Man on Film: The Way, Way Back

Perhaps my life of enabling the aquatic enjoyment of others combined with the sometimes crippling inferiority complex that I've dealt with on-and-off for the bulk of my life make me the extremely specific target audience for this film, but I was completely enamored with Jim Rash and Nat Faxon's directorial debut, The Way, Way Back. Hot off their Oscar-winning scribe work on The Descendants, Faxon and Rash--soon to co-star in their own absurdist hour-long buddy cop dramedy on TNT that will be packaged with Franklin & Bash--elected to wade into the indie waters of the awkward coming-of-age flick.

Liam James and AnnaSophia Robb

Positioning Liam James--who already has quite an extensive resume having already worked on films including 2012 and Horsemen and series including Psych and The Killing at the age of just 16--front-and-center, Rash and Faxon put their young protagonist, Duncan through the emotional ringer of adolescence while trying to acclimate to divorce and his mother's new douchebag boyfriend (Steve Carell) while at that boyfriend's beach house in the Northeast (presumably either the Cape or Long Island) for the summer. James is called upon to play the teen uncomfortable in his own skin, content to sit at home by himself rather than socialize with peers, who eventually comes into his own with the help of the social safety net provided him by his de facto mentor, Owen (Sam Rockwell)--his supervisor at the surreptitious summer job he gets at a run-down water park. As Duncan gradually grows more confident under the lead-by-example tutelage of the irreverent yet juvenile Owen, James sheds Duncan's timidity and awkwardness with aplomb.

To their credit, Faxon and Rash manage to expertly navigate tricky emotional waters, adroitly balancing the emotionally raw and painful with much-needed uproarious laughter. Rash and Faxon's decision to set the tale against the emotional backdrop of a mother (Pam, played by Toni Collette) and son still reeling from the divorce and essential abandonment of the husband and father is what gives the film its weight. Both are damaged, and James and Collette both thrive in their roles as the fragile, beleaguered survivors. As the stunted boyfriend, Trent, Carell channels Michael Scott at his most odious and petty and infuses it with a cocksure swagger masking his deeper insecurities. While entirely unlikable, Carell does good work here, making his early exit from The Office retroactively rewarding (at least for those of whom thought Michael Scott should have stayed on the show despite the fact that the character really had nowhere else to go).

Where The Way, Way Back's dramatic core sits mostly in the seasonal cottage abode of the makeshift family--there is a pretty distinct dichotomy in the film's two spheres that only Duncan and eventually the two neighbor kids, Peter and Duncan's love interest, Susanna, played by AnnaSophia Robb [pictured above] are able to traverse until the final act--Duncan's clandestine work world is where the film's humor is mostly injected (not to take away from Allison Janney's turn as the terrible drunk mother at the beach house next door, which is largely hilarious). The color, the heart, and the joy of the film all comes from the weird world of Water Wizz. Stacked with accomplished comedic character actors (Maya Rudolph, Rockwell, Rash, and Faxon), Water Wizz is the almost forgotten water park staffed by adults whose development was arrested and who could never quite bring themselves to leave the job that was at least as much fun as it ever was work. [Again, I'm kind of the target niche demographic for this movie (there was even a time when a fellow lifeguard and I entertained the notion of moving to the Wisconsin Dells and working at Noah's Ark for the summer).] Faxon, Rash, and Rudolph all do their thing exceptionally well, but to actually buy into the film completely, one needs to have Rockwell kill. He does. Rockwell's Owen acutely intuits that Duncan needs a bit of guidance, and while he never comes out and tells Duncan that he'll take him under his wing, he builds up Duncan's self-esteem like an older brother, or really, like a father. He's far from perfect, but if it isn't for Owen as the mentor, Duncan doesn't come out of this film emboldened. Water Wizz is where Duncan gets to start his life anew, breaking forth from the chrysalis of pubescence and paternal abandonment.

