Man on Film: The To Do List

It's been quite a while on this one. I saw The To Do List like three days after it opened. Apparently that means it was July. Jesus. In fact, it's been so long that you can buy it here on Blu-ray or stream it here.

Quick thoughts:

• Aubrey Plaza was very likeable. 
• Scott Porter and Rachel Bilson were both really funny and playing against type. 
• Bill Hader was funny. 
• I liked the period style choices, and the fact that it was a lifeguarding in the 90s movie hit close to home for me. 
• Good first go at things for writer/director Maggie Carey. 
• There need to be more movies about/for women taking ownership of their sexuality. It definitely feels like things have been trending more and more this way, but the stigma attached to women *gasp* enjoying sex can fuck right off. 
• Despite its ribald subject-matter, it's not nearly as bawdy as it could have been. 
• Not spectacular, but a relatively enjoyable way to spend 104 minutes.

Reading Rainbow: Resuscitation of a Hanged Man by Denis Johnson

My last run-in with Denis Johnson in full, novel form was with the 2007 National Book Award winner Tree of Smoke. Personally, I felt like the sprawl engendered all the wrong feelings, and rather than reading like some wild work of genius, it was a mess of a book. It was not a beautiful mess.

His novella Train Dreams was fantastic, and the short story collection Jesus' Son was entirely deserving of the mounds of praise that have been heaped upon it. My experience then with Johnson had been that his pieces that required less extended focus for him were thrilling while the full novel I'd read was an overrated borderline clusterfuck.

Upon finally wading back into the world of the full Denis Johnson novel with Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, my trepidation regarding Denis Johnson the novelist was proven to have been completely unfounded. This time around the reader is treated to a first-person narrative from the point-of-view of the scarred, outsider protagonist, Leonard English, who moves to gay haven Provincetown, Massachusetts, to split time between working at a radio station and helping the station owner, Ray Sands, with his private investigation side business.

Awkward at nearly every turn, unable to connect on any meaningful level with just about everyone with whom he comes into contact, English makes for an unique lead in what is at least primarily a private eye novel. I say "primarily" because we are talking about Denis Johnson here, and Johnson definitely puts his own spin on the conventions of the genre. Leonard watches his subjects from the periphery rather than more directly engaging with them. The case--and life--is happening around him, but much like the reader his involvement is limited to that of the spectator. When Leonard does attempt to take action, it generally doesn't go well for him.

The book itself is really damn good. It sits down in a genre I love and deftly subverts its conventions. Johnson's prose is simultaneously propulsive and impressive, alive and jumping from the page. Despite its humbler aims, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man stands well above his more recent bemedaled tome.

Man on Film: The Wolverine

While it is tough to move past wondering what could have been if Darren Aronofsky and Christopher McQuarrie had remained attached as the director and writer, respectively, of this film, measuring The Wolverine (on Blu-ray / DVD + DigitalHD or On Demand) against its lackluster predecessor more than puts those wistful thoughts of a film never made to rest. James Mangold's entrant into the larger X-Men series certainly fares well, incorporating Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Japanese saga into the film universe while giving the gruff and brooding hero a better, more streamlined platform by which to infuse both the history and the pathos that makes Wolverine a character to whom the audience is drawn.

Much of The Wolverine's success goes back to the initial casting of Hugh Jackman as Logan. For the past 12 years or so, he has embodied what any X-Men fan had always hoped to see on the screen. A lot of the other casting wasn't as successful, but Jackman fits the brooding, brawny Canuck naturally.

Most importantly, though, this installment in the series is much less a slipshod series of vignettes loosely strung together to resemble a film with a plot, which the first Wolverine film sadly was. One shouldn't have to worry about whether or not a movie is going to feel as though it had been haphazardly thrown together, but two of the previous three films in the X-Men universe definitely passed that burden down to The Wolverine. While The Wolverine may not have been as good as some of the Marvel Studios films that have come out in the past few years, it was definitely the second straight step in the right direction and was a much needed salve to the wound left by X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Here's to hoping that the franchise continues down this path.

Wordy Old Men on Downton Abbey: Series Four, Episodes One and Two

Dukes and Duchesses (Duchi?), we're back to hold your hand or possibly even your hair back as you vomit into the nearest toilet. This week, PBS pulled another one of those air-two-episodes-back-to-back-for-no-good-reason-other-than-that-they-are-the-first-two-episodes-of-the-seasons. That means you'll have to suffer through an exceptionally long back-and-forth from myself and our old friend, Wordy Ginters. In this double-installment, we suffered through an especially bitchy Lady Mary lashing out at everyone in her own privileged way, watched helplessly as that horrendous Edna snaked her way back into Downton, wondered why Lord Grantham has to be such a dumb cluck, and breathed a sigh of relief when Mary was found to have inherited Matthew's portion of the estate after all. The ghost of Matthew Crawley still casts a significant shadow across the estate.

Old Man Duggan: For as evil a shrew as Mrs. O'Brien was, Julian Fellowes sure dicked the audience over on her exit. No cathartic firing where all of her dirty deeds were exposed. She simply slips out in the dark of night. I'm sure this is a byproduct of Siobhan Finneran not coming back for a fourth go at things, as that was also why Matthew died so suddenly. I guess this leaves the door open for the insidious O'Brien to slip back through should Finneran want/be asked to return. Still, disappointing that her goodbye wasn't more explosive. Hell, she could have at least slipped on a bar of soap and cracked her fucking skull open on the side of the tub.

Wordy Ginters: O'Brien slinking into the gloomy dark was a buzz-kill. Were there any justice, the divisive seeds of anger and strife she has sewn over the years would have resulted in some kind of hilarious comeuppance. Fellowes gets off on denying we viewers our simple pleasures. I would have settled for seeing what pithy comments she left in those cards on the mantle. "Dearest Anna, Please fuck right off." I had conveniently forgotten how much her hair skillz were appreciated up north in Duneagle with the country cousins.

OMD: In the past, I have definitely been a bit of an apologist for Lady Mary, but holy shit was she unbearable this week. Skulking about the house in black, "Poor little orphan" this, "Have a happy time" that. Just sitting around doing absolutely nothing while expecting the world to pity her. We jump ahead six months, and she's still sulking like Matthew had his run in with a lorry last week. And her lashing out at Carson when he tries to encourage Mary to take an interest in the running of the estate was most definitely irksome. When Mary began to cry in Carson's office after apologizing to him, I thought she was going to morph into the alien from Alien.

There ain't no iguana.

WG: In my mind, every time Mary spoke I could only hear the Rolling Stone's "Paint it Black." When Kanye West plopped young Lord George in Mary's arms for the first time, you would have thought she had given Mary a diseased iguana. I'm glad Carson stood up to Mary. She was headed straight towards Cruella DeVille territory, which may have been interesting, but you've got to keep your love/loathe ratio of characters in balance.

OMD: Of course, much of Mary's malaise was being enabled by Lord Grantham, though for his own selfish reasons: his need to feed his fragile ego by running the estate into the ground. He's the proto-Dayton Moore--probably a nice enough guy, well-intentioned, but clearly outmatched when it comes to carrying out the task at hand. Thank sweet baby Jesus for the Dowager Countess. She slapped the dick right out of his mouth.

WG: I consulted last years edition of Downton Prospectus, they list Dayton Moore as Grantham's top comp, right in front of Jim Fregosi and Bob Boone. How many times does Grantham get to squander the family fortune before they take away the checkbook? If Lord Grantham needs to be a heel to introduce nascent women's rights issues, so be it. I'd love to see Fellowes have the balls to go 12 Years a Slave and display how gruesome male/female relations really were back then.

OMD: It's weird when a character is so odious as to have you rooting for Thomas, but it was obvious Nanny West was a foul fucking creature. Where the fuck does Nanny West get off telling Isobel she can't see her grandson?

WG: Yeezy was hilarious. A shittier Patmore.

OMD: At least we still have Molesley for whom to feel empathy toward. It doesn't hurt that Spratt was such a dick to him. Speaking of Spratt, is it just me, or was he Joel Murray channeling Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys? Mashing the tar. 'Tis a sad state of affairs in Mr. Molesley's world.

WG: Poor Molesley. Crying and tarring. Bubbles is spot on. What the hell is going on with the servant class back in England circa 1922? Talk about a bunch of scheming round heels. God forbid that Thomas and Spratt ever sync up, they'd be damn near unstoppable.

OMD: It's been very clearly established that Lady Edith cannot have nice things. Where is this German divorce play heading? Does Michael Gregson become a key figure in the National Socialist Party? Is he Hitler?

WG: Edith hasn't got what she wanted since she sexually accosted that commoner in the work shed a few years back. I had high hopes that maybe we'd run into Gertrude Stein or Hemingway at that "literary" party. I'm kind of digging the evolution of Edith. You are right though, moving to Germany for a divorce doesn't seem like the wisest move.

OMD: So Gwen's married? That typing fetched her a husband, I see. I'm assuming it's Jon Snow.

WG: Red Wedding part duex?

OMD: At first news of Matthew having drawn up an informal will leaving his portion of the estate to Mary, Robert starts a-draggin' his feet. There are so many times that I want to ascribe the label 'twat' to him, but here in this moment at the beginning of the second episode I feel justified in stamping it across his forehead. His first instinct is to hide the letter from Mary until its legality can be determined. Ugh. Once Mary says she has an interest in the estate, Robert starts in about all of the minutae, taking the piss out of her at the dinner table.

WG: His Lordship can be a real horse's ass. I think the alliance between Branson, Carson, and the Dowager will probably keep him in line. I still get a kick out of Branson having his humble roots jammed back in his face from time to time. Hopefully he flips out and burns something down.

OMD: Bates: The Social Butterfly. I could get used to that. I loved Bates's reaction to Anna and Molesley's surprise at his friendliness. I really liked how Bates worked up the fake IOU. Did you get a load of those pound notes? Gigantic.

WG: Jesus H. Christ, I loves me some Bates and Anna. Totally my fave couple. What the hell is Anna doing though? She's setting herself up for some Thomas fuckery. Completely inevitable, right?

OMD: I'd bring up the Rose/Sam Thawley bit or the return of Mr. Grigg, but really who cares? Having seen the next episode (or at least the next hour), I can safely say I'm not looking forward to next week.

Man on Film: Homefront

Generally speaking, Sylvester Stallone the screenwriter has a pretty strong grasp as to what his audience wants. This doesn't always result in high art, but it's usually fun. His latest screenplay that made its way to the screen is Homefront, a star vehicle for Stallone's now-frequent collaborator Jason Statham directed by Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls, The Express). Though Statham has a helluva time sticking with the accent established in the open, he does get to play the part of the one-man wrecking ball. If there's one thing the audience wants in a Jason Statham movie, it is to get to see him kick a whole lot of ass. Homefront delivers that in spades.

What Homefront also has is a fairly strong supporting cast. James Franco plays the country thug with flair. Kate Bosworth is surprisingly good as a meth-head mom. Winona Ryder, Frank Grillo, and Clancy Brown round out the support.

In the end, though, it's all about Statham, and Homefront is one of the better showcases for his skill-set in recent memory. It may not reinvent the wheel, but Statham can use that wheel to beat the fuck out of you.

Man on Film: Star Trek Into Darkness

The caution and hesitancy I had heading into Star Trek proved to be mostly unfounded. Unfortunately, that same caution and hesitancy I had for the first one ended up having been justified on J.J. Abrams's second time around as the man at the helm of the franchise. Star Trek Into Darkness (here on Blu-ray or to rent on demand) wasn't bad, exactly, but it had some major issues, something common in J.J. Abrams's works.

Honestly, the good in retrospect seems far outweighed by the bad. The things that stick out--Karl Urban's tone-deaf turn, the comically terrible opening that was basically a scene that belonged in the bastard step-child of an Avatar/Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls broken marriage, the meandering repurposing of the Wrath of Khan plot, Chris Pine just not quite having the gravitas to pull off Kirk (regardless of your actual feelings about the original Captain)--ring a lot more loudly in my mind than the good--Alice Eve, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Weller.

In the end, it just didn't quite work.

Man on Film: Oblivion

After the surprisingly effective and stylized Tron: Legacy, there was reason to be fairly excited for Joseph Kosinski's follow-up, Oblivion (on Blu-ray or streaming to buy). While it didn't break any ground in the dystopian post-apocalyptic sci-fi realm, it wasn't entirely disposable. Kosinski's vision of the dystopian future is fully realized--the contrast of the clean, futuristic tech-driven society against the quasi-stone age survivors plays quite well on screen.

It's been ages since I actually saw the film, but the distant memories tell me I felt like the climax was a bit underwhelming, a bit too much focus on the set and production design--which worked well on an aesthetic level--but too little on the emotional impact of the scene. Its coda worked, tying the film into a nice little bow, but it was far from a perfect film.

Man on Film: Salinger

Here is the first entry in an attempt to catch up on some of these Man on Film entries today and tomorrow. 

Salinger was a fairly engaging look at the titular recluse. Having somewhat embarrassingly written my senior paper on Catcher in the Rye (in part because I could read the book in a few hours), the author was already a pretty well-established subject for me, but the film follows him through the tumult of his life. Director Shane Salerno pieces together a relatively complete picture of his life, though most of the content was more or less public record. 

It may not have broken ground on the J.D. Salinger front, and the praise for the author may have been so glowing as to be comically hyperbolic, but Salinger was relatively entertaining.

It's on Netflix now.

Reading Rainbow: Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis

Having read Money: A Suicide Note and Time's Arrow: or The Nature of Offence previously and having been entirely enamored with the latter while not getting what all the hubbub about the former was about, I went into Martin Amis's latest novel Lionel Asbo: State of England in the hopes that it would strike a chord much more similar to the one that Time's Arrow struck. While Lionel Asbo was a mostly entertaining read, it wasn't the propulsive work of genius that Time's Arrow was, which I suppose shouldn't be the expectation for any book and is an unfair standard by which to judge Lionel Asbo (buy it here) against but is nonetheless what I found myself thinking when all was said and done.

Judged on its own merits, without prejudice from having read other Amis novels, Lionel Asbo: State of England is an enjoyable comic novel set on the wrong side of the British tracks following Desmond Pepperdine, a mixed race orphan being raised by his miscreant thug of an uncle who has chosen to take on the last name of Asbo, derived from the abbreviation for an Anti-Social Behaviour Order--a civil order handed down to a person shown to act out in anti-social ways. For all of Desmond's strong suits, Lionel stands at the opposite end of the spectrum, allowing for Amis to get laughs, and in some cases ratchet up the tension, using the sharp contrast between the pair to that end. For the most part, this works. There are, however, moments where the character of Lionel stops being interesting and is just irritating, and this is where the novel loses a bit of its luster.

Is Lionel Asbo: State of England Amis's best work? That's a decisive 'no,' but not every book can be Time's Arrow.

Man on Film: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

There is no denying that the second installment in The Hunger Games series looks better than its predecessor; the fact that second film's budget was nearly twice that of the first is apparent from Catching Fire's onset. When you add the change in directors from Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) to someone with a résumé that would at least suggest more comfortability in the genre, Francis Lawrence (Constantine--which, for all its flaws, looked good--and I Am Legend), the fact that the film looked better should come as little surprise to anyone. When grouped with the facts that Josh Hutcherson steps up his game (his performance in the first installment was more than a little lacking) and Wes Bentley is traded out for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, and Elizabeth Banks are as good as they were in The Hunger Games, it is not difficult to see how the product on the screen is going to be better than the one trotted out a year ago.

Unfortunately for the film Catching Fire, the source material is lacking in that it is basically just a bridge to the revolution. While one could certainly attempt to draw comparisons between The Empire Strikes Back and Catching Fire, the real reason that Empire was the best of the original Star Wars trilogy was that George Lucas's involvement was more limited than in the other two films. Where Catching Fire was darker (similarly) than the first film, the limitations of the original story hurt the film as a moviegoing experience. The primary shortcoming of Catching Fire is that with a few exceptions the viewer is taken along on Katniss's journey. This obviously makes sense for the most part. Unfortunately, nearly all of the action takes place outside of Katniss's purview, meaning nearly all of the deaths, large- and small-scale, happen off-screen. In other words because of the nature of the narrative, the bulk of the action happens out of frame. This. Is. A. Major. Problem.

When you combine that with a major anticlimax, you've got a film that just doesn't quite work. As a chapter in a longer series, perhaps one can move past the shortcomings inherent in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire; but when isolating the film on its own merits, it falls significantly short of where it could have gone.