Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: lol wut

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Directed & Written by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn,
Rob Corddry, Neil Patrick Harris
2008, Warner Bros./New Line/Mandate, 102/107 minutes.

***

Harold and Kumar isn’t brilliant artistic comedy, but it is pretty up-to-date on how it engages in conventional social stereotypes and subverts them to good comic effect. Occasionally basic character elements lag, such as the retarded government official or the villainous white alpha-male with connections. They rely on the typical absurd comic exaggeration, which Rob Corddry is certainly apt for in his role, and normally would work, but the character and presentation is too tired and stale to engage anyone but really young or naive stoners viewers. The weed-smoking jokes do work (especially in the beginning) but the whole Amsterdam spiel is played and strangely outdated compared to the rest of the script’s social references.

Where the film shines is in how it flips slapstick/screwball movie cliches to surprise the audience and plays Harold and Kumar’s respectively pathetic romantic fantasies against each other. Some of the scenes are very impressive. But being Hollywood and the world of romantic-comedy (as opposed to tragi-comedy) the story stays in the fantasy realm and never ventures forth into the Beckett-like territory it could have accessed. There’s not too much to spoil, but the real failure of the film is that it did nothing original with the way the plot played itself out in the second act. The original film did this too, but under an appreciable absurd premise of trying to make it to a fast-food joint in the midst of a weekend late-night weed blaze. This time around, since the conditions of the story are already so spectacularly lofty, exaggerated and dumb, the smooth resolution of loose ends is a let-down. I was expecting a clever Wayne’s World or Blazing Saddles sort of twist, with a wink at the audience. Instead we get the exact last 10 minutes of Deuce Bigalowe 2.

Good stuff, even if it is only an aesthetic/social update of Cheech & Chong, Bill & Ted, and other clever stoner duos, for a new commercially viable generation. And they’re making another one, too. Yay!

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@ IMDb

Made in Britain: tha real outsidaz

Made in Britain
Directed by Alan Clarke
Written by David Leland
Starring Tim Roth, Christopher Fulford, David Baldwin, etc.
1982, Blue Underground (?), 76 minutes.

***

Time to flip the script we’re using to investigate the repressed-male-violent-fantasy genre! This time it’s not martial arts fantasy, but working-class docudrama: ultra-gritty-realism and tangible fear instead of dangerously idealized narrative perspective and interactive irony. This one’s a docu-style short, made-for-TV film from the ’80s directed by the late, cult-acclaimed British director, Alan Clarke.

Tim Roth’s first starring role is a solid one. He gives a preview of the pivotal role Gary Oldman would soon after realize (maybe with a “romantic” twist a la John Osborne?), in the later Alan Clarke project, The Firm: the intelligent, emotionally damaged anti-social young man of Thatcher England. Roth’s Trevor is a skinhead, but his actions of themselves do not necessarily betray this. Without Trevor’s Swastika tattoo and a shaved head, he’d be any explosive anarchist or aggressively active punk.

The highlight and centerpiece of the story is the beginning of the second act where a corrections officer summarizes in visual detail on a blackboard, the way Britain’’s legal and educational system functions, and by contrast the various life choices Trevor has made. The scene acts to fill in Trevor’s background — why he is locked up in a halfway-house without a job or school or family at 16 years of age. It becomes apparent that Trevor (and all like him) float around the system in a circular fashion, a kind of criminal water cycle, in which each step of the way becomes more pronounced until he is imprisoned, expired or helpless. Because they will not change to meet the system’s criteria.

But his cyclical position in society’s shadow also corresponds to his emotional state. A narcissist on the border of sociopathy, with serious anger issues, every minor disturbance to Trevor’s waking state becomes an emotional wave he has to justify through anti-social behavior. He actually cannot see the perspective of others because as soon as he hears their views, he becomes angry, and his anger is merely an ongoing fuel with which he rationalizes his behavior. His anger is the ultimate justifier and the only thing that is true, in a world he deems to be full of “fake wankers”.

