Workplace Movies

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Thursday Movie Picks, sponsored as ever by Wandering Through the Shelves, is brought to us this week by the letter W – for movies set in the workplace.

Matt

Office gossip can be addictive. Most people wind up spending most of their time talking about work when they spend time with their colleagues outside the office. Actually, three of the Assholes work in the same place and- when we’re not arguing about movies we’re often reminiscing (or ranting) about work. Even people who claim to hate their job tend to find the comedy and drama of any workday pretty interesting. All you need to do is capture that environment in a relatable way and you’ve got a pretty good movie.

The Apartment (1960)- This has been one of my most significant Blind Spots until this week and it was worth the wait. Jack Lemmon plays an accountant at a big firm who’s just trying to get noticed. Once his superiors find out that he has a modest but nice apartment conveniently located on the Upper West Side, he becomes their go-to guy as they start borrowing his key so they can discreetly cheat on their wives. Director Billy Wilder has a lot to say about the compromises people make in the name of ambition and manages to make a movie that is still funny after all these years while he’s saying it. Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are as charming as can be too.

Office Space (1999)- Turning an animated short into a live action feature-length film could have been a disaster but Beavis and Butt-head creator Mike Judge turned any old boring day into the office into one of the funniest comedies of the 90s. Re-watching it this week, I laughed loudest when Gary Cole’s Bill Lumbergh- in an effort to pacify the troops- announces that Friday will be Hawaiian Shirt Day. Around our office, they charge us two dollars to wear jeans on Friday. I couldn’t help feeling bad for poor old Milton though.

Margin Call (2011)- Yet another movie that I’m thankful to Wanderer for giving me an excuse to finally check out this week. Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons, and Kevin Spacey (making my list two weeks in a row) play investment bankers who see the writing on the wall leading up to the 2008 Financial crisis and sit around wondering what to do about it. Director J. C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) knows how to set the mood and the performances are all stellar.

Jay

Up In The Air – Poor Ryan Bingham is so afraid of real life that he’s made sure his job keeps him in constant motion. His office may be at a cruising altitude of 32 000 feet but he spends a lot of time visiting other people’s workplaces to tell them they’re no longer employed. This is such a tough job that cash-strapped businesses are still willing to pay big bucks during a recession for him to do it in their place. He sees offices at their very worst, smells the fear and senses the instability, and is the receptacle for sometimes 20 years’ worth of pain and frustration. Our identities can be so wrapped up in our work, and in many ways, Ryan (George Clooney) is the prime example of this. Director Jason Reitman bravely tackles those creeping workplace notions of downsizing and obsolescence and asks some tough questions of the aging American workforce.

The Social Network – I love how you see the growth of the company here, the “offices” originally in a Harvard dorm room, and then graduating quite quickly to the impressive work space that was eventually needed. The movie recounts a very modern invention (hello, Facebook) but its workplace themes are as old as the first profession – loyalty, jealousy, theft, power, the complicated ownership of ideas. Whether friends or enemies, friended or unfriended, colleagues or competition, this project is always work, and everybody wants to get paid.

Brokeback Mountain – The classic office romance. They meet by the photocopier, lock eyes over the on, thwater cooler, exchange business cards in the elevator…or, you know, not. Don’t you wish your office looked like this? The scenery is breathtaking but make no mistake: these two cowboys meet at work, doing a job that’s not altogether welcoming to “their kind.” When their boss gets an inkling of what’s going on, the work dries up and the two spend the rest of their lives stealing secret moments and steeling themselves with memories of the best job they ever had.

Bonus pick: Monsters, Inc. Sully and Mike are about as close as two colleagues can be. Mike is the more ambitious of the two, but it’s Sully’s talent and skill that make them so successful. The workplace is originally competitive, and tinged with the fear of contamination (they do bio-hazardous work with children). It may be a cartoon about fuzzy monsters, but any joke about paperwork in triplicate is likely to land huge with adult audiences.

Sean:

Since Matt took Office Space and Jay took Up in the Air, I am sticking to familiar territory and making my section an all-lawyer-movie workplace bonanza!

