Seasons Screenings

I'm jumping the queue a bit, but as we approach the Holidays I thought I'd share my new improved annual Christmas Movie Cycle.

1. The Ref (Warm up some nog and enjoy this foul-mouthed Christmas classic. I can't say enough about how happy this movie makes me. There's no Christmas like a New England Christmas. And it's great to see a drunk Santa get punched.)
2. Gremlins (A little unusual, but you can't have Christmas without mayhem.)
3. 1941 (More mayhem, more Christmas, and a good lesson about wartime paranoia that never gets old.)
4. Holiday Inn (Okay, the bits in blackface are highly inappropriate, but actually the song for Lincoln's birthday is a good one, mostly. Fred Astaire as a rake who can really do some hoofing.)
5. White Christmas (It may seem a bit redundant, but if you're going to watch one backstage Bing Crosby Christmas movie, you might as well watch both of them.)
6. It's a Wonderful Life (I know what you're all thinking and you can just back off and let me have this one for my own reasons that have less to do about Christmas and more to do with me and the old Bailey Building and Loan.)
7. Joyeux Noel (In case you need to be hit over the head with a message about peace on earth and good will to man.)
8. A Christmas Carol (Okay, I'm a sucker for Scrooge and Marley--any version, but if you have to pick one that will really clean out your tear ducts go with the George C. Scott version.)
9. Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (Woodland creatures...a jug band...It's a Christmas miracle.)
10. Hogfather (This is the latest addition to my holiday line-up. Really delightful fantasy fun.)
11. Happy Tree Friends Winter Break (Not for the faint of heart. Actually, my favorite part are the mumbled Christmas carols on the special features.)
12. The Homecoming (This is the 2nd movie based on the novel that was the basis for The Waltons. Stories of rural life in the depression always put me into that Christmas mood.)
13. Bad Santa (I generally don't go out of my way to see any of the newer movies that are obvious pleas for Christmas viewing, but I've made an exception for this one.)
14. Holiday (I like to throw in this one just to have another vaguely seasonal comedy.)
15. The Hudsucker Proxy (The best New Year's Eve movie ever.)

Westfest 2008-2009

I've been thinking about westerns a lot these days, and what would be on my list of essential westerns, and which ones would make the cut (but only for serious students of the genre) and which ones are awful but worth seeing and so on.
And, of course, I've been thinking about subcategories and which of them people simply shouldn't miss out on.
So, I'm inviting y'all to contribute to this discussion by compiling your own lists of great westerns so we can discuss them.
To begin, I'm going to outline some of the subcategories I've identified (in no particular order):

1. Spaghetti Westerns (This has become the most identifiable subgenre in the Western and rightly so as several great films fall under this one.)
2. Jesse James (This includes movies about the James Gang and the Dalton Gang.)
3. The Earps (Even before the great contest between Tombstone and Wyatt Earp there were some truly star-studded versions of the OK Corral.)
4. Billy the Kid (Let's face it, Young Guns pretty much ran this one into the ground for a generation.)
5. John Wayne (You haven't seen a western until you've seen a John Wayne western. Not because they're always good, and not because other Westerns aren't better, but because it's like having a drink of refreshing Coca-Cola. You can't talk about what Diet Coke is or why you like RC better until you've had a Coke.)
6. The Cavalry (Some of these films could be classified as Plains Indian War Movies, and there's a whole subcategory of Custer movies, but there's nothing like a good John Ford cavalry film. Which brings us to...)
7. John Ford (The great director of Westerns)
8. Howard Hawks (the other great director)
9. Sam Peckinpah (the other other great director)
10. Gunfighters & Lawmen (Shane, High Noon, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Judge Roy Bean...)
11. Mexican Revolution (You could divide this category further into movies about the Juarez era and the Villa and Zapata era).
12. Civil War (Speaking of historical fare, most real Civil War films are better classified as "Southerns" and the Civil War features in many a good western as a backdrop of some form--even Bonanza was set during the Civil War--but occasionally you get something that really qualifies as a Civil War Western...there's even one that could be called the great SouthWestern Film.)
13. Indians (Films that help you separate your tatankas from your yotankas.)
14. Comedies (There are many good ones.)
15. Musicals (I can think of two and I don't want to see them.)
16. Wild Bill Hickock (Really, this is just a category designed to include watching 3 seasons of Deadwood which you couldn't do without.)
17. Ranchers & Cowhands (Speaking of TV, this category is really designed to cover those classic shows about big families with big ranches and big trouble or a certain show about a cattle drive.)
18. The Alamo (Because you can't have Westerns without Texas.)
19. Zorro (I'm expanding the boundaries here)
20. Moderns (Cars and helicopters in place of horses, but they're still westerns, even with a gun and a cattle prod.)
21. Pioneers on the Frontier (These are usually just straight-up dramas set in the West.)
22. Gold Rush, Gamblers, the Yukon (Sort of a grab-bag category)