To proclaim the world is fake is an honest, intuitively “true” statement, and therein lies the misery of entertaining it. The world IS fake. The fakeness and shallowness of it all, our compromises of integrity or morals — they’re a convenience to grease the wheels of society so that our basic needs and passions may be met. Society is a group compromise, a group effort — the ultimate corporate team. Meanwhile, noticing that everyone is a liar and is shallow or fake or whatever is also misery-inducing because it’s the incorrect assumption of taking everything to be tangibly REAL, when our sense organs provide only reflections of the physical world, and our personal beliefs themselves are malleable conveniences.

Likewise, Trevor’s position as a skinhead is a convenience more than it is a branding of any belief system. He uses the skinhead image as a platform for his explosive, aversive attitude. He cannot maintain any party-line agenda because his only goal is to reject authority or hierarchy beyond himself. Much is made of Trevor’s intelligence, how his test scores show that he is bright and smart — gifts he has used merely for methodical moments of destructive nihilism or anarchy. Much sensation is often made in media of the brilliant criminal — the brilliant deviant with no moral compass. But intelligence itself is not some human virtue. Like science, it can be pointed towards whatever human desire and reason yearns to explore, including negative ambitions.

Society’s conundrum in dealing with Trevor is played out through the voices of the two halfway-house personnel who try to reason with him. One wants to ship him off to be locked up in a mental institution until his court date, the other wants to coddle him and hope he finds something pleasurable to point his life towards — a hobby or interest. But the system is incapable of changing such people, who indeed are identified by their strong aversion to authority. And Clarke pieces rarely have a neatly conclusive narrative, or if they do, they intentionally don’t have any moral answers. Moral answers come from within the structure of the system, which Trevor rebels against.

There are some production qualities typical of Clarke’s works. There is no music except briefly during credits, and what music is provided is merely there to provide caustic augmentation for the nature of the story. The camera work is mainly subject to the isometric, over-the-shoulder approach found in The Firm and Elephant. In general the camera is a stand-in for us, the observer. The visual orientation works to make us a part of the story, forced to follow Trevor around and accomodate, witness or participate in his behavior. This is because Trevor is one of us (both symbolically and literally), as a member of our social networks, and as a purer arbiter of our darker moments.

It’s too bad Alan Clarke never got a chance to do more movies, but his small body of work is unique. He had a knack for making very moving, gripping portraits of dangerous, fringe, anti-social demographics. But then who is the audience? Using the charisma found in great talents like Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in casting these roles is, in a way, almost emotionally suspect. So at the end of the day, we have another glorification of society’s gutter and the path it takes to get there. But it’s a pretty honest one and even endearing at times.

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No Retreat, No Surrender: MUSK

No Retreat, No Surrender
Directed by Corey Yuen
Written by Ng-See Yuen and Corey Yuen
Starring Kurt McKinney, Jean Claude Van-Damme
1986, New World Pictures, 85 minutes.

***

The formula here is literally a formula — the movie is a series of sequential vignettes of training montages; and storyline

events which signify the presence of a narrative, but no actual character development.

Hence the movie is blatantly surreal, its rails constantly wandering off. It protrays karate as the center of the universe.

The best part is when the protag’s ravished mental state actually procures a ghost of Bruce Lee, who trains him to a new level

of martial expertise. At this point it makes no bones about being a fantasy, but is also a hilarious indictment of Bruce Lee

fanboys across the universe.

This is actually a pretty interesting presentation,

for it blatantly disregards the cinematic desire to produce realism. Guys like Tarantino lap this approach up and have made it the

cornerstone of their canon.

It is pornographic in one sense, for the attention of the creators is mainly given to the center character, the avatar of the weird

juvenile male fantasy, and all other

characters are somehow even simpler — 1-dimensional stand-ins for the protagonist’s personal demons. In other words, we have the

starlet at the center of the orgy, the camera focused on her emotional engagements, surrounded by numerous faceless male partners

absent of detail or real relevance.

The movie has no real conclusion either. None of the character’s social ties are remedied until he proves he is a more efficient

killing machine (in the ring, of course) than the rest of the crowd. The love interest is concocted as another background color,

but the female character really is nothing more than a prize to be won. Amusingly, the lead can’t do this until he has the

self-confidence won by beating everybody up, even though she doesn’t seem to actually respond to that quality, but likes his

effeminate exuberance. The plot is a mere sketch, but this is part of the appeal.

