If Battlestar Galactica was a Fat Baby ...

I'd ruffle it's hair and give it candy.

What would you do?

The Prestige

Michelle and I watched this the other night. It's an excellent story about two very different kinds of obsession. Friends become bitter enemies when one becomes inadvertently responsible for the on stage death of the other's wife. As both men go on to pursue solo careers as master illusionists, a need for vengeance causes a hateful rivalry to ensue.

What's interesting is that the illusionists are very different both in skill sets and in personality. Christian Bale plays Borden, a magician obsessed with being the best magician/illusionist in the world. His dedication to the art allows him to notice what others cannot: great illusions demand great sacrifices. Hugh Jackman's Angiers doesn't have a mind for tricks, but he's a better showman than Borden. He could have gone his way and enjoyed the adulation of the people - but his need for vengeance has poisoned his soul. He is obsessed with antagonizing Borden and making him suffer for killing his wife. So he steals Bordens tricks and does them "better".

This theft of tricks invites Borden to sabotage Angiers show, Angiers retaliates, etc., etc., and always it's Borden, the true genius, rising to the top. But Nolan (the director) knows just what to do to keep us intrigued ... he has Angiers discover his own secret - a new trick more powerful than anything Borden has ever done and that may hold the power to destroy Borden once and for all.

The story is told through copious flashbacks, which works better later in the film - at the start it's unclear why this technique was chosen. Even after seeing the film, I'm not sure this was the best choice - it would be interesting to see how it would have played if done chronologically - It might have been more suspenseful.

Some have written about the film as though it's got a massive surprise ending - I didn't think it did. I don't think it's supposed to. The film is quite well made and we're tipped of pretty early as to what we should expect from the main characters in the film. It's very engaging as a drama and as a character piece, and it's particularly true to it's theme.

I highly recommend it as a thoughtful, engaging work.

Little Miss Sunshine

If you rearrange the letters in the title of this film you can spell “lies” twice. Is this just a coincidence, or it is a meaningful observation? I say meaningful observation.

I really hate writing about a film that I didn't like, I get no pleasure from pointing a finger and saying poorly done, but after explaining to someone why I didn't like this film, they asked me to write about it because they felt I was explaining what they had kind of picked up from the film but had been unable to really recognize and articulate. Since I'm reluctant to over-criticize, forgive me if I do not go into as much detail as you might prefer.

I can preface my observations by saying this film has funny scenes. It's got great actors doing great work. But on the whole the film is thoroughly dishonest - it tells us a horrible lie about life - and it does it intrinsically - which means the film knows it's telling a lie and contains contradictions that reveal this.

Spoilers from here on: The film is presented as being about our quest as people to discover who we are and to “be ourselves” no matter how others may look at us. The character who shows us this most is Olive, a young girl who wants to win a beauty pageant – the film begins with her watching and re-watching a recording of a Miss America pageant and as she watches the show Olive mimics the onscreen winner by “doing her moves”, pretending at being her. Olive then gets a chance to compete in a pageant and her dysfunctional family climbs into their VW van and takes her there. Olive does not look like a beauty pageant winner – but we like her – we think she’s cute and we root for her because her family is seriously screwed up. When they arrive at the pageant the family (and we as an audience) find the treatment of the girls competing to be rather offensive and inappropriate; they want Olive to leave rather than compete and be “destroyed” by the judges. The mother comes to Olive’s defense arguing that the pageant allows Olive the chance to be who she is. Since Olive still wants to compete the family gives in. Olive goes on to perform a striptease routine which is more inappropriate and offensive than anything we’ve seen thus far. Those running the pageant recognize it as such and command her to stop at which time various family members join Olive in the dance, both as a protest and as a show of support.

The real problem with the above story is that the pageant is presented as being the venue in which Olive will be allowed to be herself. In order for this to be true, Olive would need to dance in a way that expressed herself. She does not. She dances “the moves” that her grandfather told her to dance, and they are perverse moves. She has no idea what the moves in her striptease dance mean … there is no possible way to interpret her dance as a piece of self-expression. What was supposed to be a medium of self-expression has been co-opted by her perverse Grandfather. Sadly, at the end of the film, Olive has learned nothing – in fact it really feels like she has taken a step down. Olive has gone from mimicking Miss America’s joyful smile to mimicking a nightclub stripper – via her perverted Grandfather’s instruction. Not only that, the other characters formally forsake who they are really are and jump up on stage and mimic the stripper/Grandfather’s instruction. So characters in the film are telling the audience one thing – but the action of the film is telling us something completely different. While the film is telling us you should be yourself – it’s showing us that if you want to be accepted you need to be like Grandfather.

Grandfather’s philosophy is “F**k everyone and do what you want.” There are several points in the film where characters verbalize this philosophy as though it’s some breakthrough revelation – but in fact, all the characters in the film (except the underdeveloped mother character) are intensely selfish right from the beginning. Their sudden decision to deny themselves and jump up and dance on stage struck me as an outright lie – it was done not to support Olive (as the family momentarily suspected true support would have meant pulling Olive from the show and teaching her to become a “real self”) but to idolize/embody Grandfather and his hedonistic philosophy.

In real life living an intensely selfish life does not lead to cathartic family bonding, it leads to the despair and isolation we saw in the characters at the beginning of this film.

Writing - product vs. process

I rarely write about writing and the writing process. There are reasons. Part of it is that if I’m taking the time to write about writing, I think I should spend that time actually writing the projects that I want/need to get done. I have projects that are years old that are a long way from home but not quite abandoned … yet. I have others that feel pressing; for instance there are three features that I’d love to write this year (not to mention a novel, short stories, etc.), I have imagined and written several scenes for each, but I’ve only outlined one of them; the others are mere paragraphs. The imagination is like a tidal wave. It lurks to overtake so I write, write, write, and the writing – the ordering of the imagination from chaos and possibility to a coherent narrative - is like a tap at the bottom of the wave, bit by bit releasing the pressure. Think of it as the steam valve on the boiler in The Shining … uh, wait. No. I just wrote that because I’m on retreat at a lovely mountain inn. But now you know what Stephen King was thinking when he created that image …

The larger reason is that the product and the process are two completely different beasts. The product is a carefully crafted piece where every word is considered, every scene triple, quadruple checked for its support of the story; in short everything that can be done to make clear the story and maximize its meaning has been done. The process is throwing mashed potatoes at the ceiling in hopes that you see a shape that belongs in the story. It’s as fun as it sounds most days (yes – it is supposed to sound fun), so long as the pressure isn’t building up too much.

Fat, Forty and Friggin' Ugly

A couple friends of mine (Ali Cumming & Cliff Prang) are in pre-production to shoot a short film called CONFESSIONS OF A NEWFIE. Unfortunately the actor playing their lead role has health issues that have forced him to drop out. My name came to the top of their list as a replacement actor for a role with the character description of: fat, forty and ... you guessed it. Looks like it's time for me to admit that "I shall never play the Dane".

Ali's script is very funny and I'm looking forward to playing the role which is opposite Cliff, who I had the pleasure of directing years ago in a couple productions. And it will actually be great to step away from the writing desk for a project; it was a love for acting that got me interested in theatre and film in the first place.

Well, I better go eat and rub toads on my face.

Kiyup!

Belt tests today for Taekwondo. Thayne and Matthias both advanced to orange belt. As always it was pleasing to watch the tests. We're proud of their accomplishments.

With soccer season over, Analena has decided to return to Taekwondo starting next week. It will be nice to have them all doing it again.

My Sixteen Year Old Wife

So today my beautiful wife, Michelle was mistaken for a 16 year old exchange student. It was at the learning centre, where she had taken the kids to a gathering which had three elements: visiting exchange students talking about life in their home countries, construction of a Peace Tree and a sword demonstration. During the building of the Peace Tree a woman welcomed Michelle to the island and asked her what country she was from. Michelle explained that she was just a home learner from the island - and then had to clarify that she was a mother of home learners and not a student at the learning centre.

This has happened before but it's been a few years so she was feeling pretty happy about herself (though felt she had to explain that she wasn't behaving like a 16 year old). She attributed the error to her recent hair cut. But it could also be due to her effervescent personality.

The Departed

This film has been recommended to me numerous times since it came out - and it recently got the Oscar for best picture and director. My friend Stefan had it in his office today and after going on and on about how great the directing in the film was, was kind enough to let me borrow it (and Little Miss Sunshine - but I haven't watched it yet).

The Departed is a loose remake of a Hong Kong movie called Internal Affairs. But if you didn't already know that you'd never guess. The Departed is set in Boston and is so well crafted you wouldn't imagine the concept had been imported. The concept is simple: The police have undercover cops embedded in the Irish mafia and the Irish mafia has undercover criminals embedded in the police. Both sides want to find out who the moles are. The undercover cop knows the bad guys are getting close to finding him out - his only hope for survival is to help bring the crime lord down before he gets revealed. There are lots of twists and the tension remains high right until the end.

The script, the acting, the directing, the editing - it's all fantastic. The characters are complex and the story never becomes predictable. It's a dark story and violent - but hey, it's Scorsese so who is surprised? Of particular note to me was how quickly they were able to establish the characters with a minimum of well crafted scenes and then jump right into the story and keep it moving with short, rich scenes that, one after the other, increased the stakes and deepened the characters.

Pan's Labyrinth

Seeing this film was a long awaited pleasure.

Guillermo del Toro is quickly becoming one of my favorite filmmakers. We watched his earlier film The Devil's Backbone a few months ago and Pan's Labyrinth has a number of similarities. Both films occur against the backdrop of the Spanish civil war. Both are about young children who find themselves endangered by those who ought to care for them. Both are sympathetic to the resistance. Both present the supernatural as something that looks scary, but actually is working toward our good.

But the films are also quite different. While the Devil's Backbone is a different kind of ghost story, Pan's Labyrinth is a different kind of fairy tale. It's about a little girl, Ofelia, whose mother travels to a remote (and unsafe) military outpost so her baby will be born in the presence of his father, the sadistic Captain of the outpost. Though the Captain is Ofelia's new step-father he cares only about his unborn son, which frees Ofelia to explore the surrounding forest. The remarkably courageous girl encounters a fairy that leads her deep into the underworld where she is told she is the lost princess of their kingdom - but in order to come home with them she must prove that she has not become a mere mortal. A mysterious faun sets her three tasks that she must complete before the full moon in order to prove she is worthy of returning home.

Ofelia would like nothing better than to escape the miserable outpost, but completing the quest becomes increasingly difficult as her mother falls ill and a band of guerrillas surround the outpost. And this is the genius of the film - it captures both the horror and the heroism of the ordinary people who populate the outpost. The heroes of the piece could be any one of us if, in a similar situation we had the courage to stand up and resist evil. Likewise the villain is a man consumed by vindictive pride and his followers mere men who have lost the will to stand up for righteousness - and that really is a horrifying combination.

The ending of the film is brilliant. I loved, loved, loved it - and I'm not giving it away. I'll just say if you want to see a great a film that encourages your hope in heaven, see Pan's Labyrinth.

Frankenstein - reflection by Thayne

The story is about a scientist named Frankenstein who creates a being that even he detests and loathes. In fear and disgust he abandons his creature ... or should we call it his child. Is it no wonder the creature turns to violence when even the one who creates it, the one who should have loved it as his own, turns away in disgust and loathing.

I would say the “monster” portrays human nature really, for when we are hated and hurt we desire revenge. The monster actually tries to help people more than once in the story but in the end is only rewarded with hate and a bullet. My conclusion is that the monster is a perfectly normal human being trapped in a hideous body