Indie Gem: Dark Horse (2011)

Excerpt from an actual text message conversation:

Me: Just watched Dark Hose, have you seen it? Todd Solondz still has it.

Friend: No, what's it about?

Me: The same thing as every Todd Solondz flick: being a loser.

Indeed, Todd Solondz is the reigning voice of the cinematic loser. Although a statement like that indicates he is on their side which he certainly is not. He's not on anyone's side. What makes his films so hard to consume, especially if viewing them under the impression that you're about to see a comedy, is that Solondz's voice is always cold, objective, intellectual and completely detached. He seems to exist in his own world which he shares with only himself. This is, after all, the man who once complained that a waitress in a diner calling him "dear" was too personal and made him uncomfortable.

This is what Solondz looks like:

His characters have included a gawky adolescent girl:

A chronic masturbater who picks random names out of the phone book to make lewd phone calls to:

And a suburban pedophile who drugs and rapes his son's friends during sleepovers:

Solondz once recounted presenting Happiness, the masterpiece that features the pedophile, and afterwards was approached by a pedophile who thanked him for "actually getting it right." He was allegedly disgusted by this.

And, with that, we have the cinema of Todd Solondz.

It's a cinema of indifference. I'd, like everyone else, call Solondz a master of black comedy but, whaddya know, he hates the term. Of course he does. To call his films comedies would mean he's moved someone emotionally into feeling something generic and therefore unreal and we surely wouldn't want that, would we?

So, his is also a cinema of observation. There's no comment on these characters; no point of view regarding their place within society. These films are simply observational character studies. They admit that these people exist in the world and that's about it. Solondz leaves it up to us to decide how we feel about sharing the same world as them, leading audiences by the hand into uncomfortable situations and abandoning them there to find their own way out.

Needless to say, he's not for all tastes.

And now comes his latest Dark Horse, which, like all of his films, is an unsung gem.

It revolves around this man:

Abe, middle-aged, single, misunderstood, drives a Hummer, living at home with his parents who don't really do much but sit, glued to the TV.

Abe works for his cold father who prefers his brother who went off and became a doctor. He doesn't do much at work but surf Ebay, wondering if he should pay $400 for a sealed Thundercats action figure when he already has two of them in his bedroom and throws angry tantrums every time he's accused on not doing the minimum his job requires of him.

He meets this girl at a wedding. He fails to recognize her indifference towards him.

She's also middle-aged, living at home and depressed, a failed writer on the rebound after a break-up.

Needless to say, like all of Solondz's characters, this man is the recipient of both my sympathy and my disgust. He's a loud, oafish man; a lazy child who needs to grow up and get his shit together. At the same time, there must be some relevance to his internal sadness caused by his aloof parents who really pay him no mind as he coasts through life without guidance or direction. Who's fault is arrested development really anyway?

That's what Solondz does, provides both sides in a potential argument and leaves the rest up to us, always leaving the audience with the unpleasant reality of needing to make up their own minds. Is Abe a good man or a despicable one? Is all of this funny or tragic? Is there any hope for these people or are they all doomed by their social dysfunction? You can go on like this all day. This is, after all, the only film in which the scene where someone finally calls Abe out on his bullshit is cut , mid dialogue, before it finishes.

So does that mean there's no hope after all? The film doesn't quite seem to be sure and, before it comes to it's final conclusion, after a string of dream sequences that flip flop your emotional perceptions back and forth several times, neither will you.

As a filmmaker Solondz is in a league of his own. He's that weird guy over in the corner of the room, not saying much, not socializing with anyone; just watching and taking it all in. His films are a reflection of how he sees us. After having seen them, the question is always the same: How does that make you feel?

The Celebrity Connection- Tommy Wiseau

If you haven't heard of Tommy Wiseau well, I hadn't either. I'd see the poster kicking around for his film The Room but had no idea what it was or that it was considered anything special. Then yesterday I had it brought to my attention that it was being hailed as one of the worst films ever made. Of course, I had to check it out and indeed, what I found was pretty awful. I mean, look:



It's bad enough that Wiseau's accent sounds almost exactly like Uwe Boll's but what's even more distracting is this:


Could Tommy Wiseau really be Christopher Walken in disguise? You decide.

My Favourite Musical Blog-A-Thon: Hairspray

To let up for a moment form the movies that made going to the movies suck and to get some of my own writing back on this site, I've decided to play along with an idea that Andrew came up with over at Encore's World of Film and TV where people pick their favourite musicals and write about them. Although my favourite musical is Rent, I'm sure many can agree that the movie version was, if not a total wash, missing something special that it has on the stage (and some major songs to boot) so I've decided to write about Hairspray instead. Enjoy and be sure to check out the other entries as they appear.

