to him in every regard.

After the women are handily put in their places, Skyfall leaves us with the image of Bond and Mallory talking shop, drinking whisky and smirking about a job terribly done (guys, the head of MI6 is dead! I don't know how you define a job gone horribly wrong, but I am PRETTY SURE THAT'S ONE OF THEM). Mallory failed to track Silva despite Q's technical wizardry, and he still ends up boss. All the women end up dead or demoted, and the men get promoted.

I haven't even discussed the queerification of Silva ("Sure, he's killed a lot of people and blown up buildings, but what's really horrifying is that he might be homosexual!"), but that may be a topic for another day.

So long and thanks in advance for your polite, well-reasoned comments.

When Laura Palmer dies, David Lynch would have us believe that even the Gods have nothing more important to do than mourn her presence. Every living body in this town, faced with the evacuation of life from Laura's strangely serene face, falls to pieces. So far, so Killing.

Agent Dale Cooper breezes in, a cherry-pie scented breath of fresh air, just when the weeping becomes too much to bear. Sherilyn Fenn's Audrey Horne has the good sense to laugh in the face of the rapturous weeping in the high school classroom. The audience breathes a massive sigh of relief, as we realize that Lynch/Frost intends more for our digestive-hour than the maudlin.

As we settle into the (admittedly strange) rhythms of the show, I genuinely can’t figure out whether David Lynch loves or hates teenage romance. All the characters are whimsically and lovingly drawn apart from Donna and James, who drip water bodies of sentiment wherever they go.

Even Bobby Briggs, douche-jock extraordinaire, seems to have more depth to him than our drippy lovebirds. He moves easily from scene to scene, and we're never quite sure if he's operating from the high-emotional state of an adolescent teenager or from something more clinical, more mercenary. Lynch knows this; even at Bobby's most tender moments, you can always hear the frictional creaks of his faux-leather jacket.

His relationship with Shelley remains compelling even when their existential threats become more and more ridiculous, as Leo can never quite sell the idea that he's some kind of unrepentant misogynistic abuser. The more Eric DaRe tries, the more I want to laugh at his pug-nosed face and its terrible attempts at acting.

But with Twin Peaks, Lynch/Frost have achieved the impossible -- a show where bad acting actually heightens its sense of atmosphere. The gurning, the posing, even the sheer emoting, never quite seem out of place. Sure, there's a murder mystery, but who the hell cares? We want to see Dale Cooper, eccentricating himself up all over the place. We want to see Audrey Horne, Veronica Mars-ing her way through leches and peons alike.

In a show full of one-armed men and dreamed up gophers, one mystery really drives the story forward. Is Audrey Horne quite real? She's everywhere and nowhere, all at once. She's all-seeing, all-knowing, impossibly beautiful, and yet she seems connected to nothing and no one apart from Agent Cooper.

I could never call him Dale. Could you?

Inanity to one is art to another. One may complain about the torrential downpour of silliness on social media platforms. Yelp directs conversation to a particular topic - food - but that's possibly the most complicated topic in human history. End result: a veritable orgy of human idiosyncrasy.

And what else does one do with orgiastic human illogicity than read it aloud, slowly and dramatically?

Here's the original review of the Stratford Diner in New Jersey, so that you may read along (dramatically):

I ordered the broiled crab cakes and they were really good and i called and asked if i could speak to the supervisor and the girl that asnswerd the phone wanted to know what it was in reference to and I told her it was regarding the food i ordered and and she said what was wrong with it and i said nothing i just wanted to let him or her know that it was good and then she was like ok hold on. When the manager got on the phone and i thanked him and let him know it was good he said thank you and you welcome but seemed like he was in a rush. I don't think i will be eating their anymore because if the manager is not nice then what does that say about the business they are running and the people in it.