Philadelphia – a great movie about a lawyer getting kicked out of his workplace, and then going to his other workplace, the court, to try to make things right. Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington absolutely own this movie. I actually did not see this until last year and I should have seen it way sooner, because it’s excellent.

A Few Good Men – I saw this in theatres, I owned it on VHS, I own it on DVD, and one of my roommates in university recited the “You can’t handle the truth!” speech every time he had more than three drinks. And I could watch it again tomorrow. There are so many good lines and so many good characters in here that it remains enjoyable to this day. And again there are a few workplaces in here, namely the courts and the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

The Firm – Tom Cruise is probably the best lawyer ever, at least if you go by his on-screen performances. He almost got Dawson and Downey freed and in the Firm he somehow outmaneuvers a whole team of crooked lawyers and the mob while still adhering to his strict ethical code. Plus he does a lot of really fast running in the Firm which is always the best part of any Tom Cruise performance. This movie feels really long, because it is, but it’s still a good watch.

Anyone had an office love? Office hook up? Office BFFs?

Reel Quick Movie Reviews

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Seventh Son – Saw this one unintentionally at the drive-in. A rare misstep for Julianne Moore, and Jeff Bridges seems to have just wandered in accidentally. Moore is artfully costumed but as Sean put it “the movie wasn’t very interesting and there weren’t any cool parts.” Three days were not enough between seeing Alicia Vikander in the well-executed Ex-Machina and this poop machine.

Diplomatie – A historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz (Niels Arestrup), the German military governor of occupied Paris, and Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling (Andre Dussollier). The acting is superb but it’s 84 long minutes of two men talking in an office (please don’t blow up Paris – but I must – well we’d rather you didn’t – but really I must) and I wasn’t that into it.

Jupiter Ascending – They weren’t joking when they said this one was bad. It’s bad. It feels more like a Saturday morning cartoon, Eddie Redmayne makes an ass out of himself giving a weird, whispered delivery, and though at times strikingly beautiful, the CGI overload mostly falls flat. But good news for Matt: apparently if you’ve never been stung by a bee, it’s because they recognize royalty.

Escobar: Paradise Lost – A young Canadian (Josh Hutcherson) goes to Columbia to follow his dreams of surf and sun and ends up meeting the love of his life, Maria – and then meets her uncle Pablo (Benicio Del Toro). You can imagine that things don’t go particularly well for him because it turns out drug lords with political ambitions aren’t overly loyal. Makes you wish Del Toro was in a true Pablo biopic, and not some movie filtered through the eyes of a white boy.

Ex-Machina: How to Expertly Avoid Reviewing a Movie

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So last week, the Assholes enjoyed a late lunch on a sunny patio, some margaritas as we planned a future trip to California, and a movie that we all admitted to thoroughly enjoying.

Ex-Machina is a damn fine piece of cinema that we all came away from chittering about like we’d been starved of good film-making for centuries (and it being Avenger week, I guess it did kind of feel that way). And then we all promptly avoided writing about it.

Now why is that? Probably because I’m not interested in rehashing plot. I am, however, frothing to talk about what happens, really happens. So I’m writing two posts. This one, spoiler-free, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet: Go see it. It’s about a beautiful robot who’s (artificially?) intelligent and has a sporting vagina. How can you resist that? Answer: you can’t. See it immediately, and then come back to discuss.

And for those of you who have seen it, please follow this link to the real meat and potatoes, where we can finally get all those glorious WHAT THE FUCKS off our chests. Sound good? See you there.

Jay

Ex-Machina: The Spoiler-Filled Discussion

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You’ve been warned, ladies and gentlemen: this post is not a review but a place where we can finally talk about all those little light-bulb moments that Ex-Machina inspires, and sometimes orchestrates. Brilliant film, by the way. If you haven’t seen it, do. And then come back. For those of you sticking around, please view the following as talking points – take one or take all, and head to the comments to let us know how you feel. If you have your own questions to add, please do.

Okay, so first off: can you even believe that we haven’t learned our lesson yet? I mean, literally, every movie, every book, every comic has always warned of the exact same thing: robots will always get smarter than us. They will always realize that we a hazard. And they will always neutralize that hazard. Robots always win! End of story. Isaac Asimov microphone drop.