Some people live for the films of John Waters…Watch out for them! - Professor P. Tiessen Hairspray is an adaptation of a Broadway musical which was in turn inspired by a 1988 film by that contemptible cult auteur John Waters. With a steady supply of sexual taboos in the palm of his hand, Waters assaulted audiences with images of unspeakable perversions and human atrocities as if we should accept them as commonplace behavior; you’ll never be bored by a John Waters film but after having seen one you realize that boredom may have been the more decent alternative. Love it or hate it, it is what it is. However, in 1988 Waters stepped out from behind his X-Rated cocoon to make a quirky, campy piece of low-budget kitsch in the PG-13 realm (which he would only ever do once more in 1990 with Cry-Baby), about a chubby preteen girl trying to find her place in the early segregated 1960s, called Hairspray. Underneath all of Waters’ pompous flaunting of amateurism and crude social commentary, laid the man’s most personal, heartfelt film, and for a brief moment we understood John Waters as a human being and what it must have been like for him to grow up an outsider in 1960s Baltimore. To watch the original film now is to realize that it was, at its cinematic heart, a musical without a soundtrack. An exercise in excess and camp, just like a musical, Waters threw away the mechanics of conventional storytelling and made a film that threw its every ounce of attitude and corny pizzazz in our faces: mocking the beatniks, making pointed attacks at popular culture and the plastic reality it creates, and bearing a cast that read like sideshow attraction of talent, from an overweight transvestite to Sonny Bohno. A Broadway adaptation of Hairspray is then an ironic act of logistics. By trading in the camp and amateurism for vibrant dance sequences and uplifting 60s-inspired pop songs, director/choreographer Adam Shankman has turned in a better film than Waters probably ever knew he had to begin with. The original was the Coles Notes version; finally we are allowed to see the possibilities of the story in full bloom. The lives of Tracy Turnblad and Penny Pingleton revolve around that moment when they can race home from school to watch the Corny Collins Show, a dance variety program in which a bunch of popular, well groomed teenagers perform choreography overtop of popular songs while the Dick Clark-like Corny mediates the events. The stars of the show are Link and Amber von Tussle, whose mom Velma (the deviously sexy Michelle Phieffer) manages the local television station in Baltimore. With dreams the size of her waistline, Tracy skips school one day with Penny after Corny announces that the show will be looking for new talent and all teenagers are welcome to come out and audition. Although encouraged by her father (Christopher Walken doing a wonderful variation of Christopher Walken), the idea is frowned upon by Tracey’s overweight mother who is played by the scene stealing John Travolta in a fat suit (not so strange considering the role was originally written for John Waters’ cross-dressing star Divine). There is social commentary brooding in the sidelines as well as we learn that the Baltimore TV station is segregated. Thus black people are not allowed to be seen mingling with whites on screen and are allotted airtime once a month when the Corny Collins Show (apparently the only thing on in Baltimore) hosts “Negro Day.” After leaving from her audition humiliated, through a logical progression, Tracy not only makes it on the show, but also becomes a huge hit (no pun intended), leading to speculation that she could steal the title of Little Miss Hairspray (also hosted by Corny Collins) from Amber who is beautiful but a terrible dancer. There is also a subplot about Tracy learning to stand up for what is right by being involved in a protest march for black equality. As a musical Hairspray is Grease for a generation who are not qualified enough to understand the potential power and pleasure of a classic Hollywood musical; remembering a time when musicals could be fun and adventurous and touch us in a certain special way that narrative films just couldn’t. By introducing a sweet young actress in Nicky Blonsky who is a ball of fire and energy, able to carry the entire film on her shoulders, by gathering a cast of eccentric talent, by staging stunning choreography around show stopping pop songs like “Good Morning Baltimore,” and by having a big star like John Travolta create a real character out of a role most actors would play as a gimmick, , Hairspray succeeds at being one of its summer's finest features. But it doesn’t stop there. By taking this story of a chubby girl chasing her dreams out of the John Waters universe and brushing aside inside jokes and obscure cultural references, the message is as simple and touching as ever: Never give up hope; dreams are not selective and anyone with the courage to reach for them has the tools to catch one. Tracy Turnblad is the hero of a moment in time worth getting nostalgic over. Remembering a time of innocence before revolution, a time when people had dreams and stood for something because of it, Hairspray constructs the perfect emotional tone for a wonderfully uplifting fable about how it was possible for a lovable fat girl with an eccentric upbringing in crummy Baltimore to reach for the stars, only to become the most popular girl in town. Times aren’t like that anymore; we’ve lost our innocence, trading it in for darkened cynicism and technological isolation. Thankfully every once in a while a film like Hairspray comes along to remind us that things weren’t always this way. Note: Although both original cast members Sonny Bohno and Divine are no longer living, one who looks close enough will see cameos from original Hairspray cast members Jerry Stiller and Ricki Lake. The truly keen will also spot John Waters himself, who appears and even gets a laugh in the opening scene at the lyric “And there’s the flasher next door.”

Why Charles S. Dutton Should be in Every Movie

I was watching Rudy the other day, which is an underdog story of a kid who dreams of playing football for the University of Notre Dame's Flying Irish. I watched most of the movie with specks of tears in my eyes because the movie is so nice and honest and uplifting. Movies aren't nice very often anymore (or honest for that matter), so I cherish the ones that are when I stumble across them. More to the point, Roger Ebert often writes about actors who are so good in such a wide variety or roles that, when they come on screen, people perk up in their seats because you know something good is coming. Often included on this list are Christopher Walken, William H. Macy, Peter Dinklidge, Richard Jenkins, and a slew of others that don't come instantly to mind. I'd like to add another one: Charles S. Dutton. You may not know him by name, but I guarantee you've seen him before and, despite his being in some bad movies, I've never seen him give a bad performance. Just look at him as the Notre Dame caretaker in Rudy and how much life and emotion he brings to this scene without once pandering to the camera or announcing himself as an actor in the midst of a big dramatic moment. Even more impressive is the way he holds himself. You never once believe that he isn't actually a caretaker. And now look at him in the trailer for John Sayles' underrated The Honeydripper playing a totally different role. He's also played a hard-as-nails sheriff in A Time to Kill, a wise father with one or two powerful scenes in Menace II Society, a doctor in Gothika, and a man on the bus in Spike Lee's Get On The Bus, along with many, many others. My question is: the man is so talented and has such a wide range of notes that he can play, when is he going to get a really juicy lead role? All he needs is a film like The Visitor of Crazy Heart and he'll be set. Fingers crossed.