Maggie 2010: Buddy Films, the French Way

Much as I enjoy a good buddy comedy, American fare can be quite exhausting. The very core of the character archetypes explored in American buddy flicks and, say, French buddy flicks are markedly different -- as these two movies will readily attest to. It's not a physical age thing; and the mental age is in many ways just as petty. But the starting points are different: Men in mainstream American buddy comedies are clinging dearly to the vestiges of childishness, from which only further childishness -- slapstick comedy, outrageous sexual and violent acts, and crazy drug-induced highs -- can emerge. Meanwhile, in French buddy flicks the men are accomplished, educated, and appreciate the "finer things" in life -- ergo when they disintegrate, the descent is both more nuanced and more palpable.

So if Hot Tub Time Machine was as much the final straw for you as it was for me, give these two works a shot instead!

#92. My Best Friend



Francois (Daniel Auteuil) is an art dealer who thinks his life complete until the discovery that the people he spends his time with don't count themselves as his friends. Shaken by the notion of his own funeral being poorly attended, he seizes at any cost a prized Grecian urn at auction depicting the ultimate friendship -- a purchase that places him in the middle of a difficult bet. Now Francois has ten days to convince his associates that he has a "best friend" -- an ordeal that pits Francois against a lifetime's worth of self-absorption every step of the way.

Very early into this film, director Patrice Leconte introduces viewers to the man we suspect will become Francois' best friend in just those ten days -- Bruno (Dany Boon), a taxi driver with a love for trivia and his own, deep store of crippling disappointment. Bruno makes friends with everyone, and in so doing, makes close friendships with none, so the stakes are just as real for him in these ten days as they are for the ever-manipulative Francois.

What makes this film so successful -- again, as mainstream fare goes, for Leconte certainly plays to some fairly obvious conventions in his plot and culmination -- is that knowing Bruno to be the likely best friend in no way lessens the film; rather, in watching these two middle-aged men struggle together for some sense of reconciliation with their own life choices, the surrounding artifice fails to matter: We are watching human beings achieve small victories in the face of great losses, and there is a truth to such happenstance that rises above even the most conventional cinematic devices used here.

#93. The Dinner Game (1998)



Let me just say now that while I haven't yet seen the 2010 remake of The Dinner Game, I'm quite certain Steve Carrell will make it an entertaining experience. Nonetheless, there are some crucial differences (from what I've heard to date) between this remake and the original, and not least of these is that in the remake, the titular dinner game actually occurs; whereas, in the original, knowledge of the game merely hangs over viewers as they watch the film's sad events unfold.

The difference, thematically, is thus quite palpable, for the dinner game is a weekly dinner in which a group of intelligent, successful people each brings along one "idiot" to share with their friends. The aim of this bit of entertainment is always to find the "biggest" idiot -- with idiocy defined, it seems, in large part by the pride taken by said individuals in their inane personal opinions and mindless lesser hobbies or rituals. By presenting the dinner game as an abstract idea that the audience never sees wholly played out, this notion of making sport of other people's differences gains a measure of universality: We see in its description a marked similarity to all entertainment derived through the mockery of people we hold to be lesser -- and that allows us quite easily to put ourselves in the shoes of lead actor Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermitte) who thinks he's scored the biggest idiot yet.

Francois Pignon (Jacques Villeret) makes matchstick masterpieces, and boasts about them to a friend of Pierre's on a commuter train, who eagerly passes on the hapless fellow's name. Pierre is a successful publisher, while Francois works at the tax agency, and when Pierre invites Francois to dinner Francois expects a book deal for his matchstick creations is in the works. Our heartbreak for Francois is easily met, however, with heartbreak for Pierre -- for though he's hardly the world's greatest man, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune he's about to experience at Francois' well-meaning hands means he's more than met his match.

The problem at the film's centre is threefold: 1) Pierre has a bad back that night, meaning they can't attend the titular dinner party. 2) While Francois is present, Pierre's wife calls the house to tell Pierre she's leaving him forever. And 3) Francois, for all his bumbling, bungling ways, is a good person at heart: having lost his own wife two years' back he doesn't want to leave Pierre crippled physically and emotionally for the night. The outcome of these three factors is a series of events as gripping as it is comical, as hand-wringing as it is eye-rolling. If any a film makes the point that people can be many things all at once -- stupid and compassionate, smart and reckless, and even stupid and smart in turns -- this is that film.

What makes The Dinner Game an excellent buddy flick is truly the solidarity through circumstance that holds Pierre and Francois together throughout the film, despite Pierre's regular insistence that Francois leave him alone (until, of course, Pierre suddenly needs him again). Many an American buddy comedy also pairs unlikely opposites for great amusement through self-discovery; but as this film amply demonstrates, whatever an American film can do, a French film can probably do better. ...Or, at least without sex, drug, and fart jokes. (That said, we'll soon see if Carrell's version proves me wrong!)

