Transference (2010)

What has 2010 brought us musically? A Polo-clad blond immediately comes to mind. Without shame, I say I do enjoy the new Vampire Weekend album. I mean, have you heard “Diplomat’s Son?” Since the record dropped, I think I’ve spent more time listening to that song than doing other things. Sleeping, for example. Like a proud parent, I play the record and feel warm with admiration: that little band I nurtured (I saw them at the Warhol way back before their first SNL appearance – that’s like my dad coming to your little league games) has growed up! In all seriousness though, (and maybe this should be a separate post?) Contra is a solid record with thoughtful lyrics and infectious arrangements (DIPLOMAT’S SON – I will say it again and again until you listen).

Here’s another record I like. And coincidentally, I may have had something to do with the writing of this piece. Probably.

Spoon – Transference

RS

Avatar

What do we talk about when we talk about Avatar (Cameron, 2009)? Do we retell the tale of Pocahontas with the names changed? Do we rehash Dances with Wolves or other stories of liberal guilt? Are we only salivating at the promise of having our eyeballs fucked by glorious 3D?

I cannot say for sure.

But here are three things I can say for sure:

1. Sigourney Weaver is genuinely upsetting as a freakishly large blue alien in a cut-off Standford shirt; this is just one nifty/horrible thing no one tells you about before you go see Avatar. Oh, you’ll have a great time exploring Pandora, otherwise known as the world of Lisa Frank given hundreds of millions of dollars worth of life, but no one tells you that when the film is over you’ll try and fail to erase the image of Weaver’s smiling blue catface from behind your eyelids.
2. Because much of the budget was allocated towards, I would assume, realizing the world of Lisa Frank through cutting edge technology, there wasn’t much cash left over for the hiring of actors. Presumably James Cameron wanted to hire Jeremy Piven to play the head of the evil mining corporation in his banal exercise on the military-industrial complex. Alas, he could only afford Giovanni Ribisi. But because Cameron is such a virtuoso, he somehow convinced Ribisi to impersonate Piven. So for everyone that has ever dreamed of seeing Ari Gold chew into the rich ugliness of capitalism using Ribisi’s body as his avatar, there is finally a film for you.
3. Avatar has nothing to do with environmentalism.

And here lies the most interesting aspect of an otherwise forgettable film. For all the posturing Avatar seems to be doing about Gaia and nature, the film is really just a technophilic embrace of USB ports and social networking sites dressed up as trees, winged beasts, and incredibly silly looking tribal dances.

Of USB ports and ponytails:

All the blue catfaces on Pandora have long black ponytails terminating in fine cream colored tendrils that can be plugged into other living things on their homeworld. For instance, say you want to ride a horse – just saddle up and pop your ponytail into its ponytail and – voila – you ride that horse. The same goes for dragon-type creatures of assorted sizes and color schemes.

This Cronenberg-esque blurring of flesh and machine is reinforced during a curious conversation between our hero, Jake Sully, and the requisite love interest, Neytiri, on the night of their first sexual romp among the glowing leaves and seedpods of Pandora. Before they squirm through the ponytail on ponytail (and only possibly genital on genital) action, Neytiri, a blue catface princess, tells our hero about the wealth of information accessible by plugging your hair into the Tree of Voices. Plugged in, you can access the knowledge of blue catface people past, all the memories and experiences of the race available merely by logging in with your hair. So let’s try something. Let’s pretend for a second that the Tree of Voices is instead called the Internet. Then, when we arrive at the scene where all the blue catfaces plug into each other and sway in an effort to heal a dying Sigourney Weaver, we the audience can see that we are really watching messages of sympathy posted on Facebook walls everywhere. We are prompted to think of myspace pages for dead people where friends continue to post. I came to Avatar expecting to see some trite discussion of mother nature, but instead all I got was an Internet fanboy circlejerk of the most epic proportions. See Avatar and celebrate the richness of an existence lived through World of Warcraft, a social life carved in Facebook, the cornucopia of knowledge TMZ provides for us. All presented in 3D and IMAX, of course.