If anyone doubted how much of an imprint Faxon and Rash had on The Descendants, those nagging questions can likely be put to rest. The Way, Way Back has every bit the heart that The Descendants had. Faxon and Rash masterfully tug at the heartstrings while avoiding being overtly manipulative, somehow mining a rich vein of emotional pain within me that I thought had been tapped out ages ago and allowing me come out on the other side both intensely happy and very sad. It is rare that a movie makes me feel anything as much as The Way, Way Back did, but it's a testament to Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's deft touch as burgeoning filmmakers, a path that I personally hope is a long and fruitful one.

Man on Film: The Heat

I actually saw this at an advance screening at least two months ago, so The Heat isn't exactly fresh in my mind. I had however formulated what I wanted to say in my head a while back. I wanted to love this movie because of its director, Paul Feig. If there's anyone who has earned the undying love of the world at large, it's the creator of Freaks and Geeks.

The Heat is far from being bad. Its last half is actually quite good. Unfortunately, the first half takes an insanely long time to get going and doesn't deliver the funny with nearly enough frequency. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy work very well together, and McCarthy (not even remotely surprisingly) puts the movie on her shoulders and carries it. For the past few years, this has been the case. McCarthy stole the show in Bridesmaids (the first time McCarthy and Feig worked together), and her scene in This Is 40 was the best scene in the film by far. She is a comic force to be reckoned with and once the clunky (and over-long) first act gets out of the film's way she is allowed to shine.

If a film is going to have a slow half, I suppose it's preferable to have the first half be the slow half, but it still makes for an uneven movie-going experience if the early goings of character development doesn't bring sufficient laughs along for the ride. Thankfully, it picks up and almost hits a stride with enough confidence to cleanse the first half from your palate, but it doesn't quite get there, leaving this in the realm of merely decent comedies. I suppose it's possible that this will be a film that grows on you with repeated viewings like Anchorman or The Big Lebowski, but I'd say that's unlikely.

Prick Tunes: Poliça "Tiff"

Over the past month or two, I've gotten really into Poliça's 2012 release Give You The Ghost. The Minneapolitan supergroup was lauded by Justin Vernon, who told Rolling Stone, "They're the best band [he'd] ever heard." Sure, his bandmate Mike Noyce contributed vocals, and Poliça is the brainchild of his former Gayngs-mates Ryan Olson and Channy Leaneagh, but the love is much deserved. Give You The Ghost is a fantastic record.

"Tiff" is the first single off of their forthcoming sophomore release Shulamith and features Justin Vernon on backing vocals. It definitely picks up where Give You The Ghost left off, and this is most assuredly a good thing. Its prospective fall release gives you enough time to still swish Give You The Ghost around in your mouth.

Prick Tunes: The Gospel Truth Are Coming to a Town Near You

With their debut LP finally available for public consumption this Tuesday, The Gospel Truth--one of Austin's finest bands--will finally take to the highways of this nation's midsection, bringing their dark and raucous brand of defiantly unique songsmithery to your backyard.

Having spun A Lonely Man Does Foolish Things around more times than I can remember, the record that was six years in the making is every bit the album anyone who had been fortunate enough to see them as they bounced around town as often as their jam-packed schedules allowed could have imagined. Featuring Mark Tonucci on vocals, keys, harmonica, and sax, Patrick Travis (of The Golden Boys and SsserpentssS) on guitar, Brandon Bennett Crowe (formerly of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) on drums, and Jeremy Steen (of Flesh Lights and Nazi Gold) on bass, The Gospel Truth have finally transformed their wicked shows into a stellar fucking album. But you needn't take my word for it, as former WMFU DJ/part-owner of Matador Records Gerard Cosloy was so impressed with the band that he released their LP on his boutique label 12XU, making them labelmates with the likes of Rebecca Gates and the Consortium and The Golden Boys.

A Lonely Man Does Foolish Things can be purchased here:

http://www.12xu.bigcartel.com/product/the-gospel-truth-a-lonely-man-does-foolish-things-lp-12xu-054-1

Or can be downloaded on iTunes here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lonely-man-does-foolish-things/id661024401

Follow them on Facebook and Twitter to keep apprised of their escapades.

