"Fuck me Santa"

Bad Santa 23/12/11

Director: Terry Zwigoff           Writers: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

2003

            This is a Christmas film about a man who hates Christmas, children and jolliness more than anybody I have ever met (alarm clocks playing Christmas tunes beware). Yet it has in my mind a true happy ending, and is more feasible than the majority of Christmas films.

            Beginning with the sound of jingle bells and classical music, we see a pub. In the pub, alone at the end of the bar, is Billy Bob Thornton, in his Mall Santa outfit. He informs us of having been in prison once, being married twice, drafted in to the army, and the woes of his aging body (not least losing a kidney). But worse than all this is he has to deal with children all day long. Why would such a man be pretending to be Santa Clause? Well this film is all about mixing things that shouldn’t mix to get a laugh.

            He is in fact a con artist and a thief, and working with 3’ 6” Marcus (Tony Cox) has a pretty good gig breaking the safes in the malls they work in and then living large until next December. But our Santa has a problem, even when they get a particularly big score he can’t hold on to the cash long enough to quit thieving, there is booze to buy and stripper’s underwear to fill with...scratch cards?

            Each year he gets more unreliable, sinks further in to alcoholism and gives up on life a little more. Marcus is fed up with it, and at their new store the detective (Bernie Mac) is put on the case by the store owner (John Ritter). These are two brilliant comedic actors that are now sadly deceased, and again the mix of a store owner too timid to swear and a security chief that has just the right mixture of bad ass and eccentric to make him really scary leads to great banter and many a laugh. In fact it is the dialogue (not Rudolf) that pulls this film along, 90% of the lines must be said in anger, and it is a cast-wide competition for the best insult( “You’re an emotional cripple. Your soul is dog shit. Every single thing about you is ugly” Just might win).

            Two more characters drift in to the story, one is a barmaid with a Santa fetish (weird but when Lorelai Gilmore aka Lauren Graham buys you a shot you don’t say no) who puts it down to her childhood, to which Santa replies “So’s my thing for tits”. Well fair enough. The second is probably the only person more apathetic than the main character, a snot covered heavy set child who doesn’t even respond when older kids throw things at his head. His Christmas wish is for a pink stuffed elephant. He like sandwiches. That is about all he has going on in life, until he saves Santa from a strange attack outside a bar, and Santa sees his house as a place to lay low.

            The definitely less than heroic hero of this film manages to maintain our sympathy just enough that we don’t give up on him, and apart from stealing a car in the same way that a normal person shops in Tesco he never does anything that is more evil than hilariously chaotic. But he genuinely does seem to hate Christmas, children, life, everything. As we hear Dean Martin singing “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” and see a drinking, smoking fake Santa stumbling across a blazing hot Arizona parking lot Christmas looks like one big sham. One morning the child teaches Santa what an advent calendar is. Drunk and depressed that night Santa rips it apart and eats all the chocolate. He shouts at the child that he is living proof that there is no Santa. He seems irredeemable.

            In many Christmas films the main character will lose their faith or hope or whatever and need a kind deed to save him, but this main character has no hope or faith, he can only sink lower and lower until he hits rock bottom, and he does. At every sign that Santa could change something brings him back down, and the strange adopted family he seems to have around him is something he can’t believe in. That is why this film works, it crushes a man’s soul and doesn’t provide any magic to restore it, it is true to itself and even a happy enough Christmas Eve isn’t pure or glossy. It makes Christmas grubby and nasty and commercialist, but this doesn’t preclude a happy ending. And it is a true happy ending, because a man that never had a reason to try gets one.

"I can see your dirty pillows. Everyone will."

Carrie 19/12/11

Director: Brian De Palma       Writers: Stephen King (novel), Lawrence D. Cohen (adaptation)

1976

            Any film which is based on a book (especially one that launched the career of an enduring and much loved writer) is subject to extra scrutiny than those based on an original screenplay. Questions are asked of it like “Is it better than the novel?” and “What did it change?” or perhaps “Did they get the lead right?” Well I try my very best to ignore these questions and value a film on its own merit, but in Carrie I can confirm that they got the lead dead on. Sissy Spacek stole the role from Amy Irving, who did well in her supporting role as Sue Snell, and did things like sleeping for 3 nights in (fake) blood soaked clothes and being buried in rubble to maintain the authenticity of her performance. And it isn’t a glamorous role either, an actress determined to become a sex symbol would have shied away from the role.

            Director Brian De Palma has made a few remarkable films, and worked with De Niro and Pacino at the height of their powers. He is famous for long takes and elaborate tracking and panning shots, these techniques are present in Carrie, which could be considered his breakthrough film. In fact the film begins with a crane shot, moving through an idyllic scene of high school girls playing volleyball, and then the camera finds Carrie, a waifish, plain girl with straggly, mousy hair. She misses a shot and is derided for ruining the game. She gets politely asked to “eat shit” which is a pretty good indicator that she wasn’t too popular before the game anyway. The camera always seems to be moving through the students in scenes in the high school, either tracking around a classroom or panning to follow a teacher’s face, the students seem to be one big entity. Apart from one of course.

            De Palma often pushes up against the line between stylistic choice and humorous exaggeration, and this is true of the next scene. We are in the girls’ locker room, again moving through the students until we find Carrie all alone. In slow motion we see the girls naked, having fun and laughing, and then we see Carrie in the shower. Still in slow-motion we see close-ups of her body as she washes, the screen is filled with it and we are reminded how important bodies are to teenagers, especially girls, especially in the locker room. Carrie almost looks happy, until she gets her first period. She reacts like she has been shot. Cruelly the others shout at her to “plug it up” and throw tampons. Carrie is clueless and hysterical, the result of a mother who sheltered her so much she doesn’t know what her own body does. In the confusion a light bulb shatters as Carrie screams, and this is a sign of something awakening.

            As the film goes on we meet Carrie’s mother, who is quite strange and gives zero fucks about it. We get to know her classmates, Sue (Amy Irving) who feels guilty and so asks Tommy (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom, and Chris (Nancy Allen) who sexually manipulates Billy (John Travolta) in to helping with a ‘prank’ to humiliate Carrie. All the while Carrie’s gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) is trying to get her out of her shell. While Miss Collins punishes the popular girls on the athletic field, where they will have so often punished Carrie, Carrie herself is learning of her body’s new power in the library, a safe haven for the unpopular. After her body’s betrayal in the shower, the power in her mind is now giving her an advantage.

            When Tommy asks her to the prom Carrie sees a trick and runs, Miss Collins sees a trick and tells Sue to back off, and we are probably thinking the same thing. The pleading in Carrie’s eyes as he continues to ask makes it look like someone being kind is much more difficult to take than cruelty. We see the Chris and Tommy like a twisted version of Sandy and Danny in Grease (1978), she constantly calls him “dumbshit” even while he does what she says, and if he complains all the has to do is use her mouth, which De Palma fetishizes  throughout her scenes. She wields her power like a femme fatale and manipulates any guy she needs something from to complete a plan which is quite beyond a high school prank.

            The scene that this film hinges on is at the prom itself, and it works because for just a minute or two we can imagine a happy ending. Carrie and Tommy dance, he is being genuine, she is smiling and beautiful. De Palma has the camera spin sound them looking up into the lights, it is dizzying and makes us think of all her dreams coming true, yet there is a tinge of sickness there too. In slow motion we see Chris’s plan fully revealed, and then chaos ensues, the sound mixing at this point is perfect, drawing the moment out, and putting us in Carrie’s head as all the insults of the past run through it. There is a split screen between Spacek’s haunting visage and the disaster befalling her classmates. This scene is pretty perfect.

            Unfortunately from then on the film seems rushed, and I was saddened that we hadn’t had extra time developing the supporting characters, not much, just a scene here and there. Those scenes were probably shot but got removed; De Palma wasn’t powerful enough a director then to tell the studios what to do. All in all this film is very good, very 70’s and hits people at home.

"The least she could do is fellate you"

50/50         14/12/11

Director: Jonathan Levine       Writer: Will Reiser

2011

Funnily enough, with the title 50/50, this is a film where its success depends on balance. The film has to avoid being overly sentimental, as this would diminish its status as a comedy and push it dangerously close to the realm of TV drama. However it deals with some of the heaviest subject matter that a film can, and must do it justice. That said if it always stayed in the middle ground it wouldn’t be worth watching.

            In my opinion the balance was as close to spot on as you can get, and I think this is because of writer Will Reiser basing it on his cancer diagnosis, and co-star Seth Rogan helping him through it. Apparently it was Rogan that pushed him to write the screenplay, and Reiser told him of his diagnosis while Rogan was on the toilet (IMDB). That scene was left out, because Will Reiser wrote a screenplay that would make a good film rather than a simple autobiography, good move considering this is his first feature film.

            As for Seth Rogan himself, he is unsurprisingly perfectly cast, and in his comfort zone. He seems slightly pulled back from his usual performances, and that fits with the film. Joseph Gordon Levitt took this role two days before shooting began but looks like he had all the time he needed to prepare. He is naturalistic, unlike his intense lead in Brick (2005) and has more going on than in 500 Days of Summer (2009). There are two main female roles, the girlfriend of Gordon-Levitt played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who has a thankless role given that we end up hating her but manages to make her character three dimensional. The much more likeable role of Gordon-Levitt’s therapist was given to Anna Kendrick who has impressed me in this and Up In The Air (2009) and could have a decent career once her time isn’t taken up by sparkly vampires. So all round it is a good, young cast with good material and it would be shocking if they had messed it up.

            Gordon-Levitt plays Adam. Adam doesn’t drink alcohol, smoke, or even drive (it is the 5^th leading cause of death). He is jogging and has back pain. That pain is a tumour in his spine and his odds of survival if chemotherapy doesn’t work are about 50%. Kind of a shitty deal if you ask me. The scene in his doctor’s office is infused with documentary style cinematography (Adam goes out of frame as he stands) and there is no dramatic build up to the scene, it feels real and is therefore more scary for an audience. However effects are then used so we experience Adam’s mind diverging from reality, Jonathan Levine makes sure we feel the impact of the news.

            I found it interesting that when it comes to telling his friend Kyle (Rogan) and his girlfriend (Howard) the scenes come in after the fact and we get their reactions, Kyle is all about the upside and injecting humour and Rachael says she won’t bail on him. In contrast we see the whole scene where he tells his parents, who he isn’t close to. His mother tries to make green tea as she hears it decreases the chances of getting a tumour. With the sadness infused comedy that defines the film Adam remarks that he already has cancer.

            The treatment and mortality is never quite the focus here, it is more important how being a cancer patient changes your relationships and the way people look at you. I think this film is less about Adam facing his mortality than about other people having to. His Mother becomes smothering, and he distances himself from her. His girlfriend thinks buying him a retired racing dog may help in some way, his work colleagues make him feel awkward, and Kyle wants to get him laid. Without spoiling too much I can say that Adam breaks up with his girlfriend (Rogan helps him out and is hilarious) and tries to substitute that emotional support with hooking up with a girl at a bar but he can’t enjoy the sex because his back hurts. Due to the cancer he has lost his girlfriend, feels alienated from his family and can’t have fun with his friend. What could actually make you feel better in that situation? Therapy? Medicinal marijuana?

            Both of these options are available. His therapist is going her graduate thesis, and Adam seems unimpressed by her, it seems as if he is asking more about her in their first session. At his first chemo session the older patients offer him some drug infused cookies, and he makes friends. One high as a kite trip through paediatrics later and things could be looking up. But there is always something around the corner in this film and I did question when we would see Adam’s breaking point. When we do Joseph Gordon-Levitt shows how talented he is.

            Pretty much everything in this film is done as it should be. Give it a watch.

"Maybe, maybe not."

Brother’s Keeper 08/12/11

Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky

1992

            It is not necessarily the job of a documentary to entertain us. It is not the job of a documentary to intrigue us and pander to our interests. Documentaries, in my opinion, have only to deal with truth, whatever level of truth the film maker wants to show us, and however they want to distort it. This particular documentary is very intriguing, interesting, and has a vein of suspense running through it – did Delbert Ward kill his brother?

            As far as truth goes the directors do not attempt to convince us of Delbert’s guilt or innocence, but I do think they convince us that he is not an evil man. The background of the story is that four brothers – Delbert, Bill, Roscoe and Lyman Ward – run a farm together, where they all live together in a run-down building, semi-literate and increasingly elderly. Bill died. Delbert was arrested for the crime and confessed in questioning with no attorney present, and now in his trial, is denying the charge of second degree murder.

            Now the film opens in the farmhouse, it is messy, dirty, in a state of disrepair. To be honest it is creepy, it could easily be the set of a horror film. Then we see Delbert, himself not in the best shape. The intro titles intercut with a browning, broken clock, empty pill bottles, long and dirty fingernails. It is obvious that these brothers would be easy to vilify and see as strange. We see Delbert herding cows while we hear him being questioned in court and being accused of murder, and wonder how he got from A to B.

            Berlinger and Sinofsky use news to fill us in on the crime, and the apparent motive of mercy. If we heard the story on the news it would be easy to believe, that one brother would kill another to rid him of illness and misery. As one Munnsville resident says, that is what they would do to a sick farm animal. Later in the film we learn that the prosecution are willing to accuse Delbert of killing having an incestuous relationship with Bill, since they share a bed every night. We see the media attention changing Delbert, opening up his world, and see that he doesn’t fully comprehend the meaning of all of it.

            This is an amazing story already, but what makes the documentary worth watching is how close and personal the filmmakers are with the brothers, they try to get a full picture of their lives. Added to this is the brother’s standing in the community – they are mentioned as being smelly, and are still referred to as boys at 60+ years, they are not considered bright – yet the townspeople raised $10,000 bail money as well as money for Delbert’s defence. It became a battle of rural versus city. There are juxtapositions between the locals accent, honest demeanour and farm clothing against police officials in suits with technical jargon.

            As I said, the film remains mostly unbiased and all theories of motives, guilt or innocence are left as an open possibility, but with the intimate look in to these men’s world we can make up our own mind before the jury does. It is an interesting and accessible documentary that I would certainly recommend.