middle cyclones and other references

Procrastination Theatre: February 22, 2012

This is the sort of movie that just makes me want to read the book. 

I just love this sort of thing. I love that moment where a shift in the framework of thought around something can actually just revolutionize an entire tradition and way of looking at things. I love the whole Malcolm Gladwell-esque type essay. I dig it. But I really just want all the dirty, dry details. I don’t want Jonah Hill to be the physical manifestation of the book. I mean, I liked Jonah Hill here, but essentially that’s what he was. He was the physical link to the ideas of the book, and I just wanted to read the whole book.

Also, I don’t understand why, if Brad Pitt is giving a great performance, we would shoot so much of him in the dark driving a car in profile? Also, why couldn’t Chris Pratt have kept the weight off (maybe he did? I don’t know) Also….that’s about it. It was good, but not…not that good. Even PSH bored me in it. He did his standard PSH performance, which he also did in The Ides of March, which I characterize as a face and crossed arms that say “I’m going to go poop in the corner, I’m so mad”.

Procrastination Theatre: February 20, 2012

Listen, I’m not saying I didn’t really enjoy it. I’m not saying I’m not in love with Jean Dujardin. (If you’re not in love with him, check your pulse). And I’m not saying it isn’t a remarkable thing, to make a silent movie so entertaining and lively and delightful years past its time. But I mean, that’s sort of exactly my point. What is interesting about this movie other than the fact that it is anachronistic?

I don’t want to be that person. But I guess I am that person. I guess a couple years of listening to my ex-thesis supervisor mocking Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer for their nostalgic modernist tendencies has had a certain effect on me, which is namely that: if you are going to use a literary or filmmaking form that is no longer current, that has in fact been replaced as part of a large cultural/historical shift, then you’re going to have to give me a damn good reason as to why that’s valid, why there’s an interesting recurrence of the logic of that historical moment at this current moment, why you’re engaging with the form in a different way….basically, why you did it other than “it’s neat and old and no one’s done it in a while and no one thought I could!”

And I guess I just didn’t find it in The Artist. I totally thought I had found it when objects starting making noise in George Valentin’s apartment. Holy shit, I was so excited when that happened. If that had been the rest of the movie, this would be an entirely different review. If the rest of the movie had just gone with that premise, like Pleasantville, I would have been captivated. But it was just a dream. And then I was sad. 

But I’m not heartless! Uggie the Dog and Jean Dujardin and I know! I am just saying all this because it’s true and because while I liked it, it didn’t blow me away and I think Hugo was the best movie this year THERE I SAID IT (review forthcoming). Well, basically either Hugo or Midnight in Paris, but I am still mad at Woody Allen for that Polanski bullshit a couple years ago and I guess the only consequence to that is that I refuse to say he made my favorite movie of the year. That really showed him, didn’t it. 

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