As they hit the road for the first time, they'll be doing so with David 'Lyrch' Petro (of SsserpentssS, The Gory Details, and Debt on bass).

The Gospel Truth will be playing at these fine establishments:
Tuesday 6/18 @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, Denton, TX
Wednesday 6/19 @ The Lamar Lounge, Oxford, MS
Thursday 6/20 @ Zanzabar, Louisville, KY (w/ Madame Machine, Temple of the Golden Dawn)
Friday 6/21 @ Cafe Bourbon St., Columbus, OH (w/ The American Jobs, Day Creeper)
Saturday 6/22 @ Now That's Class, Cleveland, OH (w/ OBNOX, Summer People, Goldmines)
Sunday 6/23 @ Garden Bowl, Detroit, MI
Monday 6/24 @ Permanent Records, Chicago, IL
Monday 6/24 @ The Burlington, Chicago, IL
Tuesday 6/25 @ Quarters, Milwaukee, WI (w/ Ultrathin, Drugs Dragons)
Wednesday 6/26 @ Mickey's Tavern, Madison, WI (w/ The Burnt Ones)
Thursday 6/27 @ Hexagon Bar, Minneapolis, MN (w/ Rabbit Holes)
Friday 6/28 @ Replay Lounge, Lawrence, KS (w/ Ex-Cult, Jocks)
Saturday 6/29 @ Red Brick Bar, Norman, OK (w/ Psychotic Reaction)
Sunday 6/30 @ Crown & Harp, Dallas, TX

Musicalia: I Love This Song, but Why?

As humans, we are raging with bias. It is what helps us survive. How could we not be biased? Everything that happens is perceived based on what has come before. So what does it really mean when someone says, “I love this song!”? Is it because Johnny Cool down the street likes it (need to belong), or is it because a sibling hates it (need to distinguish oneself), or is it because it actually sounds good? Why do we like one song over another in the first place? As a student of psychology, I think I might have a few answers. They aren’t the magical answers we all want to hear--in fact they are laden with half-truths and disclaimers--but it’s fucking science.

Hard.

This is now part of the program where I use a disturbingly true story from my childhood as a lead-in. What follows is highly embarrassing to say the least. When I was about, let’s say 9, my brother and his friends and my friends and my friends’ friends and every pre-teen in the world loved NKOTB. That’s right, I just abbreviated New Kids on the Block. I, on the other hand, fucking hated them. It wasn’t necessarily that I hated the music or their looks or boyish charm or any other aspect of their being; it was that I had somehow picked up on it being cooler than cool to hate NKOTB. All the cool kids had NKOTB posters in their rooms, recited all the lyrics to "Hangin’ Tough" before school, and wore faded print NKOTB T-shirts. I made fun of those kids. But somewhere along the line, something terrible happened. 

I was tired of bashing America’s favorite boy band. I was tired of listening to my brother and our collective friends play the videos over and over and over again while dancing joyously. I was tired of being ostracized just for hating crappy pop music. So I did the unforgivable: I started to like NKOTB. Looking at NKOTB’s Wikipedia page, I’m assuming it was roughly the summer of 1991. I was at the local craft fair, and kids were getting their faces painted. After several of my friends put New Kids’ names on their faces, I decided to rock out a perfectly flamboyant, cursive “Donnie” on my right cheek. It had a glittery sparkle that would have made Liberace beam with pride. On top of it all, I had the worst possible timing ever. As a kid, one doesn’t know that fads don’t last forever. Had I stuck to my guns and waited just a few more months, I would have had the last say. I could have pointed fingers and made childish jokes and laughed maniacally from the balcony of my told-you-so tower, but I had to join ‘em instead of trying to beat ‘em, so when NKOTB’s reign ended, I had to keep my lips sealed. My friends knew what I had done, and maybe secretly they knew I was originally “right”, but all I could do was hang my head.

