Silence of the Lambs- Now, honestly. You can't tell me at some point in your life you haven't seen a friend or co-worker putting some kind of emollient on his or her skin and not said, "It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!" (And if that person has your sensibilities, they of course responded, "Put the lotion in the fuckin' baaaasket!") Jonathan Demme takes Robert Harris' tightly woven mix of detective procedural and character-driven suspense thriller to give us a movie which deservedly swept the 1991 Oscars.
So, consider the character of Clarice Starling.(Played by the very capable Jodie Foster) When we first meet her, she's unglamourously running through an FBI trainee obstacle field. She's summoned to meet the FBI head of Behavioral Science, Jack Crawford.(Scott Glenn) Note how on the way to meet Crawford, Demme sticks Starling in an elevator surrounded by several male FBI trainees, all dwarfing her. Later on, in a scene set in a rural southern funeral home, she's surrounded by the hostile presence of a crowd of rural policemen. Usually, in thrillers with a female protagonist, she's always given a husband or boyfriend to act as the stable force in her life. (and, y'know, save her bacon in the film's third act...) In Starling's case, Crawford is as likely to use her up as a military captain sending troops to take an enemy hill. While he's a mentor of sorts, Crawford is not the asset Starling uses to track down the killer of young women, Buffalo Bill.(Ted Levine,in a creepy performance) That role goes to a most unlikely candidate...
Hannibal Lecter. He's become a pop icon of malevolence right up there with Dr. Mabuse or Baron Corvo. Lecter made an appearance in Harris' earlier book, 'Red Dragon' (filmed by Michael Mann as Manhunter, and the inferior remake by Brett Ratner.) In 'Red Dragon', Lecter's 'help' caused the protagonist permanent mental, and physical damage. He aids Starling in her search, mainly to show off his considerable intellect, partially to open a door to escape, partially to engage in causing more suffering...and because this monster may be attracted to Starling. Her meetings with him are like watching a feeder bird in a crocodile's mouth.
Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?
Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lamb, Clarice?
What impresses me about Starling is her sheer tenacity. It impresses Crawford enough to keep her on the 'Buffalo Bill' case and Lecter is impressed by her to aid her indirectly. (She stands her ground when another inmate at the asylum where Lecter is housed flings his 'baby-batter' at her-EWWWWW!! and Lecter changes his earlier sneering opinion of her.) In Starling's dealings with Lecter, she gains his help by sharing her deep personal traumas with him, knowing his capacity for cruelty on a whim, knowingly offering him her throat. (There's a sample of this when the bound Lecter, facing the kidnap victim's mother, monstrously taunts her anxiety...)
Demme and his cinematographer, Tak Fujimoto, keep the movie shot low-key,like under a cloudy day, de-glamorizing the sets. Check out, also, how canny Demme has most of the other characters when talking to Starling, talking AT the viewer, placing us in the centre of the tension. It's one hell of a departure from his earlier, sweet-natured polychromatic films like "Married to the Mob" and "Something Wild".
Friday, November 24, 2006
My Brush With Fame...(Sorta...)
So, Wednesday I was walking from my place to the supermarket to do some shoppin', as you do. A film crew had set up some craft and talent trailers in front of my apartment for a single day of shooting. They were doing a scene in a nearby record store meant to double as a place in Denver or something. Calgary is nothing if not outstanding in its sheer generic quality of cityscape. I mean, if you had to be placed in a Witness Protection program, I'd suggest Calgary. It's literally the last place on the planet anyone who wanted to 'whack' you would look. Don't get me wrong, I love this place. It's just that I've seen so many 'made-for-tv' type movie productions set up in downtown Calgary, I've taken it as just par for the course. Anyways, back to my story...
Passing by the trailers, I heard a girl's voice that sounded an awful lot like "Meg" from "Family Guy".
"Excuse me, you gotta light?"
"Um, sure.", I suavely said, reaching into my back pocket for my Zippo like James Bond would, if he had a back pocket. Checking the girl out. Dark, curly hair, slightly Slavic features, about five two, five three. Amazing pale grey-blue eyes. Dressed for Canadian winter. Nearby, an Andy-Dick-resembling P.A. had what I assumed was her pug-dog on a leash. I realized then I hadn't had a smoke since I got home from work, and didn't have any on me.
"Er, Here ya go, eh, you gotta smoke on you?" Real smooth and James Mason-like, Tom.
"Sure, that's a fair trade, smoke for a light. Hang on.", she perked, hopping into her trailer, then hopping out again.
"It's American, if that's alright."
"Hey, fine with me."
She proffered a smoke to me while using my Zippo to light hers. Gee, she was pretty, in a Jackie-from-That-70's-Show kinda way.
"Thanks, here's your lighter."
"You're welcome, have a good 'un." And so I continued to the store, lost in thought about the movie industry while she fussed over her pug-dog. Man, that girl was nice. And cute. I guess aspiring actresses 'nic-out' like everyone else. That girl kinda looked like Mila Kunis. Prettier, though.
Didn't think much of it 'til I got to work that evening, flipped through the paper before my shift started...
The Hell? What's THIS article?
"...and shooting in town, SOME RANDOM ACTOR GINK in "Straight-Edge" also starring MILA KUNIS?..."
Holy shit! I bummed a smoke off MILA KUNIS? MEG? Man, if I had known, Id've become Gibbering Starstruck Fanboy then and there! Can I take your picture, Miss Kunis? No one's gonna believe I met "Meg" from "Family Guy"! Why'd you do "American Psycho 2: Electric Boogaloo?" What's Macaulay Culkin got that I don't, anyways? Seth McFarland should give 'Meg' more to do in "Family Guy", dammit! Shee...
Mila Kunis smokes Parliaments. They taste terrible.
Passing by the trailers, I heard a girl's voice that sounded an awful lot like "Meg" from "Family Guy".
"Excuse me, you gotta light?"
"Um, sure.", I suavely said, reaching into my back pocket for my Zippo like James Bond would, if he had a back pocket. Checking the girl out. Dark, curly hair, slightly Slavic features, about five two, five three. Amazing pale grey-blue eyes. Dressed for Canadian winter. Nearby, an Andy-Dick-resembling P.A. had what I assumed was her pug-dog on a leash. I realized then I hadn't had a smoke since I got home from work, and didn't have any on me.
"Er, Here ya go, eh, you gotta smoke on you?" Real smooth and James Mason-like, Tom.
"Sure, that's a fair trade, smoke for a light. Hang on.", she perked, hopping into her trailer, then hopping out again.
"It's American, if that's alright."
"Hey, fine with me."
She proffered a smoke to me while using my Zippo to light hers. Gee, she was pretty, in a Jackie-from-That-70's-Show kinda way.
"Thanks, here's your lighter."
"You're welcome, have a good 'un." And so I continued to the store, lost in thought about the movie industry while she fussed over her pug-dog. Man, that girl was nice. And cute. I guess aspiring actresses 'nic-out' like everyone else. That girl kinda looked like Mila Kunis. Prettier, though.
Didn't think much of it 'til I got to work that evening, flipped through the paper before my shift started...
The Hell? What's THIS article?
"...and shooting in town, SOME RANDOM ACTOR GINK in "Straight-Edge" also starring MILA KUNIS?..."
Holy shit! I bummed a smoke off MILA KUNIS? MEG? Man, if I had known, Id've become Gibbering Starstruck Fanboy then and there! Can I take your picture, Miss Kunis? No one's gonna believe I met "Meg" from "Family Guy"! Why'd you do "American Psycho 2: Electric Boogaloo?" What's Macaulay Culkin got that I don't, anyways? Seth McFarland should give 'Meg' more to do in "Family Guy", dammit! Shee...
Mila Kunis smokes Parliaments. They taste terrible.
Monday, November 6, 2006
Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
(Forward: I've been selected to host a review/response to the "Borat" movie by the Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs in Kazakhstan, a fellow by the name of Gennedy Y. Yaktusk. Hence, my interruption of my Top Ten Movies list. Enjoy...)
Hello to all North Americans, and Alaska, too! I am Gennedy Y. Yaktusk, Head Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs based in the very fine (and cosmopolitan!) city of Alma-ata! I hope you are doing fine, and cordially invite you all to visit our splendid homeland! This unfortunate movie starring Sascha Jew Baron Cohen, has perhaps perpetuated many vile stereotypes of my proud country. I, of course, realize it is humorous satire, and were Jew Cohen's repellent television anchorman based in say, Ashkhabad or Tashkent, I would not, how you say, "be batting an eyelid". But he presents a racist, hairy stereotype of Eastern Europe as backward, ill-bred, and overly sexyful. Such is not the case, I most hurriedly assure you! The Jew Baron Cohen displays beloved Kazakhstan as anal opening of a country with dirt, straw, in-breeding, and keeping of billy-goats on straw roofs. I chuckle in condescending manner to think of Kazakhstan being portrayed in such an ill manner.
Were you, gentle viewer, to come to visit lovely Alma-ata in the spring, you would gape and slap your forehead in astonishment! Here you will feel you are in bustling major Western city, like Berlin or London or Saskatoon! Here you see paved roads and amber streetlights in fine working order! And upon our streets you will find the young peoples with their Ipods listening to "The Jets" and "The Franz Ferdinand" while "getting down" upon the sidewalk (clear of feces, I hasten to add) with their "fresh" Nike-brand trainers. We host many Western companies here, providing cheap, industrious labour to make your Xboxes and Adidas to be enjoyed by even Negros! I, myself, am proud owner of 2001 Ford Escort with Blaupunkt stereo. So, you see, Jew Baron Cohen and director Larry Charlestein's cheap shots at small but proud Kazakhstan fail like Lesotho football club into FIFA series!
Jew Baron Cohen portrays idiot newsperson to America with fat hairy mutant producer to learn "America" from "Jew York City". This is foolish on face of it. Perhaps, if Jew Cohen stop to think of it, would not Kazakhstan have good "vibe" with America owing to our plethora of Satellite T.V.? Perhaps, in fairness, would Vice-President Richard Cheney be coming to Alma-ata to witness our modern, progressive state? (an aside: there is no "Running of the Jew" festival anywhere in Kazakhstan, on account of the last Jew report was back in 1942. Foolish.) Suddenly, he is taken by image of prominent she-male, Tommy-Lee Anderson, mistakes him for a woman, falls in love, and lies to his producer to pursue unnatural relationship with Lee-Anderson transsexual in Los Angeles.
Along the way, Borat (Jew Cohen) encounters many examples of America, where he takes cheap shots at gun owners, etiquette teachers, rodeo owners, and antique store owners. Maybe America should be protesting "Borat", instead, eh? I note with disgust the scene where Jew Cohen and fat mutant hairy producer get into "Royale Battle" in their apartment, and roll about in homo-erotic display of fat, hairy, sweaty display of hairy, fatty, fatness. I still shudder at widescreen hairy man-buttocks being offered for my supposed amusement. Finally, he is arrived in Los Angeles, and tries to "kidnap" Tommy-Lee Anderson, with expected results. He does, however, find true love with American Negro prostitute, whom he marries and takes back to homeland.
This type of humor, I am to admit, is 'hit and miss'. A sequence with White Peoples dinner club seems unnecessarily cruel, since the people who are the "joke's butt" are guilty of nothing more than your famous "Southern Hospitality." (Silly Jew Cohen! In Kazakhstan, we have much knowledge of flush toilet in which to deposit feces! Also, is proper etiquette to procure Negro prostitute after dessert!) It is one thing to mock the pompous and ignorant, like racist rodeo owner and drunken fraternity-boys who bemoan end of slavery. It is quite another to humiliate people over their need to be friendly and accommodating. Ultimately, the laughs are low indeed. Almost as low, say, as someone impersonating the fractured-English style writing of an non-native English speaker in order to review a movie.
Thank you, and good day! God Bless Kazakhstan!
(Afterword: Turns out this 'Gennedy' guy is a hoax. He tried to hook me on one of those "Nigerian 409" scams, later on. As for what I thought of "Borat", Boy, was it mean, but I laughed like an idiot through most of it. My only serious quibble- It was pretty easy to tell which encounters were scripted, and which ones were real. That kinda threw me off...)
Hello to all North Americans, and Alaska, too! I am Gennedy Y. Yaktusk, Head Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs based in the very fine (and cosmopolitan!) city of Alma-ata! I hope you are doing fine, and cordially invite you all to visit our splendid homeland! This unfortunate movie starring Sascha Jew Baron Cohen, has perhaps perpetuated many vile stereotypes of my proud country. I, of course, realize it is humorous satire, and were Jew Cohen's repellent television anchorman based in say, Ashkhabad or Tashkent, I would not, how you say, "be batting an eyelid". But he presents a racist, hairy stereotype of Eastern Europe as backward, ill-bred, and overly sexyful. Such is not the case, I most hurriedly assure you! The Jew Baron Cohen displays beloved Kazakhstan as anal opening of a country with dirt, straw, in-breeding, and keeping of billy-goats on straw roofs. I chuckle in condescending manner to think of Kazakhstan being portrayed in such an ill manner.
Were you, gentle viewer, to come to visit lovely Alma-ata in the spring, you would gape and slap your forehead in astonishment! Here you will feel you are in bustling major Western city, like Berlin or London or Saskatoon! Here you see paved roads and amber streetlights in fine working order! And upon our streets you will find the young peoples with their Ipods listening to "The Jets" and "The Franz Ferdinand" while "getting down" upon the sidewalk (clear of feces, I hasten to add) with their "fresh" Nike-brand trainers. We host many Western companies here, providing cheap, industrious labour to make your Xboxes and Adidas to be enjoyed by even Negros! I, myself, am proud owner of 2001 Ford Escort with Blaupunkt stereo. So, you see, Jew Baron Cohen and director Larry Charlestein's cheap shots at small but proud Kazakhstan fail like Lesotho football club into FIFA series!
Jew Baron Cohen portrays idiot newsperson to America with fat hairy mutant producer to learn "America" from "Jew York City". This is foolish on face of it. Perhaps, if Jew Cohen stop to think of it, would not Kazakhstan have good "vibe" with America owing to our plethora of Satellite T.V.? Perhaps, in fairness, would Vice-President Richard Cheney be coming to Alma-ata to witness our modern, progressive state? (an aside: there is no "Running of the Jew" festival anywhere in Kazakhstan, on account of the last Jew report was back in 1942. Foolish.) Suddenly, he is taken by image of prominent she-male, Tommy-Lee Anderson, mistakes him for a woman, falls in love, and lies to his producer to pursue unnatural relationship with Lee-Anderson transsexual in Los Angeles.
Along the way, Borat (Jew Cohen) encounters many examples of America, where he takes cheap shots at gun owners, etiquette teachers, rodeo owners, and antique store owners. Maybe America should be protesting "Borat", instead, eh? I note with disgust the scene where Jew Cohen and fat mutant hairy producer get into "Royale Battle" in their apartment, and roll about in homo-erotic display of fat, hairy, sweaty display of hairy, fatty, fatness. I still shudder at widescreen hairy man-buttocks being offered for my supposed amusement. Finally, he is arrived in Los Angeles, and tries to "kidnap" Tommy-Lee Anderson, with expected results. He does, however, find true love with American Negro prostitute, whom he marries and takes back to homeland.
This type of humor, I am to admit, is 'hit and miss'. A sequence with White Peoples dinner club seems unnecessarily cruel, since the people who are the "joke's butt" are guilty of nothing more than your famous "Southern Hospitality." (Silly Jew Cohen! In Kazakhstan, we have much knowledge of flush toilet in which to deposit feces! Also, is proper etiquette to procure Negro prostitute after dessert!) It is one thing to mock the pompous and ignorant, like racist rodeo owner and drunken fraternity-boys who bemoan end of slavery. It is quite another to humiliate people over their need to be friendly and accommodating. Ultimately, the laughs are low indeed. Almost as low, say, as someone impersonating the fractured-English style writing of an non-native English speaker in order to review a movie.
Thank you, and good day! God Bless Kazakhstan!
(Afterword: Turns out this 'Gennedy' guy is a hoax. He tried to hook me on one of those "Nigerian 409" scams, later on. As for what I thought of "Borat", Boy, was it mean, but I laughed like an idiot through most of it. My only serious quibble- It was pretty easy to tell which encounters were scripted, and which ones were real. That kinda threw me off...)
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Top Ten list, Number Three...
Pulp Fiction- Yeah, yeah, yeah. You knew this'n would be on my list, wouldn't you? After all, one can't claim to be a member of Generation X without owning this movie, now can one? First off, having looked at all of Tarantino's work from 'True Romance' to his guest spot on 'Sin City', I've come to a conclusion about him. He's the filmmaker equivalent of an idiot savant. That is, one of those guys who can recite plane schedules or carve horses out of soap bars but can't tie their own shoes or boil water. Is that a 'dis'? No. First off, I couldn't carve a horse out of a bar of soap if I had my life to live over again. Also, I couldn't take the essential pop thrill one gets from the movies and condense it into a coherent whole. Which is what 'Pulp Fiction' does.
Tarantino bends genre conventions into loops and distills the thrills of trash films with the experimental camera-work of 'respected' filmmakers like Goddard, Trauffaut, and all the rest of the 'Cahiers du Cinema' crowd. (Who, I should point out, took their cues from American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann...) No, Pulp Fiction has no connection whatsoever to real life, and you wouldn't meet anything like the characters in the real world. But 'Pulp Fiction' connects with us.
Scenes like Vincent Vega(John Travolta) stabbing a needle full of adrenaline into the chest of his boss's wife, Mia Wallace(Uma Thurman) hold us breathless with tension. (When I first saw it in a crowded theater, the crowd was dead silent. Then a girl in the front softly muttered, 'Oh, you idiot',regarding Vincent's desperate attempt. The crowd went nuts at that comment, breaking the tension.) The scene where Jules Winfred (Samuel Jackson) and Vincent show up at Jules' friend Jimmy's house (Tarantino himself) to get out of the predicament of Vincent accidentally shooting another person in Jules' car. (that in itself, is such a shock, I almost leapt out of my seat) The dialogue between Jules and Jimmy (Haw! a Traffaut reference!) is straight out of Monty Python:
[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie's kitchen]
Jules: Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster's Choice, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?
Jimmie: Knock it off, Jules.
Jules: [pause] What?
Jimmie: I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. Me, I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.
Jules: Oh, Jimmie, don't even worry about that...
Jimmie: No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?
Jules: Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no...
Jimmie: Did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?
Jules: [pause] No. I didn't.
Jimmie: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?
Jules: Why?
Jimmie: 'Cause it ain't there, 'cause storing dead niggers ain't my fucking business, that's why!
I should also point out the camera work by Andrzej Sekula. Notice how it nervously follows the characters around in long takes. Roger Ebert points out how it seems anxious to return to the main action when Vincent and Jules break off to discuss the implications of a good foot massage early in the film. The only real criticism I can bring to "Pulp Fiction", is how Tarantino influenced a whole sub-genre of 'Tarantino-esque' film-makers who ran the gamut from okay(The Usual Suspects) to god-awful(Boondock Saints).
Tarantino bends genre conventions into loops and distills the thrills of trash films with the experimental camera-work of 'respected' filmmakers like Goddard, Trauffaut, and all the rest of the 'Cahiers du Cinema' crowd. (Who, I should point out, took their cues from American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann...) No, Pulp Fiction has no connection whatsoever to real life, and you wouldn't meet anything like the characters in the real world. But 'Pulp Fiction' connects with us.
Scenes like Vincent Vega(John Travolta) stabbing a needle full of adrenaline into the chest of his boss's wife, Mia Wallace(Uma Thurman) hold us breathless with tension. (When I first saw it in a crowded theater, the crowd was dead silent. Then a girl in the front softly muttered, 'Oh, you idiot',regarding Vincent's desperate attempt. The crowd went nuts at that comment, breaking the tension.) The scene where Jules Winfred (Samuel Jackson) and Vincent show up at Jules' friend Jimmy's house (Tarantino himself) to get out of the predicament of Vincent accidentally shooting another person in Jules' car. (that in itself, is such a shock, I almost leapt out of my seat) The dialogue between Jules and Jimmy (Haw! a Traffaut reference!) is straight out of Monty Python:
[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie's kitchen]
Jules: Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster's Choice, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?
Jimmie: Knock it off, Jules.
Jules: [pause] What?
Jimmie: I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. Me, I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.
Jules: Oh, Jimmie, don't even worry about that...
Jimmie: No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?
Jules: Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no...
Jimmie: Did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?
Jules: [pause] No. I didn't.
Jimmie: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?
Jules: Why?
Jimmie: 'Cause it ain't there, 'cause storing dead niggers ain't my fucking business, that's why!
I should also point out the camera work by Andrzej Sekula. Notice how it nervously follows the characters around in long takes. Roger Ebert points out how it seems anxious to return to the main action when Vincent and Jules break off to discuss the implications of a good foot massage early in the film. The only real criticism I can bring to "Pulp Fiction", is how Tarantino influenced a whole sub-genre of 'Tarantino-esque' film-makers who ran the gamut from okay(The Usual Suspects) to god-awful(Boondock Saints).
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