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #53: Idiocracy (2006)

Fox News, giving you its best.

Mike Judge of Beavis and Butthead and Office Space fame came up with a movie that was little advertised and little seen during its limited theatrical release. Higher-ups clearly washed their hands of this one for some reason. It's a shame, since it's really not that bad. Not a great achievement by any filmmaking stretch, but certainly not bad.

Set in 2505 and taking a page from Woody Allen's 1973 film Sleeper, Idiocracy features an average joe waking up to find himself in a future that doesn't make any sense. Because statistically the more educated you are the less children you have, humanity has grown dumber with each generation and can no longer look after itself. It's a world of couches, lame television, belligerence, and crudity and....well, it's pretty much like our world I guess, which is the point.

The film makes some frightening sense in some places, and it's clear commentary on human nature and the more embarrassing aspects of this society we've constructed for ourselves. On that front the film could have had a lot more fun than it did, but there wasn't so little that the film was vapid for it, which made me very glad.

The acting is only at par here though, as nobody in the film, save maybe for Luke Wilson's lawyer, goes out of their way to really make a scene work perfectly in terms of delivery and timing. The visual effects are colourful and fun and never get to the point where the setting overpowers the plot or humour. That's probably due more to budget concerns than directorial restraint, but I'll give Judge the benefit of the doubt on this one.

So: Pretty much as people have told me - cool stuff, fantastic concept and worth the watch. But it's a damn shame more wasn't done with the concept.

Wendy's Films of 2010 #92: Gamera, Guardian of the Universe (1995)

Every time I walked past the Sci-Fi: KE section at work (that is, Science-Fiction: Kaiju Eiga) I never really paid much attention to it. It was another section like Sports or Actors Attempting to Direct that I hadn't really delved into. In fact, I didn't know until just now that Kaiju Eiga means Monster Movie in Japanese. So when it was suggested to me that we watch Gamera, I was open to the idea, but given that I hadn't really shown any interest in the past I wasn't really that gung-ho. Now, I shan't lie and say it was the most exciting or awesome movie watching experience of my life, but I can certainly see why the genre has been so loved by dedicated followers of Asian monster films. It's cheesy, and though the effects aren't terrible, it doesn't seem real, but it's fun and there a few interesting storylines. I liked that Gamera was tied to a young girl, who wears a piece of the turtle's shell around her neck.

I liked the commentary about the environment at the beginning of the film, when a civilization created Gyaos (bird-dinosaur like creatures) to repair the world of the pollution they had spread. Unfortunately the Gyaos began to eat the people, and scientists created the Gamera (giant flying turtles) to fight them. The pollution wound up overrunning the civilization and before dying off they preserved one Gamera in case the Gyaos returned to rein chaos in the future. To me, this shows that the filmmakers weren't only concerned with created a kooky remake of the former Gamera movies, but also with sending a message to viewers about the importance of our world today.

Pose Reviews A Movie. #28: Kick-Ass (2010)

I'll bet you thought I was going to start this review with something lame and corny like "Kick-Ass kicks ASS."

You did, didn't you?

Well forget it. I won't do it.

...

But to be fair, Kick-Ass does kick some serious ass.

As you may have gathered from my review of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I can't resist a film about unlikely or amateur superheroes. (Or, in Dr. Horrible's case, supervillains.)

Thus, it shouldn't come as any sort of surprise that I just watched Kick-Ass for the second time...and loved it.

Again.

Kick-Ass is the story of Dave Lizewski, a geeky teen who, after years of fascination with fictional superheroes, finally decides to don a costume and try his hand at the craft.

As you can imagine, our protagonist encounters some serious drawbacks as the superheroic Kick-Ass, what with the no-super-powers and the no-formal-training and the not-entirely-heroic-physique, but with the help of two highly secretive and experienced superheroes, played by Nicholas Cage and eleven-year old Chloe Moretz, Kick-Ass ultimately manages to...well, kick ass.

I really dig this movie, but if I learned anything from my adoration of 2009's Watchmen, it's that it's tough to give films a glowing recommendation when they also exist in graphic novel form. Essentially, you're almost guaranteed to piss off someone who thinks the movie didn't do justice to the book.

Luckily, with Kick-Ass, the rights to the film were sold before the first issue of the comic book was published. So it isn't so much an adaptation as an alternate interpretation of the Kick-Ass concept--which branched off from the same moment in time as the textual edition.

In other words...score one for Matthew Vaughn! Not only is he married to Wayne's-World-Salute veteran Claudia Schiffer, he also managed to make a superhero flick that effectively avoids fair comparison to the original text. Schwing!

But with that said, even if the cinematic version of Kick-Ass was a straight-up adaptation, I think it would've fared pretty well, even with fans of the comic.

First, the action sequences are awesome--surely they were well-illustrated in comic form, but there's nothing quite like watching eleven-year old Hit Girl flat-out demolish a room full of thugs in real time.

The action sequences are also very creatively presented, with different lighting and camera effects to make each major battle distinct from the others.

Second, it includes a tribute to Kick-Ass' graphic origins with a beautifully effective still-image montage depicting the origin story of Kick-Ass' ally, the superheroic Big Daddy. (Played delightfully by Nicholas Cage, who more than makes up for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans with an eccentric homage to Adam-West era Batman).

And third, it sports a pretty decent soundtrack--something the graphic novel can't compete with unless you're reading it with headphones on. And even then, you'd have to be constantly pressing "Play" and "Pause" at the appropriate moments, which is way more annoying than watching a movie.

Overall, I think Kick-Ass would please graphic novel enthusiasts just as much as gung-ho moviegoers. For a blockbuster action movie, it has an appropriate amount of plot and humour to offset the violence and badassery, and it's charmingly self-aware as a superhero flick about superheroes.

And let's face it. We all have to do something with our time while we wait for Christopher Nolan's next Batman movie.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #52: Che: Part One (2008)

Having just visited Cuba, I suddenly felt the need to learn more about the history of its world-changing revolution. After some reading and some documentary viewing, I gave Soderbergh's big Che biopic a look. It's a double whammy since there's a lot of ground to cover, and was released in two honkin' parts.

Che: Part One is partially told as a broken narrative - while disorienting at first, once you get a sense of the three or four timelines explored in Che's life, it doesn't jerk you around too harshly. Shot in a documentary style, it lets the viewer make sense of the film's personalities and narrative on their own with little exposition or clear judgement, for the most part. The only place where it clearly takes a stance, as far as I can tell, is with Che himself. Che has, as you very likely know, become a legend. An icon. As a result, moreso even than Fidel Castro, it's pretty hard to tell where the real story is and where the myth and romanticism has been added. Soderbergh's film, at least in part one, presents a Che that's idealistic, intellectual, and pure of intention. That's certainly how he's been remembered, but I was hoping to see something in terms of flaws. I suppose any he might have had have been lost to history, and anything added would be a wild guess that'd serve little purpose in the end.

So: Che: Part One suffers from a flatness typical of newer Soderbergh films, but managed to keep me interested. I like Benicio Del Toro a lot, despite The Wolfman.

Wendy's Films of 2010 #91: Tang shan da xiong (Fists of Fury) (1971)

So this isn't actually the Bruce Lee film that most people know as "Fists of Fury" (a film made the next year, about a different subject, but by the same director). The confusion arises when the dubbed version of Tang shan da xiong released in America is called Fists of Fury, and the next year a similar film is given the same English title, even though the original titles of these films weren't anywhere close to this one (Big Brother of Tongshan/Jing wu men). Tang shan winds up with several different titles in the English language including Fists of Glory and The Big Boss (the now official title). This is merely a bit of trivia that I found entertaining, but I thought it made an interesting point about the creation of English language titles. Even when the first Harry Potter film was released I didn't understand why the American release of the book was titled "Sorcerer's Stone" while the original was "Philosopher's Stone". Feel free to comment on translated titles that flabbergast or interest you in some way. And after all that, you can actually find Tang shan da xiong under MarArts: Lee as Fists of Fury. 

As for the film itself, the plot was interesting enough: a man who has sworn not to use his martial arts training for the purpose of violence begins to notice the disappearance of his cousins at the ice factory where he works. Of course, as you can probably imagine, violence ensues and Bruce Lee gets to kick some ass. The random female nudity seems out of place, but I suppose it's not really meant to be anything other than a tactic to get larger audiences. There is a copious amount of violence, from hatchets in the back, flashlights to the head, and several difference ice-related deaths, in addition to the awesome Bruce Lee hand-to-hand combat. Overall, the film isn't really anything momentous, but it served its purpose as a diverting and sometimes comical, martial arts movie.

New to the Store: Week of 3 August, 2010

NEW RELEASES

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Dungeon Masters, The
Ghost Writer, The (also BluRay)
Heroes: Season 4
Ip Man
Kick-Ass (also BluRay)
Pool, The
Prodigal Sons
Prophet, A
Stephen Fry in America
Town Called Panic, A

NEW ARRIVALS

Camp Fear
Deathsport / Battle Truck
Emmanuelle and the Art of Love
Men who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, The
Most Beautiful, The
Sanshiro Sugata
Sanshiro Sugata, Part 2
Senta: Danish Pastry
Swamp Girl / Swamp Country
Wild, Nude & Natural Collection
X-312 Flight to Hell