Comments on The House Next Door: Navel Gazing with Burns and Dignan: Apocalypto, Bl...

Judas is not from BrooklynNo, but I thought Scorse...

2006-12-18T22:02:00.000-05:00

Judas is not from Brooklyn

No, but I thought Scorsese's conceit was that Palestine was Manhattan, with its mix of accents and ethnic types. A shrewder guess than Gibson's, who dunderheadedly assumed the Romans spoke Latin--unfortunately, since most soldiers in the army at the time were foreign conscripts and not actually from Rome or its immediate provinces, they'd have an easier time talking in Greek--the lingua franca of its day.

Actually, historically speaking, Scorsese's research on that film was impressive. Most archeologically accurate depiction of the period onscreen yet, far as I know (well, allowing for the accents, and as Gibson proved, sometimes talking in a dead language can be a dumber move than just using English). Plus I thought the filmmaking didn't suck.

Noel: And is it just me that felt that first hour ...

2006-12-18T09:13:41.396-05:00

Noel: And is it just me that felt that first hour in Gibson's latest pornfest is basically brown faces being assholes to other brownfaces?

Actually, I learned that the Mayans didn't do anything but kill each other, and that they were a useless society. Those bastards at Chichen Itza lied to me!

Noel: what, no love for The Last
Temptation of Christ?

I think the crucifixion scene in Scorsese's movie is quite powerful, but the rest of it is a crashing bore. And Judas is NOT from Brooklyn, Marty.

Sean Burns: So flip your casting, Odie, you ignorant slut.

Ah, my fellow ignorant slut, I was merely trying some stunt casting, to prove that you guys can act! Stunt casting gets asses in the theater, and gets Golden Globe nominations for both of you!

Fine, Dignan can be Dignam, and you can get into a sleeping bag with Adam Sandler's canteen boy. "I'm sorry my beard is so scratchy, Canteen Boy," Alec once famously said on SNL, "but it gives good back rubs."

Count me in as a fan of Age of Innocence, Bring Ou...

2006-12-18T02:42:00.000-05:00

Count me in as a fan of Age of Innocence, Bring Out the Dead, Kundun, and what, no love for The Last Temptation of Christ?

As for The Aviator, think of it as a restless but intelligent epic take on leadership figures.

And if The Departed has to be about something (and why give Apocalypto a pass and not this one? And is it just me that felt that first hour in Gibson's latest pornfest is basically brown faces being assholes to other brownfaces?) then it's really about evolution in action.

No, I'll repeat what's been said so often here: it's not Scorsese's best, but Infernal Affairs wasn't all that either, and I'd take Scorsese's so-called work-for-hire over Gibson's obssessive wankfest anytime.

You're going to have Burns play someone called "Di...

2006-12-18T00:22:46.850-05:00

You're going to have Burns play someone called "Dignam?" This one feels like an easy call, no?

I'm also the older one, and I'm currently boasting an Alec-ky beer gut.

So flip your casting, Odie, you ignorant slut.

"Yes, but on the other hand Old Edie is a very eas...

2006-12-17T21:21:00.000-05:00

"Yes, but on the other hand Old Edie is a very easy writer for a filmmaker to fuck up. Ever see John Madden's take on ETHAN FROME?"

She seems easy to fuck up, but I think if the director understands and compensates for the inherent difficulty in translating her -- that the carefully embroidered, super-subtle "action" which takes up three pages of text will require only a 15-second tracking shot to execute visually -- it can work. I wasn't entirely on board with some aspects of AoI (the casting of Pfeiffer, who is too contemporary-looking; the voiceover), but Scorsese got close enough to the problem to win me over.

Ethan Frome is not typical of Wharton's longer fiction, really, but they teach it in schools because it's 1) short and 2) a little more obvious and on the nose than her other stuff. You'd think that would make it an easier film to pull off, so it's interesting that that one's the stinker (I loved Davies's House Of Mirth).

"Nice senior-thesis core dump." "Thanks!"

And I think, at the end of the year, you and Sean ...

2006-12-17T15:16:00.863-05:00

And I think, at the end of the year, you and Sean Burns should take on the roles of Alecky Alec and Marky Mark (respectively) in The Departed and have a go at all your disagreements. In honor of Weekend Update, you should say "Sean, you ignorant slut," and Sean could say some cuss words in a Bahston accent.

You're going to have Burns play someone called "Dignam?" This one feels like an easy call, no? And just like in the film, we can both do the accent.

It's completely bizarre to hear people describe a ...

2006-12-17T14:29:00.000-05:00

It's completely bizarre to hear people describe a movie where Jack Nicholson shoots a sobbing woman in the back of the head as "fun"?

This is what's considered fun now?

Thanks but no thanks.

"But you're not supposed to take it seriously."

Sorry...I prefer to take violence seriously. Good day.

Andrew, I don't think Scorsese set out to make a m...

2006-12-17T11:43:09.356-05:00

Andrew, I don't think Scorsese set out to make a movie with all the substance you expected. It's Marty for Dummies, and that had to be Scorsese's intention. Matt said that Scorsese resented being the director for hire on Cape Fear, so he took that resentment out on the audience, which explains why Cape Fear is a sour-grapes flavored piece of garbage (for the same directorial mistake, see DePalma's The Black Dahlia).

With The Departed, it felt like he was having fun with being the director for hire, and he OBVIOUSLY doesn't want you to take it seriously. If he had, he would have put the reigns on Marlon Jack instead of letting him chew on the film like Nicolas Cage possessed by both Dick Burton and Larry Olivier. After all, and these are your words, not mine, "the greatest living filmmaker in the world" should be able to direct a fucking actor. If he wanted About Schmidt Jack, he would have asked for him.

It's not Marty's best work, but it felt like liberation from the drooling Oscar hunter Scorsese had become. Maybe that's why I enjoyed myself. Yes, Marty is slumming. It's better than him trying to be the low-rent David Lean who showed up to direct Kundun and The Aviator.

It sounds like you went into the movie expecting deepness it wasn't designed to provide, and like those refund-crazed people who make Sean Burns' job miserable, your sense of entitlement overrode your enjoyment of the movie. That, my dear friend, is your fault, not Marty's.

And I think, at the end of the year, you and Sean Burns should take on the roles of Alecky Alec and Marky Mark (respectively) in The Departed and have a go at all your disagreements. In honor of Weekend Update, you should say "Sean, you ignorant slut," and Sean could say some cuss words in a Bahston accent.

True, but turns out that the suburbs and suburbani...

2006-12-17T10:55:03.260-05:00

True, but turns out that the suburbs and suburbanite gangsters can be pretty boring (for me.) Since the first coupla seasons passed by, I have found The Sopranos only intermittently entertaining as well.

Nice, my Departed holy hand grenade worked.Sean sa...

2006-12-17T01:46:26.956-05:00

Nice, my Departed holy hand grenade worked.

Sean said: I thought Andrew and I were gonna wait 'till year's end to rehash our DEPARTED pissing contest

Man, between this VICE and lots not forget all the films I liked that you hated (THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, MARIE ANTOINETTE) we’d be sitting there for hours email screaming at each other circa December 31st. Better to let some of the air out of the balloon now, right?

But goddamnit if it isn't also the most fun I've had in ages, and the hardest I've laughed at any movie this year that wasn't about the misadventures of an Anti-Semitic foreign journalist.

That’s a valid point, and one I know a great many people share. Hell, even my parents, who see on average like 3.2 films a year came out raving from THE DEPARTED saying it was the most fun they’d had in a movie in years. The problem is you don’t get to be arguably the greatest living filmmaker in the world by simply taking half a dozen of your earlier better films, dumping them into a blender and then skimming out all that pesky substance sitting on the top. Scorsese’s better than this and one only needs to look at what his old buddy Spielberg has been up to for the past few years to get a sense of what happens when a filmmaker is making audience-geared film while their heart is still in it (when it wasn’t endlessly depressing, how exhilarating was Munich?) Don’t we have Joe Carnahan around to make these empty shoot-em-up films instead?

Dan said:

I know it's probably heresy to go here, but I'm not a big fan of Goodfellas. and then he said The whole thing just feels too bloody suburban

That’s more or less the point and it’s the foundation that “The Sopranos” has since been built upon. Being a gangster can be every bit as blue color and tedious as being the cable guy or a construction worker or a dock worker. The film uses the work-a-day nature and rationalizing (“our husbands were out busting their asses to make an extra buck while other guys were standing around looking for handouts”) to place you alongside people who were thieves and murders, creating a sense of kinship that’s then turned against you once everything goes to shit. There’s an ethical code to the film that’s sorely missing from The Departed where we might as well be watching video game characters who are slaves to the machinations of the plot. There’s a lot of clever stuff around the margins (I for one would pay to see the sequel where Walberg and Baldwin sit in a room for 2 hours making homophobic jabs at one another to disguise their love for one another) but aside from the contact high, is there really anything to take away from the film? Or to think about 3 months removed from its release?

Sean: Your reading really is the correct reading o...

2006-12-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

Sean: Your reading really is the correct reading of the ending of The Age of Innocence. That's clearly what the book intends because I remember that he thinks in the book, "she's more real in his mind" or something like that.

Yet I just like the line in the movie (I think that's in the book too) that says someone pitied him from afar and it moved him indescribably that it was his wife whom he never suspected- or something to that effect.

In any case-again, a great movie.

I know it's probably heresy to go here, but I'm no...

2006-12-16T15:43:01.660-05:00

I know it's probably heresy to go here, but I'm not a big fan of Goodfellas. Liotta's a good actor, and he's really become one helluva fine screen presence, but deNiro looks tired and bored in much of the film. The whole thing just feels too bloody suburban; I really didn't give a shit about most of these putzes.

In The Departed, at least, we're back on the streets, with working class stiffs and scrappy bastards trying to get a foothold in a hostile world. It's not a great Scorsese film, I'll grant you that (too much emphasis on plot exposition being a particularly annoying flaw), but it's still a damned exciting one graced by some great performances. Obviously diCaprio and Nicholson shone, and yes, Alec Baldwin was great, but shit, what about Marky Mark? He cracked me up every second he was on screen.

Hollow? Shallow? I dunno, I found these folks plenty complex and conflicted, and I had no problem investing in their various fates.

Sars: Edith Wharton may have done some of the heav...

2006-12-16T14:26:17.850-05:00

Sars: Edith Wharton may have done some of the heavy lifting in that department.

Yes, but on the other hand Old Edie is a very easy writer for a filmmaker to fuck up. Ever see John Madden's take on ETHAN FROME? I was cheering for Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette to just go sledding already!

Mark, I'm so with you on AGE OF INNOCENCE being dr...

2006-12-16T14:21:50.340-05:00

Mark, I'm so with you on AGE OF INNOCENCE being dreadfully underrated.

I had a bit of a different take on the ending though (which reduces me to a quivering wreck every time I see it.)

I always felt like Archer never went upstairs because in his mind over the years, the Countess had blossomed out of all proportion and sense into this sort of unattainable mythical figure - and if he had simply met up with her again it would bring the whole fantasy he'd based his life around crashing back down to drab old reality

That's why I think there's the golden-hued shot of Pfeiffer melted into the sun's refection off the window, and his cryptic: "Just say I'm old fashioned" explanation.

Also, how amazing are those birds that fly away just as Lewis exits the frame in the final shot? We're talking phenomenal avian choreography here.

MZS: It had velocity, but so does a Go Kart.That's...

2006-12-16T14:14:30.383-05:00

MZS: It had velocity, but so does a Go Kart.

That's awesome. I told you, man. I've been waiting months for you to make me feel guilty about this one.

Still, any movie with a moment like Alec Baldwin's exhaled in one breath: "You-wanna-have-a-cigarette-let's-go-have-a-cigarette-wait-a-minute-you-don't-smoke-do you-what-are-you-some-kinda-health-nut-or-something-hey-go-fuck-yourself." automatically makes my ten-best list.

Baldwin is a national treasure. Did anybody see the subplot on 30 ROCK last week about his long-distance relationship with Condoleeza Rice? I almost choked at that throwaway bit with him on a cell-phone: "No darling, I didn't say 'braces,' I said 'bonding'!"

Re: GOOD GERMAN And what, if anything, was the point?

I'm just spitballing here, but my take is that Soderbergh was trying to play around with the dissonace between our voluptous, over-stylized movie memories and the grittier, uglier realties of the actual era. Anyhow, that's the only excuse I can make for the overwrought profanity, seamy sexual content and relentlessly downbeat air.

Not that I think he did anything especially productive with said dissonance but it made a bit more sense to me than some of his experimental wanks (cough, BUBBLE.)

I got a kick out of the formalism (I'm a sucker for rear-projection process shots and badly-printed opticals.) But yeah, on the whole it was basically just kind of unpleasant.

Edith Wharton may have done some of the heavy lift...

2006-12-16T13:45:00.000-05:00

Edith Wharton may have done some of the heavy lifting in that department.

I love Age of Innocence, too, and it is a far more...

2006-12-16T12:58:00.000-05:00

I love Age of Innocence, too, and it is a far more layered and complex movie than people give it the credit for I think. You would think it is just about lovers thwarted by circumstances and society but at the end of that movie, it actually moves away from the Day-Lewis character thinking about what could've been and moves toward his respect and sympathy toward his wife, upon being told by son that she knew everything about his "flings" and did everything to keep the family together (that's why he doesn't meet the Michelle Pfeiffer character at the end, I think). It reminds me a little of the end of The New World, too, that way, because I think that movie was actually saying John Rolfe's love is a more profound one.

A great and very underrated movie-I put it (far) above Goodfellas and besides Raging Bull.

Odie: Although you obviously didn't get this impre...

2006-12-16T12:18:55.110-05:00

Odie: Although you obviously didn't get this impression from the movie, what I loved about Apocalypto -- the first half, mainly -- was the sense of inevitable, tragic weight attached to all the violence. It was truly horrific -- not just the acts themselves, but the sense of helplessness pervading those who were trapped in that situation. There's more authentic empathy in five minutes of Apocalypto's first hour than in almost any supposedly more serious Oscar-baiting movie about war or suffering. Then it becomes, as Sean says, Werner Herzog's Rambo V.

As for Cape Fear, what I mean is, I got a sense of Scorsese the man behind those images -- an opinion was being expressed in how he approached that hackwork, and the hostility was bracing and not like anything I'd seen from him before. No such energy in The Departed. It had velocity, but so does a Go Kart.

MZS: It's not just willfully naive, it's mind-warp...

2006-12-16T11:52:56.356-05:00

MZS: It's not just willfully naive, it's mind-warping for young viewers.

Even though you're talking about Zwick here, that one sentence sums up my feelings on Apocalypto.

MZS: "Well, that didn't work, so fuck it -- maybe what you people want is a straight-up whore."

Congratulations Marty! You finally figured out how to win an Oscar!

MZS: But it's the first Scorsese movie where I felt he had no particular opinion on anything he was showing me.

Do you think it's because he has such disdain for remakes? And I disagree with you: Cape Fear is far more superficial and worse than this.

MZS: I wish it had been something that didn't embrace the most reductive perception of his career quite so enthusiastically.

Congratulations, Marty! You finally figured out how to win an Oscar!

SB: Marty's made at least three masterpieces since...

2006-12-16T11:44:32.460-05:00

SB: Marty's made at least three masterpieces since then. (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, GANGS OF NEW YORK -- yeah, I know it's got plenty of problems but I still don't give a shit -- and NO DIRECTION HOME.)

I'm with you on The Age of Innocence, the only Marty movie that mentions my hometown. But Gangs, like The Aviator and Casino is only a masterpiece for its first hour. Ashamedly, I have not seen No Direction Home. (Is that the movie where Bob Dylan comes to a party at Matt's house and...wait, this belongs on that When Titles Collide Thread...my bad! :) )

SB: Don't you think there's something beautiful about a woman in Hollywood who has allowed herself to age naturally, instead of carving and Botoxing her face into a motionless, Jessica Lange-ian Death Mask?

Don't you mean a "Faye Dunaway-ian Death Mask?" I swear, Faye looks like she went to Nip/Tuck and said "I want the deer eternally caught in headlights look."

SB: Also, Odie, we're both wrong - Keaton was hottest in SLEEPER.

How could I forget?! Two hours in the Orgasmatron for me!

Blood Diamond is on tap for me today after Dreamgirls and no, I didn't pay the $25 for the Ziegfeld ticket; I'm being treated, which, coincidentally, is how I saw it on Broadway 24 years ago. If I pay $25 for a movie ticket, the concession stand guy better ask "Do you want some Beyonce on your popcorn?"

Back on topic: I was at the movies in Newport, Kentucky a few weeks ago, and the guy on line in front of us looked miserable. As he got closer to the ticket window, his appearance got gloomier and gloomier. At the ticket window, I heard his girlfriend say "Two for The Holiday. The guy turned around and looked at me. "Help me," his eyes pleaded. "Please help me." "At least you'll get some afterwards," my face reassured him. "I'll pray for you."

I heard that Taco Bell, home of the E. Coli Chalupa, is going to have a marketing tie in with Apocalypto. (Remember, they're the only chain who will do R-rated movie tie-ins.) I wonder if they'll call it "Atacolypto" and if they'll have action figurines like a jaguar that eats the face off another action figure.

Hey, guys--on topic: You know my thoughts on Apoca...

2006-12-16T11:25:31.570-05:00

Hey, guys--on topic: You know my thoughts on Apocalypto (the review is linked in the text of your column). Blood Diamond was tedious, and think Sean's neither-fish-nor-fowl criticism pretty much nails it. I'm at least glad that Zwick hammered on the futility and ugliness of war; in his other pictures involving war (The Last Samurai, Glory, Courage Under Fire) he takes a quaint, almost 17th century novelist's view of war, treating it as a morally neutral thing to test oneself against, and that disgusts me. It's not just willfully naive, it's mind-warping for young viewers. That said, I liked it a hell of a lot more than Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, which depressed me beyond all measure. Sordid and amateurish; the supposedly period-homage black and white photography was anachronistic, even crappy in places, and the "modern" language and sexuality was crude and simplistic. And what, if anything, was the point? Zwick isn't as cool as Soderbergh, but at least when you see one of his movies you have a sense of what he wants to say and a sense of urgency and passion in saying it.

As for The Departed, guys, Blogger doesn't have enough memory to hold my screed on how much I disliked that movie. It was like Scorsese, who for years had been pining after Oscar like a street corner girl putting on airs, suddenly did a 180 and said, "Well, that didn't work, so fuck it -- maybe what you people want is a straight-up whore." Dignan's right -- The Departed isn't what Scorsese really represents (attraction-repulsion, passion-coolness, modernity-classicism, momentum-intertia, forcefulness-reflection and all those other dichotomies), it's what people have decided he represents (guys smoking cigarettes and saying "fuck" a lot and occasionally betraying and/or whacking people). It's the most superficial movie he's ever made, bar none. Yes, it moves, and it has some nasty, exciting bits, and parts of it are quite funny (any scene with Alec Baldwin). But it's the first Scorsese movie where I felt he had no particular opinion on anything he was showing me. He was like a short order cook making somebody a corned beef sandwich when he really wanted to be making timpano. Cape Fear was work for hire, a bid for box office success just like The Departed, but Scorsese hated having to make it, and he took out his resentment on the audience, and the result was a movie that brutalized the viewer and went way, way further than you expected -- practically an assault, directed at people who think Hannibal Lecter is cool and funny. He had a low opinion of popular taste, as demonstrated in the scene where Max Cady laughs his ass off at Problem Child 2. Now he's capitulated. The Departed doesn't feel like a Scorsese movie to me, but a Scorsese flavored crime thriller. I know he needs a hit to keep making his gigantic labors of love, but if he was gonna do some make-work, I wish it had been something that didn't embrace the most reductive perception of his career quite so enthusiastically.

I'm all hands on deck behind The Departed. It's n...

2006-12-16T01:41:58.073-05:00

I'm all hands on deck behind The Departed. It's nothing new, no, but everything works far better than in many a movie out now. It's not my favorite movie of the year but I thought Leo was pretty darned awesome. The real shame is Vera Farmiga won't get any props: she's the real deal. And I finally saw Infernal Affairs and sure it was clever and there were a pair of scenes that Departed didn't have but it really didn't work as well, I don't think, despite Tony Leung being, simply, THE SHIT.

jeffmcm: does making an action movie about Jesus C...

2006-12-16T01:32:07.676-05:00

jeffmcm: does making an action movie about Jesus Christ ennoble the action genre? Or does it reduce the Son of God by turning him into a stock genre character?

Well, I said he used action movie techniques to get a rise out of the audience and work us over. (Mr. Henderson is indeed correct, as at no point does the Son of Man go all motherfucking Charlie Bronson on anybody.)

At the risk of getting into all this business again, obviously Gibson was preaching, and it seemed to me he made a very conscious decision to veer away from the "hippie Jesus" stereotypes and portray His suffering in the language that perhaps only the bloddiest blockbuster movie star of all time would so innately understand - playing directly to an audience for whom "turning the other cheek" is usually something that "pussies" do.

Whether or not he succeeded... well, one thing I've learned over these past couple years is that your personal mileage is gonna vary.

Dignan: I guess I don't have quite the senior citi...

2006-12-16T01:12:52.276-05:00

Dignan: I guess I don't have quite the senior citizen fetish you gents have, but to each their own I say.

Don't you think there's something beautiful about a woman in Hollywood who has allowed herself to age naturally, instead of carving and Botoxing her face into a motionless, Jessica Lange-ian Death Mask?

(Didn't you see the "Bad Face-Lift Pageant" when Sharon met Demi in BOBBY? I thought for a moment I was watching BRAZIL.)

Also, Odie, we're both wrong - Keaton was hottest in SLEEPER. I think I've secretly always been longing for a woman who could do the "Checking The Cell-Structure" dance with me.

Sorry Odie, but I'm afraid I left my bazooka in my...

2006-12-16T01:07:06.923-05:00

Sorry Odie, but I'm afraid I left my bazooka in my other pants.

I thought Andrew and I were gonna wait 'till year's end to rehash our DEPARTED pissing contest, but I think what's happening here is we're confusing the annoying mass critical sound-byte reaction with the film itself.

(And, if I may generalize once more, mass critical reaction is always annoying. The almost complete absence of CHILDREN OF MEN, Alfonso Cuaron and especially Emmanuel Lubezski from the establishment's annual awards handouts is pretty gobsmacking to me. It's all good and well that everybody wants to hurl hosannas at THE QUEEN, which is a perfectly fine movie but is also basically a filmed play. Whereas during certain parts of CHILDREN OF MEN I felt like I was watching somebody re-writing the laws of cinema... not to mention physics.)

Even a die-hard Marty Fanboy like myself would never mistake THE DEPARTED for top-tier Scorsese. As J.J. says - it's a work for hire.

But goddamnit if it isn't also the most fun I've had in ages, and the hardest I've laughed at any movie this year that wasn't about the misadventures of an Anti-Semitic foreign journalist.

All this "best since GOODFELLAS" talk rankles me too, because by my count Marty's made at least three masterpieces since then. (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, GANGS OF NEW YORK -- yeah, I know it's got plenty of problems but I still don't give a shit -- and NO DIRECTION HOME.)

THE DEPARTED is a terrific potboiler carried off with a cocky sneer and swagger -- if the film is really about anything, then it's all about how much fucking fun it is to curse wicked loud in an outrageous Boston accent. (A hobby of mine, actually...cohksuckahs!)

But really, what's so wrong with that? Maybe I'm too much from the Pauline Kael "kiss kiss bang bang" school, but when a flick has this much snap, crackle and pop - I'm not going to complain about the lack of nutritional value.

In other words, it's one of those movies I tend to rely on Matt to make me feel guilty for liking so much. But I still saw it four times, anyway.