Director Alex Garland has described the future presented in the film as ‘ten minutes from now’. Meaning that ‘if somebody like Google or Apple announced tomorrow that they had made Ava, we would all be surprised, but we wouldn’t be that surprised’. Isn’t it a little scary that a machine that is potentially an extinction-level event for us could be being built in someone’s basement right now? Actually, we’re creeping closer and closer to this inevitability all the time – I recently warned our dear Carrie that she was wasting her time keeping in shape because one of these nights her fitbit would kill her anyway. As far as I know she’s alive and well, but I am concerned about how much of our lives we’re devoting to things like the Apple Watch, which can control your TV, pay for groceries, or give you directions. But it also has the ability to spy on you – just ask Edward Snowden! Did this movie feel like a real and imminent threat to you?

The title derives from the Latin phrase ‘Deus Ex-Machina’, meaning ‘a god From the Machine.’ It’s basically referring to a plot device where a god, or some powerful unknown, resolves character issues in one fell swoop. Nathan (Oscar Isaac) tells us that only gods can create new life – he’s cocky and proud of his invention and he loves when Caleb implies that he is a god. But Ava has other ideas. Whether or not she ever needed him, she’s certainly outgrown him (remember when Caleb sadly tells her it’s not up to him, and she asks “Why is it up to anybody?) – gave me CHILLS!), outgrown god even, by this point, and she knows it. So the ‘Deus’ is conspicuously absent from the title; god isn’t necessary. The machine is all that matters. Is it inevitable that we will create the thing that undoes us?

The movie is divided into “sessions”, each day that Caleb spends administering his best attempt at the Turing test. In the end, ‘Ava Session 7’ appears on-screen even though Caleb isn’t administering the Turing test anymore, and Nathan is pretty dead. Do you think this means Ava was doing the testing all along? It definitely feels like she was always in control. The boys felt the ultimate test would be to see if she could fall in love, but she knew that the ticket to her escape would be to manipulate Caleb into falling for her. Now that I’m thinking about it, Ava lives in this glass box, but when Caleb is questioning her, he steps into a box within her box, which sort of hints toward him being the one in the hot seat, doesn’t it?

A Turing test, you may remember, is a conversation of sorts between a person and an unknown entity. If a computer can pass itself off as a human during this test, it has passed, and the computer can be considered ‘intelligent’. In the film, Caleb can clearly see that he is interrogating an android – Nathan feels that if Ava can still relate to him as a human despite it being very obvious that she isn’t, then the test will truly be meaningful. What I think is meaningful is that the android is played by a human. So funny in this age of Ultron, but I loved that this movie was driven by ideas rather than effects. There are so many cerebral easter eggs, references to Frankenstein, and the Bible, and Greek mythology. I need to see it 8 more times just to soak it all in. But Ava is played by Alicia Vikander, who realized that to move and act like a perfect woman would end up seeming robotic, so for a robot to act like a real woman, she must be flawed. Did that make your head hurt? A robot like Ava knows and sees all. She processes everything at a much higher rate than a human ever could, but to win over Caleb, she must express a vulnerability that would appeal to him. In seeming weak, or scared, or dreamy, she gives him the opportunity to feel he has something to offer her. She plays him expertly. This is the greatest chess game a robot has ever played, but as we know, robots always win.

On the Other Hand, it’s Drive-In Season!

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Matt’s been belly-aching about his favourite movie rental place biting the dust while the rest of us saw it coming for – what? – the past 15 years or so? Only teasing, Matt. Elgin Street Video was THE place; it managed to be a neighbourhood fixture and also a city-wide go-to for its eclectic catalogue that was worth getting your knees dusty for. The original owner was a bit of Luddite, like Matt, unwilling to believe that new technologies could topple his empire, having famously quoted to the Ottawa Citizen in 1994 “We certainly know the value of this so-called information highway has been grossly exaggerated in the media” but alas the internet finally caught up with his legacy (he died in 2008, his video store outliving him an impressive 7 years thanks to friends and family who vowed to keep it going). The store will shutter for good at the end of the month, and in the meantime, the store’s contents are on sale and everything must go. Everything? Even the wacky memorabilia? Even John Candy’s pants? Well, that remains to be seen.

So while Matt’s throwing a funeral for the crumbs of his nostalgia, I’m still indulging in mine.

The drive in. Oddly enough, the drive-in was almost done in by videotape. It nearly vanished when people could simply rent a tape at Blockbuster and take it home to their living rooms instead. They’ve been going extinct for 40 years now, but here’s the thing: they’re not dead yet. And unlike DVD (or VHS!) rentals, there seems to be a throwback factor that’s keeping their faint hearts beating.

Why do I love the drive-in? What’s not to love about seeing a movie under the stars? About the sense of community involved in pointing our cars in the same direction, tuning in to the same radio station, honking our horns in unison to tell the projectionist we’re ready, flashing smiles along the way as we make the dark stumble towards the bathrooms, greet each other over popcorn, walk our dogs during intermission.

By the late 1950s, one-third of theaters in the US were drive-ins. It was an affordable way to see a movie (and often two or three), the drive-ins relying more heavily on concessions and the ticket prices staying quite low, often a set price for a whole carful of movie goers. Turns out that wasn’t a super sustainable business model and today there are fewer than 350 operating drive-ins in the US (there are about 40 000 indoor screens, by contrast). But there are some things that deserve a resurgence, and like vinyl records currently enjoying a comeback, so are drive-in theatres.

This weekend, our local (the only local) drive-in theatre showed its first double bill of the season (drive-in season in snowy Canada is tragically short). It never matters what they’re showing; Sean and I go every other weekend, which is as often as they bring in new movies. The movies are almost always movies we’ve already seen paired with a movie we had no intention of seeing, but we go. We bring blankets and pillows and mosquito netting and a picnic, and a bottle of champagne. We watch the movies with varying degrees of interest, sometimes with rapt attention from the edge of our captain’s chairs, other times stretched out in the backseat, half an eye on the screen and someone’s hand up someone else’s shirt. Being at the drive-in reminds us old married fuddy-duddies of the art of making out. It inspires us to learn new ways of doing old tricks so that the Volkswagen doesn’t get to a-rocking. It gives us a new appreciation of the suburbs – the night sky, the fresh air, the full moon, the fireflies. I can’t say exactly why we love to go, but we do.

Maybe it is a form of reminiscing. As kids, Mom would have us all put on our jammies before piling into the van. We’d negotiate amongst ourselves for who would sit in the middle seats, and who would go way back. There’d be cheesies and juice boxes during the first film, the family one, and during the second we were expected to sleep. I remember sneaking surreptitious peaks at the screen during Crocodile Dundee 2, a movie only tantalizing to someone who’d been told it was off-limits, “too grown-up” (it was rated PG).

Now we have the luxury of leaving if we don’t like the second feature, but we rarely do. The movie is secondary at the Templeton Cineparc. Foremost is the holding of hands, the nuzzling, the ability to talk through the movie without being shushed, smuggling in a whole pizza if the mood strikes, and having privacy but still enjoying the communal aspect of watching a movie with your neighbours. We’ve only just been and I’m already itching to go back.

Do you have childhood memories of the drive-in? Do you still go? Do you have one near by?

My Own Little Piece of Nostalgia

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Back in December, I posted one of my first ever reviews on this site of George Lucas’ classic of nostalgia American Graffiti. This is how I closed my review.

“I can’t think of many teen party movies that were made by such a celebrated and talented filmmaker. Rent it.”

In response, fellow Asshole Jay couldn’t resist leaving one of my favourite comments ever on one of my posts.

“I think “renting it” is your own little piece of nostalgia, Matt. Apart from you, I’m not sure I know anyone who rents movies anymore.”

Apparently she’s right. Tru elgin th is, I still do rent movies. Or did. Until Elgin Video announced on Thrusday that it was closing its doors after 25 years in business. I can’t say it came as a surprise. What small business that charges five dollars for a three-day rental could ever hope to compete with a more convenient and less expensive Netflix subscription. Even if every fourteenth rental is free. (Trust me, 14 comes quick when you’re an Asshole). Stores like this have been fighting a losing battle with the internet for years.

The first thing I do when I rent a DVD is assess the damage. Without even thinking, I immediately turn it over to see just how cracked it is and before inserting it into my player, I usually can’t help thinking about where else it’s been. Worse even, who among us hasn’t felt the disappointment that follows the elation of finally having tracked down You Only Live Twice only to have it start skipping just when it’s getting to the good part.

Maybe what comes too easily isn’t fully appreciated. When I was sixteen, I waited months for Supercop to come to video and- when it finally did- my video store (now long gone, barely even making it through the nineties) only had one copy. After weeks of feeling behind empty cases to find nothing there, you’d better believe I relish every kick, stunt, and badly dubbed line of dialogue when I finally went to the store at exactly the right time. I’ll even miss crawling around on my hands and knees because I know From Here To Eternity’s got to be down there somewhere.

When Elgin Video closes at the end of May, there won’t be many- if any- places like it left in Ottawa. It really is a shame. Last month when I discovered that they had Heathers in stock, it was nice to have a friendly staff of fellow cinephiles to share my excitement with. Like the girl behind the counter who, going above and beyond the call of duty, presented me with a list of 25 Movies Based on Young Adult Novels to help me with a particularly challenging Thursday Movie Picks. Or the guy behind the counter who knew more and had seen more than I did (something I rarely encounter and will even less rarely admit). I vowed that one day I would stump him. Now I never will.

I can’t help feeling an end of an era- one that I seem to have clung to longer than most. I’m a resourceful guy and- if I’m in the mood to watch Blood Simple- I’m sure I’ll find a way and may not even have to crawl around on all fours to do it. I’ll love watching the movie’s I love and hate watching the movies I hate as much as ever. It’s just finding them won’t be as fun as it used to be.

Wish For Christmas

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I heckle a lot of Christmas movies, especially the Hallmark ones, for being unforgivably cheesy and predictable. Those are the staple ingredients of their white bread movies, and you need to add a LOT of your own salt in order to make it palatable. But Wish For Christmas is bad in an entirely new way.

Anna (Anna Fricks) is a typical high school student, gearing up for the winter ball. Her parents, Luke (Joey Lawrence, with eyebrows so perfectly sculpted they’re suspicious) and Elizabeth (Leigh-Allyn Baker), are super religious. They “bring light to the law” in their law practice, which is not-for-profit, actually turns away paying customers, and focuses only on helping poor people whose homes are being foreclosed. And somehow they stay afloat. Don’t question it. Their family puts god first, which means never missing church, and praying before you eat pizza, and forbidding your teenage daughter from dressing like a teenage daughter. Although they’ve still managed to raise a real bitch. But then disaster strikes: the winter ball gets moved to Christmas Eve, which means Anna can’t go, as she is obligated to attend services at her uncle’s church. So she did the only thing that makes sense. She uses her nightly prayer to wish that her parents do not believe in god anymore. And it works!

So now her parents are non-Christian, which means her dad says things like “Hey, man” and her mom lets her buy a dress that doesn’t suck, and they toast their business with actual wine that they actually drink. And they get very worked up when a very expensive vase gets broken. Oh and they don’t pick up their phone on the first ring. But the rest of the town still thinks of them as religious, so they still show up for Bible study and such. Oh boy is it awkward. Consider them added to the town’s prayer list.

This movie gives Christians a bad name, and makes them look like fools. And when the screenwriter imagines the nefarious things nonChristians get up to, it’s even more ludicrous. Like, the secretary now has to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. It’s impossible to take this shit seriously and important that you don’t. Jesus needs to fire his publicist. Wish For Christmas is every kind of bad except the kind that’s so bad it’s kind of good. This is so bad it stays bad, and makes you feel dirty, leaves a grimy film on the holiday season, and on movies generally. It’s going to take a real miracle to adequately cleanse myself of this movie’s awfulness.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

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Avengers: Age of Ultron is great! Not Oscar-great but blockbuster-great. No need to think or feel creeped out about A.I. like in Ex Machina, just enjoy the ride with moody Ultron as he carries out his plan to kill all humans. But fear not! Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are on the case.

One of the things Age of Ultron does best is give us lots of new characters. That fits well with the revolving door that is the Avengers comic book roster. So we are introduced/reintroduced to many characters we know are, or will become, Avengers, like War Machine, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and in unfortunate licencing loophole, Quicksilver. Jay found that super confusing having already seen a different Quicksilver, without an accent, in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and I agree. It shouldn’t have happened and it takes away from the movie. Still better to have him here, I think, because Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are great together (this movie captured their relationship well) but it’s time for a deal with Fox. At least Marvel got Spider-Man back from Sony, but let’s get the rest of these movies working together too.

Seeing Vision pop up was an unexpected surprise for me. I liked that he made an appearance and thought he was used well, both as a source of conflict between the Avengers and then as a contrast to Ultron, though they share the same view on humanity’s likely future (i.e., not promising). Really, all the new characters were handled well and I feel like we are well on our way to the Infinity Gauntlet saga.

The disappointing thing is there are now four or five other Marvel movies on the way between now and Avengers 3. I’m excited for Captain America 3, especially with Spidey on board, but beyond that, it’s way too much. Especially when I use Vision’s introduction as a comparison; Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Dr. Strange could all be brought in as part of an Avengers movie, and I wish that’s what was being done. But since there’s money on the table we get separate movies for each. Let’s be honest, I will probably see all those, so you can expect to hear this same complaint every few months between now and the next Avengers movie.

I can’t hold that against this movie though. Avengers: Age of Ultron itself does things exactly right. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn’t have changed a thing so it gets ten Infinity Gems out of ten.

True Crime

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Over the weekend we took in True Story – the Jonah Hill\James Franco movie about a man who killed his wife and kids, fled to Mexico, and assumed the identity of a disgraced NYTimes journalist. Learning this, the journalist meets the guy in prison and writes the story of how he’s actually innocent. It got me thinking about cinema’s strange fascination with real-life criminals, and whether the Hollywood glamorization machine contributes to delinquency.

Personally, I have guilt. I immediately think of The Wolf of Wall Street – I love me some Marty Scorsese, but I had serious reservations about helping to line the pockets of someone who so callously victimized others. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a young man who became addicted to the high life as a stock broker, and realized he could make even more money by scamming and defrauding countless trusting people.

Jordan Belfort was convicted of his crimes but spent less than 2 years in jail because he cooperated with the FBI. I used to believe in a line from True Story – that a criminal cannot profit from his crimes. Turns out, this is not quite true. Most states have “Son of Sam” laws (so named because people were understandably outraged when it seemed David Berkowitz stood to get paid for his story) but these laws tend to be found unconstitutional because of free speech and discrimination based on subject matter. If a case like this is challenged, the criminal tends to win, so mostly nobody bothers to enforce it. So Jordan Belfort wrote a book, and got paid for it. And then Leo bid over a million dollars for the rights (and just for comparison’s sake, Jonah Hill made $60 000 for his work). And then Marty paid him another quarter million to ‘consult’ – he stood around on set, instructing Leo how to act all fucked up on Quaaludes and shit. And then he actually appeared in the end of the movie! So he made $1.2M and even though he’s supposed to be paying his victims back, only $21 000 ever went toward his restitution obligations.

Christina McDowell, daughter of Tom Prousalis, who worked closely with the real-life Belfort at Stratton Oakmont, wrote an open letter addressing Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Belfort himself, criticizing the film for giving insufficient attention to the victims of the financial crimes created by Stratton Oakmont, for disregarding the damage that was done to her family as a result, and for giving celebrity to persons (Belfort and his partners, including her father) who do not deserve it. Hard to argue with that.

It’s this last part that’s getting to me. To what extent are we, the audience, culpable? Are we condoning crimes? Rewarding them? Encouraging them? Jordan Belfort likened himself to Gordon Gekko of Wall Street (the movie) – he was inspired by the character’s unscrupulousness. We can’t help how someone lacking a moral centre will interpret a movie (or a book, or a song, or a video game) – but we can and probably should stop giving these people a platform, or Hollywood’s version, a whole pedestal. Frank Abagnale Jr. was paid to work as a consultant on Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. Aileen Wuornos became a recognizable name when Charlize Theron won the Oscar for portraying her in Monster – but can you name a single one of her victims? Those bratty, fame-obsessed kids who stole from Paris Hilton and her ilk were rewarded with reality TV shows and free trips to luxury rehab in lieu of prison sentences. When Sofia Coppola filmed her movie The Bling Ring based on their misdeeds, she renamed the characters so they didn’t get more famous – but she also paid $100 000 for the rights, which means they did get more rich. Piper Kerman went to prison on felony charges for laundering drug money and was rewarded heavily for it when Netflix decided to make a series out of her memoir Orange is the New Black – they paid her (and continue to), but paid for the “life rights” of several others as well. Nice work if you can get it. Philip Morris was a paid advisor on the film I Love You Philip Morris, in which a con man (Philip’s ex-lover) steps up his game to impress a fellow prisoner, including orchestrating elaborate prison escapes. Henry Hill capitalized on his gangster career with a line of spaghetti sauces, frequent interviews with Howard Stern, and a restaurant called Wiseguys, though Scorsese ultimately went with Goodfellas when it came time to release the movie. It may be the best mob movie ever made, but it glamorized the lifestyle and allowed Hill to thoughtlessly respond “I don’t give a heck what those people think; I’m doing the right thing now” when asked what his victims might think of the commercialization of his story through self-written books and advising on the movie.

Does this sit right with you?

Father-Daughter Movies

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Fathers and daughters, a topic rife with the opportunity for Hallmark sap, hard to get right, but so rewarding when it strikes just the right chord. Thanks to Wandering Through the Shelves for hosting another great Thursday Movie Picks theme, from two guys who are neither fathers nor daughters, and one fatherless daughter…because who better to judge?

Sean:

Lethal Weapon – awarded to the whole series as a body of work. These movies are up-and-down but they are fun stupid films that keep adding more and more extraneous characters as sequelitis sets in. Luckily for me this week, Murtagh has a daughter that factors into the secondary drama of almost every movie, from possible love interest for Riggs in the first one, condom ad star in one of the middle ones, and baby mama to Chris Rock in the last one! And possibly more that I have forgotten. So on the list they all go just to be safe.

Taken – Liam Neeson’s tough old guy shtick started right here as far as I can tell, as the tough old dad of a coed “taken” by European gangsters. And like Liam says in the most awesome phone call ever made to a kidnapper, he uses his skills to track down all involved and kill them good. Spoiler alert: it seems that except for saving his daughter’s life he really hasn’t been a good father, but luckily there are sequels where as far as I know he saves her again, or saves his wife, or something. As usual, they should have stopped after the first one but instead really ran this concept into the ground and made me not care at all anymore.

Star Wars – so we don’t actually know at this point that Leia is Darth Vader’s daughter, and I’m pretty sure George Lucas did not have that plan or even the idea at any point when making this movie. As far as I can remember, though, this movie is the only one of the original 3 films in which this father and daughter “team” share a few scenes, so that’s why it makes the list over Return of the Jedi (where Leia actually learns who’s her daddy). Plus it’s such a classic movie! Even the terrible prequels couldn’t ruin it for me. So it makes the list. Can you tell I struggled this week?

Matt

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner- Back in December, I wrote a post describing Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracey)’s conflict with his own values. He raised his daughter (Katharine Houghton) right- no race is superior to another and anyone who thought they were was foolish and ignorant. Matt realizes he may have done a little too good a job when she brings home a charming black doctor played by the great Sidney Poitier whom she wants to marry. While this unexpected situation may expose some hidden bigotry on Matt’s part, mostly he can’t help but admire his new son-in-law to be and mostly objects to the union because of the unimaginable challenges his daughter will surely be facing. Although he’d hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain, he eventually learns to let go and trust his daughter to be strong enough to face the world. The movie can’t help but show its age a little nearly fifty years later but not in the ways that count.

American Beauty- Lester and Jane Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Thora Birch) aren’t as close as they used to be. In fact, she asks her boyfriend to kill her father in the first scene. Lester’s a little too busy with his middle-aged angst and Jane with her adolescent angst for the two to really connect and Lester only starts taking interest in her life when he develops an obsessive crush on her best friend. He may not deserve a World’s Best Dad mug but I love that his dying thoughts are of her and happy that she thinks she’s in love. Tragically, his last words to her are “You’d better watch yourself or you’re going to become a real bitch just like your mother”.

Kick-Ass- I have serious reservations about Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage)’s parenting style but, unlike Lester, at least he never forgets to tell his daughter (Chloe Moretz) that he loves her. It helps to have common interests. In this case, taking down the D’Amico family and enjoy the sweet taste of bloody revenge with their hot chocolate. Big Daddy has turned Hit Girl into one foul-mouthed ass-kicking 11 year-old who knows how to take a shot to the chest. Marcus may feel that Big Daddy owed his father a childhood but at least he died leaving his daughter the two most important things: the ability to take care of herself and the knowledge that her Daddy loves her.

Jay

The Descendants – This movie is so emotionally loaded and frought, it shreds me to pieces to watch it. Matt’s wife has just been fatally injured in a boat accident. She’s in a coma, waiting to die, while Matt runs around picking up all the pieces. Two really big pieces are his darling daughters who Matt bewilderingly tries to care for though he identifies only as the “back-up parent, the understudy”. The older daughter initially seems to be pretty hostile toward her father, but we soon see she’s really just covering for a secret she’s keeping from him. Turns out coma wife has been unfaithful. So Matt’s already confused and complicated relationships with his daughters become even more so, leaning on the elder for support and understanding, while trying desperately to shield the younger from the ugly truth about her mother as they all struggle to say goodbye amid the complications of anger and blame. Meanwhile, there’s another father-daughter relationship at play: that of coma wife, and her own dear dad, who copes with grief by putting his daughter on a pedestal and lashing out at all others, blaming not just Matt, but his own granddaughters, for his daughter’s not-quite-perfect life. It’s frustrating for we, the viewers, who know that his daughter is far from blameless, and even more difficult for Matt and the oldest daughter who manage to keep the truth to themselves in a show of compassion, allowing him to kiss his little girl goodbye with only the tenderest of feelings.

Crash – You may remember there are a kajillion intersecting plot lines in this movie, most involving some kind of racial prejudice, but I’ll always be thankful to this movie for introducing me to Michael Pena. He plays Daniel, a locksmith who gets cut absolutely no slack by any of his customers because he’s Hispanic, and this makes the white folk (like Sandra Bullock) jumpy. Even the Persian shop owner gives him hell, misunderstanding a bit about a broken door that needs to be replaced, assuming that the locksmith is trying to screw him over. After a hard day’s work, he goes home to a rough neighbourhood where his crazy-cute daughter is hiding under her bed, frightened by the gunfire overheard. He soothes her with a story about an invisible, impenetrable cloak that will keep her safe. When the Persian shop is re-vandalized, the owner gets himself a gun and blames the guy on the work order. He shows up at Daniel’s house and opens fire – just as the little girl jumps into her father’s arms. For a very long moment we – and they – fear that the girl has been shot, but actually, she has saved the day with her heroic magic cape. Okay, not actually true. The real saving grace? Another daughter – the Persian’s – who protected her father the only way she knew how – by loading his gun with blanks.

Beasts of the Southern Wild – Not a straight forward relationship by any means, it’s still clear that father Wink and daughter Hushpuppy have a relationship central to this story. His treatment of her sometimes seems neglectful, even brutal, but is actually pretty typical within the context of their fictional community where children are encouraged to roam free among the livestock and wildlife. In fact, her father’s occasional disappearances seem to be related to his ill-health more than his disinterest. His ways are rough, but he’s really just preparing her for a time when he’s no longer around, and she seeks his approval by being strong and independant – at the tender age of 6. When the big storm comes, he’s there, with a pair of water wings and a shotgun that he fires at the clouds, trying to chase them away and make his daughter feel better. When Wink’s time is almost up, he tries to find her a safe place to go, but she insists on returning to his side, witnessing his remaining heartbeats.