It’s really exciting to be at the Toronto International Film Festival and very cool to be in the audience for the world premiere of a movie like Freeheld. Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, and Michael Shannon all walk the red carpet before addressing the audience to introduce the film, and then sit down to watch it themselves. It’s a special thing to share a movie theatre with the very people who have made the movie but it is very moving, and a profound honour to share it with the person who inspired it. Last night, Laurel Hester’s widow, Stacie Andree, was in attendance.
Packets of tissues were given out to us as we gained entrance, and as I made liberal use of mine, I wondered what this experience was like for her.
I hope it was cathartic. I hope it was empowering. I hope it was a fitting tribute.
I’ll write an actual review on this later; for now I want to reflect on what it means to have been part of this.
Did you know some of your favourite film makers have made not just great movies, but some unforgettable music videos as well? Some directors got their start on MTV, but most on this list are just trying something different.
Antoine Fuqua, best known for directing Training Day and more recently Southpaw, got his start in music videos, shooting songs for Toni Braxton and Prince, but his most famous, arguably, is the one he did for Coolio: Gangsta’s Paradise, which took home best rap video at the MTV video awards in 1996. It’s been 20 years and a couple of weeks since its release but if you hear this song, it transports you back to that magical, Michelle Pfeiffery time in 1995 when rap was still a bit on the fringes, but Fuqua (hired by Jerry Bruckheimer) dared to pair Coolio with America’s super-white sweetheart in a series of face-offs that really normalized things and turned the genre on its ear. “I wasn’t completely happy with Antoine Fuqua’s concept at first, [says Coolio, to Rolling Stone] because I wanted some low-riders and some shit in it; I was trying to take it ‘hood. But he had a better vision, thank God, than I did. I couldn’t completely see his vision, but I trusted him.” The video is dark, shadowy, and intense, with choice clips from the film highlighting its rougher themes, proving Fuqua had style.
Gus Van Sant, director of Milk and Good Will Hunting, did a video for Red Hot Chili Peppers after directing Flea in My Own Private Idaho. The band credits Van Sant’s video for Under The Bridge with helping them break into the mainstream. The video features the band in a studio with lots and lots of projected lights and layered images superimposed over their faces, and backdrops of deserts and ocean, and then shifts its focus to the streets of Los Angeles, where Anthony Kiedis sings at various city folk, the camera lingering on characters as they go by. This video is just a small dose of Van Sant’s melding of stylistic devises that audiences would come to know him for.
David Fincher, weirdo director of Fight Club and The Social Network, has done a number of music videos, including Billy Idol’s Cradle of Love and Madonna’s Vogue, but I love the one he did for Aerosmith because it’s SO Fincher. In fact, it was banned from MTV for its gruesome, realistic scenes that kinda sorta alluded to incest. It was a landmark video for its narrative structure, blue mood lighting, and tricky not-for-primetime subject matter.
Michael Bay is my personal nemesis, and director of winners such as Pearl Harbor, and Transformers. But did you know that before Bad Boys, there was Meatloaf? That’s right – in the greatest pairing since Avril Lavigne and the guy from Nickelback, Michael Bay staged the epic I’d Do Anything For Love video – ridiculous and grandiose, there is nothing these two wouldn’t do. No expense or piece of storyline was spared; the budget is said to have been over $4 million dollars, but there is a helicopter and 2 hours of makeup application for a 6 minute video, so that’s reasonable.
Sofia Coppola, feted director of Lost in Translation, once did a video for the White Stripes: I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself. It’s a cover song, obviously, and it needed a fab director to take a Burt Bacharach ditty that Dusty Springfield made famous, and putting their own mark on it. Coppola decided to keep it simple: Kate Moss pole dances, in black and white. Why? “Because I would like to see it. [says Sofia] That’s the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.” It has a Bob Fosse\Factory feel and updates the vintage classic. But this is Virgin Suicides Sofia Coppola we’re talking about; the video is sexy, sure, but it’s also lonely. Moss is out there alone. No audience. There’s emptiness mixed with her particular brand of eroticism. But it certainly seems that she knows exactly what to do with herself. And now you might have a few ideas of what to do with her too.