The enjoyment of music- when broken down to the simplest of terms- can be easily defined. Very basically, we like music that is complex enough to intrigue us, but not too simple that it bores us. Imagine the mental bludgeoning that comes from one single piano note played over and over (or just watch Eyes Wide Shut), now imagine a Joe Satriani song that rips and shreds all over the place with no melody to grab ahold of us upon first listen. It isn’t a wonder that most pop music is a blend of simple choruses backed by more complex melodies. Psychologically speaking, this could be related to the Yerkes-Dodson law which dictates that humans perform simpler tasks better with higher arousal rates and more complex tasks better with lower arousal rates. Of course, over arousal meets the cliff’s edge where no task is simple enough. This helps explain why we turn that stereo knob down looking for an address while circling the block. We want music that stimulates us, but we don’t want our brains overworking to find the backbeat.

Needs more necks

So why do shrieking guitar wizards like Satriani, Vai, and Malmsteen have a huge following? This reminds of the terrible, awful, disgusting movie that is Mr. Holland’s Opus. The one thing I took out of that movie was how he listened to Coltrane over and over and over again until he enjoyed it. This, in psychological terms, makes perfect sense. After ingesting complexities we begin to understand them more and thus enjoy them more. Isn't this how seemingly every song appears to us? I mean, I never truly like a song until about the third or fourth listen, and any song I immediately enjoy, I inevitably end up in disgust of it. There are a few gems that ring true in the tiny little amp in the bottom of my soul every single time, from the first play to the last, but those are rarities indeed. No one becomes a jazz fan overnight. 

There have been several studies that back this idea up, but it doesn’t take the brain of C.C. Deville to figure out that "Happy Birthday" gets boring immediately and Miles Davis becomes intriguing after the intricacies groove repeated neural pathways in our minds. I remember the first time I was introduced to Davis’ Kind of Blue. I thought, “This is the record that musicians ogle over?” Today, I can easily distinguish each song and follow along in my mind with much pleasure.

I often wonder if this is what happened with Seven Mary Three and me. In my late teens, I became enveloped by a group of guys that touted rock music like it could save your life and wreck your life all in the same swoop, like rock was this omniscient being that required attention to its every facet. Seven Mary Three was their band. Like any teen of the 90s, I loved "Cumbersome" and the still-creeps-me-out "Water’s Edge," but it wasn’t like they liked them. They were in the fan club, could sing all the lyrics, and liked every. single. song. Did drinking all night long and listening to the newly released Orange Ave. one summer bias me, conditioning me to love Seven Mary Three? I’ll never know, and I don’t care. Seven Mary Three seemingly still kicks out good music to this day, but why then have they never found the success of a Pearl Jam or the Stone Temple Pilots? 

Not only that, but I am most certainly predisposed to 90s alterna-grunge. A friend of mine has this theory that people cut their hair as an adult according to the haircut they had at the moment in life when they were the happiest. This is surely why we see mid-40s divorcees rock the Farrah Fawcett once in a while. Well, I think this is pretty similar to music. We love the music we grew up with and find music we hear later to be subpar for the most part. There is that nostalgic emotional linkage to the past. After all, I didn't lose my virginity to a Miley Cyrus song. It was actually a Billy Ray Cyrus song…I only wish.

All joking aside, these biases collected over time make us think our music is better, that it means more. Like discovering Nirvana before they dropped Nevermind makes their music better somehow. There are radio stations all over the country dedicated to this theory. Every college town has a radio station that plays the music of about 10-15 years ago. When I was attending college in the late 90s, it was 80s: R.E.M., Pixies, U2, Genesis, Tom Petty, and the likes, with the DJ proclaiming that he loved Husker Du before they were Husker Du. College kids all grown up with nice-paying jobs in control of what the public listens to and still touting their music as the “right” music. Now it’s 90s rock, but where does it go from there? Music is so fragmented now.

Why do we even like music in the first place? There is literature that points to romanticism. Some evolutionary theories point to its ability to facilitate tribal bonds and keep peace. A recent study found that women aged 18-22 are most likely to give out their numbers when men are packing, not a puppy, not a sports bag, but a fucking guitar. I’m sure those figures drastically change in the 30+ age category when the women understand that struggling guitar players don’t buy diapers and pay the mortgage. This just gives us another level of mystery into why we like some songs and hate others.

