Sequel on Sequels: Review of 22 JUMP STREET

One of the things I love best about Phil Lord and Chris Miller is how much they remind me of Brad Bird. Before directing 2011's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Bird had directed three films - all of which were animated. But instead of forsaking what he learned from his long tenure in animation, Bird utilized his remarkable skill of balancing and intermingling compelling story lines with brilliant action sequences in such films as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles and created one of the most exciting action movies of that year. What allowed him to do this was that he didn't treat his first live-action feature any differently than he did his animated features. With 22 Jump Street, Lord and Miller have now directed four films - two animated and two live-action. And like Bird, the key to their success lies in the fact that they treat all of these movies the same way. From Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs to 21 Jump Street to The Lego Movie, Lord and Miller are two brilliant jokesmiths who are both deeply knowledgeable of the pop culture zeitgeist and experts in layering gags of countless varieties. Be they meta jokes, visual jokes, referential jokes, throwaway jokes or jokes that are incredibly elaborate and carefully orchestrated, Lord and Miller are becoming two of the best in the business at taking what could easily be franchise dreck and turning it into something wonderfully entertaining. 

Like many animated features, 22 Jump Street is constructed on the foundation of extreme self-reference. Lord and Miller's 21 Jump Street mocked the idea of a creatively destitute Hollywood pulling an '80s TV show from the grave in an attempt to sell it to an audience who probably couldn't care less, and then did exactly that. Now, the sequel kicks it up another notch commenting not only on repeating old formulas, but also on the benefits of working with a much more exorbitant (though not unlimited) budget. After a successful investigation going undercover as noticeably mature high schoolers to bust up a drug-ring in the first film, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) now attempt to ride that success (and a souped up muscle car) to the streets. However, after a terrific failure their hopes are demolished (along with that souped up muscle car) and they are sent by Nick Offerman's Deputy Chief Hardy to the Vietnamese church across the street from the Korean church that served as the base of operations in the first film. There, in a much nicer office, the threatening Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) gives the duo their new mission - going undercover to bust up yet another drug-ring. But this time it's as noticeably mature COLLEGE STUDENTS. "Just do the same shit as last time," he tells them.

While 22 Jump Street largely shields itself from criticism by commenting on its own microwaved reheating of 21 Jump Street, Lord and Miller make sure to include tons of college-specific humor on top of it. Mirroring the rift that formed between Schmidt and Jenko in the first film when Schmidt got in with the popular kids and Jenko was relegated to associating with the science nerds, when the pair move into their freshman dorm room they begin to fall into disparate groups - but this time in the way you'd expect. Investigating a new drug, "WHYPHY" (Work Hard Yes, Play Hard Yes), which bestows four fours of Adderall focus and then four fours of acid trippyness and led to one student's death, Jenko bro-friends Metro City State's starting quarterback Zook (Wyatt Russell) and is recruited into his fraternity. Schmidt, on the other hang, simply cannot hang and winds up spending his time with the art majors including Maya (Amber Stevens), who was the dead student's roommate and who now lives across the hall. Once again the partners find students who use the drug and others who deal the drug, but remain woefully in the dark about the supplier. 

So, yeah, basically the exact same thing that happened last time (and 22 Jump Street is the first to admit it). Lord, Miller and screenwriters Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman run the gamut of self-reference. From call backs to the first film and all the way back to the TV series, to references to the typical and often ridiculous repetition and excess of sequels, no meta stone is left unturned. Even the economics of filmmaking is lampooned in a particularly hilarious car chase where Jenko and Schmidt attempt to drive a helmet-shaped golf cart through less expensive areas of the campus in an attempt to save their department money. Still, a sequel being aware of its own rehashing doesn't necessarily make that rehash good or that self-awareness fresh. 

Which is where the final portion of the film and Hill and Tatum's chemistry comes into play. After someone Jenko and Schmidt feel is wrongly accused and convicted for the drug crimes at MC State, the duo decide to pair up one last time for a Spring Break trip down to Mexico in an attempt to catch the real culprit - and it's pretty much insane. Hostages, shootouts, bare-knuckle brawling, chases on foot and in beautiful sports cars, helicopters, grenades and tons of barely-clothed college students drinking, doing drugs and god knows what else are all in full force and, more often that not, hilarious. And when the film does threaten to go a little too far down the self-referential rabbit hole, Hill and Tatum are there with the type of buddy cop chemistry that never gets old. A study in contrasts, the film has endless fun treating the partners like an old married couple who are constantly bickering but work the best when they're together. Hill has always been a particularly strong comedic actor, especially when given someone great to play off of (something he gets in spades with Tatum who has a face that is fantastically blank much of the time). I've also always found Tatum to be a much stronger lead in comedies as opposed to dramas. He has this casual wit and childlike excitement that is completely contagious.  

While 22 Jump Street's meta-commentary doesn't have anything particularly insightful to say and some of its jokes are overly juvenile and kind of just lie there, its ability to cleverly comment on sequels while being, for the most part, an immensely fun and entertaining sequel in its own right is terrific. It's a film that squeezes ever drop of humor it can get out of its leading men and the idea of a sequel for such an unnecessary franchise. And with the likes of the second and third Hangover films already out there as well as all of the putrid-looking trash whose trailers precede 22 Jump Street on the way, it's incredibly refreshing to have a movie that's in on the joke while having jokes that are actually funny. But let's just leave 23 Jump Street under construction, okay?

8 out of 10

Family Struggles: Thoughts on ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK Season 2, Episode 2: "Looks Blue, Tastes Red"

Much like with the premiere where what stood out to me was just how unpredictable our lives are from the time we are small children, "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" connects the familial structures of these characters who have spent their lives on the margins with the institution that makes them feel simultaneously central and marginal through the give and take of day-to-day prison life. Admittedly, as much as I enjoyed the premiere and its choice to focus on Piper rather than relying on the TV trope of spending the entire premiere checking in with all the characters to see what they have or haven't been up to since last season, I'd be lying if I said this wasn't the better episode. Like the premiere, "Looks Blue Tastes Red" focuses primarily one character, Taystee (Danielle Brooks). However, it does so without forcing itself to wholly serve that one character. Instead, Taystee's story deepens her personally while also providing a thematic anchor for the episode. Orange is the New Black works best when it's chaotic, juggling a wide range of stories all with their smaller themes and ideas just kind of floating around. It's good to see Season 2 already hitting the ground running. 

"Looks Blue, Tastes Red" solves one of the bigger problems with the flashbacks in the first episode. Besides being a bit on the nose, our brief trips back to Piper's youth didn't reveal anything important about the character that we didn't already know. Ideally, a flashback will give the audience insight into something formative about a particular character allowing us to not only better understand what they're going through in single episode, but also helping us to see who they are on a broader scale. With Taystee, we learn how she came to garner her nickname and get to see how someone who is clearly very intelligent and talented can wind in the system. After struggling for years in group homes, Taystee finally accepts the the sanctuary offered by a local heroin dealer Vee (Lorraine Toussaint), using her aptitude for mathematics to run the books and make supply runs. Eventually, she settles into an unconventional family that resides on the brink of stability. It's a life filled with arts and crafts, flax seed bread and salad bowls in one moment, and the funeral of her "brother," RJ, after he is gunned down by police in the next. 

This origin story of sorts resonates back at the prison where Taystee is competing with a number of other inmates in a Mock Job Fair - it's a tryout/training for the world waiting for the women outside (a world to which Taystee has already failed to acclimate when she was released last season). Taystee desperately wants to win, partly because she has convinced herself based on hearsay from a previous victor that winning will lead to an actual job, partly because she knows she has the mathematical skill and rote memorization that legitimately make her a viable candidate for a good job. It's not really a surprise that the episode begins with a fair of a different kind - in this case a "Black Adoption Festival." In both, Taystee is under intense scrutiny and overwhelming pressure to make herself appealing. And in both, she's told there is something wrong with her (she is too old to be attractive to perspective parents and too curvy to win Best Dressed at the job fair, even though she chooses the same outfit that won last year). Her sole victory comes in the mock interview where she mainly uses a respectful tone and well thought out, comprehensive answers to beat Flaca who primarily relies on sexual advances to win. When Taystee does finally win, it's a brief glimpse at how her intelligence and skills might finally be valued. Unfortunately, too quickly is this hope dashed when the promise of a real job proves to be a lie at the same moment that Vee turns back up in her life, this time in orange. 

In fact, the whole Mock Job Fair acts as one big lesson about the struggles of living within the prison system (a system we know to be corrupt from last season as well as from Figueroa's attempts this season to convince a reporter that the prison's money is going towards rehabilitating the prisoners rather than into Figueroa's pocket) where, as Taystee is essentially told in her final confrontation with Figueroa, there is no reward. "You do your best because that is what you're supposed to do," Figueroa tells her. Winning does not bring any advantages with it, nor does it grant you a better life. Leanna is told by the woman from Dress for Success that she would look great in a peach suit, but is then criticized and told the look is unflattering. Black Cindy is equally criticized for her loose fitting, burlap sack like dress, but it was the only plus-sized dress provided to her. Eventually Taystee complains enough to get 10 dollars of credit for the commissary, and she's happy that she has something - anything - to show for all her hard work. When a person enters prison, they lose everything they once had and what replaces it is only the hope of something coming along to make the long day-to-day worth it. It's like in an earlier scene where Vee tells Taystee that people don't have careers in their neighborhood. You get a job if you're lucky and you deal with it. But like in her confrontation with Figueroa (which also keeps with the family-prison connection when Figueroa tells Taystee, "I'm not your goddamn mother!"), Taystee can't accept the idea that there isn't something more out there. Because, deep down, she knows that she's capable of something much, much bigger. 

But like I said earlier, "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" also benefits greatly from connecting the prison and familial structures together in a wide variety of different stories. Granted, some of these stories are stronger than others. Red struggling to accept her new role outside of running the kitchen staff, dealing with having no money (and greying roots) and eventually forming a bond with a group of older (scratch that, "mature") inmates featured some brilliantly subtle and emotionally resonant acting from the magnificent Kate Mulgrew. Likewise, I really loved the small scene between Leanne and another inmate where they talk about how peaceful things have been since Pennsatucky (their mother of sorts) has been gone. However, I wasn't particularly compelled by Daya struggling with pregnancy related constipation. I was equally unimpressed by Larry's father taking him to a gay bathhouse (because it was cheap!) and telling him to go out an get laid even though he's still pining after Piper. The cringe-worthy scene was only outdone by Larry going over to Piper's friend Polly's house where she tells him about her husband going on a vision quest and leaving her at home to take care of the baby - all the while her tits are hanging out of her nursing bra. It's fairly clear, or was presented as such, where this story line is going and all I can really say about that is BLAH. However, Larry trying to stick his penis in something aside, even with the lackluster constipation storyline, the theme of family - anchored by the seen of Taystee, Vee and RJ around the dinner table - is still present with Glorida and Aleida both trying to mother Daya during her pregnancy. What I love about these scenes is that the ideas they bring up go beyond the individual characters and touch upon the lives of those connected to them. It's there with Maria Ruiz whose baby daughter (and baby daddy) comes to visit her after she gave birth last reason, and it's there with Red whose son comes to see her and explains to her that the struggles she is facing are not the only ones plaguing their family. 

While "Looks Blue, Tastes Red" wasn't perfect, it reminded me of what I love most about this show and the world it has created. While I enjoyed the trip to Chicago, I hadn't realized just how important knowing these characters is. While instances like Piper's new cellmates shitting four times a day or licking her face in the middle of the night were funny, they were funny in a broad sort of way. What's so wonderful about the laughs in this episode is the nuance we have from spending so much time with these characters. That nuance is what makes Crazy Eyes sharing her penchant for working with round objects and Big Boo's relationship with Little Boo getting too weird so great. It's also what makes Janae being told by the aptitude test that she'd be an impeccable professional athlete so heartbreaking. Even with characters that are utterly despicable like Pennsatucky and Healy, there's something nice about seeing them again. I think it's having that familiarity back. Even when it's Healy threatening Pennsatucky to cover up his own corruption or Pennsatucky extorting him in turn to get oral surgery, there's that feint aroma of home. That may be the ultimate prison-family connection. No matter how messed up a home this prison actually is, it's our home. And we're right back where we're supposed to be. 

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK Returns: Thoughts on Season 2, Episode 1: "Thirsty Bird"

Since ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK is one of my favorite shows (and since it's available to anyone with Netflix), I thought it might be cool to give my thoughts on each episode as I watch it. I'm hoping that it'll not only force me to parse the season out a little more instead of devouring it all in two days, but that it'll also allow me to think a little more about what exactly is going on. I have a bad habit of mindless TV watching is what I'm saying. I'm going to try to fix that... With mindless "analysis." Let's see how this goes. 

Life's a strange thing. When you're born into this world, no one knows what's going to happen. The possibilities are literally endless. People grow, things they see influence them, they make choices, things happen as a result of those choices, they change and eventually they end up somewhere. Sometimes that somewhere is exactly where they thought it'd be. Some people grow up thinking all the way that they're going to become a doctor. They take the hardest science classes, they volunteer at nursing homes, they do well on the MCAT, they get into medical school and eventually there it is - dream accomplished. But some people aren't that lucky. Sometimes when a person is in the process of growing, making choices and changing, something unexpected happens. Some people may get into a car accident or get shot or get some kind of cruel disease and all those dreams come to an end. Other times, something will happen that sends a person on a path they never could have seen coming. 

When Piper Elizabeth Chapman (Taylor Schilling) was a young girl, I doubt she could have pictured herself in a Chicago penitentiary selling her panties to a hitman in order to get a message to someone  and trying to capture cockroaches so her cellmates can train them to carry cigarettes to other parts of the prison. But that's exactly where she finds herself at the end of the premiere episode of Season 2 of Orange is the New Black. It's hard to say exactly what started her on this path. It could have been when she was a child and saw her father kiss another woman. When she tells her mother about the incident, she is punished and learns as a result that sometimes not telling the truth is the best thing to do. It could have also been when she met Alex Vause (Laura Prepon). Piper had been a good girl her entire life - she wouldn't even jump off the school bus with her friends even though it was tradition and the bus driver slows down to 5 mph for them! When she meets Vause, she is swept up in her mystery and her charm. Alex jets her across the globe, they stay in the nicest hotels and eat in the fanciest restaurants. Everything seems perfect. So perfect that when she finds out how Alex makes all her money - she's an international drug smuggler - she can't give up the life. She lies to her family and she lies to herself and eventually she agrees to transport a suitcase full of drug money to Alex. Cut to ten years later and she engaged (to a man!) and living a law-abiding life in the upper middle class. Then she's arrested. Then she goes to jail. Then she reunites with Alex and makes new, unexpected friends. Then she makes an enemy of the drug addict turned religious zealot, Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning) who tries to kill her at the Christmas Pageant. Then she beats Pennsatucky (maybe to death) and get thrown into to solitary. Then we meet back up with her. 

What I like about this premiere, apart from the interesting (and I think admirable) choice to focus only on Piper for the majority of the runtime, is how Piper's journey to Chicago and eventually to the court room to testify against a drug cartel kingpin acts as a microcosm of sorts for her life up to this point. Much like her life before she went to prison, where she is heading in this episode remains largely a mystery until she actually gets there. Like her jetsetting with Alex, Piper rides on a plane where she meets a plethora of new people - some of whom appear to be friendly like Lolly (Lori Petty), while others are threatening like the aforementioned hitman and a woman in a Hannibal Lecter mask. Piper does things she regrets like crushing her cellmates' cockroach and giving her birth info to Mazall (Rebecca Drysdale) who licks her forehead and appears to be insane. She does things that she is ashamed of like trading her panties for favors and asking a prosecutor to help her catch a bug so her cellmate who shits four (yes, FOUR) times a day won't beat her up. People who Piper thought might be her friends turn on her as we see the penguin ladies shun her for knowing Lolly and then stomp and kick Lolly while she watches. Again she commits a serious crime because of her feelings for Alex and again she is stuck in a hopeless situation as a result. But much like last season, she then finds comfort from an unexpected source as the new Yoda brings her a cigarette on its back.

Most of all, however, Piper is forced to come to terms with who she really is. In the best scene of the episode, Piper is telling Lolly on the plane about what happened between her and Pennsatucky. Pennsatucky was crazy, she tells Lolly, and she just wouldn't stop coming so Piper hit her. She hit her and she hit her and she kept hitting her. Something in her just kept going, she couldn't stop. And as she tries to hold back tears, ultimately breaking down into sobs, the camera slowly moves across her face in one continuous shot - just as the realization of what's actually inside washes over her. She isn't that young girl we see in the flashbacks getting the back door for the bus driver and not wanting to see Dazed and Confused because what if it's rated R for something that will scar her for the rest of her life. No, she is the woman who lied to her friends and family, who fell in love with an international drug smuggler and helped her transport a suitcase full of money. She is the woman who went to prison for it and who does whatever it takes to protect herself and stay alive. She may tell herself that she's not like these other women, that she's just going to do what she's told until she can get out and be with Larry (Jason Biggs) again. But the truth is, she is the woman who beat Pennsatucky within an inch of her life (though didn't kill her) and who lies under oath because Alex tells her it's what needs to be done if they're both going to avoid being killed by Kubra's men. It's going to be interesting to see how Piper deals (or doesn't deal) with this new realization and if this first episode is any indication, people discovering who they really are could be a driving theme of Season 2. 

Admittedly, the majority of the flashbacks played a little too ham-handedly. The whole thing with Piper seeing her father cheating on her mother with another woman and then getting in trouble for telling on him was fine. But then to have the scene where she is calls her dad to wish him happy birthday and at some point ends up telling him that she learned everything from him after she lies to him while he sits waiting on her mom to take him to dinner makes it feel like they're beating you over the head with what they're trying to do. Same thing goes for the scene where Piper's grandmother tells her that not telling the truth is sometimes the best option. It's a completely unnecessary scene that does nothing but directly express what the show has already communicated with subtext. 

Other than that, however, I think it's a strong return to one of the best shows going. It was a bold decision to only follow Piper for the vast majority of the episode, but Jenji Kohan and company (including Jodie Foster who directed the episode) handle it with aplomb. It's interesting to see the ways shows on Netflix take advantage of the unconventional release of every episode at one time. The creators here seem to realize that most viewers will be be viewing the next episode immediately after the first, so they aren't pressured to do some of the normal things a premiere would do. We don't have to check in on every character from last year right now. If you want to catch up with them, all you have to do is let Netflix take over and continue playing episodes. Likewise, instead of a loud (though it was audibly loud) and insane cliffhanger, Orange is the New Black instead opts for something that feels like an organic progression of this episode while having enough propulsive energy to drive viewers who weren't already going to watch the next episode to stay on the couch. 

It says a lot that I've stopped writing this piece multiple times trying to talk myself into watching Episode 2 before finishing it. Orange is the New Black is a show that exudes confidence. It's mix of comedy and drama remains one of the strongest out there and from what I've seen so far, it seems to be the perfect balance of a show that is meaty enough to actually sit back and reflect on while remaining an amazing bit of entertainment. 

This whole parsing out the season business may be harder than expected. 

A Beautiful Turd: Thoughts on A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

You see those goats? You get to see about five of those goats' penises in Seth McFarlane's new movie, A Million Ways to Die in the West. Sure, only one of them is "real," but who cares, right? The other four or five come courtesy of McFarlane's character, Albert, experiencing a drug-fueled hallucination brought on by a group of Native Americans he meets while on the run from Liam Neeson and his band of notorious outlaws. The goats do a song and dance number about mustaches (a reprise from an earlier song) and end the number by shooting water fountain like piss out of their erect penises like some attraction outside a Las Vegas casino. I can't believe I just typed that. 

Actually, I can't believe I even watched this movie and that I'm now going to briefly write about it. I fully realize that this kind of film has a built-in audience and that I'm simply just not part of it. But all I can do is share my opinion. So here I am and here you are and, well, I guess here goes. 

From the beginning with his choice of booming orchestral music, gorgeous wide shots of breathtaking Monument Valley and the large, old-timey, red and yellow opening credits, it's pretty clear Seth McFarlane wants A Million Ways to Die in the West to be his Blazing Saddles. Mel Brooks's 1974 classic is now famous for its satirizing of the racism obscured and ignored by the myth-making done by Hollywood about the American West. It's a film that's full of raunchy (for the time) humor, sight gags and pratfalls and deliberate anachronisms like the mention of Wide World of Sports or the appearances of Count Basie and Nazi soldiers (no relation, thank god). It tells the story of Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart, a black man who is sentenced unjustly to be hanged but is saved at the last minute by Harvey Korman's Hedley Lamarr who then makes him sheriff (and resident outsider) of the all-white town of Rock Ridge.

A Million Ways to Die in the West is similar. It's overflowing with raunchy humor (among other things). Seth McFarlane and his cast of actors (who are admirably down for anything) trip and fall and shit themselves and die left and right. And the cultural anachronisms that Mel Brooks used as a clever device for comedy are shifted by McFarlane into the entire tonal basis for his film - characters essentially live in two eras, commenting about the West with a modern sensibility even as they live through it. Everything seems to be in place to make for a new classic. Unfortunately, the shit literally and figuratively hits the fan. The frat boy gross-out humor doesn't produce a quarter of the laughs they're meant to and where Blazing Saddles felt like it had something important to say about the film industry and society as a whole, A Million Ways is just one tedious joke about how horrendous it must have been to live in the Wild West. However, the worst part isn't the immature jokes or the repetitive pratfalls or even the lackluster story. 

The weakest strand in Seth McFarlane's summer blockbuster lasso is himself. Both Mel Brooks and Seth McFarlane are showmen. They're big, they're loud and they're theatrical. The difference is that Mel Brooks understands where his strengths lie. He may be a fine actor (may be), but he's a writer first and foremost. In all of his strongest movies (e.g. Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Producers and The Twelve Chairs) he was writer and director and played only a small role in the film. When he got older and decided to do more egocentric works like Life Stinks or Dracula: Dead and Loving It, giving himself larger roles on top of his other duties, his work floundered.  Likewise, when McFarlane tries the same with his own vanity project it's another prime example of a person not having anyone with the authority to question or critique his actions. While all the other actors are admittedly trying to be as funny (to the point of caricature) as they can, they still remain professional movie actors and do their best to inhabit the roles given to them. McFarlane on the other hand tries too hard to be the funniest man in the room. His line readings and physical performance culminate into something akin to a standup comedy routine. (In fact, the only character he has any real similarities with is Bill Maher's, who is actually a standup comedian in the movie.) He goes on long diatribes about how farts will kill you and how the doctor will kill you and how horrible everything is and he's so far removed from the other characters for so much of the film's runtime that it all just becomes tiresome. It might have been different if no one else realized how awful the West was and he was the sole voice of reason. It might have even been different if everyone performed at McFarlane's level. Unfortunately, plenty of other characters realize the inherent abysmal nature of their conditions and react in more subtle, sometimes amusing ways. Even in a world of caricatures, McFarlane manages to feel cartoonish.  

In the end, nothing really worked for me. None of the jokes really hit the marks they're intended to (except one particular one involving an awe-inspiring dollar bill). What could have been vulgar and biting satire about Hollywood, masculine culture or a plethora of other topics turns into a series of dick and fart jokes for the sake of dicks and farts. None of the characters are compelling whatsoever. Though much more grounded than McFarlane, Charlize Theron as Albert's love interest Anna is still overly written, a manic pixie cowgirl who's beautiful and funny and quirky and everything that Louise (Albert's first love played by Amanda Seyfried) isn't. Liam Neeson as the main villain, Clinch Leatherwood, is only in the movie for a few scenes and does little besides acting all Irish and intimidating and Neil Patrick Harris is basically Barney Stinson with an old-timey mustache. Giovanni Ribisi plays his go-to lovable weirdo (though less interesting and more pathetically stupid than his other roles) whose girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman doing Sarah Silverman) is a prostitute who fulfills all of her clients' craziest desires but won't sleep with him until their wedding. (They're good Christians after all.)  

Though it is a beautifully shot film with absolutely stunning visuals, well choreographed and directed set pieces and spectacular costume and set design, there's just no saving A Million Ways to Die in the West. There's an old saying that I think sums things up perfectly (and the fact that it does says everything): 

"You can dress a turd in a tuxedo, but at the end of the day it's still a turd." 

I guess you could say the same thing about goat penises. (It's cool if you use this in your next movie, Seth. Just shoot me a writing credit.)

3 out of 10

"Nothin' Comes with a Guarantee": Thoughts on the Coen Brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE

"Now I don't care if you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year; somethin' can all go wrong." 

So says M. Emmet Walsh as private dick Loren Visser during a monologue that opens the Coen Brothers' 1984 debut feature, Blood Simple. With those words, the professional careers of the two of the greatest writer/directors of our time began. And with those words, the Coens declared what would become the thesis for their lives' work. In the Coen Brothers' universe, it doesn't matter who a character is. It doesn't matter if they're the most sincere, charitable, humane person on the planet. It doesn't matter if they're one of the most powerful, respected or revered people in the world. What matters is that they screwed up. Somewhere along the line they did something that they shouldn't have done and after that first wrong step is taken, their fate is sealed. Sure, they can try to fight it. But they're only fighting a losing battle and we as the audience can only sit back and watch as the extreme, unforgiving consequences of their actions rain down upon them.

In Blood Simple, that first wrong step taken can be summed up rather easily: Julian Marty's wife Abby cheats on him with Ray, one of his employees. That's it. From the simple act of Abby and Ray (Frances McDormand and John Getz) choosing to cuckold Julian (Dan Hedaya), things spiral wildly out of control. Julian decides to avenge himself by hiring Visser to spy on and eventually kill the two lovers for $10,000; only to have Visser double cross him. Ray is then left to discover the fallout of Visser's betrayal and, after fatally misinterpreting it, makes the worst possible decision that the situation allows. Every single decision made along the way leads the characters to a worse place with a higher body count. In the end, three of the four are dead and the last is left to mourn alone, traumatized and shattered by their prolonged and devastating immersion in these sudden acts of violence - the meaning of the titular "blood simple."

What I love about the film is how pared down it is. It strips away all the usual noir tropes - from the conniving femme-fatale to the resistance of the wrongly accused protagonist - and just cuts to the chase. It's direct cause-and-effect. The betrayers get betrayed and the killers get killed. The film doesn't care about what led the characters here. It doesn't explore Abby or Ray beforehand as to explain why they made their choice against Julian and it doesn't dwell on their relationships or even their personalities after we do meet them. The whys of what happen don't matter. What matters, despite whether or not Abby and Ray are good people, are their actions and how those actions lead quickly and inevitably to their ruin. It's that feeling of inevitability that makes the film great.

Everything that happens in Blood Simple seems necessary. The Coens have time and again been bashed (or critiqued if you want to be civil) for "piling it on" their characters. However, in Blood Simple every unavoidable action feels logical. Every damned step the characters take leads to the next. Even when you pull back and see the full picture - as in one famous scene where a character's hand, snaked through a window, is nailed into the the sill by large pocket knife while the character fires pistol shots in pain and anger - though it looks bewilderingly preposterous, all the individual elements that lead the character(s) being there make perfect sense. It's like an insane asylum constructed out of only the sturdiest, most symmetrical bricks. 

Blood Simple strikes the perfect balance of satirizing the noir genre while becoming an exemplary entry into it. It's clear that they want to go over the top. Whether they're taking "the corpse that will not die" trope and pushing it to its outermost limit or casting the sleaze king himself, M. Emmet Walsh as Visser, cackling in his too-tight, flopsweat drenched yellow suit - flies swarm around him, land on his face, "Gimme a call whenever you wanna cut my head off," he tells Julian, "I can always crawl around without it" - you can tell that the Coens are having a blast in their own dark, uniquely comical way. It's relatively easy to do a parody of a noir film. It's not so easy to do a straight, well-done noir. And it's almost impossible to do a noir film where the suspense and parody are perfectly balanced. But with Blood Simple, the Coens were able to beautifully blend the two into a stylish and intoxicating, fiendishly ironic work of art and resoundingly state that, "This is who we are. And this is what we're about."

While Visser may state in that opening monologue that "nothin' comes with a guarantee," with the Coen Brothers you're always guaranteed one thing: actions will have consequences. 

"In Cold Blood," At What Cost?: Thoughts on CAPOTE (2005)

On a fated morning in November 1959, Truman Capote read quietly from his newspaper when a story caught his eye. Four members of a small farming family in Kansas had been brutally shotgunned to death in their home. Feeling inspiration grasp him, he phoned William Shawn, editor for The New Yorker, to see if he'd be interested in an article about the murders. As a result of that impulse, Capote wrote one of the most influential books of his generation. However, he also stated later that had he known what was to come from his stop in the unassuming town of Holcomb, Kansas, he would have gone right by "like a bat out of hell."

That book, of course, was the 1966 nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. Initially, Capote believed he would write about the effects of the murders on the rural community. "I don't care one way or the other if you catch who did this," he tells Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent assigned to the case. But then two drifters, Perry Smith and Richard "Dick" Hickock, are arrested and eventually charged with the murders. As Capote gets to know them, particularly Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.), he becomes obsessed with the pair and their story. He believes this is his shot at immortality. "Sometimes when I think of how good my book is going to be, I can't breathe," he tells his childhood friend, "bodyguard" and brilliant author in her own right, Harper Lee (Catherine Keener). He will stop at nothing to get his story. And while it did indeed make him rich and famous, the moral sacrifices Capote made left him emotionally shattered and ultimately lead to his untimely death. 

Bennett Miller's 2005 drama, Capote, focuses on this short (less than six years) but critical time period in the writer's life. As Capote interviews various members of the community, from law enforcement to the killers to citizens of Holcomb and neighbors of the Clutter family, a narrative of incompatible fates begins to weave itself, taking on weight and depth as Capote begins to form relationships with these people. Beating at the heart of it all, however, is what becomes an impossible and disconsolate conflict - Capote gains the trust of these two men, becomes their friend, basically falls in love with Perry Smith, and yet in order for his book to have the ending he wants and believes it needs, Smith and Hickock must die. He tells them he will find them a better lawyer for their appeal, yet in a later phone conversation with Harper Lee he laments, "If they win this appeal, I may have a complete nervous breakdown." When Smith and Hickock finally lose their appeal and are hanged on April 14, 1965, Capote phones Lee again and says, "There was nothing I could have done to save them." "Maybe," she says, "but the fact is you didn't want to." 

Truman Capote was a complex, interesting and deeply troubled man. How appropriate is it then that it would be another man who could easily be described with the same adjectives that would be fated to play the eccentric writer. The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who passed away this year of a heroin overdose, doesn't simply imitate the Capote's unusual, high-pitched voice and odd mannerisms. No, in some ways he channels the spirit of the writer into his performance. As such, while his voice and mannerisms are incredibly well done in their own right, it's Hoffman's ability to convey how these things masked both a great intellect and seemingly cavernous and irreparable wounds that make his performance truly remarkable. Truman Capote was a man whose distinct voice and strange, effeminate mannerisms made him an outsider no matter where he went. As a child, born in Louisiana and raised in Alabama, he was mistreated and passed off from person to person. When he moved to New York he was gay and a Southerner, raised in the country far away from skyscrapers and socialites. And when he finally comes to Holcomb, he is the New Yorker, an odd city-slicker who "thinks he's better than us just because he dresses nicely and knows a bunch of celebrities." "Ever since I was a child," he explains while interviewing one of the Clutter's neighbors, "folks have thought they had me pegged because of the way I am, because of the way I talk." Likewise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman was an outsider in the acting world. An actor with leading man talent who was relegated to on-screen supporting roles for much of his career because he did not physically fit the mold of a megastar. And while both men eventually had tremendous success in their respective fields (including Hoffman winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for this performance), their eventual outcomes are unfortunately revealing of the sacrifices that they both made in order to achieve it.  

Written by Dan Futterman and based on the biography of the same name by Gerald Clarke, Capote deftly and insightfully depicts the way in which as a writer works on a story, it works equally on him or her. As Capote speaks and dines with various members of the community, regaling them with stories of his run-ins with the likes of John Huston and Humphrey Bogart that may or may not be true, he studies them intently. He also convinces the local funeral director to let him view the heavily disfigured corpses of the the Clutters and is deeply disturbed when he peaks inside one of their coffins. Likewise, as he becomes more and more fascinated with Perry Smith, he draws connections to his own life. Perry is a skilled artist, doing many charcoal drawings while in prison. He was also passed around as a kid, and like Capote had both a distant mother and secret fantasies. "It's like Perry and I grew up in the same house," Capote tells Lee, "and one day he went out the back door and I went out the front." Not only do Capote's interactions with these people slowly reveal the story that will one day make him a household name, they also shine a light on some of his own demons. When Perry Smith tells Capote that he thought the father, Herb Clutter, was a nice, gentle man "right up until I slit his throat," it acts as a mirror for Capote's own arguably sociopathic behavior. And when Perry Smith's sister tells Truman, "Don't be taken in by my brother. he's got this sensitive side he'll show. You believe he's gentle and so easily hurt, but he'd just as soon kill you as shake your hand -- I believe that," we are forced to look at Capote, as he is forced to look at himself, and question whether or not the sister's thought might actually describe the writer and the things he has done to get his story.

One of my only real problems with the film, is the lack of depth of many of the other characters. Besides Capote, only Harper Lee and Perry Smith are given any complete semblance of three dimensionality. During the time Capote is researching and writing In Cold Blood, Harper Lee has time to publish her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, sell the rights to Hollywood and attend that premiere with Gregory Peck. Unlike Capote, Lee is a grounded and practical women who can easily see that Capote has feelings for Smith and yet will exploit him to get what he wants. "Do you hold him in esteem, Truman?" she asks. "Well," he replies, "he's a gold mine." Likewise, while Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) is only in the film for a few brief moments, Clifton Collins, Jr. as Perry Smith is depicted beautifully as an enigma. Is he truly this haunted, poetically minded man, full of pain and repressed emotions, who chews aspirin like peppermint candy or he is the psychopath that many people believe he is? Capote seems to believe he is a victim, a man who should not be forgiven, but pitied. But the question remains, does Capote believe this sincerely or does he believe it because it is how he wishes the world would see him?  

We also get glimpses into Truman's relationship to his editor William Shawn played by Bob Balaban and his long-time lover, Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood). And while it would have been interesting to see how Shawn's pressure influenced Capote's resolve to push Smith harder and harder for details of that fateful night, as well as how Capote's relationship with Perry Smith and to his work put strain on his interactions with Dunphy, "Jack thinks I'm using Perry," Capote tells Lee, "He also thinks I fell in love with him in Kansas," these aspects of Truman's life are left mostly undeveloped in the film. However, I of course understand that in order to tell the story he wanted to tell, Bennett Miller had to sacrifice certain aspects of his subject's life. The film is called Capote. It's not called In Cold Blood or Truman Capote: A Life, it's called Capote. And so, focusing on the writer and how this brief time in his life changed him forever is both understandable and admirable and what I believe was a choice that ended up creating the best movie that could have been made. 

Capote is an amazing and fascinating film about how one man, in order to achieve his greatest success, had to sacrifice his morals and self-respect. The 1967 film In Cold Blood by Robert Blake focuses more on the murders themselves without Truman Capote even making an appearance. And it is a good film. And if Bennett Miller would have simply turned the camera slightly and depicted the murders from Capote's point of view, this could have made for an entertaining movie as well. However, by instead turning an unflinching, uncompromising gaze upon the writer's moral decomposition, Miller exquisitely crafted one of the finest, most powerful films of the last decade. During one of their many interviews, Capote tells Perry Smith, "If I leave here without understanding you, the world will see you as a monster. I don't want that." And yet that is the exact impression people have been left with for decades since. Are we meant to view Truman Capote and his actions in the same light? Is he a monster? That's up to us to decide. 

9 out of 10

Log Jam: A Review of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

There's a scene early in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 where Jamie Foxx's beleaguered OSCORP electrical engineer Max Dillon pretty much sums up the problem with director Marc Webb's latest installation in the quick and arguably unnecessary franchise reboot. It's Max's birthday and everyone has either forgotten or had no idea in the first place. As he's struggling to make his way into the company's building - the entrance's revolving doors are clogged up with other employees - he complains about people not moving faster and bemoans, "Ugh, we got a log jam here." Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Max, he's part of the problem. Although The Amazing Spider-Man 2 contains some truly compelling emotional work and a few standout scenes, it is sadly the victim of trying to squeeze too many villains, too many origin stories and too many plotlines into one film - a film that itself is part of a franchise that is floundering in its attempt to prove its worth outside of Sam Raimi's already existent trilogy. It's all too much too fast.   

When this story picks back up from the first film, we're again following Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) as we swings through the city doing various Spider-Man things. It's his graduation day, but instead of hearing his girlfriend (Gwen Stacy, Emma Stone) give her valedictorian speech he's instead chasing a crazy Russian mobster (Paul Giamatti) who has stolen a bunch of some kind of destructive nuclear substance (as opposed to the completely harmless nuclear substances). During this ill-time detour, he ends up bumping into and saving the aforementioned borderline psychotic Max. Soon enough, Max becomes Spider-Man's obsessive number one fan and shortly after that he falls into a tank of eels being experimented on by OSCORP for their bioelectric power. Like most of the villains in Jerry Bruckheimer's Batman films, who all seemingly have a prior connection to their eventual alter egos, Max then becomes Electro! He then makes his way into the city, and is incensed by the fact that Spider-Man doesn't recognize him even though now he's blue, glowing and can absorb the entirety of the city's power. And when the cameras eventually turn from him to his arachnid nemesis, he decides to kill everyone in the world!... You know, because... JUST BECAUSE, OKAY?!

But a raging, tattooed Giamatti and synth-voiced Jamie Foxx aren't the only one's Spidey has to combat! No, there's also Sulky McAngstyPants otherwise known as Dane DeHaan's iteration of OSCORP heir, Harry Osbourne. He has a hipster haircut and wears fancy vests and expensive sunglasses. He's also apparently dying of same unknown degenerative disease that turned his father (Chris Cooper) green and then killed him. The only thing that will save him - he believes - is Spider-Man's spider blood. When Spider-Man tells him that he can't give Harry his blood right now because he doesn't yet know what it'll do to him, Harry completely flies off the handle and vows to destroy the superhero. (The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was written by Kurtzman & Orci, scribes of such gems as Cowboys and Aliens and Star Trek into Darkness and this is the second film of theirs in a row to feature this kind of transfusion nonsense.)

The love story between Peter and Gwen is still the best thing about this franchise. The two struggle with with their relationship, walk and talk and flirt across the New York City streets and are a big pile of adorable together. When they break up, you can feel the pain in their hearts, when they can't stay apart you don't need to be told why and when Gwen is put in extreme danger, Garfield sells Peter's panic beautifully. Having a real life couple portray a couple on screen can cause major problems (just ask Bennifer), but Stone and Garfield show how much actual romantic chemistry can strengthen a film's verisimilitude. 

Honestly, when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sticks (no pun intended) to being about Spider-Man, it's a pretty solid picture. Apart from his relationship with Gwen Stacy, how he interacts with civilians of all ages and creeds is fantastic. There is a particular scene in the film where Spider-Man saves the lives of a bunch of people that is one of the best superhero movie scenes in quite some time. The scenes of Peter's home life and relationship with Aunt May (the always brilliant Sally Field) as they both continue to grieve over the loss of Uncle Ben are also surprisingly emotional. 

But unfortunately, none of these emotionally resonant moments last for too long. There's no time for it! We've got stuff to blow up! Shit to destroy! Seemingly every emotional moment is undercut by an action scene that doesn't land at all. From the beginning fight scene on an airplane that makes it seem like the cameraman wants to brawl too, to an early chase scene that looks particularly video gamey, especially when the special effects shots cut immediately to actual images of a physically real person in a suit, it's paradoxically too much and not enough at the same time. 

That paradox is really the major issue with story too. Firstly, the whole quest involving Peter's father (Campbell Scott) is uninteresting and serves no real meaningful purpose. Secondly, the script spends way too much time on our villains' backstories even though they really do nothing that couldn't be shown through their actions or one or two lines of simple, expository dialogue. And thirdly, NO ONE'S MOTIVATION MAKES ANY DAMN SENSE! Max Dillon doesn't get enough attention from people and feels a little taken advantage of by his superiors so he wants to destroy the entire world? Spider-Man doesn't recognize him immediately even though he looks nothing like he once did and Spider-Man has to die? I get that maybe his new found electrical powers might have screwed his mind up, but that's never mentioned! We only get long monologues about how no one sees him and how frustrating that is. And Harry? Harry is told that he is suffering from the disease that killed his father and will eventually kill him. Except it's clearly shown that Norman Osbourne developed the same symptoms at Harry's age and lived into his 60s. But Harry has to have the cure right this second! Spider-Man wants to wait until he can make sure his blood is safe before giving it to Harry? Screw that, Spider-Man, I'm going to die in like 40 years! 

What it comes down to, is that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn't a complete story. It's a setup, as inelegant a setup as it is, for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and The Sinister Six. The problem I have with that, though, is that while I can recognize this fact, I can only really evaluate it on its own merits as a standalone film. And, unfortunately, there just aren't that many. Too many characters and poorly written backstories crammed in with ridiculous motivations turn what could have been an emotionally powerful look into Spider-Man's life, relationships and responsibilities (or even an interesting look into how the media can create superheroes as well as supervillains) into something that is ridiculous even by summer blockbuster standards. There are a few gems tucked away throughout, but they are quickly overtaken by another confusing or tedious moment of action or dull origin story. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a log jam of poorly thought out ideas. I just hope The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and The Sinister Six make up for it. Otherwise, we may be stuck in these revolving doors for a long, long time. 

6 out of 10