And how about that Spike Lee? He’s gotta be the obvious one on this list, right? The director of Do The Right Thing was also behind the camera for Public Enemy’s iconic video. Videos actually; one was made to highlight the film, but a second was made with thousands of extras simulating a political rally in Brooklyn. It really captures the emotions, and the anger really, of the song’s lyrics. This song was conceived was Lee’s behest, and this is man who does not avoid controversy. The video was a megaphone and Lee knows exactly where to point it.
Brian de Palma is maybe my favourite on this list. You know him as the director of Scarface and Carrie, but did you know he also directed the video for Bruce Springsteins’ Dancing in the Dark? Neither a psychological thriller nor graphically violent, Dancing in the Dark doesn’t even appear to pay homage to Hitchcock. Are we sure it’s de Palma? Apparently this is what he does when he’s between movies. He makes music videos as business cards: this gun’s for hire.
And speaking of out of character, how about this New Order video for Touched By The Hand of God? It’s Kathryn Bigelow at the helm, responsible for the inspired casting of New Order themselves to play hair-band versions of themselves. No hints of The Hurt Locker here, Bigelow instead opts to parody glam metal. And where De Palma used a young Courtney Cox, Bigelow went with a young Bill Paxton. Crazy, right?
Tim Burton, the man behind Edward Scissorhands and a whole genre’s worth of quirky gothic horror stuff, also does music videos in his spare time. Hired by The Killers when they all had flagging careers, he in turn tossed a day’s work to Winona Ryder who was happy to get paid scale to play some sort of weird, bug-eyed wax doll. I think. It’s definitely cinematic and Burtony and it doesn’t make me like, or understand, the song any better.
This list would not be complete without Mr. Scorsese. He directed the epic music video for Michael Jackson’s Bad, which (together with Thriller, directed by John Landis) cemented these sprawling, story-telling videos. It co-stars a young Wesley Snipes and is heavily influenced by West Side Story. It is 18 minutes long (take that, Thriller!) and even had a screenwriter. Jackson plays a student named Daryl who’s home after a semester at a private school. To prove to Snipes that he’s still “bad” he…well, he dances. As you do. He snaps, the video turns to colour, and here you have it:
This list is already long but believe me, it could go on for ages. Directors be busy!
Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void) – Nick Cave, We No Who U R
Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind) – Chemical Brothers, Star Guitar
Ron Howard (Cocoon) – Michael Sembello, Gravity HOLY SHIT YOU NEED TO CHECK THIS OUT
Do any of these surprise you? Do you see any of the director’s style shining through these music videos?
UPDATE:
There is no way in hell I could fail to mention that Canadian indie director whizkid Xavier Dolan recently directed the history-making, ultra-lush Adele video to end all videos. It’s the first music video ever to be shot in IMAX, in stark black and white. Set in the outskirts of Montreal, it’s an emotional one, beautiful and well suited for Adele’s overdue comeback. It racked up a record-breaking 27 million views in the first 24 hours of its release – take that, Taylor Swift. Apparently it was Adele who reached out to Dolan, and he’s still reeling that she even knows who he is.
A few weeks ago we were at the cottage with our friends when someone pulled out a dusty old board game – Clue. Although the game is basically part of our cultural lexicon, I had never actually played it (although I vaguely remember seeing some clips from a VHS version that must have come out in the 80s – does anyone else remember this?) so around the board we went. I knew fairly quickly that it was Mrs. White in the kitchen with the wrench, but the trick is that you must get to kitchen to finger the murderer, and I couldn’t get there to save my life (so to speak).
This past weekend, my friends and I went to something I tentatively described to Sean’s grandmother as a “live version of Clue”, although that’s not a very precise analogy. It’s called Escape Manor, and it has several rooms into which people pay to be locked, and then they spend 45 sweaty minutes scrambling to decode clues to get themselves out. In our “scenario” , the 5 of us were locked into a prison cell (Matt hand-cuffed to the bars) and we were given the customary 45 minutes to escape, or meet our death via electric chair. The game is designed so that less than 10% of people succeed. It’s a real thinker, and we were really impressed with ourselves for figuring out cyphers and codes and puzzling out all kinds of clues, and being willing to stick our hands down a prison toilet, just in case.