Another point that must be made involves gangster rap. When I was in sixth grade, if you didn’t have a 2 Live Crew or N.W.A. tape, you were not cool. What made it cool? The lyrics, right? Gangster rap probably doesn’t stand its ground without gratuitous language. There was a time in which I only bought cassette tapes that had the parental advisory warning on them. Maybe this was the secret to Use Your Illusion selling so many copies. With this said, we don’t just listen to gangster rap solely because of the curse words, it has to have a dope beat. We don’t just listen to Adam Sandler because he talks about jerking off in the women’s shower room, it has to be funny. And we don’t just listen to Trent Reznor because of his dark themes, it has to sound, well…musical.

The reasons we like music are varied, sometimes trivial and sometimes laced with enough emotional baggage to bring down a 737. Sometimes I know why I like a song, other times I have no clue. I know why I like John Denver: it’s peaceful happy music and some part of the contrarian in me makes me love it more because so many prudes are missing out on the joy of Johnny D. I know why I like Motorhead and the Ramones: the sheer brazen punk attitude. I don’t really know why I like Michael Jackson songs. I mean, if we knew for sure whether he did or did not touch young boys, I’d probably bet that he did, but does that affect how I view his music? The answer is: of course it does. Everything affects everything. So the next time a friend or a brother or a mother or a lover says, “I love this song,” ask them why and relish the response, or giggle at their puzzled expressions.

Prick Tunes: Big Wreck "The Oaf"

Bands get lost in the shuffle. The cream doesn't always rise to the top. Just watch an episode of Driven on VH1; those pop stars kill to get where they think they are going. There are a thousand Beyonces in the world, but only one makes it. If you come along too late to a genre, it doesn't stick. There are plenty of one hit wonders and there are plenty of explanations for the phenomenon. Big Wreck is just one of those bands. They came too late into the 90s and sounded a bit too much like Chris Cornell. Ian Thornley fronts Big Wreck, a Canadian, and one can only guess why Nickelback gets to rule the world while Big Wreck fades into oblivion. In my humble opinion, "The Oaf" is one of the greatest 90s tracks there is, only now forgotten. I've seen Big Wreck rock a stage several times, and they have the rare feat of sounding like the recording. Not many bands can do that, so let's celebrate post-90s not-quite-grunge rock with some of the old and some of the new:

 Here is 1997's "The Oaf":





*UPDATE* I changed this video to one uploaded just 3 months ago to Big Wreck's YouTube channel, well here you go, enjoy the shred:

Prick Tunes: What the fuck is the AV Club? Edition

Stan here filling (and feeling) in for that cold ass honkey OMD that is rambling about the high and low tides of Texas on a sandy joyride. Upon hours of youtubing guitar amp review videos, I stumbled across some wicked cover songs. Some pop music news group of some sort called the AV Club invites bands in and they pick from a group of songs to cover; first come, first served. I encourage y'all to take a jaunt through all of them that seem interesting, from the cult known as The Polyphonic Spree covering Neil Young's altruistic "Heart of Gold" to Deer Tick kicking out some 90s with Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" to fucking Gwar running rough shod on some "Carry on My Wayward Son." It is hard to know what makes a good cover, but I generally love the covers that take it to a whole other level.

Such as Reggie Watts freaking on Van Halen's "Panama", making it the first time I've ever enjoyed that song.



This one will immediately uplift your mood:




And finally an ethereal, reverb-drenched melody to send you off:

Man on Film: Mud

With Jeff Nichols latest film, Mud, one thing is clear: Nichols is a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Hot on the heels of the spectacular schizophrenia mindfuck Take Shelter, Mud is a contemplative coming-of-age story juxtaposed against a powder keg of a love story set in the last vestige of a dying way of Southern life on the river.