Flicks like this are pure escapist role-playing fantasy. The fantasy is an extension of unfulfilled male drives — it ventures off

into harmless fantasy, but also strange solipsism and anti-social narcissism. Because anyone who deeply entertains these kinds of

fantasies seriously is either a little kid, or a dysfunctional adult. Separating the world into such simplistic and convenient

notions is villainous work. It makes me think the presentation of the protagonist, fighting against such boring and obvious evil

landing right in one’s lap,

is actually the way the dysfunctional villain of the story (and society) sees themselves.

This is evident in how much the badass master tries to talk down the criminal, who manifests some kind of insane anger out of

nowhere and pushes the guy to no end. Violent thugs also justify their actions to themselves by often asserting blame upon others,

that others pushed them to behave in the way they did. What is common amongst cheesy, cathartic action movies is the notion that

the protagonist just wants peace, but others force them to maim and kill.

This is the condition of most action movies, particularly those of the ’70s onward. Bruce Lee managed to make everyone think he

was a super badass, whether he was or not. By reveling in himself and his desire for fame and recognition (why did he care if

white people liked his movies?), he managed to become the pinnacle of the male pubescent fantasy.

It’s also Van Damme’s first starring role. He doesn’t have a whole lot of screen-time, but he gets to show off his kicking chops

and do at least one good 180 split. Supposedly the guy only got an initial $250 for working on the film — kinda cheap considering

the quality of his acrobatic work here.

Anyway, Van Damme playing an evil Cold-War Russian is pretty funny, right? I suppose the underhanded agenda is that the Russians

want to take over the karate schools in the USA or something, but it’s not really all that clear. My favorite moment was definitely

the awkward highlight when JCVD grabs the girlfriend’s hair. An evil action, but so necessary to awaken the volitional spark in the

protagonist!

It’s fascinating in how it further defines her role.

–protagonist treats her like a princess (the way a repressed male treats a woman)

–school rival treats her like an object or objective (the way a hedonistic or cynical male treats a woman)

–villain treats her like a victim (serial killer or process predator)

So we have the three

Of course, cinema can be blatantly fake and still influence our own narratives.

No Retreat, No Surrender is a cheesy martial arts movie from the mid-80s, starring Kurt McKinney, who would later go on to do… a few other things. The series incarnations don’t have much to do with each other, but the second and third (and unofficially titled fourth) of the series are notable for being higher budget, well-choreographed, with a recurring lead role played by Loren Avedon (who actually trained under Best of the Best star, Philip Rhee).

The formula here is literally a formula — the movie is a series of sequential vignettes of training montages; and storyline events which signify the presence of a narrative, but no actual character development. Hence the movie is blatantly surreal, its rails constantly wandering off. The plot is a mere sketch — but this is part of the appeal (as a bonus, karate is featured as the center of the universe in the town the movie takes place in).

Flicks like this are unabashedly awesome escapism. The fantasy is an extension of unfulfilled male drives — it ventures off into harmless fantasy, but also strange solipsism and anti-social narcissism. Because anyone who deeply entertains these kinds of fantasies, with any serious intent, is either a little kid or a dysfunctional adult. Separating the world into such simplistic and convenient notions is villainous work. The presentation of the protagonist, fighting against such boring and obvious evil landing right in one’s lap, is actually the way the dysfunctional villain of the story (and society) sees themselves.

MM maxim: Protagonists in action movies are based on narratives actually woven by narcissistic villains.

The self-indulgent homoerotic fantasy is more than evident in how much the badass master tries to talk down the criminal, who manifests some kind of insane anger out of nowhere and pushes our protag to no end. Violent criminals often justify their actions to themselves by asserting the cause of their actions (blame) upon others — that others pushed them to behave in the way they did. Hence, what is common amongst cheesy, cathartic action movies is the notion that the protagonist just wants peace, but others force them to maim and kill.

This overly simplistic narrative is pornographic (duh!), for the attention of the creators is exclusively given to the center character, the avatar of the weird juvenile male fantasy, and all other characters are somehow even simpler — one-dimensional stand-ins for the protagonist’s personal demons. The movie has no real conclusion either. None of the character’s social ties are remedied until he proves he is a more efficient killing machine (in the ring!!! he’z good guy!) than the rest of the crowd. The love interest is concocted as another background color, but the female character really is more of a prize. Amusingly, the lead can’t sweep her off her feet until he has the self-confidence won by beating everybody up — even though she doesn’t seem to actually respond to that quality, but likes his effeminate exuberance (neither a male nor female fantasy cliche, but just more lazy surreality!).

Of course, cinema can be blatantly fake and still influence our own narratives. That’s part of the beauty here: for all the angsty nonsense that the production embellishes, underneath the whole schemata lies some basic male social need that male viewers can identify with. The best part of the story, for me, is when the protagonist’s ravished mental state actually procures a ghost of Bruce Lee*, who trains him to a new level of martial expertise. At this point it makes no bones about being a fantasy, but is also indirectly a hilarious indictment of Bruce Lee fan-boys across the universe. This is actually a pretty interesting presentation, approaching pure irony. Guys like Tarantino lap this approach up and have made it the cornerstone of their canon, but in Tarantino’s case, the blatancy of such an approach actually kills its fertility. The potential for unintentional irony here creates a thrill not unlike real, “found” or docu footage.

This film is only well-known now for being Jean-Claude Van Damme’s first starring role, playing the villain: Ivan the Soviet kickboxer (Cold War, remember?). He doesn’t have a whole lot of screen-time, but he gets to show off his martial chops and do at least one good 180-split. Supposedly the guy only got an initial $250 for working on the film — kinda cheap considering the dangerous quality of his acrobatic work here. Interestingly, Van Damme has pointed out recently, and rightly so, that action stars today don’t have to physically work for their appeal. The editors just chop the action up so that even complete schlubs like Christian Bale or Liam Neeson can look like efficient killing machines. I mean, at least Arnie had to look tough, even if he couldn’t move like Jet Li.

The film can be seen in 8 or so parts on YouTube, and is worth a look if only for the very alluring soundtrack. It’s pure ’80s low-budget keyboard work, but is surprisingly tasteful. Every single interaction is a bursting bubble of homoeroticism, and on the whole is definitely worth it for the giallo, B-movie, MST3K, chop-socky crowd. Modern ironic film fans need not apply and should stick to mass-marketed nostalgia. This one takes balls!

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@ IMDb

________

*Bruce Lee taught a Chinese martial art of his own design, much much different than any form of karate that the movie portrays. It makes his phantasmic appearance to the karate student all the more amusing.

Inglourious Basterds in Taki Mag

A pretty good write-up of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds at Taki’s Mag:

“Put another way, if one were to imagine the ultimate anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi propaganda film about how the Second World War was marked by distinguished German officers being terrorized by a band of Jewish maniacs, would it look much different than Inglourious Basterds?”
–Richard Spencer in Holocaust Revisionism

As a friend pointed out, by branding this whole genre of snuff-action-horror its own genre (“torture porn”), Tarantino, Eli Roth and co. are being intentionally subversive  and manipulative, guaranteeing their films a critical legitimacy that is undeserved (ironic hate speech is beyond criticism!). The popularity of their flicks signal a worrisome trend on the cultural and ethical Richter scale, while simultaneously delivering what is a necessary cathartic experience for the mainstream movie-going public (pop culture) at the present time.

Tarantino’s movies were once clever dialog and characters, spliced with catchy tunes and lesser-known pop and film references. Everything he’s done in this century, “following the box-office failure of Jackie Brown, his sole effort at non-ultra-violence,” have been 90+ minute elaborations of the cop/ear torture scene from Reservoir Dogs, or the “gimp” scene from Pulp Fiction. How Clockwork Orange lolz.

Sex and the City: pink greed

Sex and the City
Directed & Written by Michael Patrick King
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, etc.
2008, New Line Cinema/HBO; 145 minutes.

***

This movie is a bizarre Ayn Randroid, ultra-neo-liberal take on love as a possession for the godless.

The fantasy of Sex and the City most blatantly reveals itself to be completely hollow with the fact that none of the actresses, outside of their roles, could score equally desirable male suitors as their on-screen equivalents. Case-in-point: Sarah Jessica Parker — her real-life beau, the squirrelly Matthew Broderick vs. the film’s “Mr. Big,” the more poised, brow-fierce Chris Noth.

Furthermore, in contemporary American culture, nothing could be less subversive than a movie about 40-somethings trotting out their inner spoiled brat, all to the tune of Hollywood film cliches and tired sentimentalities, in order to falsely, maliciously drink from young and middle-aged female doubts about older women’s prospects for sexual liasons.

As is per usual with obtuse chick-flicks, no male insight into arousing female desire can be gleamed from watching it. Yes, being young, healthy, good-looking and wealthy are defining factors which may very well attract the opposite sex, but the movie (centering around a marriage) focuses on these factors exclusively and then sporadically injects the ambiguous substance of “true love” between characters — the source of which we can only infer or imagine. This is unacceptable, notably because the movie specifically does not intend for the audience to concoct this love by reading between the lines. Rather, the love in these relationships is implied to exist because these women deserve it like any other material possession.

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Friday the 13th: TGIF amirite?

 

Friday the 13th
Directed by Marcus Nispel
Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
Starring Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Travis Van Winkle, etc.
2009, Platinum Dunes/New Line Cinema, 97 minutes.

 

***

It’s been years since I last saw a movie in this franchise, but I still find the sad, sinister character of Jason Vorhees and what he represents to be interesting. Like in Halloween, the classic slasher flick slinging messages of male sexual repression, Jason’s violent expressions ring of cathartic urges, and immediately befall all characters partaking of lustful behavior. The original 1980 Friday the 13th took place at the fictional Camp Crystal Lake, and the aesthetic, not unlike a summer camp experience, was grimy and budget. Camp counselors are a good symbolic target for a distressed social pariah’s rage, as American summer camp is well-known in the states as the place where all teens (nerds and jocks alike) get a good piece of tail for the first time. Jason’s onslaught is the cumulative rage of all outcasts who share his ostracized position of being without a partner to swap mucus-membranes for the summer (or a lifetime).

This rendition (directed by Marcus Nispel, who did the 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is a reinterpretation of certain elements of the slasher franchise, but is set in present day (it isn’t a throwback period piece like several recent horror remakes). Portions of Jason’s background are explored — just enough to make the audience feel slight twinges of sympathy. Interestingly enough, marijuana, as a blatant symbol of the repressed elements of modern American society, is featured heavily as a set-piece within the storyline. There’s fresh crop of illegal pot growing right in Jason’s backyard, which attracts a lot of spoiled yuppie/college types to his macabre corner of the woods. It is amusing here that the ultimate catatonic psychopath lives on a weed grove and then carves up numerous party animals trying to get high. Weed is for thieving nihilists who deserve to be killed!… or something (uh, also, horror fans are often potheads, right?).

21st century Hollywood cliches here are played so hard, they become humorously self-deprecating (the nerdy Asian kid who can’t get girls; the cool, aloof, athletic black guy; the bullying, blonde, spoiled, rich asshole). In that sense it’s treating the cliches of the genre as bare-bones as possible within the ultra-crisp, high-budget framing of this remake. It’s not impressive as cinema goes, but the archetypes of the genre are still entertaining when played correctly.

As I alluded to before, the character of Jason still makes me think of the increasing number of sexually frustrated, economically powerless males that exist in the world today, and how the powerful try to sweep them under the greater social rug instead of embracing their issues, thus socially alienating them absolutely. But in trying to cut off this “problem” that lazily, it comes back again and again, because it’s part-and-parcel to the irresponsible, over-privileged behaviors that spurned it in the first place. And like unresolved problems tend to do, Jason comes back to haunt later generations.

But none of this is new to the horror/slasher genre, and it isn’t very important to anyone watching this on a lazy evening. It’s gory, with some real nasty deaths, and the introduction piece is done in a tasteful manner, foreshadowing while also riding on the prior established monotony of the Friday movies. The settings have a touch of that grimy, greenish-brown “Hostel” vibe to it — which I could do without, but the pacing is tight, the film is crisp and the characters are hollow, shallow and pretty. It’s also pleasantly devoid of direct one-liners, though there are a lot of hilarious moments that don’t require heavy cynicism on the viewer’s behalf. The movie is not original by any stretch, but it has a very quiet sense of humor that actually makes the darker, lonelier portions of the movie resonate a little more, without devolving into Tarantino/Roth-style douchey camp.

And this one’s actually a product of the Michael Bay universe of magic and wonder! Now if he would only get around to making a Super Mario Bros. movie, I’d get off his megalomaniacal case.

***

 

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Ponyo: Miyazaki-prepped sashimi

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea/Gake no ue no Ponyo
Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki
English dub cast: Noah Lindsey Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, etc.
2009, Studio Ghibli; 86 minutes.

***

(As forewarned)

Ponyo is minimalist by Hayao Miyazaki standards, and also supposedly his hushed farewell to the world of cinema. It is a decadent, psychedelic animation project from the artist and layman’s perspective, but compared to his traditional phrasing and presentation, here Miyazaki has trimmed the fat (even Joe Hisaishi’s musical score is restrained) from his storytelling and stirred the pot just enough to make one of the best kids’ movies of all time. But really, this is to be expected from a clever cat like the mendacious Miyazaki, aye?

In viewing Ponyo I finally sort of “got” Miyazaki and his magical symbolism. He finally let a few clues drip from the chalice. Miyazaki stands in in every one of his movies as the old person who sees the magic in the world and selflessly loves children but is powerless to actually harness or manifest the world’s natural magic himself (although he also is kind of… everyone in his stories… and not to mention, in real life he has a serious clue — he knows the score to this samsaric game!). This time around, the wizard of the sea, the keeper of the ocean and its elements, has a daughter — Ponyo, who seeks to escape her underground lair, and in her curiosity, eventually wishes become a human. I’ve seen Ponyo marketed as a reinterpretation of The Little Mermaid story, by Hans Christian Anderson, which it is — but Miyazaki and co. have realized the ultimate depth possible here while managing to sidestep the endless melancholy of the original tale.

Ponyo is cleverly depicted as a “goldfish,” but with a face. The other ocean sprites, Ponyo’s brothers and sisters, are similarly depicted, but without concrete identity — and it is seen later that it is because they are not merely physical beings. I really don’t want to say much more, but Ponyo is a joy to watch because one is getting a direct window into the nature of the elemental worlds and all creation.A mermaid, in the classical folk sense, as well as in the European Hermetic tradition transplanted from ancient Greek/Egyptian philosophy and ritual, is a water sprite — an undine. A mermaid is not just some sea-centaur — a limited, concrete physical being, as is popularly illustrated with movies like Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid.

Ponyo is in line with Miyazaki’s other kids’ movies, Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro, in that there is no malicious villain and though there are action scenes, there is no violence. The conflicts are internal tests of self-confidence and truthfulness within the story’s characters. It is short on real “action” and the pacing goes pretty slow, especially for older viewers (5+, haha) who are more interested in booty calls or bitching about politics or getting their graduate degree in American Studies.

And yet even they can rest assured: Ponyo contains one of the finest animated scenes off all time. You’ll know the one when it happens — it’s one of the most psychedelic experiences ever concocted, quietly bridging the spotlight reserved for greats like Akira, Fantasia, and …. er…. a bunch of other Miyazaki/Ghibli films. It is pretty gladdening to witness, and evokes a glimpse into the eddying, ephemeral nature of creation that is beyond the scope of the movie that contains it.

Although we can question whether Disney would still release Hayao Miyazaki’s films in the USA if they weren’t lucrative, symbolically it’s very significant for Disney to have done so. Miyazaki is not Disney’s heir, but a superior breed of artist that they were tasteful to align themselves with. Miyazaki has taken children’s stories to a level beyond Disney’s threshold and actualized the highest level of potential within hand-drawn animation. He is the embodiment of the age of organic, hand-drawn animation, and the medium retires with him. It’s pretty cool that he did what he did.

@ IMDb

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The original heir as director to Studio Ghibli after Miyazaki’s retirement was originally supposed to be Yoshifumi Kondo, whom passed away suddenly in 1998.

My Neighbor Totoro: Soft Power Bestiary

Tonari no Totoro/My Neighbor Totoro
Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki
1988, Studio Ghibli, 86 minutes.

***

With a Ponyo viewing just around the corner, I thought I’d revisit this classic — the penultimate kids movie of all time.

My Neighbor Totoro is a simplified celebration of several of Miyazaki’s recurring story themes. There is an emphasis on the social bonds between the very young (first ten years) and old generations (given more heavy-handed treatment by Akira Kurosawa in the movies from his career twilight, Rhapsody in August and Dreams), the importance of nature, and the transition out of childhood via the overcoming of (often internal) personal tribulations.

Miyazaki vocalizes great concern for the well-being of children — their upbringing and sense of self-worth and inner willpower. This is especially apparent in his attempt to portray strong young females, whom he has expressed have few positive role models in the media. At least two times in the film, the young female protagonists take refuge by statues of the Jizo bosatsu — the (Japanese) Buddhist bodhisattvas who specifically care for the abandoned and dead children of this world. It’s pretty crazy how the young female protagonists in this film, Satsuki and Mei, are somehow more charming and life-like than any real young kids in existence (uh, not to mention how Totoro is somehow more charming than even real life animals with obscene, off-the-scale charm factors, such as golden jackyls or tuxedo cats).

Miyazaki also vocalizes environmentalist views in some his stories, which should have been incredibly apparent to anyone after even a lackadaisical viewing of 1997’s Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). That one was rather heavy-handed in explaining humanity’s burden on the animal world, and is the most graphically violent Miyazaki-directed film. Though still tame by anime standards, a little bit of graphic violence expressed by Studio Ghibli is far more impacting than the blatant gore engendered by many animes. Here too, the environmentalism is in full-swing (more so than in other projects like Lupin III, Kiki’s Delivery Service or Porco Rosso). Totoro is a creature of the forest, where the most magical things happen in the middle of the night. And somebody prays to a tree at least once!

Totoro was such a smash commercial success, everyone in Japan wanted a stuffed animal of the big man afterwards — and understandably so! It is ironic since Totoro is an imaginary creature, evading tangible human senses and blatant desires (even little Mei can’t find Totoro when she is really eager to!). Instead of finding the real Totoros that exist in this world, many instead try to fill that hole with material representations of Totoro — this speaks volumes about the “stiff” quality of adult perception and imagination suggested by the film.

Or maybe it doesn’t (you athiest materialist!). Whatever, Miyazaki movies are like Monopoly “Get Out of Jail Free” cards for real life, only instead of getting out of jail with his films, you get out of depression. Totoro gets special bonus points for being ridiculously captivating without a single villain or traditional concrete story arc. As if Miyazaki is single-handedly undoing so much of the obsessive, Puritan “good vs. evil” moralizing that Disney’s cartoons have x-rayed into our souls for the past 60 years.

***

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “Gotta find my Pops!”

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Directed by Steven Spielbergo
Written by Jeffrey Boam (mostly)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, River Phoenix, etc.
1989, Paramount Pictures, 127 minutes.

***

Nazis are retarded and Indiana Jones (somehow whiter than even Nazis) can kill tons of them with slight effort and to mildly intentional comedic amusement. He kills a lot of them, but we don’t see the suffering up close in any capacity. So the Nazis get killed and it’s light-hearted and satisfying. River Phoenix plays a young Indy in the beginning of the story, where he is running away from baddie treasure-hunters trying to capture/kill him. This creates an uncanny parallel with Phoenix’s off-screen early substance abuse, the personal demons he would later try to exorcise or escape in real life — but eventually succumb to. Phoenix’s role is there to show us that young Indy’s relationship to his father is emotionally unfulfilling, since his dad is an idiot-savant scholar more interested in Latin than his own son. Surprisingly, since this was the turn of the 19th-20th century, the senior Dr. Jones was able to yield an heir (in Indy), and unsurprisingly, Indy is a motherless womanizer.

