Room 237 (with Upstream Color spoilers)

Room 237 is a documentary about people who are a little obsessed with The Shining--and with their interpretations of it. When you hear the synopsis, you think it's going to be about lunatics--e.g. one of the subjects of the film believes The Shining represents Kubrick's confession to his role in faking the footage of the moon landing. What makes the movie interesting is that these people are decidedly not lunatics. They come across as surprisingly sane and ordinary. Each of them just happens to be a little obsessed with one idea.

I saw Room 237 a few weeks ago, not long after seeing Shane Carruth's new movie Upstream Color. It was not until I saw Upstream Color for the second time (after Room 237) that I thought of Rosemary's Baby when Amy Steinmetz's character cut her hair short. Haircuts are not so uncommon in movies (in fact, I once spent a very long time digging around a website someone had made that was just a catalog of haircuts in movies), so I didn't think too much about the similarity. But then at the end of Upstream Color, there's a scene where Steinmetz cuddles a pig, as if it were her child (which it sort of is).

My point is, a person wouldn't have to be very obsessive or nutty to get...preoccupied with finding evidence of the validity of an offbeat interpretation of a film. It only took me about an hour to find these parallels:

John Cassavettes and Shane Carruth look good in button-downs under pullovers. 

beds outdoors 

haircuts

board games as important props

Not pictured: long period of fasting followed by eating frenzy, cuddling and lullabying the hideous monster that is sort of her baby.

Some of these pictures are from:
http://metallicimagery.blogspot.com/2013/04/upstream-color-review.html 
http://veryaware.com/
http://www.zontikgames.com

Speaking of esoteric in-jokes

http://extension765.com/products/T027

If you were thinking of buying me one of Steven Soderbergh's new post-retirement line of film-inspired Tshirts, this is probably the one I want.

It is the only one I immediately recognized. Here's Slate's list of the sources.

David Bordwell on Hollywood in-jokes

These movies were made by youngish people who liked to have fun–sometimes at each other’s expense—and nothing is more fun than very esoteric in-jokes.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2013/05/27/on-the-more-or-less-plausible-sneakiness-of-one-preston-sturges/

Oblivion, etc.

Remember when we started NotThatCritical and we meant to write briefly and quickly, with no pressure, because no one would be reading it? I think it was supposed to be: 1) no more than five hundred words per movie, and 2) write something every single day. We never really kept up with every single day part, but, you know, like Maude said, consistency is not really a human trait.

I saw Oblivion a couple weeks ago. Well, "saw" is probably overstating it. I was present for it, although I might have fallen asleep once or twice. I did gather that it was about killer drones (topical!), and I can report that during the time I was awake, Tom Cruise occupied probably about 85% of the screen time. Maybe 90%. I remember just one scene he was not in, where stoned-eyed Andrea Riseborough (who seems familiar but imdb reveals nothing I remember seeing her in) talked with Melissa Leo, but I think their conversation was mainly about the Tom Cruise character, so it does not pass the Bechdel Test.

Speaking of Tom Cruise, I read this Vulture article a month or so ago, and I just saw Lindy West's response to it, which is, as usual, pretty much spot on. The only thing I need to add is that when they say "analyzed the data" they really mean, "made up a bunch of data points and wrote down some ideas about them." Which is cool, that's mostly what we want from Vulture, right? But this actual data exists--you can get all of imdb's data, for money--so is someone doing an actual analysis of actual data? Because that could be really interesting.

This research on gender and the movies was released recently from the Annenberg School: http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Communication%20and%20Journalism/~/media/5DB47326757B416FBE2CB5E6F1B5CBE4.ashx
This paper interests me, but this sort of analysis is necessarily so very subjective, despite best efforts. See for instance, from page 11:

All characters were evaluated for attractiveness. This measure ascertained whether one or more characters in the plot verbally (e.g., “You are so hot!”) and/or nonverbally (e.g., cat call, whistling, gapping mouth) indicated the physical desirousness of another character. Self references did not count. Characters were coded as not attractive (i.e., no verbal or non verbal references), attractive (i.e., one reference), or very attractive (i.e., two or more references). These latter two levels were collapsed prior to analysis.

Makes me a little dizzy, trying to think of ways to make an objective character attractiveness criteria.

I feel pretty certain that are fewer leading women in the movies now than there used to be, and fewer of those leading women are tough. But I have no real idea of how to objectively assess that statement.

Ripley: tough
(wikimedia.org)

Katniss: also tough
(www.fanpop.com/)

Really, Netflix?

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom is shameless, non-stop kitschy nostalgia, and it is a weird nostalgia, because it is aimed at an audience that does not remember the stuff it is nostaligic about. It is a movie for the Etsy generation. An Instagram movie. It may be the Wes Andersonest of all the Wes Anderson movies, but I would not know, because I have only seen The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic all the way through, and neither of them left much of an impression, to be perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest, I may have avoided the more beloved of his movies (Rushmore) because I fear the uncomfortable conversations in which I say horrible insincere-sounding things like, "Yeah, a lot of people like that movie" or "I really liked the shoes in that movie." (I'm terrified of hurting people's feelings, I'm terrified of being judged for my taste. Why am I writing stuff here on a blog about movies...?) 

Wes Anderson: I put a bird on it. 

So I had no plans to like Moonrise Kingdom. I thought I would damage my eye-sockets with all the eye-rolling Moonrise Kingdom would require. However. I was totally charmed by it. I thought Ed Norton's Khaki Scouts troupe leader was funny and sincere and believable. Frances McDormand was great. The sweet naive sexuality and romance were flat and unrealistic in the way a good picture book is. 

What does this mean?

Do I have to turn in my dried-up humorless cynic card? 

SW&tH

What if told you there is a movie, in theaters now, with the following actors in it? Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane. You would think, that sounds like something pretty great, probably fairly violent, maybe a Guy Ritchie crime caper, or maybe some medieval epic, with lots of historical accuracy and very cool costumes. Or maybe you wouldn't think that because you don’t know all their names, but you know these guys.

See? Those guys. Maybe they would be working class weirdos in a Mike Leigh film. Maybe they would be the supporting cast in a new Danny Boyle sci fi movie. What you would probably not think is this: all those actors are the dwarfs in the second weak retelling of Snow White to come to theaters this summer. This is Snow White and the Hunstman, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron. Theron, by the way, is a phenomenon. I felt like everyone else understood that this was a silly movie--Chris Hemsworth especially seemed to maintain an ironic smirk the whole time. Maybe that's just his face, or his character. But Charlize Theron, I don't think she knows how to phone it in, and her performance is almost embarrassing because it's too good for the film she's in. Unlike Kristen Stewart. There is an amazing scene near the end of the movie, where Kristen Stewart gives a sort of St Crispin's Day speech, inspiring the troupes, but in that same face-touching, dead-eyed style of naturalistic acting that has occasionally worked really well for her, when she played a sullen teenager. "Iron melts," she growls, in a weird halfway English accent. "But it also writhes about inside itself." I have no idea what any of this means. But I would definitely like to be kidnapped by that band of dwarfs.