Anyhow, I expect a free-for all once we start talking about what we think are the essential few that we'd want to keep in a vault and preserve.

Plucky Upstarts

Here's a pairing of plucky upstart films: Be Kind Rewind (2008, dir. Michel Gondry) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006, dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris).

It's hard to go wrong with either of these films, but together they can definitely turn a bad mood into a defiant and resilient mood. Be Kind Rewind is about the joy of film and the happiness you can get from taking back the creative process and forming your own community. Little Miss Sunshine is about the joy of performance and the bonds of a smaller (familial) community.

Ultimately, they're both films that valorize the underdog without resorting to fantasies of victory. The underdog doesn't change the world in these films, and they don't gain the approval of the powers that be--but (and this is the brilliant part of it) they show that it doesn't matter what the rest say. You can change the rules of the game and even opt out of the game and define your own victory. Consider these two films a pair of lessons in how to change the paramaters of the Kobayashi Maru of life.

I would suggest watching Be Kind Rewind with some BBQ Chicken and Ribs on a bed of dirty rice and a side of cole slaw, baked beans and potato salad and then saving the apple pie (a la mode-y, if you like)for Little Miss Sunshine.

When we talk about our great contemporary filmmakers, it's really amazing how many names come up and what a great time it is for cinema. While the John Fords, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcocks are gone, we have Eastwood, Mendes, and Almodovar.

We do not, however, talk enough about the shitty ones. The filmmakers who unfortunately ended up making an impact. The shitty filmmakers who somehow have infiltrated pop culture and are embedded in our minds. My pairing for you is a case study on shitty movies that have impacted pop society. I present two movies for my case: Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. My case: John Hughes sucks.

First off, I know, John Hughes didn't direct Pretty in Pink. He penned it and his finger prints are all over it: teen angst; Molly Ringwald, his muse; rich boy and dumpy girl. Second, I know you all think there are other criminals who deserve the attack more than Hughes. George Lucas, I'm looking right at you. Your time will come. In my opinion, Lucas and John Hughes are riding in the same bus to hell.

The real themes of John Hughes movies are deeper and more lurid than you think. Stalking, Parental Incompetence, and Economic Ambivalence.

Let's start off with a helping of Sixteen Candles.

Sixteen Candles is the story of a girl whose entire family forgets her sixteenth birthday because her older sister's presumed shotgun nuptials are occupying everyone's mind. Ah, the tough life of WASP America. I'm guessing this movie didn't get much run time in Sarajevo. In the end, the sister gets married, they remember the birthday, she gets the guy, and life is perfect. I call shenanigans, and here are the key issues I ask that you watch for:

• Stalking is John Hughes' favorite motif. Molly plays Sam, who wishes her body would develop fast so she could attract Jake, the high school stud. When she isn't staring at Jake, she stares at Caroline. We even have a creepy scene in the shower, where Sam is gawking at a naked Caroline, wishing she had the body of a 30 year old in a gratuitous shot. Anthony Michael Hall, the nerd, is stalking Sam all over a high school dance. Jake is calling Sam at odd hours of the night, demanding to speak with her. Lovely.
  
• Jake Ryan, the object of Sam's lust, is a fucking date rapist. He's a complete piece of shit and probably the last person you ever want to see a girl end up with. The way he and his cronies throw money around makes you wonder what kind of shit is going down in the Midwest.
  
