Squid and the Whale

After waiting, waiting, waiting, then throwing in the towel, giving up and saying "fuck it, I'll wait til March for the DVD" a miracle happened - my local theatre monopoly finally brought in The Squid and the Whale.

The movie is essentially the story of a marital dissolution. Director Baumbach has already worked his way through this - sort of, barely, or at least touched the surface of it - in Kicking and Screaming, a film I have fawned over in this very blog. Jesse Eisenberg's character, Walt, is a younger Grover - young, vaguely disillusioned and completely unsure of anything but the homeostasis. Now, this is probably because both Grover (the protagonist of Kicking and Screaming) and Walt are partially based on Noah Baumbach himself.

The movie isn't as funny as Kicking and Screaming or Mr. Jealousy. It's claustrophobic as all hell. In Kicking, Olivia D'Abo's character, Jane, talks about how Grover and his friends never talk about the heavier topics in life, that they waste hours obsessing about cartoons. Finally, Baumbach gives his sort of "answer" to that, finally, in his own way, breaching the real core of what, to this point, has fueled his work, even including The Life Aquatic.

Another glass ceiling

I saw Brokeback Mountain tonight with some friends. For all the parts that made it painfully obvious that Ang Lee was prostrating himself for Oscar season, the movie is pretty genuine. The beginning is a bit choppy, especially to the lead-up of their first tryst, but once this hurdle is overcome, the film has a realistic and genuine emotional quality to it. I realize I'm using a bunch of buzzwords to describe something that goes beyond such things, but hey, that's how I roll. I couldn't help but think of people from North Platte as I watched it though, strangely. It reminded me a lot of farm kids I went to school with, not with the gay thing, necessarily, but that kind of rural mentality.

As I watched it, I began to hope that it becomes a real breakthrough in cinema. Gay characters in movies and television are treated as accesories, hairdressers, interior designers. As of late, it's gotten better - Happy Endings, which I rented recently, seemed to portray realistic relationships instead of the usual stereotypes. They need to break the Will and Grace's Jack mode and branch out as far as how they utilize gay characters, because right now, in many movies, they seem to be a mere backdrop or prop instead of a genuine character. Maybe part of it is that Hollywood just doesn't know what to do at this point. But not every gay character needs to be Corky from Waiting for Guffman.

I just sincerely hope this sparks screen writers to add real depth to all of their characters, regardless of orientation, because we, as a cinematic culture, are far too stupid. As I exited the movie and saw Clay in line for it, the guys behind us tried to guffaw and say they should warn people not to see it. And it's this mentality that will always keep movies stupid. People will continuously work towards being as positively stupified by their movies as they can be, and refuse to be made uncomfortable, to be forced to think, to be engaged in something wholly. Instead, we'll just get another Sweet Home Alabama nugget of spoon fed celluloid turdery.

Hail to the King

There are now compression formats available to make video more accessible and distributable. Being mildly tech-saavy, I decided to be a self-serving bastard, and use such technologies to further my own semi-award winning film. So, courtesy of You Tube, here is Hail to the King.