Enjoy:

"To Room With Love" is not one movie, but four. Three are perfect, and the last remains perfectly entertaining, if less moving. What surprised me most is the youth of the cast (which stood in stark contrast to the devoted Woody Allen fans in the audience, who waved goodbye to geriatric at least a decade before).

I don't normally do this, but for the sake of coherence, I'll review each storyline separately.

THE BEST ONE:

Woody Allen deserves a prize for creating a movie about the lives of 20-somethings that's not only hysterical, but relatable. I'm not sure exactly why, but the immediate post-college years seem to inspire only the worst type of film: navel-gazing affairs that treat ambition like sickness, or movies about people losing track of everything only to "find themselves" at the end.

Those films (usually terrible romantic comedies) ignore a simple fact: 20 somethings are actually adults, not oversized children let loose on an unsuspecting world. You offer to cook dinner for your friends, because it feels like the adult thing to do, even when the only things you know how to make are brownies, and sometimes not even that. But you know what? We have a hell of a lot of fun trying.

Pretending to be adult also involves being a little pretentious (part of youth is failing to understand that constantly showing off your knowledge doesn't actually prove your intelligence). Allen finds a brilliant conceit to allow us to both fall in love with these unctious people and mock them from afar.

Ellen Page probably has the most difficult role, playing the flutterby with the most superficial personality (Allen clearly chose her for her incredible Diane Keaton impression). But we also have to fall in love with her. And we do.

I won't say anything to spoil the central conceit of this segment, but let's just say that cell phones are important. And like me, you may wonder why all the women are wearing button down shirts (it's a hint!) Also, Jesse Eisenberg, if you're reading this, marry me.

EQUALLY GOOD BUT MINUS EISENBERG:

The second story sets up a perfect counterpoint to the first. Two newlyweds from a small village have just moved to Rome and they're as young as the previous group, and even less experienced. They're not playing at adulthood, they have to grow up.

The casting director's found a real star in Alessandra Mastronardi, who finds herself lost within her first 5 minutes in Rome. Blah blah, magic city cakes, she breaks down by a film shooting featuring her most beloved Italian movie star. Her hijinks take twists and turns that are both hilarious and awesome (and make my shriveled feminist heart scream out in glee).

Meanwhile, poor Antonio finds himself accidentally embroiled with a prostitute (played by Penelope Cruz, who steals every scene she's in. Seriously Hollywood, stop casting her in shitty movies. Or maybe do, so she can keep being awesome in foreign films).

The ending of their story works for me, but I'm sure that it won't for some. I look forward to debating it with you in the comments.

THE FUNNIEST SEGMENT

It should come as no surprise that the funniest (and in many ways the objectively strongest) segment is the one starring the Woodster himself. I can't even think of a way to write about it without spoiling its increasingly hilarious turns, but lets just say that we wade knee deep into absurdist comedy (and half of the audience fell out of their seats at the climax of this segment).

Also notable: Alison Pill follows up her impressive turn in Midnight in Paris with even more charm.

THE UGLY ONE

The final segment, featuring Roberto Benigni, deserves neither an image nor a lengthy review. I won't say it was boring the first time around, but in future viewings, I shall dub these scenes "BATHROOM BREAK".

OVERALL

It's nice to know that after all these years Woody Allen still has the desire to experiment with forms in filmmaking. Through To Rome In Love, he plays with time and space in ways that are totally unique. It's often said that his film locations are characters in and of themselves, but I'm pretty glad that's not true here.

In fact, there's an astonishing lack of what I'd describe as Woody Allen "tropes", like scenes in museums. The tone is bittersweet, which he's never quite done before. These are human stories, and Rome merely provides a platform to launch these stories, which are as much about Italians as they are about the Americans who get lost in their country.

Where Midnight in Paris succeeded as a total wish fulfilment fantasy (you may recall that I dubbed it Paris Porn), To Rome With Love works better as a cohesive film.

