Mud (2012) and the Shipwreck of Southern Masculinity

Mud (Jeff Nichols, 2012)
Few contemporary filmmakers have nailed an atmospheric sense of place as certainly as Jeff Nichols has.  The South in Mud is dirty, ragged, barely welded together by a guy in a garage, but it still runs.  That's not the whole picture, and Nichols doesn't pretend it is, but it is the existential reality of these particular characters.  They continue to embrace it and therein find their identity.  "I ain't no townie," Ellis tells his dad when told he will be moving to town after his parents split up.  His dad understands but finds himself helpless to do anything different.  Matter of fact, it looks like he's always found himself a little overwhelmed by the basic responsibilities of life.
Talking.  
Loving.  
Giving.  
Listening.  
These aren't things Senior is particularly good at.  
And soon he will pass a lineage of brooding silence onto his boy.
Ellis is a romantic.  It's easy to figure Senior probably was too, once.  He will learn the way of his father through heartbreak.

The most evocative shot in the film.  The stoicism of the southern male exemplified.  

November 2013 -- Letterboxd Capsules

The Abyss (James Cameron, 1989) [letterboxd capsule]
I can think of several ways the movie could be more satisfying, but the truth is, after the death/resurrection/emotional climax, Cameron had nowhere else to go except into the pit. The theatrical version cuts his hokeyness a bit (thankfully), but it would never satisfy so long as he was committed to bringing us into direct contact with the aliens one last time. He forces them to become a contrived plot point rather than a mysterious texture.

Thankfully, there's lots of sturdy suspense and memorable setpieces leading up to that moment so the film still works for me overall.

Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) [letterboxd capsule]
There is a raw, relentless physicality to this that makes the film particularly intense.  The death of Vazquez has always resonated with me in a strange way.  The pain in her voice when she cries out "oh no" after being paralyzed by an acid burn on her leg....it's more than just imminent death, it is the deep sting of failure.

Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999) [letterboxd capsule]
Stone's overwrought professional football movie is very entertaining (I've seen the film several times even though I don't think it's that great) but it thinks it is way more insightful and observant than it truly is.  Add to that Stone getting a little carried away with his collage style editing and some frustratingly thin characterizations.  I think Jerry Maguire played the changing-face-of-pro-sports-in-the-90's card way better, though it is fun to watch Al Pacino scream at Cameron Diaz.

October 2013 -- Letterboxd Capsules

Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992) [letterboxd capsule]
Gosh, Burton is easily the most overrated of the Hollywood auteurs still milling about the system, but this is just such a fun, beautiful, easily re-watchable movie that I have to say a few things about it. Before bailing on the franchise he reinvigorated, he gives us the apotheosis of the short-lived 90's comic book sub-genre and a brilliantly designed deconstruction of gender politics that masquerades as a rather obvious deconstruction of civil politics. 

Who knew Catwoman was going to be the embodiment of female rage and systematic marginalization (she literally shatters a glass ceiling, twice)? She is the true working class hero. Sure, Penguin may have started with nothing, but he has acquired enough loot over the course of his criminal life to afford to build cute little rocket packs to outfit his penguin militia; Selina Kyle hand weaves her own costume from stuff in her closet, for crying out loud! Plus, Penguin embraces the usual chauvinist triumverant of sex, money, power while Catwoman has just finally been pushed too far by a system of repression.

Batman's looseness with his true identity is finally justified by his isolation, insecurity and aching need for companionship. This goes unrequited because he has met a woman who needs no man and now has only one life left to live. In the end, all he gets is Alfred and the hopeful acquisition of her spirit animal. Such a weird, awesome movie that is so much better than the '89 Batman it's not even funny (though Nicholson will always be the crowning achievement of that film). This is a more fully satisfying narrative, goes deeper thematically with better design, better performances (I never even mentioned DeVito playing with whole-hearted abandon, the role he was, strangely, destined to play), a better ensemble and Burton even gets to throw in his carnival of doom without upsetting the balance. Borderline masterpiece of 90's pop art cinema.

Behind the Candelabra (Steven Soderbergh, 2013) [letterboxd capsule]
This is what happens when a fascinating historical figure, a complex dramatic situation and game performances by two star actors get co-opted by a particular political zeitgeist.  What begins promising enough as a revelation of show business excess and domineering control ends squarely in the territory of dime-a-dozen biopic.  If it wasn't so self-consciously trying to hold up a marriage equality platform, it might have been able to deal with the paradoxical realities of Liberace's relationship with Scott Thompson and the legal complications that it brought about.  It's not that there isn't enough interest in these characters.  I mean, there is a scene where Liberace insists Thompson get plastic surgery so that he can look more like a young Liberace.  There is more than enough interesting material to mine here but unfortunately it all seems very tritely headed toward a "if only they could have been married then Thompson could have gotten a fair deal in court" resolution.  Maybe that's the only way this movie could get financed but oh, what could have been...

Con Air (Simon West, 1997) [letterboxd capsule]
It's strange -- considering what this movie is -- that it features the most restrained Nicolas Cage performance of his career. Every movie needs a straight man, I guess, none more than this absolutely bonkers but fun as hell ensemble piece, complete with Bruckheimer co-opting of Veteran angst and never-leave-a-fallen-soldier-behind war movie heroism. The coup is that the war is the prison system and the hijacked plane is obviously America.

The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013) [letterboxd capsule]
Oh, I see.
Money breeds superficiality.
But it's okay because love.
#yawn

Luhrmann can't get over himself long enough to actually give a care about anything happening on screen besides making sure he looks like the most amazing visionary to ever tell this story, even though he clearly works against his own proud ends at every turn.  He is best when establishing big ideas like the era or the city, but the moment he has to hone in on an individual and show any amount of observation or subtlety, he loses it.  His biggest accomplishment here is finding a good art director who is clearly having a blast using a blank check to do whatever they want.  So, there's some decent scenery to look at but when it comes to narrative, character, and on-screen drama, we are given the most shallow of rudiments and expected to pretend this is the deepest ocean ever crossed.  

Hard Target (John Woo, 1993) [letterboxd capsule]
You may be cool, but you'll never be cajun Wilford Brimley  fleeing on horseback with his longbow in hand as his moonshine shack explodes behind him cool.

Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981) [letterboxd capsule]
The death of idealism and the failure of political ideology.  If institutions become machines the people behind them will always be marginalized, whether the institution is a national government or marriage itself.  Warren Beatty proves to be one of the few celebrity-turned-directors to have the vision to helm epics like this.

Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) [letterboxd capsule]
Somewhere underneath all of this is a movie about a government accountant who has to add up how much all of the labor, helicopters, military ops, phone taps, office space, surveillance and travel cost the US government to capture and kill one person.

The Refusal of Culpability in 'Flight' (2012)

Flight (Robert Zemeckis, 2012)
No one likes to take responsibility for the bad things that happen.  It is easiest to blame someone else.  We accept accolades for success but always shift the blame for the failures.  If that is true of individuals it is just as true of the institutions we build.  Families, governments, corporations, schools, even churches.  It is the root of social diseases ranging from extraneous litigation to alcoholism.  In that way, Flight is pertinent and hard-hitting.  Not just because it deals with alcohol addiction, but because it deals with the root of addiction: the refusal of culpability.  And, even though it paints a far-reaching societal portrait, it is also bold enough to admit that there is a way beyond it.