The House Next Door

Congratulations on the niece! I became an uncle about 6 months ago myself.

Congrats to Jeremy on the new arrival! Will Uncle Matt do what Uncle Odell (that would be me) does to his seven nieces and nephews? Uncle Odell tells them they should NEVER ever play with Barry Levinson's Toys, that Patch Adams is Satan, and that he is VERY VERY VERY sorry for taking them to see The Polar Express. As a result of that last item, my 11-year old niece and 9-year old nephew steadfastly refuse to attend any movies with me. I do not blame them, but I wish I had my camera to photograph how cute Marlon looked after he fell asleep, his 3-D Imax glasses askew on his face.

The esteemed Mr. White should have a pimp stick of his own, but if he does not, I would be happy to loan him mine. He might use it on me, however. I once wrote that disagreeing with Mr. White was how I checked my sanity. I admire his unpredictability, however, and he is a great writer.

I must be insane today, because I agree with Mr. White on Match Point. I am perfectly happy to be looney tunes! I further offer proof of my insanity: Today I was at a shindig at the Director's Guild on 57th Street, and I tried to bribe a DGA guy to tell me who was going to win the DGA award. This is what happens when I put 7 screwdrivers into the ol' alcohol toolbox.

The movie you should be comparing Brokeback Mountain to in your column is not Million Dollar Baby; it should be Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. I gave Brokeback Mountain a good review, and I think Heath Ledger is fantastic in it. But I kept getting that feeling I used to get while watching the ABC Afterschool Special: Here's a nifty little message for you that you should already know!

GWCTD went out of its way to make bigots feel comfortable. Sidney is so damn perfect I would have married him myself. Brokeback made me feel like Ang Lee was whispering in my ear "It's OK to like these guys even if they belong on the LOGO network. It says nothing about your sexuality." I didn't need that; movies don't alter one's sexuality.

I didn't need Coppola whispering in my ear during Dementia 13 "it's OK, you're not an ax murderer." That would be distracting--his beard would tickle.

Speaking of murder, I am still searching for the big profound message your critical brethren keep telling me is in A History of Violence. I liked the movie for what it was, a throwback to those 80's revenge movies with less talented, more muscular actors, but what do the crix think it was trying to tell me? That violence begets violence? (a message neither new nor profound) That Ed Harris and his brood are some shitty ass hitmen? (It took them 17 years to find Tom Stall?!) That William Hurt was looking in the mirror and commenting on his performance when he kept saying "How could you fuck this up?!" That if you kill enough people, you won't have to eat out your wife? What?!

As someone who once wrote a near-thesis on Cronenberg, I would think his fans would have taken him to task for directing such a mainstream picture, even if it is very well-directed. Sure, it follows his themes, but the critics are drooling over the movie for honoring those themes while not being Cronenbergian. Consider this to Cronenberg what The Age of Innocence was to Marty.

"My Good Lost Day" sounds like a title waiting for a story, bud. What'll it cost to buy it off ya? In fact I HAVE the story for it. (Unlike most writers, I actually usually start with the title.)

Odie, I can't guarantee it, but take those same kids (or just rent the damn thing) to GODZILLA'S REVENGE, and all will be forgiven. (I SAID I can't guarantee it, but I don't want to know the kid who can't adore GODZILLA'S REVENGE. I'd get all Victorian on them, Edward Gorey style.)

As to Mr. Seitz's links ... well, Armond is as Armond does (would he be Armond if he didn't? Of course not). Though offhand I wonder if he even realizes he's channeling Michael Medved in that MATCH POINT review.

I've yet to see BROKEBACK so recuse myself from that particular discussion.

A dear old buddy of mine, a critic whose opinions and passion I respect, indulged me in a one-hour argument about A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE Wednesday night. It was one of those arguments that reconfirmed the rhythms of our friendship: whenever we get together, we talk about life and bond like brothers, then we argue movies and verbally beat the shit out of each other. At one point, he said that VIOLENCE was an action picture and a thriller with "a frisson of something else."

Personally, I like movies that grasp after greatness but then deliver more than a frisson. I feel like if you're going to give me something else, go ahead and give it to me -- don't fake it and tell me you gave to me.

That's what VIOLENCE did, so convincingly that a lot of normally sharp, skeptical people bought into it. It seemed to me like the sort of film (ultra-bloody, masterfully paced pulp thriller about a reformed assassin dragged back into the life in order to protect his loved ones) that these same critics would likely mock or at least distrust if Cronenberg's name weren't on it, and if it did not mechanically reiterate many of Cronenberg's well-known themes complete with gigantic neon footnotes.

UNFORGIVEN, an equally hardcore movie in a different genre, traffics in some of the same themes and pulls similar tricks, mixing in unexpected emotions, scenes and plot twists to make an old, frankly formulaic story feel new. What elevates it to near greatness isn't the shot of the post-rampage William Munny in the rain, backed by an American flag (too obvious!) but the very final longshot of Munny back at his farm, semi-silhouetted against the sky. As peaceful guitar music plays, a printed legend tells us that Munny moved to San Francisco where he was rumored to have prospered in dry goods. In this one amazing shot, Eastwood (and author David Webb Peoples) get closer to the notion of extreme violence nestling (comfortably!) inside mundane daily life than Cronenberg's film ever dares.

And unlike VIOLENCE, UNFORGIVEN doesn't draw a clear line between the good guys, however lethally skilled (Tom and his son) and the bad guys (who look and act like cartoon demons, and who can therefore be slaughtered with a clear conscience). There is nothing in VIOLENCE that complicates our empathy for the righteous heroes as profoundly as the green-ass kid shooting that unarmed cowpoke while he sits on the crapper, or Morgan Freeman, who reluctantly accompanied the hero mainly out of love and loyalty, getting the sherriff's henchmen in his sights and then being unable to pull the trigger and then being lynched by the sherriff for being associated with Munny, or the images of Munny drinking to numb himself and bring out his old murderous bile, or Munny taunting and then coolly executing the sherriff, who no longer poses a threat to him, then casually killing another incapacitated enemy on the way out.

Munny keeps saying, "I ain't like that no more," but he is. The narrative confirms that the old Munny never truly left, he just got comfortable and settled down and hid inside the "new" supposedly peaceful Munny. The old Munny rises up like a demon periodically, then life returns to something like normalcy. And then the cycle repeats. Bursts of homicidal mayhem followed by utter normalcy; that's Munny's life story. VIOLENCE makes a fairly weak stab in that final scene at suggesting life will never be the same for this family (the Film School fig leaf briefly draping the film's raging two-hour hard-on for cartoon Special Ops violence). But the final image of UNFORGIVEN tells us that for all intents and purpose, it will -- that Munny came out of his violent fog and resumed a normal, peaceful life. That's a much more disturbing and challenging vision of a lethal man's life (and unfortunately more true to human nature) than anything Cronenberg shows us. Pulp stylization or no pulp stylization.

I'm not saying UNFORGIVEN is a perfect film -- it's slow, overlong, and structurally just as predictable as VIOLENCE, and Eastwood's facility with images didn't (and in my view, still doesn't) match his skill at picking interesting material and casting and directing actors to the best performances of their lives. (All things considered, Cronenberg's a deeper, crazier, more rewarding filmmaker.) But I am saying that if you want an alternative to VIOLENCE, one that actually delivers on most of its implied promises, UNFORGIVEN's a good contrast point. (And bear in mind, I think Cronenberg is a genius. I have liked or loved everything he's done up to now, except EXISTENZ, which felt too much like Cronenberg Cliff's Notes. I even loved SPIDER!)

My original NYPress review said VIOLENCE was the sort of film an artist of Cronenberg's stature had to make if he wished to continue making movies. I see nothing in the overwhelming, lock-step, talking-point-driven critical consensus that contradicts that statement. VIOLENCE is the sort of movie that university-bred critics are trained to adore, a disreputable and simplistic film with just enough unstable elements (mainly Maria Bello's rich, earthy, amazingly real character, and her emotionally tangled sex scenes with Mortensen) to convince them that they're seeing something new, or even something fresh. VIOLENCE gives critics permission to like the sort of movie they'd never be caught dead liking if, say, Matt Damon or Steven Seagal or Geena Davis starred in it. Which, point of fact, they did.

Dan Yuma: No need for me to riff on GODZILLA'S REVENGE. The joke writes itself.

In this one amazing shot, Eastwood (and author David Webb Peoples) get closer to the notion of extreme violence nestling (comfortably!) inside mundane daily life than Cronenberg's film ever dares.

But Matty - that's exactly what the amazing, movie-shifting final scene does in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. Remember that it is the daughter who pushes the plate towards Tom.

My Dad got all fucked up by Vietnam, and his dad drank his way away from every bad WWII memory.

Bringing everything back to MUNICH (again), Geoffrey Rush's bone-chilling final "No!" is just a pipe-dream.

We all dine with killers, regularly.

That's why, despite the comic-book trappings, and kicky lowbrow flourishes (the kind of bits you usually have a lot less patience for than I do) I feel Cronenberg is onto something right and true in his investigation of how America mythologizes itself.

Congrats on the niece! Over the holidays my Baby Sis just got engaged - I'm waiting for the intevitable call to follow on that one.

-Uncle Sean

And off we go!

According to VIOLENCE, America mythologizes itself like this: We pretend we're not killers, but we are.

But here's the rub, Sean: Nowhere in VIOLENCE does Cronenberg suggest that Tom is less than a decent, reformed man, even after he's been pushed, by evil forces, to reconnect with his lethal skills. He's not a William Munny, a bad/good man, the two halves forever tangled up, the bad side mostly submerged but periodically erupting. He's a good man who has to do bad things to protect his family. Period.

I repeat, Tom only kills monsters. Not fat henchman in outhouses, not wounded gunmen who pose no threat. Monsters! With creepy eyes and scars. Orcs in suits.

There are complications, yes, and Tom must face the emotional consequences of having lied to his wife and family, but these aren't rhetorical roadblocks separating Cronenberg from Steven Seagal-ism. They're speed bumps.

Nowhere does Cronenberg suggest that Tom is less than pure, less than reformed. He has lethal skills, and he uses them, but only against evil men. His aim is true. He never kills the wrong person, never kills less than deserving person.

This is not a subversion, a revision or a reconsideration of how America mythologizes itself. It's a vindication. Cronenberg's closeups of torn flesh, his wonderful dark deadpan humor and those great scenes between husband and wife don't counter that vindication, they just spice it up a little.

Since you mentioned American and mythology, let's go ahead and get bluntly political and Village Voicey: What is there in VIOLENCE that contradicts where America is right now, as a collective character? What is there in VIOLENCE that contradicts, or even questions, the cartoon cowboy mentality that has fueled so much of the last few years' worth of military policy? I watch VIOLENCE and think of the president repeatedly assuring people that we're facing an unprecedented threat, and in order to conquer it, we have to quit being pussies, get in there and get dirty, secure in the knowledge that we're decent people and they are monsters, so at the end of the day, we're not compromising anything. That's a lie repeated in action films with Stallone, Schwarzenegger and the rest of the 80s-90s steroid ash-heap. You could show Cronenberg's movie in the White House screening room, secure in the knowledge that everyone there would think it vindicated their point of view. It's a nightclub bouncer with a semiotics diploma.

Cronenberg has made at least five masterpieces, maybe more. This is not one of them.

Well, some of you are in different time zones, so what's my excuse for being up. Eh, I merely am.

Mr. Seitz, that's as fine a look at UNFORGIVEN as any I've read. I've always thought the most important moment in it was not one of the obvious bits in the script (which should have won the Oscar over Neil Jordan's clever but one-trick CRYING GAME; which of the two is more likely to be taught in screenwriting courses in years to come, you think?)

... oh yes, the most important moment? Gene Hackman pinned to the floor saying "I don't deserve this. I was building a house."

Tell me I'm wrong, but that's the most resonant moment to me. (And I'll never forget filing out of that particular Los Angeles theater — I no longer live there, God bless — and overhearing one fellow ticket-buyer saying "Man, there's GOT to be a sequel," and I don't think he was even being ironic. What did he expect? UNFORGIVEN AGAIN? SOMEHOW CONTINUOUSLY UNFORGIVEN? STILL UNFORGIVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS? THOSE WHO REMAIN UNFORGIVEN MIGHT CONCEIVABLY HAVE THE OPTION OF BOOKING A TICKET AT THE LOCAL BOOTH FOR THE RAIL, WHICH IS ALSO UNFORGIVEN, BUT WE'RE EUROPEAN, SO YOU EXPECT AS MUCH.)

Mr. Seitz, the joke in GODZILLA'S REVENGE doesn't obviously write itself to me, unless it's a spin on Montezuma's Revenge (good Lord, I myself could guess which of the two would be less painful.)

As for Cronenberg, I think he is brilliant, there's no way around that, but that also doesn't help my own problem of hating almost every movie he's ever made. It's a paradox. Perhaps he is just telling me things I'd rather not know. I suppose he might be pleased to learn as much. (Paradoxically I think if I ever met him in person, we'd probably hit it off. I have no particular expectation of that ever happening, though.)

Congratulations to the entire Zoller-Seitz pod! Love the placeholder.

Dan Yuma, our feelings on Cronenberg match. Oddly enough, outside of Hitch and Wilder, he is the director I've done the most research on (for a very long paper I wrote and continue to revise). Talk about being a masochist...

Whenever I am in Canada, which is often as my best friends live there, I always ask people their feelings on Cronenberg's works. He and Egoyan (another director whose movies critics tend to overrate) are to Canada what Bergman is to Sweden and Fellini is to Italy: the golden boy directors of their countries. (Sue me, but I'd take Lina Wertmueller over Fellini any day--except for 8-1/2 which, come to think of it, Wertmueller worked on.)

Matt, that was a great piece on Unforgiven! What elevates Eastwood's Best Western over A History of Violence is that it does not casually disregard the family betrayal angle. You mention the printed legend at the end, but what about the earlier one that tells you about Mrs. Munny? Watching William Munny return to violence--in essence betraying the wishes of his now deceased wife--raised a sadness in me that uneasily tangoed with my bloodlust. Munny will always be a killer, but unlike his early days, he won't forgive himself for this round of murder.

During A History of Violence, I felt the same sick excitement I felt during my favorite bad Schwarzenegger movie (Commando, if you must know) minus the conflict I'm being told I should have felt. Tom Stall gets off easy. He comes home and sits down with that fake ass "I'm weally weally sowwy" look that my brother perfected to keep my Mom's foot out of his ass, and Daddy's Little Girl feeds him and Maria Bello telepathically offers him some more "Eddie Murphy's Aunt Bunny" style fucking. I didn't buy his remorse for a second, and why should he have had any? This is Death Wish with a pedigree.

I'd like to see a movie where the Maria Bello character goes batshit with that shotgun! Now that would have been progress! Can we get her in an Abel Ferrara trashfest?

As for a sequel to Unforgiven, I vote for Unforgiven 2: Electric Boogaloo. I would be first in line, wearing my breakdancer pants from that shameful fashion chapter in my life, and holding a Winchester.

Off to find Godzilla's Revenge,
Odie

I can see the sequel for the UNFORGIVEN trailer already: it starts with a montage of horribly sadistic images establishing the new set of antagonists -- mercenaries, Klansmen, whatever -- torching towns, robbing banks, dragging people behind buckboards, etc. Then the mandatory voice-of-God narration concludes, "...and only one man could stop them."

Cut to Eastwood, even older now, sitting on a porch rocker with a jug of moonshine in his hand, squinting up from beneath the brim of his hat and declaring, "I STILL ain't like that no more."

After Clint utters the tag line, there are a million quick cuts, flashes of gunfire and bodies falling. Britney Spears appears, looks into the camera and says "Ah knew ya cud say-ve me, Mr. Munny!" Then we see Eastwood blow away Justin Timberlake. "Oops, you did it again!" sings Britney, wearing nothing but a tumbleweed.

The title comes up: Unforgiven 2: Still Unforgiven! Then the voice of God says the phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of people expecting an adult oriented movie. He says: RATED PG-13!

FADE IN: low-angle shot of a smokestack.

VOICE OVER: "In a time when life was something you sold ... "

(SMASH CUT to disheveled children mass-herded into our out of an orphanage)

VOICE OVER: " ... and every little thing you bought ... "

(MEDIUM SHOT of, I dunno, CLAIRE DANES, hardly matters)

VOICE OVER: " ... had a consequence ... "

(SMASH CUT to DAKOTA FANNING looking relatively povertal)

VOICE OVER: " ... that you never ... "

(SMASH CUT to a TRIO OF GUNSLINGERS)

VOICE OVER: " ... hoped to know."

(Insert patchwork action miscellany, stopping with the same rattlesnake sound that announced him in the original trailer; CLINT EASTWOOD! Wooo!)

CLINT EASTWOOD: "You think it's that easy? I'll show you easy. I'll show you easy a thousand times backwards, but you wanna talk to me now, because it's not gonna hurt any different later."

SMASH CUT TO: IT'S ON NOW (title card)

SMASH CUT TO: UNFORGIVEN: THE REVENGE (title card)

SMASH CUT TO: Clint Eastwood looking at the camera and, in the strangest manner, speculatively licking his lips.

SMASH CUT TO: OCTOBER (title card)

P.S. belated congrats to your brother Jeremy's newest. (way to kill the mood I know, but I can't help it, I'm a softie in too many ways.)

And off we go!

That was just the teaser, gents.

I haven't seen HOSTEL yet, but I can't believe that MATCHPOINT belongs in the same league of cynical fun-violence pictures. Is it possible that Armond (a critic I read since his 1992 filmcomment-article "The Blinding by the Light")mistakes the behaviour of a film character for a message of the author/director? Even if you're a constant preacher of humanism in movies, don't you have to face the existence of some disagreeable truths before working against them?

Armond's wrong on this one. MATCH POINT isn't as great as everyone says, but Allen sees his character's sociopathy clearly and anyone with eyes should be able to see that he does not endorse it, or find it funny. If anything, I consider it a tremendously brave and scathing movie, for this reason: it's about the lengths to which people are willing to go in order to preserve their level of comfort.