"The Graduate"(Mike Nichols, 1967) During the summer of 2009, the small rom/com "(500) Days of Summer" contained a line that hit home on many fronts. The romantic hero (says the police blotter-like narrator) formed his romantic ideas at an impressionable age due to "a mis-reading of 'The Graduate.'"
An easy thing to do.
Lots of young romantic kids grooving on the surface-tension of the movie, missed Mike Nichols' (and scenarist Calder Willingham and Buck Henry's) wise, dispassionate warning of a life led for instant gratification, something that went right over the heads of a clan preparing for "The Summer of Love." When we first find Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) he's going nowhere mighty fast: first, stuck in a plane seat, then on an airport's "moving sidewalk"—life going by, him standing still. He'll spend his first summer out of college in much the same way. His first night home, he'll be hiding in his room (to avoid his parents' celebratory welcome home party) "worried about (his) future."
But the world will have none of it. Along with the free advice ("plastics...") and the pinched cheeks that will continue through his adulthood, Ben is coerced into driving the wife of Ben's father's partner home from the party. Once there, "things get a little weird." Dressed in her leopard-print coat,* Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) reveals herself to be quite the predator, as well as revealing that she's neurotic, alcoholic and...oh, by the way, Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) won't be home for hours. Yes, as a matter of fact, she is trying to seduce him,** and Ben barely makes it home uncompromised by Mrs. and Mr. Robinson, who gets home sooner than expected.
It's pretty apparent that after four years of schooling, Benjamin doesn't listen very well. Forced into a date with Elaine, he's determined to screw it up, succeeds all too well, then, having reduced her to tears, decides that he can't be that much of a heel and makes it good to her. A romance begins to take shape, but is quashed when Ben reveals to Elaine that he had an affair with her mother.
Orson Welles has said any story can have a happy ending...depending where you end it. If Nichols had ended with Ben and Elaine flush with revolution bussing away to their future, it would have been a happy ending.
And what he's done is risk something the whole movie has been warning against—becoming like his parents. Mrs. Robinson has aspirations and dreams that were exploded when she became pregnant with Elaine and she became dependent on a man for her well-being. Elaine, with no degree, is now dependent on the adrift Ben and the only thing on his mind is domestic bliss, although how he'll get there, he probably doesn't have a clue. Their impulsive act of rebellion is a trap to becoming their parents. A lot of people missed that message in the 60's, but it's always been there for anybody not blinded by the comedy and the attraction of its stars.
It occurred to me (after loving the movie for 30 years) when my wife professed to not liking it much because the character of Elaine is so ill-defined and confused. It's not a strong woman's part, despite its screen-time. And Ben is simply a mess—single-minded, shallow, without much motive other than selfish ones. He's very much his parents' son.
So, when "(500) Days of Summer" came out, with its shallow male pursuing a female through friendship and assuming forever is part of the bargain, and its female character who enjoys the friendship but doesn't see it "safe" enough to be permanent,*** the connection to "The Graduate" clicked, all too finally. It is a comedy (in the classical sense), as its protagonists don't even know that by pursuing their course of what they see as rebellion, they've condemned themselves to living the quietly desperate lives of their parents.
On the occesion of its 30th Anniversary, a lot of critics who could do so, re-evaluated "The Graduate," and down-graded it accordingly. Given the new "reading between the frames," I'd actually up-graded as being far more subtle and wise than the comedy aspects of the film would suggest. Perhaps it's time to pay a visit to Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road," as well.
What did "The Bard" say? "You say you want a revolution, well, you know/we'd all love to see the plan..."
"Everybody puts Benjy in the corner:" Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft "Graduating"
* This was the 1960's—the term "cougar" would show up forty years later. Bancroft was only six years older than Hoffman at the time.
*** "(500) Days of Summer" has a telling scene, he takes her to see "The Graduate" and she ends up sobbing; what he sees as romantic, she sees as frightening, terrifying...and her situation.
"The Palm Beach Story"(Preston Sturges, 1942) Why did the maid scream and faint? Why is the bride trying to hail a taxi? Why did the maid scream and faint-again? Why is there a woman bound and gagged in the closet? Why are both the bride and groom late for the wedding? Why did the maid faint--again?
And that's just what happens in the credits!
Sturges is having fun with movie conventions, that is the conventions of screwball romantic comedies that involve the idle rich, the ones that George Cukor liked to direct and Katherine Hepburn liked to star in, where the couple getting married at the beginning of the movie might not be the the couple connecting at the end...or will they? Maybe they'll get back together. Don't like the answer? Wait two hours. It will probably change.
Sturges thinks (rightfully) that if such capricious creatures did hook up, their eccentric screwballishness would self-destruct their union within a matter of months, in which case this is Preston Sturges is making a sequel to "The Graduate" twenty-four years before "The Graduate." Such pairings can't work for love or money: when the money runs out the love goes out the window, and the love isn't enough to sustain a relationship under such pressures.
Meet Tom (Joel McCrea) and Gerry (Claudette Colbert), a cute movie couple who fight like cats and mice. We meet them in the kerfluffle that is the Opening Credits, and when next we see them five years later, they're splitting up. She's an eccentric heiress with a taste for the High Life and has this knack for attracting men—this could be the further adventures of Colbert's character in "It Happened One Night"—and he's an eccentric dreamer who can't make a nickel selling his "Big Idea" of taking those camouflage nets they build over airplane plants and reversing the idea by putting airstrips across the building tops of cities. The kids are broke, and she knows she can always attract some guy lousy with money and relieve him of trying to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed. So, because they're both so headstrong, she leaves and he pursues, all the way to Palm Beach, Florida, where the two (now posing as brother and sister) hook up with two rich-nicks in the Hackensacker clan, played by Rudy Vallée and Mary Astor. The Hackensackers are two of the oddest peas growing up in a single pod: he's bookish and wormy and has never been married, she's flighty and flirty and been married five times. Neither one seems to have a brain in their heads and are all-surface. He's careless with money; she's careless with love. They were made for Gerry and Tom.
Sturges is already busting through the movie-screen to hold a fun-house mirror to those romantic comedies. But he still has one or two aces up his sleeve that manages to resolve the situation and still remain true to the "Anything Goes" spirit of them, the "Love is Anarchy" and Convention Be Damned attitude that keeps digging pot-holes into the Path of True Love. By the end, he's created a scenario as convoluted as a Shakespeare play in the classical comedy sense.
The principals are all having fun. Colbert and Astor frolic with their images and McCrea gets to perfect his slow burn. The only dirt in the gears of the fun machine is Rudy Vallée, who plays his role of dunderhead John D. Hackensacker III, as if he was playing it for real. His funny lines are brushed aside, his physical comedy made minor annoyances: one wonders exactly what Sturges saw that he would cast the 20's crooner in such a role—after having guided Henry Fonda expertly in such a role in "The Lady Eve"—and then have the man get a contract from the studio as a result of it. Vallée was a phenomenon not unlike "Pee-wee Herman"—a little goes a long way— and his fame having ebbed to be re-discovered here, he would again fade until the 1960's and "How To Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying)." One wonders where Ralph Bellamy was—he could play guilelessness without sliding into cluelessness. But then, Sturges would often hire dull actors to play the dull love interest.
He's the only fly in this ointment to film comedy conventions. Funny and absurd and a bit surreal at the beginning and end, "The Palm Beach Story" is a fine film to enjoy pre-, post-and during a love affair.
Throughout his career, as actor, producer and director, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. has seemed to choose projects that were personal and conflicted. You look at movies he starred in like Downhill Racer and The Way We Were and The Candidate, with their gilded, priviledged, clueless protagonists, and you see the man playing the parts rebelling against the "easy" "golden boy" persona, trashing it, criticizing it, while also, to be truthful, personifying it. Redford was just too much the California golden boy, smart and handsome, to have it rough getting parts in movies or on stage—so he picked carefully.* He chose anti-heroes in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jeremiah Johnson, and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. And although his acting range was limited, his determination to challenge himself, and his boyish good-looks-image early in his career is reflected in his choices as a director. Carefully, precisely, he picked challenging material ...and true to form scored gold with his very first effort. He must have been very pleased, then questioned why he won it.
Redford has never been complacent, even when he's made very complacent movies. One gets the idea that he goes into each movie, sparkly-eyed, wondering how much damage he can do with the project, upsetting the status quo.
It proved both a blessing and a curse, it took Redford eight years of careful choosing to find a second effort that might top the first.
The Milagro Beanfield War(1988) Milagro, New Mexico is about to die and only the residents of it object. A farming community, it depends on water for irrigation, but Big Business and their glad-handing lackey politicians agree to divert water only for development. That means the water in a ditch running by the beanfield of Joe Mondragon (Chick Vennera) can't be used for it. Coming across a valve that diverts water from his father's property, Joe kicks it, breaking it, and flooding the field. Hilarity, irony, and civil disobedience ensue. Redford probably wasn't the right guy to make this one, an adaptation of John Nichols' best-selling novel, as, at this point in his career, his attempts at fanciful film-making come across as deadly earnestness. And so, though it wants to be a kind of cautionary folk-tale, it comes across as heavy-handed preachiness. Plus, for all the attempts at ethnically correct casting, it's a little top-heavy with Anglo stars (Christopher Walken, Daniel Stern, John Heard ...Melanie Griffith???) in an attempt to generate income, which, in its way, is Hollywood's version of swamping a town under. Redford would become surer with a lighter hand, but still manage to be heavy-handed later in his career.
Quiz Show(1994) Redford started his acting career right at the end of "The Golden Age of Television," so he knew the milieu of this fact-based story about the "21" game show scandal. Wasp-ish golden boyCharles van Doren became a TV sensation across the country with his winning streak on a popular prime-time game show during the 1950's. What the public didn't know was that the game was rigged in Van Doren's favor in order to generate drama and higher rating numbers, so he was getting the answers and being coached on how to act as if he was struggling to remember them. Ralph Fiennes plays van Doren, John Turturro the contestant not attractive enough to compete (according to the producers), Rob Morrow as the investigator looking into the chicanery, but the best scene is between Fiennes and Paul Scofield as the elder Mark van Doren, a poet laureate who is incensed by all the easy fame his son has achieved. Redford's direction is more self-assured in this, taking on more of a jazzy editing rhythm than the simple, careful presentations his earlier films had.
The Horse Whisperer(1998) The first novel of Nicholas Evans starts with an intriguing idea, resolves it, then splashes down into turgid soap-opera material that completely negates the earlier tense story of healing the wounds, psychological and physical, of a girl and horse, received in a horrific riding accident involving a 18-wheeler. The girl loses a leg and becomes problematically depressed, the horse is scarred and hysterical, and the girl's mother—a pre-occupied fashion magazine editor (Kristin Scott Thomas, probably based—again—on Vogue's Anna Wintour) can't cope. She hires a "horse whisperer" (Redford)to deal with both, frustratingly, because he insists on his rules, his terms, dragging the family to a remote Montana location (the film is beautifully filmed by the eclectic Robert Richardson), where conflicting emotions get churned up. Evans has the characters act on them. Redford, knowing that all parties in the story, are disciplined and have histories, just ends the story before the romance novel aspects start. Smart choice, that. It was Redford's first time directing himself, and the first major role of a young actress named Scarlett Johansson.
Redford's next film is a true-life historical drama based on one of the great miscarriages of justice done in the name of national tragedy and patriotic fervor: the trial and hanging (the first of a woman by the U.S. Government) of Mary Surrat (whose crime was that she owned the boarding house where the conspirators met) after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It's clearly meant to be addressing the knee-jerk trash-canning of basic principles of jurisprudence in the face of the 9/11 attacks ("Military tribunals" and indefinite incarcerations without charges), but, taking a lesson from the failure of Lions for Lambs, cushioning it with an example from the past. Whatever the reason, it is one of those stories you wonder why it had never been made before.**
* Mike Nichols, who directed Redford in the Broadway production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park," wanted Redford to play Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, as Ben is described in the book as a golden-haired California boy. But Redford balked, saying that a privileged handsome kid wouldn't be so sexually awkward. So, Nichols hired schlumpy Dustin Hoffman instead...away from playing Nazi playwright Franz Liebkin in Mel Brooks' The Producers. Brooks was only too happy to help. Mrs. Brooks, Anne Bancroft, was also starring in The Graduate.
** It has, but on TV, in the long-forgotten "The Joseph Cotton Show."
Top Ten lists I don't do. But I do show what I labeled a "Full-Price Ticket" or a "Matinee," and do a bit of review that the opportunity of time affords. The rest I give to the winds to scatter, like Auld Acquaintance.
Here are my "Full-Price Tickets" for 2009. It is safe to say that when they're released for home viewing you "might" have a good chance of enjoying them. Lest you read anything into it, the order is alphabetical, merely:
"Benjamin Button" and "Gran Torino" were, by the score-card, 2008 releases, but I include them because they were released in Seattle in 2009. When confronted with the reality of this list, my first thought was "I'm more bi-polar than I thought:" cartoons and comic books and "A Serious Man" and "The Road." But, I wouldn't edit this list out of shame, because the results are too rock-solid—each of these films moved me in ways that enhanced my film-watching life and, in some cases, my life. And the ones that have aged, have aged well. No apologies for "Star Trek"—it was one of the few tv-to-movie translations that dramatically upgraded the material and exposed what was great about it in the first place, while exploring new territory with it. "Watchmen," for all its furrowed seriousness and "slavish devotion" was a perfect upgrading from 2-D to 3-D formats that seamlessly made the transitions between comics-panels work (something "Sin City" attempted, but only to the denigration of the source material). "Button" marked David Fincher's emergence as a "mature" film-maker (something that couldn't be said of Robert Zemeckis and "Forrest Gump" for you nay-sayers), and "Gran Torino" was the perfect cap-stone for Clint Eastwood's acting career (in a way that no one has mentioned yet and will be revealed when I finish up "Now I've Seen Everything: Clint Eastwood"—coming in 2010). "Coraline," "Up," "The Princess and the Frog" and "A Christmas Carol," each in its own way, pushed the technology of movie-making and its uses for communication and story-telling in fascinating and entertaining ways.* "Inglourious Basterds" is the best film Quentin Tarantino's ever made (his Top 8 for 2009 is below). "Up in the Air" may be the best film of the year, were it not for "A Serious Man," maybe the best and most multi-layered film of The Coen Brothers. And "The Road" made me cry...and slapped the crap out of me for crying.
The most controversial one of the list is "(500) Days of Summer," which I was told...often...was no great shakes. They didn't like Zooey Deschanel, they didn't like "the guy" (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), it reminded them of their past--that's "supposed" to be a good thing in movies, by the way--it wasn't all "sweetness and roses in love"--to which I say "You just wait..."--and they thought the "greeting card" business was too obvious a target. Only if you don't consider that "greeting cards" are in the business to make relationships as work-free and un-personal and "easy" to accomplish, a "token" relationship—qualities which the immature lead character is blissfully unaware that he shares. He wants the "greeting card" relationship. He wants love to work—no, thinks it works—the way it does in "The Graduate," that is, intent is all, make a pest of yourself to show you're interested. She expects more and will not accept less. And I find that far more real and far less shallow than the way the similarly arced Judd Apatow comedies treat their women characters (I've got to finish that Judd Apatow article!). If you didn't like "(500) Days of Summer"—what can I say?—you deserve every Kate Hudson rom-com in your future.
Here's where things get tricky. These aren't exactly golden, may even be a bit tarnished or blemished or maybe there's something that doesn't quite come together, like unpopped kernels in the bottom of your popcorn.***Put all the "also-ran's" together and you immediately see what deserves it's place and what doesn't. "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and "Surrogates" should drop a level to a rental (maybe even a cable-watcher), "Whip it," despite its sophomore feel, is a better film than "Where the Wild Things Are" (and has a better message) but WTWTA remains because it looks so darned good on that big screen. "Paranormal Activity" is the simplest concept in movies short of an Andy Warhol art-film, but efficiently exploits its audience's dread (like all good horror movies) that it deserves its place, fluke though it may be. "Zombieland?" Just damned clever and funny, far funnier than a ball-dropper like "The Men Who Stare at Goats," a wasted opportunity to an extraordinary concept. "Every Little Step" is a better film of "A Chorus Line" than "A Chorus Line" was and relieves us the burden of a remake (though a good comedy concept would be somebody wanting to make a dramatic version of "Every Little Step"...for the stage...) "Invictus?" The stodginess-staginess of Morgan Freeman's performance hurts the film, although its sub-text is far more interesting than its sports-story. Its high reputation among critics may be a result of what gad-fly critic Armond White accused them of in his review of "Precious:" white guilt. If "Invictus" doesn't move up, is there any that should? Yeah. The icky, squishy sci-fi parable "District 9" that tells us no matter what marvels the Universe may bring us, we're still only human, and to change we have to have walk around in the other guy's mandibles, which, for me anyway, told that story far better than "Avatar."
I would direct you all to take a look at MSN's "Moments Out of Time:" a feature where Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy share some of the flickering images from 2009's cinema that have found purchase in their vast film-memories. I would add a couple:
The final two shots of "Where the Wild Things Are:" Max has come home to a bowl of soup "still warm," and as his exhausted mother lets herself sleep for a moment, the child watches over her. "The parent becomes the child, and the child, the parent."
Meryl Streep's effervescent Julia Child only enhances the love for the original in "Julie & Julia.".
"Watchmen:" The original Night-Owl stops the murder of two socialites by a common thug in a movie theater's back alley—"Holy 'Well, the times they are a-changin'!'"
The entire performance of Robert Duvall in "The Road."
The sheer brio of the act and Quentin Tarantino's indelible representation of it: "Inglourious Basterds." I will never get that shot out of my head. Thanks, QT.
80 hz—"Paranormal Activity" and the horrific power of an image standing still through fast-forward.
Wanting the soundtrack of "Pirate Radio," but especially "The Princess and the Frog," and "Sherlock Holmes"—there's still some good music being written out there.
The revelation of what the Coen Brothers were doing in "A Serious Man"—I felt like my head would explode looking inside their kaleidoscope.
I drank the Kool-Aid for Quentin Tarentino (and wonder if he'll write about anything other than movies) and gave up on ever seeing an original idea from James Cameron.
Movies I would own in my house: "Inglourious Basterds," "Bright Star," "Star Trek," "A Serious Man," "Up," "Up in the Air," "Watchmen."
Here (without comment)***, is the list of films worthy of Preservation in the National Film Registry for 2009, by the Library of Congress. 1) Dog Day Afternoon (1975) 2) The Exiles (1961) 3) Heroes All (1920) 4) Hot Dogs for Gauguin (1972) 5) The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) 6) Jezebel (1938) 7) The Jungle (1967) 8) The Lead Shoes (1949) 9) Little Nemo (1911) 10) Mabel’s Blunder (1914) 11) The Mark of Zorro (1940) 12) Mrs. Miniver (1942) 13) The Muppet Movie (1979) 14) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 15) Pillow Talk (1959) 16) Precious Images (1986) 17) Quasi at the Quackadero (1975) 18) The Red Book (1994) 19) The Revenge of Pancho Villa (1930-36) 20) Scratch and Crow (1995) 21) Stark Love (1927) 22) The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) 23) A Study in Reds (1932) 24) Thriller (1983) 25) Under Western Stars (1938)
Some favorite bits of writing from 2009. For some, context is all, and you have to be there.
"Nah, that's not going to work" -- "Up" (The longest sustained laugh from the adults in the audience)
"Garfield...maybe" -- Zombieland
"'Roses are red, violets are blue... Fuck you, whore!' What IS that?" -- (500) Days of Summer
"Actually, Werner, we're all tickled to here you say that. Frankly, watchin' Donny beat Nazis to death is is the closest we ever get to goin' to the movies." -- Inglorious Basterds
"The clocks stopped at one seventeen one morning. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calender for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. Each night is darker - beyond darkness. The world gets colder week by week as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived. All the crops are long gone. Someday all the trees in the world will have fallen. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and road gangs looking for fuel and food. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke." The Road
"Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." -- Dr. Leonard McCoy , Star Trek
"I have a conscience" -- John Keats in "Bright Star"
Clive's Father: Culture clash. Culture clash. Larry Gopnik: With all respect, Mr. Park, I don't think it's that. Clive's Father: Yes. Larry Gopnik: No. It would be a culture clash if it were the custom in your land to bribe people for grades. Clive's Father: Yes. Larry Gopnik: So-you're saying it is the custom? Clive's Father: No. This is defamation. Grounds for lawsuit. Larry Gopnik: You - let me get this straight - you're threatening to sue me for defaming your son? Clive's Father: Yes. Larry Gopnik: But it would... Mr. Brandt: Is this man bothering you? Larry Gopnik: Is he bothering me? No. We're fine. Thank you, Mr. Brandt. I, uh... See, if it were defamation there would have to be someone I was defaming him to, or I... All right, I... let's keep it simple. I could pretend the money never appeared. That's not defaming anyone. Clive's Father: Yes. And passing grade. Larry Gopnik: Passing grade. Clive's Father: Yes. Larry Gopnik: Or you'll sue me. Clive's Father: For taking money. Larry Gopnik: So... he did leave the money. Clive's Father: This is defamation. Larry Gopnik: Look. It doesn't make sense. Either he left the money or he didn't. Clive's Father: Please. Accept the mystery. Larry Gopnik: You can't have it both ways! Clive's Father: Why not? -- A Serious Man
"How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks." -- "Up in the Air"
"I LOVE my babies. Why would I want to PUSH them away from me?" -- LN, from Away We Go
"He's got his little cannons and he's got his little guns, and... This is the problem with civilians wanting to go to war. Once you've been there, once you've seen it, you never want to go again unless you absolutely fucking have to. It's like France." Lt. Gen. Miller -- In the Loop
"It's amazing how fast the world can go from bad to total shit storm." -- Zombieland
"Out of the chair..." -- Spock, Star Trek
"My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I'm putting together a special team, and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might've heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Nazis. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why any and every every son of a bitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. Now, I'm the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the German won't not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us. And when the German closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good?" -- Inglourious Basterds
"What do you want for breakfast?" -- the most up-beat line in "The Road"
"My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may speak *Squirrel!*[looks to distance for a few seconds]...My master is good and smart." -- Dug, "Up"
"While the essence of our culture has been saved in the elders who now reside upon this ship, I estimate that only about 10,000 Vulcans have survived. I am now a member of an endangered species." -- Spock, Star Trek
"In those moments where you're not quite sure if the undead are really dead, dead, don't get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head, and this lady could have avoided becoming a human Happy Meal. Woulda... coulda... shoulda." -- Zombieland
Rabbi Marshak's advice from "A Serious Man:" "When the truth...is found...to be lies...and all the joy...within you...dies..."
"Twelve thousand troops. But that's not enough. That's the amount that are going to die. And at the end of a war you need some soldiers left, really, or else it looks like you've lost." -- Lt. Gen. George Miller, In the Loop
"People don't realize this, but loneliness is underrated." -- (500) Days of Summer
"Well, if this is it, old boy, I hope you don't mind if I go out speaking the king's" -- Inglourious Basterds
"I HATE coconut. Not the flavor, but the consistency." -- Zombieland
The way Chris Pine says: "Bones! Buckle up" -- Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek
"You know, fightin' in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fightin' in a basement!" -- Inglourious Basterds
"This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met 'the one.' This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story." Opening narration to (500) Days of Summer
"Don't ever call me fucking English again." -- the vile Malcolm Tucker "In the Loop"
"The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over." -- Up in the Air
"My name is Shosanna Dreyfus and THIS is the face... of Jewish vengeance!" -- Inglorious Basterds
"Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving, I shall simply say... 'Good luck'" -- Spock "Prime," Star Trek
"I'm not great at farewells, so uh... that'll do, pig." -- Zombieland
* "A Christmas Carol" for finally bridging the gap that made Zemeckis' pixel-people look like animated mannequins—expression. "I can imagine Robert Zemeckis - whose botched motion-capture animated features The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol were full of rubbery, dead-eyed, freakish-looking human constructs - watching James Cameron's Avatar with an expression on his face not unlike F Murray Abraham's Salieri listening to his first Mozart composition in Amadeus." Alonso Duralde for IFC: "From a technical standpoint, Avatar is a game-changer, a paradigm shift, the greatest thing since sliced 2001.... I just wish it were a better movie." This says to me two things 1) Duralde didn't see "A Christmas Carol," and 2) he doesn't acknowledge that Cameron hedged his bets by giving his Na'vi the expressive make-up of fauns, big eyes and hinged jaws, but no laugh-lines, wrinkles or pores. I'll send him a new set of eyes for Christmas and a new box of superlatives (the ones he's using are getting a little musty!). He's right about "The Polar Express," but that was two Zemeckis motion-capture movies ago. Get out much, Alonso?
** These were 2008 releases, but not in the wild west of Seattle.
*** These "un-popped kernels" mainfest themselves months later, like "Paranormal Activity:" there's a scene where "Micah" (played by Micah), does some post-coital commentary about the couple's love-making to his partner's embarrassment. That scene always bothered me as false, without knowing exactly why. Then I flashed on it-if they'd had such a great time, he wouldn't have rushed to the video camera, they'd still be doing it. Wah-wah.
The Story: I loved (500) Days of Summer. It rang of truth to me, not the myth of Hollywood Romance which a lot of us now take for "love," (and it could be, if they didn't cut the bad bits out, or end it at the best "Happily Exit After"). For one thing, it exploded the rom-com "given" that the girl is going to be the one head-over-heels for the guy. Here, the guy is all gooey-romantic to the point where he can't see straight, certainly where she's concerned. It also nicely tweaks the "soul-mate" myth...or "the one" (you know, who's been waiting all your life, to be the perfect match, out of the billions of people in the world). Only a "guy" could believe a concept that dumb. That there's "one." The only other person who could believe something so silly would a "girl." Either one, would have to be "romantic" enough (or should we say "particular" enough, or "needy" enough, or "naive" enough) to buy into the "soul-mate" nonsense. It's building up the notion of attraction to folkloric heights of such scale and impossibility that it sets one up automatically to fail, either if "the one" doesn't work out, or if it is never attained. And if it doesn't go right, it's devastating, prompting all sorts of odd behavior, either acting out or staying in (for example, the opening titles of the film, which calls out—then insults—some fictional "ex" of one of the film-makers). (500) plays with the concept, and manages to milk observational comedy out of it. My favorite take-away was Tom's concept of love based on (as we're told) "a total misreading of...The Graduate," which, if one is paying attention, manages to question the viability of Ben and Elaine's "love-conquers-all" romance before the end of the second-to-last shot. Director Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-man) does not follow the scripters' advice to show Tom and Summer in split-screen right before their meeting, instead giving them their own spaces, joining them once in a distant pan of the greeting card company office where they both work. They don't occupy the same frame or the same space (except in the "488" section) at this stage of the film until after we're informed "this is not a love story." Which isn't really true. It is a love story, but it's a love story born out of naivete and lack of experience and more of obsession. Yes, there may be a "one and only" but one can only find their "only" within one's self, through commitment and character.
SIMPLE BLACK ON WHITE CREDITS ROLL TO BIG STAR'S "I'M IN LOVE
WITH A GIRL." When all is said and done, up comes a single
number in parenthesis, like so:
(478) EXT. PARK - DAY
For a few seconds we watch A MAN (20s) and a WOMAN (20s) on a
park bench. Their names are TOM and SUMMER. Neither one says
a word.
CLOSE ON her HAND, covering his. Notice the wedding ring. No
words are spoken. Tom looks at her the way every woman wants
to be looked at. A DISTINGUISHED VOICE begins to speak to us. NARRATOR
This is a story of boy meets girl. CUT TO:
(1) INT CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY
The boy is TOM HANSEN. He sits at a very long rectangular
conference table. The walls are lined with framed blow-up
sized greeting cards. Tom, dark hair and blue eyes, wears a t-
shirt under his sports coat and Adidas tennis shoes to
balance out the corporate dress code. He looks pretty bored.
NARRATOR
The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New
Jersey, grew up believing that he'd
never truly be happy until the day
he met his... "soulmate." "the one." CUT TO:
INT LIVING ROOM - 1989
PRE-TEEN TOM sits alone on his bed engrossed in a movie. His
walls are covered in posters of obscure bands. From the TV,
we hear: "Elaine! Elaine!"
4.
NARRATOR
This belief stemmed from early
exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the
movie, "The Graduate." CUT TO:
INT OFFICE CUBICLE - PRESENT DAY
The girl is SUMMER FINN. She files folders and answers phones
in a plain white office. She has cropped blonde hair almost
like a boy's but her face is feminine and pretty enough to
get away with it. NARRATOR
The girl, Summer Finn of
Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share
this belief. CUT TO:
INT BATHROOM - 1994
Teenage Summer stares at herself in the mirror. Her hair
extends down to her lower back.
NARRATOR
Since the disintegration of her
parents' marriage, she'd only loved
two things. The first was her long
blonde dark hair.
She picks up scissors from the counter and begins to slice.
NARRATOR
The second was how easily she could
cut it off... And feel nothing. CUT TO:
SPLITSCREEN. INT BOARDROOM/ INT CUBICLE - SAME
On the right side of the screen, Tom continues to listen to
some boring presentation. On the left, Summer answers a call,
takes a message, and walks out of her cubicle down a long
narrow hallway.
5.
NARRATOR
Tom meets Summer on January 8th in
a San Francisco office building.
NARRATOR In
an instant, he will know she's the
one he's been looking for.
CU Summer opening the door to the boardroom, about to come
face to face with Tom for the first time.
NARRATOR
This is a story of boy meets girl. But before they do, CUT TO:
BLACK.
"The Graduate" (Mike Nichols, 1967) During the summer of 2009, the small rom/com "(500) Days of Summer" contained a line that hit home on many fronts. The romantic hero (says the police blotter-like narrator) formed his romantic ideas at an impressionable age due to "a mis-reading of 'The Graduate.'"
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