• Referring to his girlfriend: "I can get a piece of ass anytime I want. Shit, I've got Caroline in the bedroom right now, passed out cold. I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to."
• Bartering for the panties of a girl, using his girlfriend: "You let me keep these, I'll let you take Caroline home".
  
• Giving out his dad's car, a Rolls Royce, part of the bartering process: " No, this is my dad's car. You said you couldn't drive a stick."
• The nerds, particularly John Cusack, are painted with such reverence and depth, I'm amazed they didn't get their own spin off. Night vision goggles at a high school dance? Making bets with floppy disks? Let me tell you, I was a member of the dork squad in high school. We weren't wishing we were the cool people, we were making fun of them.
  
• Long Duck Dong, a most racist caricatures at a time when the Japanese were still treated as an economic enemy as the Cold War slowed down.
• 80's Midwest Suburban America made Huxley's Brave New World look like the fucking Pulitzer judging panel.
  

Maybe it's being a first generation American. Maybe it's growing up in a big city. To be honest with you, as catchy and clever Sixteen Candles appears to be, it's a terrible movie that rewards stalking and pare.

Next, let's move on to the second spot on the pairing: Pretty in Pink.

Holy Jesus, I hate this movie. This movie has the same themes:

• Andie kind of likes Blane, who may be stalking her a bit at first, while Duckie is stalking her the whole time, while Stef, Blane's best friend, may have tried to stalk her once before.
  
• Duckie: "God, Andie, I'd've died for you!"
• Blande: "I love you... always."
• These kids' parents are either a deadbeat dad or not fucking there
• To quote Stef, "Money really means nothing to me. Do you think I'd treat my parents' house this way if it did?"

Blane is a rich kid in a public school, who is completely vapid. But for the good graces of his friend, Stef, he would have been eaten alive years ago. So this blue blooded twerp falls for one of the snotty little artsy girls in school, Andie. He decides he might like her, and so he wows her with his impressive, yet stalkerish computer skills, and they go out on a date, which he is late for. Very impressive, Blane. The date does not go well, and for the life of me, this fucker can't put two and two fucking together. Hey, my friends who all hate you are having a party, let's go! Hey, this guy is always rude to me, but he's always hanging around you, what's his deal? Hey, why can't I see your house? After Blane takes her out on some shitty dates, we are lead to assume that he probably sneaks to third base.

His good friend, and the only reason people give him the time of day, Stef, tries to talk sense into him throughout the entire movie. Why is this girl so special? What's the big deal? Why are you killing yourself over this chick? She is nada. He never debates this with his friend, just grins, and the moment they hook up, Blane blows her off and feels bad. Then all movie long, we deal with his moral hangover. How bad does he feel? He tells her I love you, after like what, four minutes of total dialogue in the movie together? Some dumb bastards have seen this movie and probably told a girl I love you on the third date because of that fucking scene. Girls see this and think, "awmahgawd that's so awesome", but if a real guy dropped an L bomb like that, it would scare the shit out of her.

For the girl, we once again have Molly Ringwald, again. This time she's the poor girl, with the unemployed dad, abandoned by her mom, wrong side of the tracks, best friends with a guy who probably steals her perfume bottles so that he can spray the inside of a plastic bag to put over his head while he beats off, and is in love with a douche bag.

That's right, Duckie. The poor bastard thinks he has a chance up to the LAST FUCKING FRAME OF THE MOVIE. Don't get me wrong, I've dealt with Duckies my entire life. Guy friends who I couldn't shake, who talked me down to their lust objects, confessed their undying love every other minute, and so on and so forth. Do women really keep their stalkers this enamoured, or shouldn't there have been a point already where Duckie has already become a methhead cutter and tried to collect her hair for the Andie doll he has back at home? Maybe it's just me, but infatuation can't last that long and stay healthy.

Alas, Andie figures, it's okay to take Duckie for granted, but heaven forbid she be taken for granted. She's so unique. She's an artist. Well, she's certainly not a fucking dress maker. How does destroying two perfectly good dresses and making one God awful dress equal talent? Just look at that dress. Hit pause and look at it. Seriously, it's fucking terrible. All movie long, all we hear about is this dream to be a designer, and this is what we get?!

So basically, we have two movies that try to deal with teen angst, but instead of helping alleviate this tense period in anyone's life, it picks open the wounds and digs a finger into them. Pop culture has made a place for these movies with a type of Stockholm Syndrome that I fail to understand.

The Devil and Mr. Jones

One time, my friend and I walked into this fancy chocolate store, and the girl behind the counter encouraged us to try a truffle infused with cayenne pepper. I said, “No way, but I’ll take that chocolate with the sugar-encrusted violet leaf on top.” It turns out a sugar-encrusted violet leaf does nothing to enhance the taste of chocolate—it’s a bit like eating a regular truffle with a Lucky Charms “marshmallow” on top. My friend tried the cayenne peppered chocolate, and she said it rocked. She offered me a bite, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try it. The violet leaf situation was a disappointment, sure, but a truffle infused with cayenne pepper sounded too much like someone had purposely put two laughable ingredients together to see which idiot would buy it.

I tell you this because I swear I would never do that to you—I know how it feels to be tempted by an obnoxious pairing only to back away because you’ve got a nagging feeling that someone’s yanking your chain. So, to earn your trust, I will explain why I think the pairing of The Devil Wears Prada and No Country For Old Men works.

I make it a rule never to watch movies based on thinly veiled memoirs. Never seen the movies Angela’s Ashes or The Nanny Diaries, even though I read both and enjoyed them for a fun read. The Devil Wears Prada, also a memoir-ish adaptation, had two things going for it—Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci—but I still refused to see it because…well…it just sounded too damn girly. Held hostage one evening by boredom and lack of anything better to do, I begrudgingly watched Devil on cable, and was pleasantly surprised. The lack of plot and character depth not being one of the aforementioned surprises, the utterly mesmerizing performance by Meryl Streep is a thing to behold. So rarely do we encounter a true female alpha dog on film, and Streep takes us to school. She speaks softly, and her underlings strain to listen. She asks the impossible with a lackadaisical tone. She carves unwanted vulnerabilities out of her soul as a hardy farm wife might bludgeon and skin a hen. I’m talking about nuance—sprinkling an unpredictable element on a worn-out stereotype and making it fresh. Nuance in alpha female roles is rare, and it was surprising to find it in a movie about the inner-workings of a fashion magazine. Add the presence of the always-endearing Stanley Tucci as Streep’s number two in command, and you’ve got yourself a swell piece of movie candy.

Next, take a break with some crisp Chardonnay and Frito Pie, and then dive right into No Country For Old Men.

If you haven’t been living under a rock this past year, Javier Bardem, with his Beatles haircut and pneumatic cattle prod, turned in quite the performance as the serial killer Anton Chigurh. Most award ceremonies would have you believe this character is the story’s centerpiece, but in Cormac McCarthy’s novel the story belongs to Sheriff Tom Bell, played in the Coen Brothers’s adaptation by Tommy Lee Jones. The South Texas landscape and its ruthless gangs conjure the Biblical brutality of hell, and Sheriff Bell is getting too old for that shit. If you got a whiff of female alpha dog in Devil, open up your nostrils for a real alpha male in No Country. I’m not talking about Bardem’s Chigurh, a strange sexless dichotomy of clownish fear. I’m talking about the haggard face of Jones’s Sherriff Bell, peering from behind the newspaper long enough to talk to his second in command through a crime scene like one might talk to a toddler. It’s that same face, haunted, that lingers in the final frame—solid, weary, and frightened.

Mmmm…chew on that.

Is It a Wonderful Life, Really?

I'll have to admit that the next pairing is likely to be a moody one, but I find it philosophically fascinating. It's a Wonderful Life and Donnie Darko. Obviously the second movie is informed by the older film, and so I would suggest watching Donnie Darko as the 2nd feature. Both of these films are reflections on what the world would be like without the main character. They are both meditations on the impact of one person's life--they are both about the struggle to understand your place in the world and what life is all about. And despite the holiday kitsch associated with the one and the pretentious teen angst associated with the other, I find them both to be profoundly human, profoundly moving. They make me think about my life--and that may not always leave me happy, but it makes me want to be a better person, and in that regard I think they make a great pairing for a night of contemplation. Not exactly a cheery evening, but not dark and bitter, either. Not really. Because these two films are all about how it's impossible to really know (outside of a miraculous disruption of the space/time continuum) what the measure of a person really is--and that happiness is what you get when you're doing your best to make a better world in the little ways that you can. And that's a good thing to think about now and then. I would suggest trying this pairing with buffalo burgers (with blue cheese crumbles) and a milkshake.

To Begin

I've never posted any sort of blog before, so bear with me as I figure this out...

I thought I would begin with a pairing I have enjoyed on several occasions, "Pitch Black" and "The 13th Warrior." Both are movies I stumbled upon and was surprised at how good and relatively under-the-radar they were. ("Pitch Black" has become less so in recent years.) In both movies the hero undergoes a transformation, both fight monsters of the seemingly, or truly, inhuman type, and both are assisted along their way by a motley crew of people. Both movies, as my Dad would say, are redemptive and I can never resist redemption. (Both heroes also have remarkable voices and for those who know me, you know I love a good voice.) I've also had an assortment of accompanying snacks for these two, but for the faint of stomach, I would suggest something simple. Some salted nuts and iced tea sound good - but maybe that's just because I'm craving salt right now.

As stated, I'm new to this, but please accept this first cyber-offering.

There's Nothing Like A Great Pair

Welcome to the Malcontent Movie Club (aka The Iroquois Round Table's Cinephile Society)'s new project for movie pairings.
The Project is simple, but vast. Our alleged expert consultants will be providing you with movie pairings. This is not simply a matter of double features. Each pairing of films brings out the nuances and flavors of the two films.
The suggested methodology, of course, is for an evening at home with a pair of films that will complement or supplement each other, or provide exquisite juxtapositions of taste and mood that will make for an excellent evening of entertainment or enlightenment.

There are some challenges here:
Time is a factor. Marathons are discouraged. This isn't about cramming an evening with watching the entire Godfather Trilogy and then throwing in Goodfellas, Casino and Scarface. (That's not an evening, that's half a day.) That's like going to a giant All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. A great pairing is more like an elegant dinner. In fact, a great double feature like this could even include a meal and a date. (If you can get both of those in the same place and the same time.) But like both a meal and a date, you have to be aware of timing and tastes. And while there may be a time to camp out on a couch with a half-gallon of Blue Bell's Blackberry Cobbler Ice Cream and catch up on an entire season of Lost, we're going for something a bit more refined. Some pairings will be great to watch with a group of friends (or enemies), some will be great for a date, and some will be great to watch alone, but the challenge is to keep it down to something manageable--so, for instance, it's very difficult to imagine a pairing of Das Boot with The Return of the King unless dinner consisted of a bowl full of coffee grounds and oats. While it's conceivable you could plan an entire weekend festival including a barbecue and several screenings, the fact is that an interesting series of pairings is infinitely more sustainable over the long run when it comes to general interest.

I welcome all of our contributors as well as others to this project and I hope you will all experiment with these pairings and share your opinions as well as your suggestions.

And to get the ball rolling I'll start with this real life serendipitous pairing anecdote.

I saw Seven by myself one night at the Fresh Pond Cinema in Cambridge, Mass. It unsettled me. I'm not sure why. Maybe just because dinner that night had consisted of some baked beans and a bit of cole slaw. At any rate, I didn't quite feel like going home alone in that mood and I wasn't exactly hungry after what I'd just watched, so as I was driving I decided to stop at the Sony Harvard Square Theater to see something else. I ended up watching Mighty Aphrodite. I'll have to admit, the pairing worked for me. Both of the films were attempts to incorporate classical motifs and ideas into modern stories, both had their unsettling moments. The humor of the latter made up for the grimness of the former. All in all, it ended up being a good evening cinematically. I managed to make it home in a good mood. I've seen both of the films since then, but never together and never with a meal of baked beans and cole slaw. But maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea.