Writin' Ain't, Writin' Ain't Easy, Man: A Review of A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING

Look, being a writer isn't easy. And being a writer in a work of fiction is even worse. It doesn't matter if you're a Stephen King creation like Jack Torrance, taking a winter job as the Overlook's caretaker only to have its ghostly inhabitants tempt you with booze and try to get you to murder your wife and son. Hell, even Paul Sheldon who pretty much has his act together in Misery gets his cockadoodie ass put through the wringer by his number one fan. And the world of film isn't much better. In Barton Fink, the Coens force their character on a surrealist journey through a Hollywood hellscape and then there's Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation., where his character's writer's block means almost getting himself killed at the hands of a toothless crazy person and some ornery alligator.  What I'm saying here is that if you're a writer in someone else's story, you're probably going to have some messed up shit happen to you. 

Which brings me to Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell's 2012 (released here in the US this past February) comedy/horror film A Fantastic Fear of Everything - a film that will certainly not be causing an increase in applications to creative writing MFA programs. Unfortunately, that's not simply from all the terrible things that happen to the film's protagonist, Jack Nife (played by Simon Pegg and yes, that's his actual name). No, while first time directors, Mills (who also wrote the film and is primarily known as the frontman for the band Kula Shaker) and Hopewell (who up until this point has made his name directing music videos) display flashes of potential, benefiting primarily from their previous careers, they also demonstrate their inexperience with a film that tries to do so many things that it all ends up feeling clumsy and arbitrary. 

Throughout the film, Pegg has the stage mostly to himself as a successful children's author who hates his career and is attempting to escape the straight jacket he's put himself in by writing a series of screenplays titled Decades of Death and heavily influenced by the lives and heinous crimes of some of Victorian England's worst serial killers. And, of course, being a writer in someone else's story, Jack's research into his subjects' horrific deeds has left him a phobic, panic-stricken, nightmare-suffering mess convinced that someone or something is going to hop out from behind his shower curtain or out of his closet and dismember him. When his literary agent Clair (Clare Higgins) informs him that a hotshot TV producer is interested in Decades of Death and wants to meet with him, the task of putting on clean clothes and venturing across town seems Herculian. This is, after all, a man who spends most of his time in his underwear shrieking at shadows and stabbing at the air with his kitchen knife. Eventually, after a bunch of voice-over worrying and slapstick comedy involving supergluing a his knife to his hand and setting his outfit on fire, Jack finally surmises that the only thing left to be done is a trip to the launderette.  This is when the film introduces us to the fact that Jack actually has a crippling fear of launderettes which he must overcome with great difficulty and-- Wait, what?

Much like the twisted logic of Jack's own inane theories, the storyline of A Fantastic Fear of Everything pretty much goes wherever it wants without regard to anything that's come before it or, you know, anything that makes actual sense. What ends up happening is that you get a movie that feels like a bunch of different writers collaborated on it without actually reading what any of the other writers had written. It's like the Frankenstein monster if there had been a bunch of different scientists who were each allowed to do part of the monster but not allowed to see what the other scientists had done and you ended up with a creation that had the torso of a body builder, the legs of a ballerina and a cat's head - all fine parts, but not a pretty picture when you smash them all together. First, we're shown that Jack is hopelessly dysfunctional, but his voice over suggests that this is a new development. Then at the launderette, it's suggested that his problems are actually lifelong issues based in childhood trauma. THEN in the final act, an up to this point unknown character (Amara Karan) is introduced and the whole thing shifts into an intimate thriller and entirely drops the whole dysfunction angle as if to imply simply identifying the cause of the trauma is an instant panacea. And I could probably even accept this if there was any sort of cohesiveness or emotional resonance to anything onscreen. However, the film bounces from scene to scene, making incomprehensible leaps in narrative and concept. Everything is put towards making each joke or gag the funniest it can be. But without considering how these scenes, jokes and gag connect to one another, it all just falls apart. 

But I don't want to completely shit all over the movie. Even though they may not make much sense in context, many of those individual scenes, gags and jokes are marvelous. Mills and Hopewell have a clear visual sense and much of their use of slow motion, stop motion and slapstick is fantastic. Their ability to block a shot is also amazing. Perhaps the greatest sequence and gag in the movie involves Jack negotiating his way around a local laundromat. The way Mills and Hopewell are able to arrange the camera so that the punchline of the gag isn't revealed until way into the scene is brilliant. And while I know many critics have complained about the use of the music in the film, I think it's one of the film's stronger components. Mills being an accomplished singer-songwriter himself and Hopewell having directed acts such as Radiohead, the Killers, Scissor Sisters and Franz Ferdinand, the pair clearly know what they're doing in this world. That being said, while others may feel that the music is too foregrounded, with the film already being as all over the place as it is, I won't apologize for the fact that I cracked up watching Simon Pegg strut down a London street in a large, hooded overcoat and his knife glued hand in his pocket to the sounds of Ice Cube's "Wrong Nigga 2 Fuck Wit." And any chance I can get to hear Europe's "The Final Countdown" blaring out of boombox in a basement that looks like Freddy Krueger's home, I'll take it.  Mills and Hopewell's taste in things visual and aural are consistently compelling even when their narrative isn't. 

It's hard to talk about anything Simon Pegg's in and not mention his friend and frequent collaborator (and the man who pretty much put him on the map) Edgar Wright, especially with a film that shares so many connections to Wright's material. With Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End, Pegg has been given many opportunities to show us all what a charismatic and versatile performer he is. And while A Fantastic Fear of Everything, like all of Wright's films, is visually striking, without Wright's storytelling ability and the cohesion that all of his character's have, it's hard for Pegg to completely come alive here. Sure, when he's running around his home, shrieking and super-gluing things and talking to himself, he fills the screen with a manic energy. And when the script allows him to be truly funny, he is a riot. In the end, however, Jack Nife (whose name should have been a hint) is never given the chance to rise to the level of some of Wright's characters like Shaun or Nicolas Angel or Gary King. Instead, Jack amounts to little more than a caricature. 

Admittedly, I don't like being so negative about a film when the directors are clearly talented and have a ton of ambition to go along with it. However, despite their terrific sense of visual storytelling, it just can't get them out of the hole dug by Mills's script. In such a longstanding tradition of British comedy/horror, A Fantastic Fear of Everything's jokes can sometimes feel too forced and when they don't, they often end up taking away from what few scares the film has. Just as Jack Nife is paralyzed by his association with his new project, Mills and Hopewell might have been better off letting someone else choose their material. 

Like I said, being a writer isn't easy. 

6.5 out of 10

FX's FARGO: Coen Brothers Remix Breaks Away from Source and Shines

SPOILERS for Episode 1 - "The Crocodile's Dilemma" - of FX's new series "Fargo" are within.

I am not special in saying that I love the Coen Brothers. From The Big Lebowski and O' Brother, Where Art Thou to No Country for Old Men and True Grit, the Coen Brothers are responsible for some of the most beloved and outstanding films of the past 20 years. Their distinct style of darkly comedic (often pitch black) character driven pieces populated by complex individuals fond of snappy, over the top, Noir-inspired dialogue has been often imitated but never duplicated. They are two of the most unique, brilliant, consistently fresh and original directors working in Hollywood.

So, it's needless to say that when I heard that Noah Hawley (producer and writer for such TV shows as Bones, The Unusuals, and My Generation) was turning one of the Coen Brothers' most adored films, 1996's arguably perfect Fargo, into a limited series on FX, you might say I was worried. You might also say I was cringing so hard that my neck muscles ruptured and I died. (But if you did, you'd be scary and weird.) Other than the occasional M*A*S*H or The Untouchables, any time a film is made into a TV show or a TV show is made into a film, the results are at best lackluster and at worst steaming piles of "What on Earth were you thinking?!" 

And I must say that during the first part of last night's premiere, I was beginning to fear that my ruptured neck muscles were prescient. Early on, the show felt like Hawley (who also pens all 10 episodes of the limited run) simply mixing and matching familiar elements from the Coen classic just to get a reaction. There's the police officer who's about to have a baby. Except instead of Frances McDormand, it's a male officer name Vern Thurman (Shawn Doyle). When two cops show up at a snow-covered stretch of highway to investigate a crime scene, it's Vern correcting his female deputy Molly Solverson (played by unknown Allison Tolman) rather than Margie Gunderson telling Lou she doesn't 100% agree with his police work there. While Lester Nygaard isn't introduced planning the kidnapping of his wife to extort a million dollars from his father in-law, Martin Freeman imbues the insurance salesman with emasculated desperation that is clearly reminiscent of William H. Macy's Jerry Lundergaard. Even Billy Bob Thornton's assassin and world-class shit-stirrer Lorne Malvo, while not having any direct connections to a Coen Brothers original, has flashes of the matter of fact cruelty of Peter Stormare's Gaear. And when Malvo ends up murdering Lester's torturer Sam Hess without actually getting Lester's go-ahead, it feels as if Hawley is simply watering down the Coens' masterpiece into the boring and overused tropes of the sympathetic loser protagonist roped into a life of crime against his will and the traditional male authority figure investigating the clues left behind. 

But then Lester beats his overbearing wife to death with a ball-peen hammer and Lorne Malvo eviscerates Vern Thurman with Lester's shotgun and things take a turn. 

In some ways, these acts bring the TV show closer to the film - it makes Lester more comparable to Jerry and it places Molly more firmly into the Marge Gunderson role. In others, however, one can never help feeling like something isn't quite right. The episode starts off just like the movie - a shot of a snowy wasteland backed by an ominous score. But this is not the same world we're looking at. The melody isn't building to Carter Burwell's classic theme, but instead something very different. While it looks like Molly (by the way, Allison Tolman is one of the best new talent discoveries I've seen in some time) is going to solely inhabit McDormand's role, by the end of the episode we are introduced to Colin Hanks's Gus Grimley and it seems like Hawley is up to something different altogether. It all makes for an unsettling feeling. Every time you think you have found a one-for-one connection between the film and the TV show, Hawley switches gears on you. Anytime you think you've figured out what he's doing, Hawley changes the score. 

While the sequence that ultimately ends with Vern Thurman and Mrs. Nygaard dead and Lester unconscious is brilliantly crafted and impeccably written and executed, what impressed me most (and what illustrates my above point the best) is how Hawley and company are able to get you to so completely sympathize and identify with Lester Nygaard only to immediately rip that identification away when he brutally bashes in his wife's face. And Hawley (and director Adam Bernstein) does it in a way that is subtly magnificent. When Lester first hits Pearl, Bernstein immediately cuts to a point of view shot of Pearl's shocked visage as blood begins to trickle from her head. Here, Bernstein seems to be suggesting that we've been invited to identify with Lester because at one point or another we've all been harassed by our own personal Sam Hesses or emasculated or diminished by someone we love. He argues that we are the ones who have perpetrated this crime, perhaps by wishing it would happen in this world, that Lester would just go ahead and do what none of us are able to. Then, just as swiftly, Bernstein shifts out to have us watch Lester as he mercilessly beats and beats Pearl with the hammer. We don't even see his face as he does it. So in the span of a few seconds, we go from being Lester to the horror of seeing him at an angle where he appears to be swinging the hammer at us and then it shifts to an angle that completely cuts out his face, dehumanizing him. Bernstein asks us if we ourselves would be capable of an act this heinous, answers with an unequivocal "yes" and then pulls us away from Lester to challenge us to acknowledge the severity and cruelty of what he has done. It's amazing stuff and while Bernstein isn't a Coen, his style feels assured and his skill as a director is clear. 

The show is not without fault, however. Often through its first hour, it makes its status as a TV show too obvious. While there are a few big shocks, much of the time Fargo is too by-the-numbers and easily predictable. Also, where even Coens' minor characters can have immense depth, many key players in the first episode are incredibly one note. Pearl Nygaard is so relentless and passive aggressively brutal with her constant needling that she becomes like a cartoon character. This combined with yet another FX trip to the local strip club imbues Fargo with an uncomfortable air and leaves it open to (justifiable, no FX pun intended) accusations of misogyny. Likewise, the bullies that plagued Lester are handled with less wit than an episode of Dads. Granted, the Coens have not built a reputation for their light touch, but all of their characters are made complex with some strange brew of compassion, melancholy or fascination that Hawley and company have yet to nail down. And, much of the first 50 minutes are spent laying down the groundwork for everything that is to come. While this can be admirable, it also doesn't make for very exciting TV, only hinting at the horror that the show is capable of until the explosive final 20 minutes. 

That being said, Fargo has a spectacular amount of potential. All of the characters that remain are fascinating and from what I've read, that only continues with the introduction of more players in the upcoming episodes. All of these characters feel different from anyone the Coens have created yet feel perfectly at home in the Brothers' universe. It's a small distinction, but one that I think means a lot. That's why the final 20 minutes are the strongest. They establish a tone that feels Coen-esque while doing so in a way that feels organic and confident in its ability to strike out and become its own thing. From what I've read, in the next few episodes things only get stronger (while getting weirder and more original). 

This thing could have easily warped into some weird celebration of masculinity. In a lesser show, Lester would have been a Walter White-type antihero. He could have been our put upon protagonist who gets in over his head and commits a murder, removing the manifestation of everything he hasn't gotten out of life. He could have been a gorilla like the ones Lorne Malvo talks about when he tells Lester, "Your problem is you spent your whole life think there are rules. There aren't. We used to be gorillas. All we had was what we could take and defend." Instead, Hawley and company argue that Lester is just as evil as Malvo. Instead of being a celebration of masculinity, Hawley and company (in the Coen Tradition) seem to be critiquing all of the praises they see around them. They seem to be showing what happens when the idea of masculinity is reduced to simply taking what is yours and doing away with anyone that tries to stop you. 

It's not perfect. It's not the Coens. But it has potential. And I like it. 

It Came From Netflix: 20 FEET FROM STARDOM

Ashamedly, I've been away from writing this blog and have only returned for brief periods now and again. Now, a combination of regret and need to return to it will hopefully spur me into writing on a much more regular basis. I've decided to not really limit myself anymore. Where I used to mainly do reviews of Criterion films or recent theatrical releases, I've now decided to write a little each day about something I've watched - be it a film or a TV episode or a weird commercial or even something I saw on YouTube or Twitch. I need to write more, I want to write more, I am going to write more. And I'm starting right now!

This year's Academy Awards marked a personal milestone for me. Most years I will see maybe all but one of the films nominated for best picture and usually I have a semi well rounded idea about which actors and actresses I think deserve the major acting role wins. However, more often than not because of where I live, I rarely get to see any of the films nominated for Best Documentary or Best Foreign film. This year that was not the case! While the foreign films continue to elude me, thanks to Netflix by the time the red carpet was rolled out for the Oscars, I had seen all but one of the films nominated for Best Documentary. 

That one? Morgan Neville's 20 Feet from Stardom. And guess which film won. 

So, while I stewed in my anger that Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing didn't win, I vowed that whenever I got the chance to see 20 Feet from Stardom, I would see what all the fuss was about. This month, I was given that opportunity. 20 Feet from Stardom is now streaming on Netflix and though I still don't see how it won out over The Act of Killing on pure quality alone, I definitely think it warrants a watch from anyone interested in music, music documentaries or if you're simply looking for something entertaining with lots of "stand and cheer" appeal. 

In the film, Neville - who is known primarily for his numerous American Masters and Biography entries - shines the spotlight on a select group of African American women - including Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Claudia Lennear, Tata Vega, Judith Hill and Lisa Fischer - who have spent most of their careers in the shadows of such giants as Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Sting, David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen. These are the women whose "ooh"s and "lah"s we all tone deafly repeat in the shower. These are the hardworking women who have formed the backbone of classic tunes for decades. They brought depth and soul to some of the most memorable songs of the rock 'n' roll era and for whatever reason never quite "made it" on their own. 

20 Feet from Stardom asks a variety of thought provoking questions. Why have some of the best vocalist of the last half-century remained virtually unknown except to music aficionados? Are there requirements for pop success that these women simply do not have? Or is the system weighted too heavily against them? Lisa Fischer, who is clearly the most talented of all the women featured, is shown to have an otherworldly voice and a winning personality. She sang back up for Luther Vandross and even won her own Grammy for a solo album. Is she simply too nice for the cutthroat business that is music? Or is success based on dumb luck? 

It's a question that occurs again and again with these women from the youngest, Judith Hill, who is still struggling to make her dreams come true to Claudia Lennear, whose solo tracks for the 1970's are presented as unearthed treasures. All of these women are shown to have ample talent. They all made a play for the front of the stage and they all, after after failing to grasp it, retreated to the back once more. 

The story that, in my opinion, forms the backbone of the film however, is a little different. Darlene Love's story (she's the one who sang her thank yous at the Oscars) of exploitation at the hands of record produce Phil Spector (you know, that guy with the ridiculous wigs who is in jail for shooting that one woman in the face) is more of the classic overcoming the odds tale. Before the age of 20, Darlene was singing - and singing lead - as part of the famous "girl group" tracks of the 1960's. However, despite the success of her music, her name was never released to the public. She got screwed so bad legally that she spent years as a cleaning woman despite literally everyone and their grandmother having hummed along to one of her tunes at one point or another. Her eventual triumphant return (thanks in no small part to her appearances on David Letterman at at the now defunct NYC nightclub The Bottom Line) on her own terms marks an emotional high point of the film and one that demonstrates why the film took off as well as it did. 

Neville is no amateur when it comes to musical bio-docs. Having made films - some made for cable or stations like PBS, some made for theatrical release - about Brian Wilson, Iggy Pop, Johnny Cash and many others, he clearly knows exactly what he is doing. As a film, 20 Feet from Stardom sticks mostly to the stylistic basics. For the most part, Neville rests upon tastefully shot interviews slickly edited with some great archival footage. Occasionally, he will add an artistic touch as with how he shoots Lisa Fischer running errands in her everyday street clothes or when he loving shoots Darlene Love singing in-studio with backup vocalists of her own. In a few scenes, we see Fischer simply riffing as the camera, close up, captures all the emotions that crawl across her face as she produces some of the most hauntingly beautiful sounds I have ever heard. 

Despite these occasional touches, Neville's clear strength is as a historian. He is able to expertly sift through a wealth of details to find exactly what pieces he needs to tell a singular, compelling narrative. In 20 Feet from Stardom, he starts with the moment when black singers began to first infiltrate an up until that point segregated industry, liberating backup vocalization from the once drab, sheet music reading of the 40's and 50's. It goes on to document the importance of various figures like Ray Charles with his Raylettes up through the hey day of the 70's and 80's where musicians of all genres were paying through the nose to get that necessary shot of soul into their music. Neville then contrasts that to today, an era where cheap digital recording and auto tune have made specialists less desirable. Why spend money on professionals when a machine bought at Best Buy can transform grandma's hooks and melodies into exactly what you need. 

However, Neville's clear strength as a historian also highlights one of the biggest problems with the film - namely that he isn't much of an investigative journalist or a critic. As I stated earlier, 20 Feet from Stardom raises a lot of pointed and interesting questions - like whether or not the industry will only let a certain number of black artists or women excel; like whether background vocalists have been exploited throughout the years for their sex appeal or their race; and like whether or not an overpowering voice alone is enough to cement one's spot at center stage. Unfortunately, most of these questions are presented and then answered with some mix of shrugging and vague statements about poor timing and bad packaging. Interesting moments like discussions of uncomfortable songs like Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" with its lyric about "coloured girl" backup singers and of Phil Spector's and Ike Turner's sleazy exploitation of these innocent girls are quickly brushed under the rug. At one point, a trio of backup singers are singing a rendition of "Up Where We Belong" around a table and instead of accenting each other, they all attempt to take the lead essentially killing the song. It's one of the most fascinating and explanatory moments in the film and Neville does nothing with it. As with his focus on young Judith Hill's journey, which he portrays more as heroic than overly idealistic, Neville often strives too hard to remain upbeat. 

But, then again, many of his subjects are upbeat. Many of them come to the realization of what a unique and rewarding job they've had and, after so much time to reflect on it, seem to have grown to appreciate it. And ultimately I think that's the point of 20 Feet from Stardom. It isn't trying to argue that these women should be stars. It's arguing that their significant contributions to the music industry as backup vocalists should be recognized and celebrated. That's why the most interesting person in the film and who I believe is actually the "star" is Lisa Fischer. The lady with mind blowing talent who, after an unsuccessful run at fame, took her ethereal voice back into the shadows. But she isn't bitter in the least. She instead boasts about all the great songs she has gotten to sing and all the amazing people she has gotten to sing them with. 

Yes, the film does get repetitive at times. Yes, it can feel a little too upbeat and maybe a little manipulative. And yes, perhaps it would have been more interesting if it would have went more in depth on some of the more politically charged questions it hints at. (It is definitely a better film when it sticks to telling frank stories.) However, it is a film that is rich in pull-back-the-curtains moments and will introduce you to a world that you probably weren't too aware of but of which you definitely should be. Because in a world where the biggest, richest stars are auto tuned to oblivion, where a leaked, isolated and untouched track of someone reveals they actually sound like a dying cat, we could use more people like Lisa Fischer and all the other women beautifully portrayed in the film. These women deserve recognition. They deserve celebration. And 20 Feet from Stardom is a wonderful starting point. 

7.5 out of 10