The Fountain

Requiem For A Dream, to me, was a deeply personal movie experience. I saw it at a time when many people in my family were still reeling from my cousin’s drug-related death. After seeing it I went out and bought it and I made my parents watch it (one could not have more awesome parents than I as they equally loved the movie) I knew of my fathers past, which at times was pretty scary, and how my mother factored greatly in his personal redemption. Knowing this made me self-aware when it came to participating in situations that involved illicit drug use among friends and “friends.” I tell myself that I never let it get out of hand, and in retrospect I don’t think I ever did, but Requiem For A Dream served as a visceral reminder of what not to do. Though my father ended up being one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, his road to get there was tough and Requiem For A Dream was my first literal experience of his tales, albeit kicked up a proverbial notch.

Having been so affected by Requiem For A Dream, I’ve been looking forward to The Fountain for what seems like a millennium. I couldn’t wait to see what Darren Aronofsky had to show me. I felt a deep connection to his style and narrative that has only been cemented further after having finally seen the film. I’d be lying if I didn’t think, on some cosmic level, that The Fountain was written directly for me.

This isn’t a notion that I think is entirely without merit, as I had stated above Requiem For A Dream helped my family and I through a trying, difficult time in our lives by revealing new perspectives on situations that it was hard to see a different side of. What Requiem did for drugs, The Fountain does for death. I experienced a life event last year that unfortunately everyone will have to go through at some point, the death of my mother. Yes it was over a year ago now but as I recently discovered, I’m not the only person in my family who is still trying to deal with it. They say time heals all wounds, but according to The Fountain, there are just some wounds that time can never fully heal.

We begin with a conquistador named Tomas that is set about on a quest to find the biblical "Tree of Life" by Queen Isabel of Spain. His tale is interwoven with that of a modern day brain surgeon looking for a cure for his wife, who is dying from an untreatable brain tumor; and that of an unnamed space traveler on his way to a dying star with a nearly dead tree. It’s hard to see how these stories connect just from the literal description or synopsis, but as with most science-fiction films, its never really about what its about.

The yarns that Aronsofsky spins in The Fountain are all linked by one theme: everlasting life and the desire to find it (or end it, depending on your perspective). Our conquistador views it as a literal quest, much like that of any conqueror or explorer searching for anything. Our brain surgeon views it as an obsession, a means to escape the pain of his wife’s impending fate. Our space traveler, who seems to be the most tragic of the three, views it as a curse. He tattoo’s his arms (with ash and a rusty old calligraphy pen) with rings like a tree, (assumedly) one for every year he’s been alive. I didn’t count each one, but he’s filled one arm entirely, and the other is almost out. As we’ll learn later, this isn’t to merely count the time, but as a means of torturing himself for what he’s done.

Death is immensely haunting, it’s a beast that stalks us every day. I assumed The Fountain would be profoundly sad, as with almost every tale of death and its ramifications. I figured I would cry; many scenes took place in a hospital and I still have trouble even thinking about a hospital room because of all the time I spent in them during my mother’s illness. Loss is sad, death is loss, so obviously death is sad. But, to me, The Fountain wasn’t sad at all. Sure there were sad scenes, almost every good story with a point is going to have some, but as a whole the movie was overwhelmingly positive. It’s hard sometimes to see the good side of death, beyond the usual “They’re better off” speech.

We’re often so hung-up on the here and now reality of death that we forget what death means not only in the long run, but it’s spiritual implications as well. I used to be an atheist, and I’ve heard some good arguments for atheism, but I’ve always been of the “why not?” school as far as the existence of God is concerned. It’s never been something I’ve committed myself to, but it is a concept that I’ve thought a lot about. I believe spirituality is a personal matter, meant for discussion with those you love and care about, so I’ll keep this brief. I’m of the notion that we’re all connected, every living thing on this planet is connected on some level: every human, animal, insect, plant etc. What is that connection? I don’t know. Will I ever know? Probably not, but I’ve got a few ideas.

The Fountain is ultimately about that connectedness and how death is merely a shifting of those connections from the physical to the metaphysical. My mother is dead in the physical sense, but her “spirit” or “aura” has the ability to live forever (depending on the person, "spirit" or "aura" can mean a dozen different things. In the case of The Fountain, the physical represents the human form, while the metaphysical is represented by the more tacit conceit of a tree or nature. Is The Fountain saying that our soul becomes a tree when we die? No not really, but it can be interpreted as that. It’s merely stating that no matter what happens to us, no matter where our physical body ends up, we will always end up back in nature. The “we” that ends up back in nature is more for the individual to decide, do our bodies decompose and hence fertilize the earth or do our souls “become trees”?

Death is the ultimate unavoidable truth of our existence. No matter what happens to you when you live, you are always going to die, there’s simply no way around it. The Fountain doesn’t claim to know everything, and it doesn’t claim to offer any kinds of answers, just suggestions. Because of the powerful nature of the movies message, I can’t really interpret much of what those suggestions are for you. You just have to see it and interpret it for yourself, because of that I’m sure plenty of people will be turned away by this film, even the people that it was made for; either by the concept flying over their heads or by not noticing or caring for it’s inherent subtleties. The Fountain is not an obvious movie.

As with most things in life, people are always looking for the quick answers and they aren’t used to having to find the meaning for themselves. Even with death, we try and just forget about it and if we forget about it, then we forget about the pain it caused. I’m not saying you should remember it every second of the day or think about it whenever you can, just recognize that you will think about it and that it will make you sad sometimes. Much like The Fountain, life isn’t about what life is about, life is about the journey and the acceptance of its unavoidable end.

Thank You For Smoking

I didn’t really like Thank You For Smoking as much as I thought I would. I thought it would be a dry indictment of the tobacco industry and their overzealous crusade to drain the American legal system of justice and morality. I was thinking it would be kind of like The Insider from Big Tobacco’s perspective, but with laughs. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a good movie, because it was, it just wasn’t what I thought it would be, and what it turned out to actually be kind of pissed me off.

To me, there are only 3 reasons to give 20^th Century Fox my attention: “Prison Break”, “House” and re-runs of “The Simpsons”. Other than those three things I usually avoid most of Fox’s output like the plague. Sure I watch Star Wars a lot (Fox fundamentally just distributes that) and they’ve also made some of my favorite movies of all time, but as a general rule of thumb, if it says “Fox” on the movie poster or television advertisement I’ll give it negative 10 points to start with.

Why do I dislike Fox so much? Well, if you don’t know the answer to that question, then you probably like Fox a lot. You probably enjoy the new episodes of “Family Guy” (which they’ve been patting themselves on the back for bringing back, which is kind of like flushing a turd then diving into the toilet after it). I’ll bet you even like “The War At Home” (only Fox could co-opt a phrase like that and make a shitty sitcom out of it).

I’ll bet you’re getting all wet just waiting for the next season of American Idol (which should be renamed “What’s Really Wrong With America and How We’re Too Fucking Dumb To Fix It.”)

American Idol is basically the worst television show to have ever existed. The first few episodes focus solely on degrading and poking fun of those of us who still dare to grasp onto that American Dream we were all told about when we were little: making millions of dollars for being famous; even people who were never actually on the show become famous (William Hung anyone?). The rest of the season is just a validation for millions of Americans of that very same dream: If they can do it why I can’t I? That’s why so many more people are tuning into it now than ever before, they all want to suckle on the golden teat of opportunity in the form of a TV show that further glorifies the mediocrity of Middle-America.

Not to mention the Fox New Channel, which is basically a punch line in and of itself (kind of like saying “Michael Jackson” or “Brokeback Mountain”), you already know what the joke is. But the thing about Fox News is that it’s not funny. It’s just kind of pathetic, sad and hateful.

Anyways, what Thank You For Smoking was really about was spin; how people use and manipulate information to their advantage (FOX NEWS CHANNEL). The main protagonist is a lobbyist for Big Tobacco, played by Aaron Eckhart (who is probably the best actor working today that no one gives a shit about). He is joined on-screen by a crazy leftist senator played by William H. Macy, whose own personal crusade is to put and end to Big Tobacco’s stranglehold on the American Public. The best scenes involve these two actors (although Robert Duvall’s turn as the prodigal Grandpappy of the Tobacco industry is pretty brilliant as well.) They aren’t always on the screen together, in fact they never even meet face to face until the end, but they play the spin game off of each other like a video game they already beat. They are still playing it to discover all the hidden icons, and because they’re really fucking good at it.

The rest of the film is filled with pretty solid performances as well: Rob Lowe as a hot shot Hollywood agent, Maria Bello as a lobbyist for Alcohol, David Koechner as a lobbyist for the firearms industry (doing his schtick with master precision) and Sam Elliot (who else?) as the original Marlboro Man. These performances are all well and good in their own right but they almost don’t matter because they’re just there for Aaron Eckhart to play off of. Aaron Eckhart is Michael Jordan and the rest of the cast are the 90’s dynasty Chicago Bulls, they’re all good, but Michael Jordan is the star. Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Bill Paxton, B.J. Armstrong and the rest of them all existed to make sure that Michael Jordan got the ball and did his thing. I don’t mean to discount the rest of the Bulls or even the rest of the cast of Thank You For Smoking, but it’s true.

Performances aside, the reason the movie pissed me off is because of Fox. I’ve got to imagine that a huge, massive corporation like News Corp. has a cold, calculated reason for taking part in every one of their investments. So why would a company so notorious for laying the spin on thicker than cheap cologne willingly promote a film that, pun intended, smokes them out and reveals them to be the giant assholes that we already knew they were? (the film never directly references Fox or any of its affiliates, but give me a fucking break, when you think of “spin”, who do you think of?) So why would Fox release this movie? You’d think they’d buy it and never release it, the way Big Oil does with alternative fuel technologies.

This reminds of the case of Boondock Saints. It was originally released to an extremely limited number of screens. With the help of Blockbuster Inc., Troy Duffy, the films director, managed to get a few more screens and a slightly longer theatrical run with not much fanfare. Part of Duffy’s agreement with Blockbuster stated that Blockbuster would receive exclusive rental rights when the film was released on video. Not so shady on the surface right? Boondock Saints is about two brothers who grossly misinterpret the teachings of the bible, basically: you sin, you die. It’s like The Punisher with a religious tilt.

So what’s so wrong about Blockbuster getting exclusive rental rights to Boondock Saints? Blockbuster has always claimed to be a family friendly company. They don’t even stock pornography. In the early nineties the MPAA created the NC-17 rating, originally intended to be for movies with strong adult themes, thought not necessarily involving sex or pornography. Blockbuster decided not to carry any NC-17 films. Why? Because Blockbuster has an extremely close relationship to the American Family Association, an organization devoted to setting the moral standard for America based on Christian values.

So Blockbuster, a company with heavy ties to a notorious conservative Christian organization, gets exclusive rental rights for a movie about two Christians who believe that they are the right hand of God and that they decide who is right and who is wrong and who deserves to be punished (i.e. die). Does anyone think that’s a little, I don’t know, scary as shit?

So why did Fox decided to distribute Thank You For Smoking, a movie that pretty much calls them out for being terrible people? I’m reminded of a recent South Park episode in which it is discovered that all the conspiracy theories about the government being complicit in the events of 9/11 are actually propagated by the government itself. I’m paraphrasing, but it goes something like this:

“If we convince people to convince people that we were somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11, then it appears as if we have maintained control of the situation all along.”

So by backhandedly promoting the ideas of your enemies, you are giving a slight wink that you have control over what is going on. Fox, promoting a movie that tells you that spin is propagated by near worthless shysters, is telling you, “We know what you are thinking, and we own what you are thinking, and even a tiny little movie like Thank You For Smoking won’t stop us.”

Borat: Make Win Against Big American Movie Film

So here's some Success Quotient information for you. The Success Quotient was originally intended to judge the success of the entire theatrical run of a movie, but in this case, I thought it was a good idea to take look at the weekend gross numbers. For these equations, I replaced the Average Screens numbers with total number of screens. Also, I was going to do Borat vs. Santa Clause 3, but I can't find budget information for Santa Clause 3 anywhere, if anyone finds it, please let me know. One last thing, average ticket price for 2006 isn't availabel yet, so I made an educated guess of about 6.80, up 39 cents from last year. If yoy think thats a shitty guess, let me know as well.

Just a quick refresher, Success Quotient equals:

(Gross - Budget)/Screens
Average Ticket Price

First off, we'll do Flushed Away:

Budget: $130,000,000
Weekend Gross: $19,100,000
Average Ticket Price: $6.80
Screens: 3707

Which translates to:
(19,100,000-130,000,000)/3707
6.80

The Success Quotient for Flushed Away? -4399.467.

Don't let this be an indication for Flushed Away failing miserably, its only the first weekend, and it still has a strong possibility of kicking that number up a notch.

Now lets do Borat:

Budget: $18,000,000
Weekend Gross: $26,375,000
Average Ticket Price: $6.80
Screens: 837

That gives a Success Quotient of: 1417.667

To put that in perspective, Revenge of The Sith had an SQ of just over 1600 for its ENTIRE RUN.

Now let's see if Borat can keep up the momentum.

Powdered Wigs vs. Sofia Coppola

When I’m done watching a movie, I’ll either “get it” or not. I’ll either understand the infinite complexities of it’s craftsmanship (maybe after a couple days to think about it) or I’ll just hate it. Generally, I don’t hate bad movies. By bad movie I mean a movie who’s original intention was not all that honorable to begin with (lots of explosions and violence, shaky plots, terrible actors and/or directors). Some might call them Popcorn films, or blockbusters etc. etc. If I have a seething hatred for a movie it is almost always a good movie, and by good movie I mean a movie whose original intentions were quite honorable (lots of weepiness, plenty of pandering, critically acclaimed directors and/or actors and/or writers and/or cinematographers and/or ad nauseum.) The general consensus when it comes to good movies is that you are supposed to like them, they are made by geniuses and a genius never fails. What would make me hate such a good movie so much that 9 times out of 10 I can’t get to the halfway point of the film? The answer: Powdered Wigs.

There’s something about period pieces that have always irked the ever lovin’ shit out of me. The idea that someone would pay money to see John Malkovich affect a funny accent and prance around in obnoxious clothing and fanciful wigs is just so foreign to me. I’m not saying that it’s John Malkovich’s fault (that’s something I’m going to reserve for a completely separate article) or even the fault of the directors or writers, or heck the powdered wigs. My problem is that when I see Helena Bonham Carter on screen wearing a massive dress adorned with pearls and jewels and gold and whatever the hell else they adorned dresses with back then, I just have no way to relate to it.

So when I go see a movie that is painted with all the shitty colors of a movie that I’m going to hate, and I don’t hate it after I see it, I have to analyze why I thought I wouldn’t like it in the first place. Marie Antoinette features all the warning signs of a period drama: Fancy Wigs, Pretentious Accents, Overly Decorated Homes, Powdered Skin, Lots of Clothes and Dresses, Aristocracy on the downfall, Pompous Characters, and Romance of the trashy novel variety (i.e. a queen in love with a man below her rank or class.)

I don’t wear Fancy Wigs and my home, though overly decorated features no gold trim or massive oil paintings. I do not powder my face or wear make-up. I have plenty of clothes by mostly just jeans and t-shirts. I’m not rich and the only concept I have of being rich is from watching that Richie Rich movie with Macaulay Culkin. Also, I’m a middle class white kid from the suburbs of Chicago, pretty much any girl I would want is in my class (Note: I already do have a pretty awesome girl.)

So Marie Antoinette had a lot going against it but I walked away thoroughly enjoying, nay, loving the movie. Why? I could identify with it. As soon as Kirsten Dunst stepped onto to screen I had that connection down pat (I think she’s a really good actress that hasn’t been given enough opportunities to demonstrate that fact), then she started talking and it wasn’t in a mildly European sounding accent (In movies not set in English speaking countries, people almost always speak English, and by giving their characters an accent from whatever region they are supposed to be representing, they must be from that region, right?).

Kirsten Dunst, throughout the movie, was this cute little girl whom I could relate to because she speaks like my friends and I speak. It was the subtle affectations of Kirsten Dunst’s every-girl voice that hooked me in. It wasn’t anything that I even actively realized was occurring until the movie was almost over. She didn’t over-pronounce or artistocratically drawl once during the entire film, she was just Kirsten Dunst.

Secondly, the music, oh my god the music. I heard a lot of people got their panties in a bunch that Sofia Coppola didn’t use period music in this film. This is probably a shitty comparison but A Knight’s Tale used classic rock during some of it’s battle sequences and I thought that was genius. I’ve heard the thunderous timpanis and gleefully exuberant horns before and even when they’re used well it’s generally still music created for the purpose of eliciting some reaction from the viewer. The theme from Jaws is one of those, it was done perfectly, but it was still something that no one had ever heard until they saw the movie.

I’ve always been a big fan of movie soundtracks, particularly soundtracks that feature music that I’m familiar with (the keyword being “familiar”). Wes Anderson has done this really well, and Quentin Tarantino should probably be given some sort of crown illustrating the fact that he’s really good at putting together a soundtrack. Anyways, when I’m watching a movie and a song that I’m familiar with or better yet, a song that I like, starts shooting through the speakers I am immediately familiar with what is happening on screen.

Music has that power, it sets the mood of the film, sometimes in a greater sense than the photography, costumes or writing can. Because, like I mentioned above, the cinematography, the costumes and writing were all created for the sole purpose of being in the movie you are currently watching. How does one connect with a movie other than directly relating some part of it to another part of their lives? I’m willing to bet that if you LOVE movies you probably LOVE music to. So when New Order starts playing during a sequence in Marie Antoinette, I know what is happening. It takes me from sitting in front of my computer listening to Substance via MP3 to running through a costume ball alongside Marie Antoinette and then Prince Louis. If I can emotionally connect to a movie then it doesn’t matter what else happens, I’m absorbed in it.

So maybe saying that I hate Dangerous Liaisons or Girl With a Pearl Earring is a little obnoxious, I guess I just have to admit something about myself that not many people are willing to admit: I just don’t understand them. So my hatred is misplaced, I understand that. I guess I don’t hate them, but I still don’t like them. I don’t like them in the same way that I don’t like calculus or long division. I’ll choose Marie Antoinette and arithmetic any day.

I don’t think the point of Marie Antoinette was to make it more accessible, just more identifiable. If the story were meant to be more accessible, it would have been directed by some Music Video Throwback and featured a much more contemporary (read: much more AWFUL) soundtrack. I think Sofia Coppola was very careful in not selecting more current music (though she does whip out the Strokes and there is a cameo by Phoenix) or going overboard with the very “now” dialogue. She does it in a way that I imagine she’s been thinking about doing it since she was young Marie Antoinette’s age. Its very playful, almost like the actors are her dolls and the movie her dollhouse. When a little girl pretends to be a princess, she doesn’t speak in the voice of a cultured dauphine, she speaks like a little a girl.

"It's a bad day to be a zombie!"

I'm writing this fresh after seeing a trailer for Day of the Dead, scheduled for release in April 2007. To be honest, I was expecting a bad movie based on the casting choices, which were known beforehand. All the important parts are filled by young, pretty, "Dawson's Creek" types (and if Nick Cannon doesn't sound like a porn star's name, I'll eat a bucket of scorpions). Most - all - successful zombie movies have starred relatively ordinary-looking people, because that's who audiences relate to. And if you don't want your audience to relate to your characters, then go ahead and hire plastic twentysomethings for all the main roles - but you won't have a zombie movie, you'll have an episode of "Buffy."

Then I watched the trailer. I can now state with confidence that Day 2007 won't be bad at all.

It will be pure shit.

What we're looking at appears to be a prequel to Dawn 2004, judging by the zombies (they look and sound and move exactly like Zack Snyder's undead) and the premise (evil corporation/government/military creates virus which infects entire town). This, in itself, doesn't bother me (although, shouldn't the title be Night instead of Day then?). In fact, I think it'd be an interesting concept - if done well. It doesn't look like we're getting that next April.

First of all, if the quality of the trailer is any indication, then this film is being produced by people who have clearly have no business advertising any kind of fiction. The trailer editors apparently come from the "give away every possible twist" school of film advertising (and the twists weren't all that brilliant to begin with). We find out one of our "Dawson's Creek" survivors is infected, but no one knows whom. Then, we find out which one, as he furtively stares at the bite mark on his arm. Congratulations, trailer guys - you've successfully deflated an already cliched suspense-building technique. We find out that the disease was produced by your standard evil scientific research, like that was going to be some kind of revelation. The basic message of the trailer seems to be, "this movie is so predictable that you'll know what's going to happen fifteen minutes in, so I'm going to save you that fifteen minutes right now."

If that didn't insult my intelligence enough, there's the coitus factor. Toward the beginning of the trailer, before the Bad Stuff starts happening, there's a girl saying, "I want us to be special," or some such typical prelude-to-fucking bullshit. This shifts to a quarter-second of her and her boyfriend doin' the nasty. It's subtle as a hammer, as if the producers themselves were nudging us in the ribs with their elbows and saying, "Hey guuuuuys...BOOBIES!!!" If random gratuitous sex is one of the selling points of your film, you need to go back to zombie school.

At least Ving Rhames is in the film, playing Badass Black Sergeant. I liked him in Dawn 2004 as Badass Black Cop. But even he seems to be bored with his lines.

This isn't "remake bitterness." The original Dawn of the Dead was a zombie masterpiece, but I still enjoyed its 2004 remake (which, incidentally, had a much better trailer--none of this giving-away-everything and what-have-you). The original Day of the Dead is one of my favorite zombie movies of all time, but it doesn't color my opinion of this film. The fact that I could wipe my ass with celluloid and produce a better zombie film, however - that's definitely a factor.