RS

Trailer Analysis – First Edition

A Prophet (Audiard, 2009)

Watch!

The new film from Jacques Audiard, a fantastic filmmaker responsible for the criminally overlooked The Beat That My Heart Skipped, won the Grand Prix at Cannes last May, and based on this trailer, I’m anxiously anticipating its release. As a trailer, it won’t be winning any awards – little flourishes like emblazoning he knew nothing in large, roaring script across the images ensure that – but even those missteps cannot detract from the power of certain moments like the brief shot of one character casually putting out a blue flame burning along the shoulder seam of his black t-shirt. Only a second or two long, the image is beautiful and strange, and stays with the viewer after the memories of the irritating quotes flashed from reviewers fade away.

In short: not a devastatingly good trailer, but Audiard is an accomplished filmmaker, and the snippets of scenes unfolded here are enough to warrant attention.

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Police, Adjective (Porumboiu, 2009)

Watch!

“Are you drunk?” one character asks the protagonist in the last moment of the trailer for the well-reviewed Police, Adjective, one of the films that competed in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. “Even if I were sober,” he says, pausing before sipping his beer once more, “I’d still be clueless.” It’s a nice bit of dialogue in a trailer full of promising scenes. This trailer, more traditional in form than I like but strong nevertheless, is composed of excerpts of dialogue that, rather than fleshing out the plot, give the viewer a feel for the mood. “Kafkaesque,” one critic proclaims – I’m not ready to go ahead and okay that yet but there’s certainly an intelligent, satirical attitude being cultivated. No saying whether I’ll get a chance at seeing this in a theater though, which is a shame.

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Nine (Marshall, 2009)

Watch.

I think in future editions of my take on current trailers, I’m going to focus exclusively on good things. But the trailer for Nine raises my ire to such a degree that I cannot let it exist without saying something. For those that don’t know, Nine is the film adaptation of the musical Nine, which was an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s 8½, one of my absolute favorite things. Thankfully, nothing is mentioned in the trailer to connect this abomination to Fellini’s masterpiece. Fellini goes unmentioned, as does 8½. This, I think, is the only good done by the trailer. Everything else consists of spitting on Fellini’s grave.

Here’s the first bit of dialogue heard in the trailer:

Kate Hudson playing a character named “Stephanie”: Hi Guido Contini! I’ve seen all your movies.

Daniel Day-Lewis playing a character named “Guido Contini”: (quizzical, sunglasses-obscured look)

KH/”Stephanie”: They have such style.

DDL/”Guido Contini”: Style.

KH/”Stephanie”: I think it’s the Italian in you!

If I were to imagine, painfully, what it would be like for a person with a mental handicap to distill 8 ½ into one bit of terrible dialogue, the final product might be what you just read.

I’ll imagine some more: the screenwriters of Nine and Rob Marshall are sitting in a conference room after having had an intern paraphrase the plot of 8½ for them. They mull over what they’ve heard.

Rob Marshall: So this Fellini guy, he made a movie and it’s about art and life and that kind of thing. But listen: I’m thinking we just make a movie about an Italian guy who makes really sexy movies and then we’re going to cast a bunch of sexy actresses and then – get this – we’re going to cast Fergie and then in place of ideas, what we’re gonna have is a bunch of sleek surfaces and strippers. And I guess there’ll have to be singing, the director singing about how hard it is to make a movie when all you want to do is bone and then some of the actresses singing his name a lot of times and, of course, a song that in three, maybe four, minutes summarizes what it is to be Italian. So yeah, do you think you guys can write that?

Screenwriters: We actually just wrote that while you were talking to us!

Rob Marshall: Great!

Screenwriters: Yes!

Then some high-fives exchanged and some coke is done and then a movie gets made. Then I watch the trailer for said movie and cry real tears.

The trailer concludes with this gem of a phrase: “THIS HOLIDAY SEASON BE ITALIAN.” There are words to address this sort of thing but really I’d rather just hit the Nine trailer in the face until it is dead.

And that’s all for today!

RS