M's Musings on THE TOWN

The Town.  Dir.  Ben Affleck.  Screenplay by Peter Craig, Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard.  Based on the novel by Chuck Hogan.  Ft.  Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively.  Warner Bros, 2010.

T. and I thought we'd celebrate Thanksgiving by going to the movies last night.  When we arrived at the theatre, we realized we didn't know what any of the movies were.  Strangely, there were no posters, and no real advertisements, so we ended up piecing together what each of the movies were about in a haphazard way.  We asked a group of stoned teenagers.  This was their recommendation.

When chatting with them, we realized we knew exactly what movie this was.  In fact, T. mentioned that he had been waiting for this movie for months.  Who knew!  I came in with no expectations, beyond the fact that this was a "heist film".

I was pleasantly shocked at how much I enjoyed this film.  Ben Affleck was bang on, stealing my heart while still making me want to avoid him.  I loved how "all in the family" this story was.  Each of the crew members were tied to each other by family, sex, money and drugs.  As a result, the individual actions or desires of one member are subject to the interpretation and punishment by the group.

For the bank manager, I thought that she was kind of sympathetic, but very quick to fall for Ben.  The tatooed dream boat with an honest blue collar job, is a thrill for the "toonie" yuppie who otherwise spends all her free time helping the innocent and gardening for the community.  The extremes between the idyllic woman and the criminal with a heart of gold were perhaps a little too extreme.  If they developed her character a bit more, gave her something besides her "sunny days", I think she would have been more likeable.

I found the search for the water very moving.  I felt completely caught up with her steps as she relived it. I can only imagine how the trauma of such an experience could affect a person longterm.

T. taught me about the "death by cop" suicide attempts of the various crew members, which I thought made sense.  If you only have two options, life in a maximum security prison or death, I think I would make a last stand, too.

I found it did really validate the crew's actions and emphasize their humanity.  That, mixed with an unsympathetic cop who also went home to "nuke his dinner" really disrupted the binary of good/evil which made the movie more interesting.   The bad guys were "punished", but the system itself was put into question.  I liked that.

Overall, I did find that the movie was too violent.  I found it occasionally shocking, but that probably was mostly to do with the fact that the characters were relatively well developed before they were killed. This wasn't a random massacre, but a carefully executed game of cat and mouse by men on both sides of the law.

It was also interesting that they chose to throw in a sister/lover character to act as a foil to the bank manager.  She was disregarded by Ben Affleck, but at the same time, they did make a point of showing the two of them having some kind of weird pity fuck earlier in the film.

I thought this was an interesting, fun and powerful film.  Usually heist films have way less heart.  Good job, Ben Affleck.  I think we may need to consider expanding our repertoire to include more of your films.

M's Musings on PSYCHO

Psycho.  Dir. Alfred Hitchcock.  Screenplay by Joseph Stefano.  Based on the novel by Robert Bloch.  Ft. Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.  Paramount, 1960.

I watched this movie with a bit of trepidation.  I can imagine generations of first year film majors watching this and being filled with emotional response and a desire to write...  I can imagine academics building their careers through careful interpretation and dissection of this wonderful piece of cinematic history.  Books have been written.  People have nodded and bowed to this film time and time again.

So, what do I say without fearing judgment?  Whatever I want.  Such is the awesome power of a review blog that really doesn't try to be written by a critic.  All I aim to do is record first impressions of a woman who has had next-to-no exposure to the wide world of film.  Here it goes...  

It was wonderful that the film built up a relationship with Marion Crane at the beginning of the film.  It reduces our ability to anticipate the action, as we like to expect that the characters that are best developed are the characters we see through to the end.  The characters that don't appear until well into the film, like  Norman Bates, aren't on our radar as a serial killer in the same way, thanks to this introduction.

I found that the black and white cinematography really added to the film.  It reminds the viewer they are watching a narrative, and I think that the film can get away with more when being "realistic" doesn't require as much colour matching, but instead more texture producing.  

In the infamous "shower scene", I though the choice of many quick shots was really helpful to indicate movement and action without actually showing us anything.  These contrasted well with the stagnant, at first bizarre seeming shots of the showerhead or Marion getting her hair wet.  By focusing so closely on the eye, and then pulling out to the full face, it forced the viewer to connect with the dead person.  It confirmed for us that the star was killed off, with an hour or more to go! Expectations need to be adjusted, or, best case scenario, left at the door entirely.

I thought Norman Bates was well cast.  He was a sufficient mix of creepy and sympathetic that we got to keep guessing for awhile.  By the time he cleans up the body, we are both beginning to give him sympathy, and beginning to dislike him.  His status as an accomplice through clean up and disposal makes him ethically questionable, without being totally without values.

The use of voice over in the film was really interesting.  It served to connect the first criminal, Marion, to the mother at the end.  We see a more or less healthy imagining of what people would say or do based on past experience, and then we see the extremes of the same behaviour.  Marion has to work through, alone, how she should judge herself as a thief.  In the same way, Norman went through this type of internal negotiation, except for years with little other human interaction.  

From a thriller perspective, this movie, obviously, is the cream of the crop.  It doesn't intend to gross out (most of the time), but instead seeks to build anticipation, provide misdirection, and ultimately, leave room for a bit of a twist at the end.

And finally, this film confirmed for me that you can't have a hobby like taxidermy without being somewhat psychologically off... or a serial killer.   Don't stuff dead stuff.

M's Musings on MARATHON MAN

Marathon Man. Dir. John Schlesinger.  Book & Screenplay by William Goldman.  Ft. Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider. Paramount, 1976.

First things first.  While Dustin Hoffman may have been almost forty years younger than he is today when he shot Marathon Man, he was already too old for the part.  I mean, he just simply wasn't awkward enough and single-focused enough to be Babe.  I liked what he did with the role, for the most part, but I wanted to see a real snivelling loser who spent so much time oogling girls and memorizing data that he had no idea how to act in the real world.

As a fellow grad student, I know what it is like to be completely absorbed in your work, to the detriment of your personality, social life, social skills and general well being.  Dustin Hoffman, you couldn't pull this off if you wanted to.  Spend three or four months in front of a laptop screen eating not-quite-expired food, and then I think you would be better able to get "inside" your character.

One thing I like about DH is that he isn't really all that good looking.  By no means is he tragic, but he isn't terrifyingly rugged in a way that is distracting and uncomfortable.  Hell, if he could pull off Tootsie and still land a lady, he has proven his masculinity (I guess?).

Hated the new ending.  The whole book is about Babe learning to be less naive and to FINISH SOMETHING HE STARTED.  Its about agency and control, which he asserts far less by watching Szell fall down the stairs.  No longer talking to shadowy imaginings, but standing up and taking charge is really important.  If he was able to kill all the bad guys, then he has actually taken revenge... or grown up... or entered the real world... or something of the sort.

Eating the diamonds was also a strange choice.  Was it because the jewels would have been stored in various Jewish body cavities to keep them from the Nazis, like Szell?  I didn't follow that.  I liked it better when the idea was that he doesn't even see the diamonds until he is in the process of throwing them away.  And, by throwing them into a body of water, instead of some treatment plant, I felt like they were returning to the earth, instead of being processed (much like the Jews in the Holocaust?).  Why did the diamonds go through the same "cleansing" process?  I don't know.  Maybe I am way off base.

I really liked the Doc character.  He was charming and didn't get enough screen time.  I wish they had shown the scene with him conversing with the other double agent.  It would have really filled out his character.  I found the transition to him being Babe's brother really awkward and confusing.  There was no build up whatsoever.

Final thoughts?  Definitely worth watching.  Maybe even more so if you aren't comparing it against the book.  I heard on the interweb it was one of the first big screen movies to use a steadicam.  A kind of interesting tidbit.

Final final thoughts?  A great read.  Definitely pick it up.  Many thanks to a dear friend for encouraging me to read it many years ago (though I didn't read it until yesterday).

T's Take on MARATHON MAN

Recorded Thoughts During:
   
M: Dustin Hoffman was a lot younger in the seventies. Or whatever.

Early on, Dustin Hoffman takes off after a real life man on his usual running trail, trying desperately to catch him, and fails. I asked M what was going on, and she tells me she thinks it was supposed to be a projection of a runner, and we suddenly see a film-grainy projection of a runner.

They did not pull that off.

T: I had definitely forgotten the breadth of this movie's narrative. It's super complicated.

Best quote of the movie occurs in front of white and orange decorative steps that lead nowhere in the fountain: "Iz ZAT zee TROOF?" Wicked.

T: How's your secret agent man? He got duped and killed in by an old Nazi dude.

M: This was different in the book. (repeat x300)


The Nitty Gritty

Running for a long time should have struck me as an incredibly useful attribute prior to this movie, but it never has. Dustin Hoffman running barefoot through rubble freshly anesthetized and tortured was completely nails. My favorite thing about this movie was that it showed people can be useless student runners in the stupid nineteen seventies and still potentially be completely Boss. Dustin Hoffman's character (whats-his-face) is sort of a dweeber who pales in the face of femininity and purposely undercuts himself as a matter of habit. William Goldman, author of both novel and screenplay, delivers an effectively complex and human character in whats-his-face. It feels much less like a staged confluence of events and more like a man wrestling with his environment, truly the mark of any movie successfully attempting intrigue.

... Except for all the secret agent stuff. Those parts felt somewhat shoehorned-in and arbitrary, but I love any work that takes stabs at government conspiracy and give theoretical insight into messy rudderless clandestine organizations. That is a very popular note to strike, and whatever shortcomings I found in the blocky, uninspired action sequences and often stiff acting from supporting characters were infinitely made up for by the realistic feeling that one is Caught Up in something plausible and decidedly Bigger in Scope.

At this juncture I would like to alert the reader to spoilers: the book, as I'm informed by M, ends with whats-his-face shooting the dastardly Nazi and throwing the rest of the diamonds into the water just as the police arrive. The movie, however, sees the Nazi chasing the remainder of the diamonds down the metal staircase and falling on his own blade, Hoffman's character absconding with his gun and tossing it (presumably along with his baggage over his father's suicide) into the water along his daily jogging route.

If I might venture a guess, it seems to me that William Goldman might have been less satisfied with a character who, when given a Nazi and a gun, thinks to himself: "Kay." and shoots the motherfucker like some kind of desperado jerkwad. I felt like the story begged a more philosophically satisfying ending. What's-his-face wasn't a killer, even if his genealogy predicted it. Torture aside, he didn't want to see people die over this, he just wanted to get on with his life and right the existing wrongs. Call me a school child, but the message is stronger, and smarter. Why would this guy murder an essentially unarmed old man (granted, knife, but whatever!) and throw a billion dollars worth of diamonds away so he can take the wrap, ruin his reputation, life and career to go to jail? It ain't murder if you didn't shoot anyone, and it's not moral highground if you shortcut. A Nazi being captured by the police or falling on his own blade is like... The universe unfolding as it should. Shooting him down from ten yards away with a Colt .45 while he begs for his life is murder, Nazi torturing fuck or no.

So given the ending, I liked the movie I watched a lot more than the book I didn't read. It made more sense to me, in any case. I would recommend this movie to anyone I like and indeed, it had been far too long since I'd rewatched it.

Watch Marathon Man.