Surprisingly, during neither of these encounters did Matt once bring up a man I once dated very VERY briefly, but who stayed a consistent punchline between us for the 6 or 7 years hence. Let’s call him Garrett. We joke about him for so many reasons – because he affected an Irish accent mid-way through our date, disappeared regularly for a “dart”, regaled me with his Rideau actor’s award (while conveniently avoiding the fact that while he described his employment as “acting” , it was actually “waiting tables” that failed to pay his bills – I found that out when grabbing burgers with a boyfriend, during which time Garrett flirted with me AGGRESSIVELY in front of said boyfriend in between refilling our drinks and despite the fact that I had not returned his calls in a year). Usually if Matt finds a way to bring up this guy (or a lengthy string of others, let’s face it), he pounces on it. And the thing we reminisce about most often is this weird text I once received from him that pronounced, out of the blue, that Clue (the movie) was “Tim Curry at his best.”
I watched it today, annnnnnd. Sorry, Garrett, wherever you are, but I must disagree.
The movie Clue is set in 1950s New England. Six strangers have been invited to a mansion for a party. They are met by a butler (Tim Curry) who gives each their pseudonym to protect their true identities. During dinner, Mr. Boddy arrives, and it is revealed that he is their connection – indeed, all are being blackmailed by him for various unpatriotic behaviours (Mr. Green’s offense is to simply be a homosexual employed at the State Department, so you get some real 1980s flavour included in the price of your ticket).
Professor Plum: Christopher Lloyd
Mrs. Peacock: Eileen Brennan
Mrs. White: Madeline Kahn
Miss Scarlet: Leslie Ann Warren
Colonel Mustard: Martin Mull
Mr. Green: Michael McKean
Mr. Boddy, for reasons the script fails to justify, gifts each one with a weapon. Then the lights go out for a five count, a throaty scream is heard, and the first body is found. Then another, and another. The group tries to solve the murder but of course they all suspect each other – rightly. The script is paper-thin, as I mentioned, and the movie is pretty terrible. Leslie Ann Warren spends the movie Jessica Rabbiting around, making her bosoms heave in a bad impression of a middle-aged sex kitten. None of the wounds bleed. No one can explain why they haven’t called the cops. An actual quote: “Three murders! Six altogether. This is getting serious.”
It flopped when it was released but has since garnered an implausible cult following by weird redheads named Garrett. There were three different endings filmed, and they were distributed to different theatres, which means that there’s no possible way to watch the movie and actually sleuth things out. There are no clues in Clue. There’s just a jumbled explanation at the end that could be immediately invalidated simply by rewinding the movie. But nowadays you can watch the movie and see all three endings, through the magic of bonus features, and decide which is most absurd. A little hint: “Communism was just a red herring.”
Are you familiar with the website Funny or Die? It’s a comedy site developed by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell where people upload uproarious videos that get voted on – those not deemed funny are sentenced to death (or at least the site’s “crypt”). The first video I remember seeing was the Landlord skit featuring Farrell and a barb-tongued toddler, but since then tonnes of celebrities have contributed all kinds of crazy stuff. There are no rules in the interweb, and Funny or Die is where famous people let loose. Like, major looseness.
Funny or Die is such a machine now that it’s actually spawned its own comedy festival, dubbed the Oddball Festival, and it’s been running for 3 years now. I happened to catch it during its inaugural run 3 years ago in Chicago when it was co-headlined by Flight of the Conchords (!) and Dave Chappelle in his return to stand-up. The night before we saw him, he was in Hartford, where the audience literally drowned him out with heckling and shouts of “White power!”. Chappelle walked off and then treated us to quite an anti-Hartford diatribe, including his fervent wish that North Korea would bomb Hartford. It was an epic set.
This year the festival is being co-headlined by Aziz Ansari and Amy Schumer. There’s a million other brilliant comedians on the bill as well (including Jay Pharaoh, Michael Che, and fucking Nick Kroll!) and we’re lucky enough to see all of them. Amy Schumer is having quite a year (if you haven’t read our review of Trainwreck yet, I assure you, we were entertained) but Aziz is our man.
I first came across Aziz Ansari in yet another Judd Apatow movie: Funny People (although in a little dose of kismet, if I’d only been paying attention, he’d previously appeared in an episode of Flight of the Conchords). Adam Sandler plays a movie star who copes with his illness and impending death by returning to his stand-up roots. He enlists the help of Seth Rogan to write jokes and “assist” him. I like this movie for a lot of reasons. Like seeing Sandler do something with some emotional depth. I LOVED seeing baby Sandler doing his earliest bits (he and Apatow were actually college roommates, and guess who filmed heaps of footage! – baby Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo also appear, if you squint). I loved Jason Schwartzman as a sleazy sitcom star, and Jonah Hill as a competitive bitch, and Eric Bana popping up in this after the little ode to Eric Bana in Apatow’s Knocked Up was just the shit, and I really REALLY loved this explosive unknown stand-up act who steals scenes: Aziz Ansari. Well, technically, not Aziz. Aziz developed a character named Randy for the film, but found him to be so well-liked and compelling that he’d often slip into the Randy stuff during his own shows.
Aziz doesn’t do a lot of movies but you may know him as Tom on Parks and Recreation (or will no doubt come to know him through his upcoming Netflix series, Master of None). He did make small appearances in Get Him to the Greek, 30 Minutes or Less (funniest part of the movie, if you ask me), and This is the End, proving just how incestuous the Apatow crew is (and for good measure, he’s also appeared on The League, and The Kroll Show). It’s a small world and Aziz Ansari is getting closer and closer to owning it.
We’ve seen Aziz before and love love love his stand-up. In fact, we saw him serendipitously last month at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal (where we also saw Chappelle). That particular night we were actually there to see Alan Cumming, who was fabulous, but got wind of a surprise pop-up show by Ansari, who wasn’t scheduled to appear. Turns out, he was working on material for the Oddball show and wanted a test audience. It was extremely polished for a so-called dry run, and funny as hell, so we’re totally primed to see him again this weekend, and with so much other talent, there’s no way we can lose.
The last living mortal, age 118 years, is telling his story from a hospital bed in a future where everyone is now “semi-immortal.”
This man, Mr. Nobody, explains that before the big bang, there were 10 dimensions: 9 of them spatial and 1 temporal, and all were balled tightly together. When the big banged, 4 of these expanded: 3 of them spatial (we know them as length, width, and depth) and the fourth, temporal (time). The rest of the spatial dimensions remained bound up – but what if one of t hose six was actually temporal?
This movie explores the possibility of parallel universes existing for different choices that we make. Mr. Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) remembers all of these universes as if he’s experienced them all. He remembers choosing to live with is mother AND choosing to live with his father. He remembers marrying and having a family with each of his childhood sweethearts. We see snippets from all of these lives as he recounts them as an old man to one very confused journalist.
The movie is experienced a little like a dream, non-linear sequences spliced together, recurring sounds and images, the visuals imaginative if not always convincing. The movie is big on the butterfly effect (something as small as a butterfly beating its wings can have a profound effect somewhere, anywhere down the line) and is too heavy-handed with his theme. It did raise lots of mind-melting questions, which I always love, because they allow me to annoy the shit out of my husband at bedtime, when he’s just about to drop off into la-la land and I’m wide-eyed and salivating.
If there are infinite possibilities, which one is “real”? Or can anything be real? Which actions will have universal consequences? How will your past decisions, even seemingly miniscule ones, shape your future?
To help us distinguish between Nemo’s various lives, the time periods are colour coded, and shot in different countries with different styles and musical cues to point the way. Which still doesn’t make it easy to contend with. The web is messy and tangled, and maybe that’s the point, but it still makes for difficult viewing. Each scene is a tiny cinematic event in and of itself, but sometimes it’s hard to imagine them as a whole. The narrative doesn’t always do its job holding things together, but Leto’s performance tries really hard to be up to the task, providing an emotional gooey centre to all of this philosophizing.
Director Jaco Van Dormael drops so many clues into his film that watching Mr. Nobody is like going on a treasure hunt. He may not always be sure of what he’s trying to say, but he’s ambitious nonetheless, and you’ve got to admire him for it.
Whoever makes the TV show Veep clearly saw this movie before I did.
Actually, In The Loop kind of feels a bit like a TV show, a more grown-up version of Parks and Recreation, federal rather than local government (British rather than American), shot in a grainy style that gives it that documentary (or mockumentary) feel, though it lacks the assertiveness of the talking-head confessional interviews (and in fact, it turns out to be a spin-off of sorts from the British series In The Thick of It).
To say this is a black comedy, or a satirical one, is selling it short. Sure it’s bleak, but it’s scathingly funny with one-liners from top to bottom, nonstop, biting biting biting. I loved it.
Both the US and the UK seem on the verge of war in the middle east and some poor minister gets trapped into saying war is “unforseeable” on some radio program, and the press goes nuts. The action volleys between the two countries, which allows the likes of James Gandolfini as a general and Mimi Kennedy as the Assistant Secretary General for Diplomacy to shine. But this is not their movie. This movie really belongs to the brits, and Tom Hollander as the hapless Minister for International Development really sells the bumbling politician, and is a great foil to Peter Capaldi, who, as the Prime Minister’s director of communications, gets to lambast him and all others in his path with relentless tongue-lashings I guarantee you won’t find anywhere else.
While the war looms large (some trying to prevent it, others gleefully encouraging it), the bedraggled minister cannot neglect his own constituency, which is brilliantly represented by Steve Coogan and the wall that may or may not crumble into the path of his fervently gardening mother. This makes for a potent contrast to what’s going on at the UN, with leaked documents and fabricated intelligence being bandied about about as quickly as the word FUCK (said a notable 135 times).
My ribs ached from laughing so hard. Political satire may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but In The Loop’s about as good as example as you’ll ever come across. The acting is spot-on, and though it’s a large ensemble, everyone seems to have their time to shine. The writing is sharp and takes no prisoners. Favourite line: “You are a real boring fuck. Sorry, sorry, I know you disapprove of swearing so I’ll sort that out. You are a boring F, star, star, CUNT!” Okay, I lied My actual favourite line is “In England we have a saying for a situation such as this, which is that it’s difficult difficult lemon difficult” (as opposed to easy peasy lemon squeezy). That one made Diet Pepsi shoot out the wrong hole. You could all go watch this and you’d all be back with your own favourite lines, and there would be hundreds, all different. The script is that good, and also that jam-packed!
To finally come back to that first sentence about the TV show Veep (I’ll get there!): both Anna Chlumsky and Zach Woods have roles in this movie that are near-identical to the ones they play on the show. It made me woozy! I said as much Sean who reminded me that the movie came first, which almost made me feel dumb until I had to explain to him that Chlumsky is My Girl. Who’s dumb now?
If you’ve seen any publicity for the movie A Walk in the Woods, you might be thinking it’s a Wild for the older gentleman, and the East coast. And you couldn’t be faulted for thinking that, but there’s a little more (or, a little less) to it than that.
Bill Bryson is a writer I admire and have read widely. This is the story of how he decided to walk the 2000-plus miles of the Appalachian trail and how his wife nearly derailed that trip by demanding that he not get murdered while on it. What a bitch. So Bill Bryson empties out his little black book calling everyone in his Rolodex and then a few more, plus their grandmothers and pool boys, but none of them are as fond of bleeding feet, tin can dinners, and getting eaten by bears as he is, and so he scrapes the bottomest bottom of the barrel by accepting the company of a man he hasn’t been in touch with for decades (and for good reason).
These two men are played by Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.
Robert Redford has been trying to get this movie made for 15 years, and originally imagined it as a vehicle for himself and buddy Paul Newman. Unfortunately that pairing didn’t work out (Newman passed away in 2008) but it’s hard to see him in the role looking half as grizzled and damaged as Nolte does. He’s exceedingly convincing as someone on the constant verge of cardiac arrest.
This movie doesn’t pack the emotional punch that Wild does, nor does it mean to. It’s an odd-
couple buddy movie, just two old guys cracking wise and getting into elderly shenanigans along the way. And it’s fun. Bryson is a witty guy, and script writers Rick Kerb and Bill Holderman keep the one-liners coming. They’re getting quippy with it.
Emma Thompson as Bryson’s wife, and Nick Offerman as a knowledgeable salesman, are grossly underused. Even more criminally neglected: the scenery, which we know is there, and is beautiful, but the camera forgets to dwell on it. Wild’s cinematography capitalized on the wide open spaces but A Walk in the Woods plays it a little too cool.
I was wary when I heard about this movie. Redford struck me as way too old to play the part (I remembered Bryson as being maybe 40ish in the book) and he is, but the story’s tweaked enough that it becomes a gentle treatise on aging and living a meaningful life and the value old friends. But substantial? Not so much. It’s pretty much exactly what it says it is: a nice little stroll through the woods.