The plot itself is the New Testament’s answer to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first one that had Indiana and the Nazis chasing after a powerful Hebrew religious artifact. This time they’re both after the Holy Grail, which is given the usual modern-day, blatant (evangelical religious or materialistic athiest) treatment as a literal magical cup that when sipped from, grants one literal eternal life. This is all very charming as well, because even if the film-makers do know the actual “spiritual significance” of the grail story, there’s no way they could adequately communicate it to the mainstream movie audience, who are commanded (under cosmic law) to drink from the trough.

All good and fun, but the movie is sometimes boring. A more interesting movie would be one where there is an Indiana Jones movie being made on a Hollywood lot, and some crazed academic film theorist (or “American Studies” major *chuckle*) weasels onto the set during filming and steals the props of the film (because they belong in a museum film theory course, as American cultural artifacts from this movie). The people/actors chasing him would be dressed as Nazis (thus not real historical Nazis per-say, but some kind of cultural fascista in their own right) and could be killed off ruthlessly with nuanced hipness, and relatively little exertion, by our protagonist (fun for the whole family!). The bad guy who wants the cross/ankh thing back would be some corporate big-wig fat-cat who desires it as the key to summon the legendary holy grail (perfect formula of hit film-making) in order to live forever (at the top of the box office revenue rankings). It would be a layered critique of both Hollywood and Indiana Jones films. And it would only cost 55 million dollars!

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*I didn’t say anything about the music in this movie, but it gets a special mention for being one of the most annoying scores ever. It’s by John Williams.

High School Musical 3: Laguna Beach!

High School Musical 3
Directed by Kenny Ortega
Written by Peter Barsocchini
Starring Zac Efron, Vannesa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, etc.
2008, Walt Disney Studios/Productions; 112 minutes.

***

Disney’s magnum opus. A masterful culmination of modern pop-culture, revealing its true face. Unfortunately, behind the mask, pop-culture is looking pretty busted.

Disney’s reputation was intially built on high-quality, hand-drawn, animated features. But in the past 20+ years they’ve ditched the association with cartoons to become a powerful pan-media conglomerate: a Pixar production firm, a Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli butcher-shop (check out Ponyo to hear Miley Cyrus’ little sister and Jonas Brother X’s voice-acting debuts), a tween-pop stable for breeding child actors into adulthood — whose financial souls are, early on, signed away for the rest of their lives (note the pink Mickey Mouse ears that always surround the Jonas Brothers’ official logo).

As you might have surmised from your own detective work, this movie caters to teenage girls. The film snares its audience with blatant emotional appeals of high-strung romance — not unlike the Disney interpretations of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, but contextualized within a modern high-school setting that looks like it could be real (if you’re super-duper rich, white, straight, and good-looking) but is not at all possible within the social laws of the universe. So we have this weird fantasy imposed upon the most confusing social environment most of us ever had to navigate, with the novelty of being a pop-song musical.

It seems to be a continuation of the way traditional Disney movies always venerated the white princess fantasy: the love story is only about ditzy, straight, white people — the ubermenschen whom the inferior folk respect and serve because they’re the only beautiful creatures who deserve to be happy. Black, gay or nerdy characters in this high school are like Sebastien the crab and Flounder the fish in The Little Mermaid – sidekicks to be abandoned once the goal of human metamorphosis is achieved (are you following me here?). Love conquers all because it grinds all other relationships into the mud.

To cater this film to the basest insecure female high-school fantasy is logical, because it’s nailing two birds with one rock. As we all know, most young guys compromise their personality and interests in order to appeal to attractive girls and get in their pants. Thus going to see High School Musical 3 in the movie theater is a mandatory activity for any boy catering to a teen girl’s interests. It’s something no teenage boys are going to disagree with attending; it’s a necessary base to round on the way towards a jailbait home-run. Who can disagree with that logic? No one can even if they want to, because it’s science.*

On the other hand, this movie markets shitty fake high school so much, I figured it must be some kind of intentional self-parody or else it would be openly inviting violent outbursts from all the miserable grade-school students it alienates (if any of them still have a soul after seeing this). I’d say more on the subject, but South Park already isolated that point in a funny episode, so my super-heroic social polemics have already been taken care of.

However, I was non-ironically entertained throughout the film, though I felt afterwards like I had just eaten a bag of candy.

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@ IMDb