Metric's new record is a strange hybrid of their very first album, Soft Rock Star, and Ladytron on a soporific. It's too soon for me to say whether it's good or bad, but there are certain production choices that are causing intermittent twitching behind my eyes (so bad, then?).

I could never say that something "sounds like Tangerine Dream" and mean it as an insult, so trust that I only mean the best possible things when I say that the best parts of Synthetica sound like they would fit right in with an eighties movie scored by TD (btw, has anyone watched The Keep recently? Batshit insanity. I cannot recommend it, but I can insist that you watch it). (so good, then?)

One thing I do know: there's not a single song on this album that's danceable. This much I do expect from Metric. The closest we get is the youthful exuberance of "Nothing but Time," which is putting Metric smack in the era of Star's Ageless Beauty, which, by the way, is the same era when Metric was kicking everyone's asses with songs like "Poster of a Girl" and "Empty."

As with most Metric albums, however, the proof lies in the live show. I can see how some of these songs take life on the stage. And lest I forget, there's one truly standout track: "The Wanderlust," featuring what is possibly the strangest, most random guest vocal in history (Lou Reed, muthafuckahs!).

I will leave you with remembrances of Metric from a better time, with the superlatively creative video for "Combat Baby":

After a number of years spent breathing British air, drinking British drinks and expounding upon British slang, I've made the Atlantic crossing.

I'm currently housed on the Brooklyn promenade, where the sky takes on many strange colors each day, and always provides this view of Manhattan:

I've been around town, met i lot of people, and no matter how different their lifestyles, they all share one pastime: making fun of Williamsburg. I look forward to experiencing it myself (for anthropological reasons, of course).

But why trek to Williamsburg when I can make this crossing, again and again:

The Brooklyn Bridge, a childhood obsession, proves even more magical in real life than in my imagination. That bridge plays witness to the greatest transformations in NYC, from white flight to 9/11, from gentrification to the downfall of Wall Street. Wealth isn't created or destroyed on either side of the Brooklyn Bridge, it just moves from one side to the other, a finely engineered see-saw. There's no greater feeling than standing on a place that vibrates with history (unlike the Manhattan Bridge, which literally vibrates like an earthquake).

Anyway, with all this beauty and excitement there's a rub (aye, there's always a rub). While my temporary housing is well-located, it ain't well-appointed. I find myself lacking a desk, a couch, or even a table upon which to write. As I lie uncomfortably on the bed, beckoning carpal tunnel with my 45 degree angle, it sorrows me to report that blogging is very difficult. So while I still hope to write at least 3 times a week, I can't maintain my daily posts until I move to a more permanent home at the end of the month.

I welcome any guest writers in the meantime. I hope I can find the balance sooner, rather than later, but I thought it best to be upfront.

So far, I've been light on resolutions, because I've adopted a different approach this year. Rather than some idealized list of things I'd like to achieve this year, I wanted to think a little bit more seriously about what's realistic to achieve, and what I would genuinely benefit from achieving.

What I'd like to do in 2012 is to only read novels in translation. Realistically, I'm going to aim for 70%. Amazingly, about 70% of the books I read in 2011 were written by women, so I know this sort of limitation is achievable.

Ideally, I'd visit a different country with each new work, but I'm not sure that's something I could actually do. At any rate, my resolution affords me the opportunity to delve deeper into my beloved dead Russians, offer some thoughts on the efforts of translation, and hopefully learn to love some authors whose work has been long forgotten in English-speaking nations.

I aim for a mix of seminal favorites and contemporary hits (therefore, I won't be reading a hundred books by Bolaño). I can finally read 100 Years of Solitude, Heinrich Böll, more Murakami, Cosette and Borges.

Also...

This year, I'm going to attempt, yet again, to read 100 books. I only made it to 45 this year, which is a pretty healthy hint that I cannot both read 100 books and watch 100 movies (which I did, hooray! or...oops?).

Hopefully I don't drown in experimental fiction, so wish me luck! Please leave your recommendations in the comments.