Detachment – Wow, this was a crazy-angry movie. Adrien Brody plays a substitute teacher who keeps severing his connection to the students by moving on from one job to the next. This movie shows a one-month period in a high school where the students are apathetic (at best) and the staff (including principle Marcia Gay Harden, counsellor Lucy Lui and teacher Christina Hendricks, all excellent) are all burnt out. It’s tough to watch; director Tony Kaye slaps us over and over in the face with such consant degradation that we too become detached, and the sorrow is less effective. This is an ode to the failures of the public school system, and though I know it has its flaws, it seems downright impossible that there is nary a student nor administrator in all of Queens who has ever experienced even a singular moment of happiness. Nothing here is implausible, it’s just that not every bad thing can possibly happen does happen, and certainly not all before lunch. It’s like Kaye has gleefully scraped together a big pile of dog shit, and he’s intent on rubbing our noses in it for as long as we hold out (which makes me feel dumb for sticking it out).
There’s a lot going on stylistically – the chalkboard occasionally gets animated, and there are sporadic interviews that made me wonder at first if I’d accidentally stumbled onto a documentary. But then the drama kicks in, and we quickly overdose from it. Tony Kaye is notoriously difficult to work with (the only other feature film he was able to bring to screen forced Edward Norton to pull rank and recut American History X himself)., so it’s suprising so many stars returned his calls to get this film done. It would seem, however, that some have sincelearned their lesson. Bryan Cranston has said that he has not seen the film “Because I felt that Carl Lund, the writer of Detachment, wrote a really beautiful, haunting script. And I didn’t feel that it was honored. I was upset with that. I really was. And so I didn’t see the movie. Tony Kaye is a very complicated… interesting fellow. I don’t believe that I’ll be working with him again. I didn’t not get along with him on a personal level. But I just honor the writing. I really think that writing is the most important element there is. It is the springboard. It is where everything starts. And if you don’t honor that – which I didn’t feel it was – then where are you? And I’m not the only actor on that film to feel that way.”
Half Nelson – Ryan Gosling’s character in Half Nelson, Dan, is a lot like Adrien Brody’s in Detachment. They can both get it together in their rough classrooms, but their personal lives are in tatters. An ex-girlfriend rattles Dan to the point of getting high in the school locker room, where he’s discovered by his student, Drey (Shareeka Epps). The friendship that grows out of this encounter is sweet and wary, and Dan feels understandbly uncomfortable being so vulnerable in front of one of his kids. Drey sees his addiction the way Dan sees the bad influence of drug dealer Frank (Anthony Mackie) in her life, but they can’t seem to resist going down their own wrong paths, let alone keep each other from doing the same. Dan is terrific with his students but can’t get through a day without freebasing cocaine. It’s tough to watch, but so much more rewarding than Detachment, because although we see real gritty misery, there are also small veins for hope.
Although I enjoyed the performaces in Detachment, there were almost too many sub-plots to serve any one story well. Bryan Cranston and Blythe Danner and James Caan were pratically throw-aways. In Half Nelson, Gosling, Epps, and Mackie dazzle with performances that are really nuanced and subtle. You get the sense that Kaye wants to knock you over the head with his themes whereas Half Nelson is more comfortable asking you to make your own decisions. There may not be any great heralding sense of triumph, but neither do we bask in self-pity. Gosling earned an Oscar nomination for his work on the film; and it was scored by a talented Canadian band by the name of Broken Social Scene.
So there you have it, two uplifting movies just in time for back to school! Are you ready for a new school year at your house? Did you have a favourite teacher growing up? Were they mostly sober? How about a favourite school movie?
It started last year on a lark: Matt would be celebrating his birthday, and we needed a theme. It so happened that at the time he was watching a season (possibly Canadian) of The Amazing Race, and since I don’t watch TV, he’d gamely recap and act out the previous night’s episode for me at work the next day. He was so enthusiastic and I was so captivated that we agreed that we’d like to run an Amazing Race, and so we did.
Well, Matt did. And so did a number of our friends. But the thing about an amazing race is that it takes a lot of hard work and organization. A regular race might run itself but an amazing one needs a ringmaster. Last year’s race was so intensely competitive that it literally produced retching, bloodshed, and even – if you can believe it – rampant, desperate cheating.
This weekend we’re heading back to the cottage for a new edition: The Amazing Race: After Dark. Ten people are racing but there’s only one cup. And I’ll be the one in the middle, not just mitigating the chaos, but orchestrating it. All in good fun of course, but if you have the opportunity to make your friends breathe fire (last year’s showstopper, a scotch bonnet pepper, is THIRTY times hotter than a jalapeno), why not take it?
I said before that I don’t watch TV, but for better or worse, I do watch movies, and that brings me to the embarrassing admission that I’ve watched Rat Race more than once.
The premise: a bunch of people are randomly selected to run an absurd from race from Vegas to New Mexico that wealthy people can watch and bet on. There aren’t a lot of rules to this race but there is a $2 million cash prize at stake, so you can bet these people race hard.
Starring: John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Mr. Bean, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Lovitz, Kathy Najimy, Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Dave Thomas, Amy Smart, Dean Cain, Wayne Knight, Kathy Bates. Pretty much the weirdest ensemble you can imagine; no less than 3 Oscar WINNERS in this cast, where the acting mostly consists of running from one sight gag to the other, only some of them actually landing.
It makes you wonder – with $2M on the line, what would you do to get your hands on it? Or, what wouldn’t you do? Because my friends will sell their souls to get their names engraved on a trophy.
Have you ever run an Amazingish Race? Would you eat the scotch bonnet pepper?
So we checked out the new Zac Efron movie last night.
Settle down, settle down. The only real heat came before the movie even started rolling.
We were out at Silver City and there was a scuffle between 4 men and 2 women (and 6 heavy french accents) in our row. The theatre had had to be emptied because security hadn’t had a chance to do proper bag checks and wanding but of course people dragged their heels, hesitant to leave their precious seats. When we eventually got back in, the clever draping they’d done with those flimsy free magazines wasn’t quite enough to make clear their “reservations” and – scandalous! – a couple of women were sitting right where the men had wanted to be sitting! And even though there were plenty of other spots the men could have moved to, or the women for that matter, both groups were equal parts obstinate and hard-headed, and a good old-fashioned stand-off ensued. Security was called but even they couldn’t convince either group to budge, at which time I said pointedly to Sean “Want to move? Let’s move.” Yes, it was a means to an end, but I’d also decided that no matter who won, they were losers, and I didn’t really want to spend the next two hours sitting beside them. So Sean and I moved down toward the front while the rest of the theatre applauded and security thanked us profusely.
We Are Your Friends is about a group of young, 20-something friends who are still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be when they group up (and yet are still more mature than the feuding 40-somethings in our theatre). Zac Efron plays an aspiring DJ who believes that all he needs to be successful is “a laptop, some talent, and 1 track”. So he’s always working on that one track, and veteran\famous DJ James Reed (Wes Bentley) sort of takes him under his wing and shows him a slightly more authentic approach to creating music from computers.
This movie is not very interesting or realistic but it did succeed at making me feel awfully old (and I think I’m maybe 5 year older than Zac). But the truth is, “kids today” are learning to DJ with their iphones and their macbooks. I used to date a DJ, back when a DJ booth was tricked out with gear, decks and controllers and motherfucking turntables. Sounds were mixed from vinyl, not Apple. Some things appear to have stayed the same: the obsessive recording, the ubiquitous headphones, and the lifestyle of drinks and drugs and all-night parties. But the culture is different. Efron and friends believe they can be rich and famous doing these gigs. DJs used to live in obscurity. They got paid for their work, but they were background players unless they managed to hook up with a Fresh Prince. Today they have whole festivals devoted to EDM; 20 000 people watching 1 guy slightly adjusting levers on a box hooked up to his laptop. Calvin Harris was 2014’s highest-paid DJ, raking in $66 million dollars, but even making half that like Avicii and Steve Aoki is pretty decent scratch for kids who started with your basic bass sample and have evolved into beat scientists.
The movie manages to be pretty clichéd about a subject matter we’ve rarely seen on-screen (and no, Anna Kendrick’s turn as an “alternative” masher-upper of pop songs in Pitch Perfect doesn’t count); it’s vapid, but stylish as hell (so trendy it’ll probably look dated 10 minutes from now). It strikes me as Entourage-Lite: the millennial take on ambition and aimlessness. Take that for what you will.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES