Chadzilla ROARS!!!

Whip It (2009)

My opinion of Whip It, Drew Barrymore's entertaining and assured directing debut, can best be summed up by a single lyric from an iconic song from the band Devo, "Whip It good."

Whip It is not just good, however, it's "Damn Good."  Good enough that I walked out of the sneak preview screening last Saturday certain that the film would be somwhere on my list of the Ten Best Films of 2009, come the end of the year.

Yes, the film truly is "that good."

Ellen Page (Juno, Hard Candy) stars as Bliss Cavender, a seventeen year old girl suffering through the last years of her teenaged life in Bodeen, Texas, a small town on the outskirts of Austin.  Awkward and shy on the surfrace, Bliss is teased and ridiculed by a more popular girl.  Her mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is "forcing" her to enroll in the Blue Bonnet Pagaent, while her father (Daniel Stern, in lovable old dork mode), although clearly kind hearted and well intentioned, is far more interested in football and cannot quite hide his disappointment in not having fathered a son to play the sport.  (This is Texas, after all.  Remember Friday Night Lights?)

All that changes when Bliss learns of a Roller Derby tournament being played in Austin.  She sneaks off with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) to watch and more than just falls in love with the game and those who play it.  Bliss straps on old pair of roller skates, lies about her age (players must be over 21 to play, or have parental permission) and tries out.  She makes the team and, in the game, Bliss not only finds a healthy and fun way to vent her meager teenage frustrations, she also finds a way to empower herself.

But there is a price to be paid for gaining that empowerment, of course.  As Peter Parker's late Uncle Ben once said to him, "With great power comes great responsibility."  Bliss makes some questionable decisions and takes some even more questionable actions.  How Bliss deals with the inevitable fallout, when those decisions and actions impact her friend and, finally, come to the attention of her famly, makes for a very satisfying third act.  A refreshing one as well, for Barrymore and Shauna Cross, who adapted her own novel, do not make the parents into stereotypical "Stupid Adult Obstacles" for an impossibly wise beyond her years child heroine to out smart and overcome.  No, the teenagers act like teenagers and the adults act like adults.  They are all real people that learn, grow, and handle the situation the way real people would.  Like I said, refreshing.

Some might take offense that the rough and tumble "Bad Girl" world of Roller Derby is shown in such a positive, not to mention exciting, manner.  But Barrymore and Cross clearly anticipated that possibility, for their movie makes enough subtle references to the idolatry of the rough and tumble sport of football to make its point very clear.  It is every bit as healthy, and normal, for the girls to play rough sports, as it is for the boys. 

Four stars out of four.

Fame (2009)

The students attending the New York City High School for the Performing Arts struggle as they learn and grow into their individual talents.  Some succeed, some fail, and a very lucky few will manage to achieve FAME.

This Kevin Tancharoen directed remake of Alan Parker's Fame is one of the most, meaningless, and pedestrian movies that it has been my displeasure to sit through in quite some time.  There is not a single moment of true emotion in this film.  No plot twist that does not feel fabricated by committee, nor that cannot be seen coming well in advance; so the audience is in the unenviable position of waiting for the plastic dolls moving around on the screen they are watching to catch up with them.  The musical numbers are lifeless and do not feel like a part of the movie or the spontaneous expression of its characters.  The worst offender is the first, when the Freshman class breaks into a dance number in the school cafeteria.  One that is indistinguishable from countless television commercials where a large group of ethnically diverse and exceptionally bland talent, overcome with the joy of drinking a particular soda, eating a particular chip, or wearing some expensive (or inexpensive) clothing, begin dancing in joy and/or singing about about the glories of the product being sold.

None of the characters are truly challenged in this film by the harsh realities of life or the cut throat performance art industries they strive to become a part of.  The core struggles (those getting the most screen time, at least) revolve around three students.  Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker) cannot seem to "loosen up" and truly enjoy her art.  Denise Dupree (Naturi Naughton) hungers to be far more than the strictly classical pianist that her domineering father demands her to be.  Then there is Malik Washburn (Collins Pennie) yet another bland boy from the hood that cannot tap into his bland anger to become a better bland rapper/actor.  Judging from the talent he displays in class, neither Ice Cube nor Ice-T need worry about Malik taking any of their rapper/actor turf.  That they will all overcome their obstacles and succeed without any need to compromise or grow, either intellectually or emotionally, is a forgone conclusion.  Hell, I don't think they even aged during the four years they were supposedly attending school. 

Even the single student that does "fail" is given a convenient happy ending that requires no emotional growth, hence his failure is nonexistent.  Then there was the offensive praise heaped on two students that drop out because their burgeoning careers are hampered by getting an education.  How about less praise for the willfully stupid and more for the hardworking people that truly earn a place in society, rather than having one gifted to them by a lazy screenwriter, okay?

 

One and a half star out of four.

September (1987)

"...your daughter hates me."

Lane (Mia Farrow) has spent the summer at her family's Vermont home recuperating from a nervous breakdown and subsequent suicide attempt.  During this time she has befriended a kindly neighbor, Howard (Denholm Elliott) an elderly widower that has fallen in love with her, although the feeling is not mutual.  Lane has also rented her guest house to a would be novelist named Peter (Sam Waterson) who she has fallen in love with, although the feeling is not mutual.  Peter has developed strong feelings for Stephanie (Dianne Wiest) a friend of Lane's that has come to Vermont seeking relief from a troubled marriage;  by trying to recreate, with Peter, her youthful memories of a romantic summer spent in Paris.

As the emotional tensions between the four simmer, Lane's mother, Diane (Elaine Stritch, delivering an incredible performance) and her latest husband, Lloyd (Jack Warden) arrive at the house with all the emotional subtly and grace of a Typhoon.  As the Labor Day weekend fast approaches and the summer draws to its definitive end, dark secrets and painful truths are revealed and laid bare, for all to see.

The memory I had of Woody Allen's September - his 1987 dramatic film most famous for its having been filmed twice, with two different casts, and for actor/playwright Sam Shepard's harsh criticism of Allen's writing and directing style - was of a quiet and powerful drama filled with fascinating characters and raw emotional moments.  Revisiting it some 22 years later, I was taken aback at how awkward the performances were in the opening act of what Allen has referred to as his "chamber piece."  Had my memory been wrong?

No.  It had not.  As the characters and their stories developed, I relearned what I had forgotten about them.  Their awkwardness was not the result of the actors receiving poor direction from Woody Allen (which was the gist of Shepard's ire) but was caused by the intense and barely repressed emotions boiling within them.  Peter's wooden introductory statement about his continued lack of success with his writing ("I'm discouraged," he sighs with all the emotional energy of a pod person ) is just a lazy facade  to mask his growing desire for Stephanie, which is revealed a short time later.  Howard's scathing assessment of Peter as an unimaginative hack is rooted in his jealousy over Lane's obvious affection for the man.  But Allen layers the bitterness, making it quite clear that, in a way, Peter is a motivationless hack.  Just watch how animated he is whenever he is talking about penning Lane's mother's tell all memoir (something Lane resents) versus his lackadaisical and vague rambling about his own failed summer writing project.  When asked what his novel is about, Peter shrugs and says, "It's about survival" and nothing more after that.  That Peter is so uninterested in writing a story inspired by his blacklisted father - who supported his family by playing poker and betting on horses - while intrigued by the stories told by Lane's black sheep of a mother is some wonderful psychological shading on Allen's part.

Lloyd clearly adores being the object of affection of a faded star more than the faded star herself.  Something he admits without admitting when talking with Peter about being able to admire starlight without being able to believe in any higher power or purpose behind its creation.  That it all just happens without any meaning or purpose.  A viewpoint that is  foreshadowed when Lloyd and Diane talk about the utterly random (and admittedly cliche) manner in which they first met.  Lloyd also goes to great lengths to make excuses and defenses for Diane whenever needed, to protect the illusion he has that his marriage to her will be both a happy and long lasting one.  The self-absorbed Diane is Allen's dominating character in the piece, both figuratively and literally.  She is a woman clinging to, and at one point actually speaking with, her memories of "better" days past.  Which is ironic, considering that her primary mode of emotional and psychological defense is to "forget" the pains of the past and "reinvent" both them and herself.  Pay close attention to the differences in how she speaks of her potential memoirs both before and after the "Big Reveal."  To quote Stan Lee, "Nuff said."

Cynicism and pessimism have long been the prime ingredients in Woody Allen's movies.  While his deft hand with humor has tempered that cynicism and pessimism in his comedies, Allen's dramas offer very little in the way of relief.  They are dark, heavy and dense viewing experiences.  While their deliberate pacing and slow build-up can be trying, at times, the payoff is well worth the viewing effort required to get there. 

Son of Rambow (2008)

Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), a young boy in a strict, fundamentalist religious sect, finds an outlet for his vivid imaginings and unvoiced emotional problems when he is befriended by Lee Carter (Will Poulter), a troubled youth that dreams of entering a short film in a BBC contest called "Screen Test."

Son of Rambow is so much more than that simple description, though.  It's an emotionally and psychologically complicated film that explores friendship, family, and growing up in a way that deftly manages to balance both the story's comedic and dramatic storylines - allowing them to unspool concurrently without becoming entangled or having one overwhelm the other - until the very end.  Son of Rambow not only had me giggling at the boys foolish antics, it also had me in tears as the touching aspects that aren't hinted at in the film's trailer are introduced and explored.  I tell you, if this movie isn't nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay come Oscar time, then there is simply no justice in the entertainment industry.

It would be very interesting to hear what those blinded by ideology will make of Will and his family's strict, isolationist religious background, although I don't really have the stomach to hear one group or another whining about their religion being maligned.  The Brethren are nothing more than a fictional construct that illustrates the futility of trying to hide from, rather than deal with, the unpleasant challenges of life, nothing more.  Will's emotional growth as he begins to question and challenge his way of life (and his mother's reaction to it) is not a condemnation of "religion," it is just one of the many levels that the film uses to examine and explore the traumas of "growing up."  Adding emotional and psychological power to Will's journey is the symbolic power in the story that he concocts for Lee Carter's project: the son of Rambo (yes, Sylvester Stallone's iconic action hero character) seeks to rescue his father from the enemy forces of the Scarecrow.  What makes Will's story significant is that his father is dead and Will is clearly dealing with his unresolved grief issues by creating a fantasy wherein he can rescue and return his father to his family.

Lee Carter's story arc doesn't have quite the same amount of psychological complexity that Will Proudfoot's does, but that doesn't make it any less powerful.  A great deal of that power comes from actor Will Poulter's performance.  He creates one of the most three dimensional and utterly realistic characterizations that it has been my pleasure to see in a film in a long time.  Although a conniving bully at first, Lee Carter eventually becomes a sympathetic focal point by the film's touching conclusion.  Although I would love to discuss exactly why that it is, I do not want to spoil the movie for you.  I'd rather you see it for yourself.

Persepolis (2008)

"Fear lulls our minds to sleep."

This animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's critically acclaimed series of biographical graphic novels is simply wonderful and, although the new year is but a mere four to five weeks old, I suspect it will be one of the best films I will see in all of 2008.  The story of Satrapi's search for her personal identity and her struggle with her cultural background is a universal one (who hasn't wondered who they were or rebelled against the status quo ways of the world) and it is a perfect doorway for the viewer to enter through and experience the volatile history of Satrapi's homeland of Iran.

Although the film is filled to overflowing with unflinching honesty about the brutal regimes that have ruled Iran since the 1950s (the western backed Shah dictatorship, the religious fundamentalist tyrants that came to power after the revolution of the late 70s/early 80s, and how the west played both sides in the Iraq/Iran war) it is also liberally peppered with pop culture references to Bruce Lee, Michael Jackson, Iron Maiden, Godzilla, and Rocky.  That last reference contributes a hilarious "beating back Depression" montage that manages to both parody and homage Sylvester Stallone's iconic underdog character at the same time.  It's just one of the many brilliant moments that are sprinkled throughout the entire film.

As numerous, entertaining and touching as those brilliant moments of humor and humanity are, the film's emotional core is one of soul deep sorrow at Satrapi's eventual loss of her family, her innocence, and her homeland (she currently lives and works in Paris, France).  While the film's touching coda makes it clear that Satrapi has finally managed to find some degree of freedom, her family and her homeland's struggle for it is far from over.