Owing much to Mark Twain, Mud follows Ellis (played by the luckiest kid in the world, Tye Sheridan, as his other film credit was The Tree of Life) and his friend Neckbone (first-timer Jacob Lofland) as they come across a boat left in a tree after a flood. Wanting the boat for themselves, they find that a mysterious stranger has taken it for his home. That stranger is Mud, played by the down-home charisma bomb Matthew McConaughey, who is in the midst of an artistic hot streak few actors experience. Nichols uses this classic set-up to allow his contemporized Tom Sawyer to explore the notion of love, using the idealized vision of love that Mud and Juniper's (Reese Witherspoon) story presents to contrast the crumbling relationship of his parents (brought to life by Sarah Paulson and the inimitable Ray McKinnon). As Ellis and Neckbone take to Mud's cause, Ellis is emboldened to venture into the romantic fray.

That film in and of itself could be poignant, but where Nichols's film sets itself apart is in the way that reality crashes the party with pangs of truth and flashes of violence. By setting Mud in a poorer Southern river town--it was filmed and obviously set in southeastern Arkansas--the world in which Ellis lives is a poor one. His parents scrape by living a way of life that society is quite forcibly leaving behind. This socioeconomic backdrop adds a level of import to the proceedings, of the inevitability of external pressures forcing the individual down a set path, or amplified consequence to one's actions. More importantly, though, Nichols's keen eye and unique voice when trained upon this world renders a vivid and compelling picture. He is able to breathe such life into these characters, and he wisely colors the periphery with brilliant but small performances from the likes of Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, and Paul Sparks. His masterful dance between Ellis's world and his own escape to the island and the lyricism inherent in his direction is positively captivating, conjuring memories of the early films of Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green (who along with Nichols was a product of the film program at the North Carolina School for the Arts), but with a propulsive narrative presentation largely absent from either of those directors' works earlier, not dissimilar works. As he reintroduces the outside world into Ellis's walking fantasy bit by bit, the audience is reminded along with Ellis that true escape is much more difficult than one could possibly hope for, that life will intervene and the hoped-for happy ending may not come.

Having now directed two straight films which insert themselves almost instantly into the shortlist of contemporary films not soon to be forgotten, Jeff Nichols has emphatically inserted himself into the conversation of most exciting directors of the next generation with the brilliant Mud heading the very short list of best films of this early year.

Man on Film: Trance

As directors go, there are few whose work I've been as diligent about seeing theatrically as Danny Boyle. There have only been two Boyle films that I didn't see in the theater, Shallow Grave (which came out when I was 15 and most assuredly never played in La Crosse, WI) and Millions (which I never saw). With the exception of Millions (which I can't speak to), Trance is the least impressive Boyle release since The Beach. Part of that is owing to the fact that Sunshine, 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, and Slumdog Millionaire are the films that have come since The Beach, but when you are dealing with a director whose curriculum vitae is as visceral and impressive as Boyle's, it is hard to divorce expectations from the film-going experience.

Despite a promising premise and the attempt to craft a labyrinthine psychologically-complex narrative, Trance sputters through its 101 minutes of running time, never managing to get its cylinders running with a synchronicity that one would expect from such an accomplished auteur. Working from a Joe Ahearne script originally contrived around the time that Shallow Grave came out and then doctored by frequent Boyle collaborator John Hodge--the scribe responsible for writing and/or adapting Boyle's first four films--Trance starts us off with a first-person narrative presented by Simon (James McAvoy). Boyle, Ahearne, and Hodge use this construct to their advantage in framing Simon as the sympathetic protagonist from the film's onset. If there is one element of the film that works especially well (other than Rosario Dawson laying herself quite bare, which no red-blooded male or a not insignificant chunk of the female movie-going population is going to mind one bit), it is the manipulation of the audience's expectations by way of this narrative presentation. As the amnesiac Simon tries to piece together a history of events, motivations, and relationships, the audience is brought in tow, both narratively and emotionally.

Unfortunately, the vim and vigor usually present in a Danny Boyle joint are only occasionally present. The clever narrative manipulation fails to compensate for the unusually and uncharacteristically plodding plot line. The concern the audience is to feel for Simon's well-being at the hands of the crime boss Franck (Vincent Cassel) never becomes palpable because Franck and crew are never quite menacing enough to actually be scary. With whom the blame for that should lie is up for debate, but regardless this is a problem. We certainly understand that Simon's life depends on his remembering what happened to the painting at the center of the story, but the tension, the threat against Simon never reaches the level that a sense of dread strikes the audience. The ensuing deconstruction that occurs is then left not quite as clever as it could be as the foundation it tears down was of flimsy consistency to begin with.

While Trance is far from a great film and feels significantly longer than its 1:41 run-time, it is not so bad as to warrant its complete avoidance. Much is required of McAvoy, and for the most part he imbues the role with deftness required to sell Simon to the audience. Cassel is serviceable, even if each has moments where he feels a bit out of place in the film. Dawson uses her femininity and sexuality spectacularly well, running the gamut from sultry to vulnerable to manipulative to authoritarian with ease. There are moments where there are slight hiccups, and Dawson feels a bit out of place--either in the role or in the film--but those are forgivable blips for the most part. Ultimately, it feels as though the film was simply lacking in the requisite uniformity of approach to set this apart from Boyle's more forgettable and flawed films like The Beach or A Life Less Ordinary.

(Red Band Trailer - Not Safe for Work, but fuck you if that matters.)

Man on Film: Pain & Gain

So far this year, I've seen films directed by Terrence Malick, Danny Boyle, Harmony Korine, and Derek Cianfrance this year, but the best movie I've seen so far was directed by Michael Bay. I know, I can't fucking believe it either, but Pain & Gain was better than all of those films. Perhaps this says something about me, as Pain & Gain revels in the idiocy of these wannabe criminals like a twisted Elmore Leonard novel in which the bad guys are the center of the tale and you want them to succeed, but it was a dark, crime-driven action comedy, and while Bay's skills are typically a bad fit once he is thrust into the science fiction genre (or whatever the fuck you call those Transformers abominations), the Bad Boys flicks were a rollicking good time.

Where Pain & Gain is most successful is in its optimization of its stars' strengths. Pain & Gain is an optimal vehicle for both Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson.

In Daniel Lugo, Mark Wahlberg has role that allows for his gifts to shine. If there is one thing that Wahlberg does like nobody else, it is playing a slightly dimmer character who thinks he's more intelligent than he actually is. His treatise on the patriotism of fitness and the American Dream is brilliant on its own, but with Wahlberg delivering the speech via voice-over, it is fucking sublime. As he extols the virtues of maintaining physical fitness, he's delivering a laugh every five seconds. His steadfast belief in self-improvement being the key to realizing the American Dream is funny, but the amorality in his approach and the inherent contradiction in his willing to screw someone else over to better himself is priceless.

Perhaps most importantly, Dwayne Johnson gets to stretch out as Paul Doyle. In nearly every film Dwayne Johnson has been cast in, he is underutilized. Pain & Gain is far and away his best performance. His performance is rich with a comic naïveté colored by his religious belief. He is easily influenced by others who exploit his malleability. He is also enormous, and unlike in most other films, Johnson's physicality is used to the benefit of the film.

That's not to say the rest of the film is without strong performances, too. Anthony Mackie and Rebel Wilson are both good, as is Ed Harris. Tony Shalhoub gets his best chance to shine since The Man Who Wasn't There.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without a biting screenplay, which the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely deliver with a surprisingly deft hold on the darkness given that their previous efforts were the Chronicles of Narnia series, You Kill Me (which could theoretically have worked in that realm, but I've never heard of the film), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and Captain America. Pain & Gain is consistently hilarious and deliriously twisted, with much of that owing to the screenplay.

This undersells what Michael Bay does. His skillset isn't the most flexible. It only works in a very specific setting. Pain & Gain is that setting. While his direction may in fact be the byproduct of years of untreated ADHD, this film feels like Miami at its trashiest, which seems to have been the intent. I really never thought I'd say this, but I loved a Michael Bay film. Bravo, sir. Bravo.