What We Talk About When We Talk About SPIDER-MAN 2

I first saw SPIDER-MAN 2 in a double feature with Tony Scott's MAN ON FIRE. I remember almost nothing from that screening. For years, I would hear friends talk about how awesome SPIDER-MAN 2 was, and I'd smile and nod my head, but really, I was just remembering Denzel Washington cutting people's fingers off as "Oye Como Va" and "Hey Mickey" played in the background. To each his own.

But there's one thing I have always remembered about SPIDER-MAN 2. During the bank robbery scene, Doctor Octopus starts throwing bags of money at Spider-Man, and they explode. Into coins. The bank is literally holding bags of coins, like the kind you'd see Scrooge McDuck jealously guarding on Sunday morning. They may as well have put the big dollar sign on the bags. It was kind of amusing at the time, but now, looking back at it, this decision has come to define the entire movie for me.

But first, what is SPIDER-MAN 2 ostensibly about? Sacrifice. No less than three characters have distinct speeches about giving up "your dream" in order to do "the right thing". Peter has to choose between being Spider-Man or being with Mary Jane. Octavius, in the climax of the film, has to choose between doing nothing or destroying his life's work. Throw in a big slice of survivor's guilt between Aunt May and Peter, and we're looking at some fairly heavy stuff. So what the hell is a movie with these serious thematic explorations doing with a ghost Willem Dafoe screaming "AVENGE ME!" and cartoon money bags?

The answer is that SPIDER-MAN 2 sits in that awkward transition between childhood and maturity that the best comic book movies manage to navigate. It's a very tricky minefield to walk through. When critics hate superhero movies, they throw "comic book" around like a dirty word, and when they do, they're referring to those things that only the juvenile can truly believe in: giant ice death rays, assassins who kill people with their amazing darts skills, and the like. These sorts of "comic book" movies get the most scorn because they veer too far into fantasy.

Getting too real, though, won't bring the kids in. I give you SPAWN, or any version of THE PUNISHER. People don't heap scorn on these movies, though - more often, they're just met with shrugs and quickly forgotten. They're movies for niche audiences, the ones who want to see sobering theological debate between Black Dynamite and John Leguizamo in a fatsuit. Most of us just don't get it. Instead, we seem to want a mix of the fantasy of comic books with an undercurrent of more adult concerns. In 1989, we wanted Batman to have a ridiculous bat-shaped jet fighter, but we basically voided the purpose of that plane by demanding that we examine Batman's "one rule" philosophy. I mean, why does he have the Batwing equipped with machine guns if he won't kill people? Because we want to see a goddamned Batwing, that's why.

So what are we talking about when we talk about SPIDER-MAN 2? We're talking about childhood dreams and adult pessimism, and we're talking about a weird space where we want to indulge in that fantasy, but we can't validate it without it coming from a sober adult perspective. The ending to SPIDER-MAN 2 is the perfect encapsulation of this push and pull. After Mary Jane and Peter have been apart for the whole movie, doing the adult thing, there's a moment of elation as they unite, as they've known they should since they were teenagers. This emotion should coast us out of the theatre as we swing through the city. But our reservation about this kind of fantasy rears its head, and the film undercuts this elation right as the Sum 41 should be kicking in, instead lingering back on a wistful Mary Jane as she watches her love fly away, in an ominous portent of the future.

The point is, when it comes to entertainment, especially summer blockbuster entertainment, we're not quite satisfied with being youthfully exuberant or a grown-up killjoy. We want a little of both.

And that's why there are exploding bags of coins in a movie about sacrifice.

(Almost) 12 Angry (Or Jealous) Men (and Women): The Characters of David Fincher (Part II)

On the heels of THE SOCIAL NETWORK's 8 Oscar nominations this morning, we now return to our exploration of the filmography and protagonists of David Fincher. Part I can be found here.

ANGRY PERSON #4: NICHOLAS VAN ORTON (THE GAME)

Following the critical and commercial success of SE7EN, Fincher could have done almost anything he wanted. So why, in the whole wide world, did he pick a script from the writers of THE NET? (Amusing side note: these two All-Stars would go on to write TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, TERMINATOR: SALVATION, and Halle Berry's CATWOMAN. We can all dread Anne Hathaway stepping into Michelle Pfeiffer's boots if we want to, but I think we've already reached the depths of Catwoman-related depravity, don't you?)

Despite the astounding levels of future failure reached by these writers, THE GAME actually remains a very fun film, and a very Fincher-ian one at that. All three films I'll look at today hinge on an exploration of violence and subdued anger, and it's a definite thematic link through this section of Fincher's filmography. THE GAME does this almost entirely through the character of Nicholas Van Orton, one of Michael Douglas' most interesting performances.

The emotional key to his performance is the line, "Right now, I am extremely dangerous," which comes in the last act of the film. Fincher's interested in what leads him to this point. Van Orton is set up as an emotionally frigid and aloof character, but the film charts his path from disconnected loner to violent paranoid in such a way that, by the end of the film, Douglas seems more rabid animal than sophisticated man of finance.

Not to say this transformation isn't understandable. Van Orton is the audience's eyes and ears - every scene is told from his perspective. He is the one constant. He is us. THE GAME is a wonderfully post-modern film, playing with genre conventions in a dizzying, layered way, and if you can convince yourself that "the game" is really about filmmaking, there's an interesting angle to approach the character of Van Orton from, where he literally becomes the embodiment of a film audience.

At the beginning of the film, Van Orton is a man in charge of his environment. He lets nothing and no one in. All of his relationships are strictly one-way, similar to our notions of how the relation between film and viewer should be. But from the moment the game begins, Van Orton begins to surrender control, first over his environment, then over others, and finally over himself, to the point where he is willing to commit murder. He is driven to a point where his control ceases to exist, and he becomes pure rage.

It's relatively clear what Fincher is saying about humanity here, that we live in delusions of control, and underneath these pretenses is a simmering rage at being unable to reign in the chaos of life (sidebar: holy shit, was this what ALIEN3 was supposed to be about? Is the alien a representation of the rage at our own illusions? Did I not get enough sleep last night?), but what is he saying about film?

The key here is whether or not we believe Van Orton "completes" the game. Certainly, there seems to be an ending, and a lesson learned, but there's that ambiguous scene at the very end of the film which leaves this question open to interpretation. If Van Orton completes, then Fincher's thesis on film appears to be that the medium (and, I suppose, art as a whole) allows us to learn things about ourselves, but that it's ultimately an entertainment. If the game continues on past the credits, than the view of film is decidedly more complex, arguing that we may be unable to categorize between reality and fantasy, that they can become interchangeable, and that we live in both, perhaps simultaneously.

ANGRY PERSON #5: TYLER DURDEN/JACK (FIGHT CLUB)


Which brings us to living two realities at once, and the inherent envies and wraths that entails. Have you, somehow, not seen FIGHT CLUB? Because not only should you not read the next section, you should also run out to your local place of video procurement, get a copy, and watch it at your earliest convenience.

Actually, there's not a lot I want to talk about in regards to FIGHT CLUB. The whole film seethes with rage at the trappings of modern society, perfectly given a voice in Tyler Durden, who sounds like some sort of Oprah-Unabomber love-child:

Tyler: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden is essentially the other side of David Mills, his detective character from SE7EN. The depiction of anger in SE7EN was about how that emotion blinded and enslaved us. FIGHT CLUB is about that, too, but it approaches it from the completely opposite angle - from a look at how that anger feels freeing and exuberant. Tyler Durden is a man without limits, freed by his rage to accomplish anything. Of course, that's because he's only half a man. Here, Fincher finally gets down to why anger is such a powerful force: because it feels good. We give into anger because the anger feels like it completes us, or brings us power.

The flip side of the coin is Ed Norton's character, who has no name, but is usually referred to as Jack (due to the meme-inspiring "I am Jack's colon" articles the narrator reads aloud at one point). Jack is consumed with jealousy, and it is this jealousy that helps make him relatable. Durden's anger gives him power, but it also makes him an outcast. It's through Jack's envy of Durden's freedom that we enter the world of FIGHT CLUB. It's a perfect mirror to the interior conflicts of the social contract. Our surrender of the survival instincts in exchange for the comforts of civilization chafes against the animal inside each of us. On some level, we envy the purity of the animal kingdom. Despite our intellectual understanding of the benefits of society, a part of us emotionally wants to be an alpha male, or a mother protecting her cub, because it is, in a word, simpler.

ANGRY PERSON #6: MEG ALTMAN (PANIC ROOM)


That simple mother-cub relationship is at the crux of PANIC ROOM. But first, before we get too into this, can anyone explain these fucking titles to me?


This is the first time I can remember seeing these 3D titles composited into live plates like they were actually hanging in real space, and even then, I was confused. What are they supposed to represent? Are you making me aware of the artifice of the titles for any particular reason? I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to look cool.

And that's pretty much the reason I think PANIC ROOM is kind of a shitty film (along with this ridiculous look-at-me into-the-lock-through-the-coffeepot-handle establishing shot, which no one will be able to convince me was a good idea). It's a film obsessed with style, and little else. There's some suspenseful moments, but it's not a film you ever really want to re-watch. Fincher ushered in the era of the completely-previsualized studio film with PANIC ROOM, diagramming the entire set in a computer and moving around little digitized models of his actors so he could work everything out before shooting commenced. When Nicole Kidman dropped out of the production, and Jodie Foster stepped in, all the camera information had to be re-calculated for the 8" difference in heights between the two actresses. The whole thing is just a little too constructed.

To that point, I've read defenses of PANIC ROOM that argue that the entire film is constructed as an elaborate look at Freudian psychology, with either the different levels of the house or the three thieves representing the id, ego, and superego. I'm not sure that I buy that (in fact, I'm pretty sure I don't), but there's definitely a tug-of-war between those animalistic tendencies and the higher forms of social behaviour throughout the film.

Meg tries to bargain with the thieves at first, negotiating with them, but it devolves into a fight for survival fairly rapidly. This is another reason PANIC ROOM is less interesting than Fincher's other films from this period. THE GAME and FIGHT CLUB are about a struggle between ideologies. PANIC ROOM is like a time-traveling Roman emperor who microwaves some popcorn, throws a sledgehammer and a gun into the Colosseum, and gives Jodie Foster a shield, just to sit back and see what happens. I mean, it's still interesting, and other films have been made about pretty much this exact thing (subtle Ridley Scott burn!), but it doesn't really engage the viewer mentally beyond a where-are-they/where-is-she interest. PANIC ROOM is all about visceral, primal needs.

I think that's been enough for one day. I'll be back with an evisceration of Benjamin Button and Jake Gyllenhaal, then balance it out with praise for Jesse Eisenberg and why I think Fincher really, really needs to not do the remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

Feminism, Michelle Pfeiffer, and the Tragedy of Falling In Love At The Movies

Why do we go to the movies?

Aside from entertainment, or to learn something about the human condition, or because the neighbourhood Classic Bowl was closed due to a tragic gutter ball accident, I mean.

Speaking for myself, I know I go to the movies to fall in love.

It's like the safest one-night stand you can ever have, except instead of a physical connection (and risk), falling in love with someone in a film approaches the spiritual (and its accordant risk). I can vividly recall my cinematic loves, like the girl on Gordon Street, or the girl with a white parasol, glorious technicolour beauties with 5.1 surround voices, stuck in two dimensions and shared with strangers in the dark.

Rachel Weisz in THE MUMMY. Audrey Tautou in AMELIE. Eva Marie Saint in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Leslie Bibb in SEX AND DEATH 101. Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG. Rachael Leigh Cook in ... well, pretty much anything, but definitely SHE'S ALL THAT.

And Michelle Pfeiffer in BATMAN RETURNS.

Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer. Did you have any idea what you were doing when you stepped into Catwoman's knee-high boots? Did you set out to inflame desire and break hearts?

You played the demure secretary-turned sex kitten with such relish, such joy, that it's impossible to not fall in love with this performance. You play Selina Kyle as the epitome of confused female empowerment, an even-more perfect study in duality than the film's protagonist: both reveling in and scared by your power, alternately abused and loved by men, a product of society and trashing it at the same time. These are powerful forces, maybe too powerful for some viewers.

I would have been six in 1992, when BATMAN RETURNS came out. I didn't even know what the words were for what was happening to me. I wanted to save Catwoman; I wanted to make Selina Kyle smile. I wanted to hug Selina Kyle; I wanted to do ... something... to Catwoman. Only by looking back, can I name my pain: heartache. I'm no developmental psychologist, but I'd guess that six years old is too young for a boy to fall in love and have his heart broken. And Michelle Pfeiffer did it all in just 126 minutes, one chilly night in, of all places for a star-crossed romance, sleepy small-town Mississauga (a town so sleepy, we had a town mascot named 'Mister Sauga'. Now that's a tired PR staff).

That's the great tragedy of falling in love with film characters, of course - the credits are coming, and then it's all over. We'll be free to watch the film again, but it'll just be revisiting a memory. You only fall in love once, right? And like the hopeless romantics on a missed connections message board, we're doomed to relive those moments again and again.

But like those poor devils who exchange brief-but-meaningful glances from opposing subway cars, we eventually realize that there's always a new train coming (films are now trains, who are, of course, girls, in this horribly overwrought metaphor). We might only fall in love once, but if the string of names I listed above are any indication, we might not. We inevitably recognize that there are plenty of fish in the sea. Get it? Sea? 'C'? Catwoman!

Perhaps there are plenty of fish, but we can never forget the first time we were caught. Thank you, Ms. Pfieffer, for giving me another reason to go to the movies. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO.

Dispatch #53: Of The Devil And Nicolas Cage

Really, Nicolas Cage?

I felt like I could almost end the post here and the point would be pretty much exactly the same.

SEASON OF THE WITCH?

What the hell, man?

About an hour into your latest film, I realized I would so much rather be watching THE THING that I started fantasizing about characters in the film growing horrifying appendages and/or being Kurt Russell.

A further half hour into the film, I realized I would even settle for END OF DAYS, the movie that thought ROSEMARY'S BABY was cool and all, but would probably be better if Arnold Schwarzenegger punched the Devil in the face at the end (which, arguably, is a valid point).

By the end of the film, that list of films-I-would-rather-be-watching had expanded to include CONSTANTINE, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, PRIEST, IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE, GONE IN 60 SECONDS, and even fucking GHOST RIDER.

Yes, Mr. Cage. GHOST RIDER. The cinematic abortion you released on the world in 2007. I'll be honest, I wouldn't really be watching the movie, as much as I'd be playing the drinking game Take A Shot For Every Button Undone On Eva Mendes' Blouses (you will get fucked up), but I think you get it. With five minutes left in your new film, I realized I would rather watch the entirety of the 123-minute Director's Cut then sit through another single minute of SEASON OF THE WITCH.

So if you're stuck at some God-forsaken multiplex this week and your friend says, "Hey, what about SEASON OF THE WITCH? Maybe it'll be bad-good," just look them dead in the eyes and say, "I've heard that movie is exactly 123 times more terrible than fucking GHOST RIDER."

And then, perhaps, "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS?"

I'm So Thirsty I Could Cut Your Arm Off (And Other Connections)

I saw three movies yesterday, one of the side benefits of quitting one's job. So if I seem a little harsh or morbid in this article, just picture these words coming from a scraggly-bearded, unemployed man, and the whole thing might make a little more sense.

The first film I saw is a personal favorite of mine: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, the 1962 David Lean masterpiece that swept the Oscars that year. I saw it in a stunning 70mm print at the Lightbox, and if they ever play it again, I will pay for your ticket. I'm serious. You need to see it.

Here's what it won that year: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Color Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Score. It was also nominated for Best Writing (Adapted), Peter O'Toole should have won for Best Actor (Gregory Peck won for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) and Omar Sharif was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Of course, all of this means nothing. We all know how stupid the Oscars can be, and how great BENJAMIN BUTTON was (more on that later).

In this case, though, the awards are justly deserved. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA will continue to survive the test of time because it's about some very complicated issues while also tapping into some really primal stuff. Because while you could argue that LAWRENCE is about culture clash, or colonialism, or even celebrity, it's really about water.

Not in the way POSEIDON or even CHINATOWN is, of course. It's about what water means to us, as people. How we all need it, and how that need defines and divides us. Some of the strongest moments in the film revolve around how thirst motivates and drives the characters. Consider the following line, one of my favorite in all of cinema:

AUDA ABU TAYI: I carry twenty-three great wounds, all got in battle. Seventy-five men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemies' tents. I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because I am a river to my people!

or the following:

SHERIF ALI (after killing a man who has stolen water): He was nothing. The well is everything.

And finally:

LAWRENCE: He likes your lemonade.

Humanity is defined by what it does for survival. In those three lines, it defines a man as part of a community, it justifies a murder, and it shows how we separate and persecute each other (the third one would take way too much context to explain, but trust me, it does). Some of this stuff is on the surface, and some of it is only really clear upon contemplation, but there's one thing you're really conscious of for the whole film: you want a drink.

Really, really bad. It's the kind of thirst where you go to the concession stand and the only drink they have is Fresca and even so, you're like, "Give me a large."

A lot of that is attributable to the stunning desert photography, some of it might be due to subliminal Coke advertising, but I think a lot of it is due to the fact that the film really asks you to consider the basics of human survival.

The second film I saw was Danny Boyle's 127 HOURS, which has similar considerations at heart.

127 HOURS works best when it's focused on the nitty-gritty of human survival. For those unfamiliar with the story, it's based on the true story of one Aron Ralston, who got trapped while hiking and eventually had to sever his own arm in order to escape.

I've had major problems with director Danny Boyle's work in the past, and 127 HOURS is no exception. Traditionally, I've found that Boyle's stories take extremely divergent turns in the third act (I'm looking at you, 28 DAYS LATER and SUNSHINE) and are never really resolved in a satisfying way. That's not a problem here, as the story has a fairly obvious structure, but Boyle won't let the desperation of the situation play itself out. He wants to make this more than just a survival story.

It's clear that Boyle sees Ralston's situation as a larger metaphor for human connection and isolation. It's that old no-man-is-an-island chestnut, and Boyle drives it home in some very effective ways. There's some great fantasy/flashback/hallucinatory sequences that emphasize the need for other people in our lives, and the ways in which we shun it. The problem is that these scenes actually take away from the situation Ralston is actually in.

Boyle uses a lot of visual flair in the flashaways, using split-screens, heavy contrast and saturation, and layered images to evoke the reflective and/or hallucinatory state of the protagonist, but for me, the most exciting shot of the film occurs in the canyon as Ralston runs out of water. Boyle sets up a great device by having a camera inside the water bottle every time Ralston takes a ration. Shooting through the water, we get a murky and distorted view of James Franco's face, but every time we come back to the shot, and the water level drops, Franco is a little clearer to the audience. The last time Boyle comes back to this shot, it isn't Franco's face we see, but just a set of teeth and a tongue desperately crammed into the lid of the bottle, frantically trying to get some more water. It's a viscerally human shot, evoking the fragility and terror of human survival. It's not as dramatic as the amputation, but it's just as effective.

There's an amputation (sorta) in TRON LEGACY as well, the third film of my triple feature, but it doesn't carry any of the power of the one in 127 HOURS.

The major difference is that when the amputation comes in 127 HOURS, you've been dreading it, and the film makes you pay for watching it. When the TRON amputation comes up, you're thinking, "Thank God something finally happened."

Rarely have I seen a film with so little happening. Actually, that's not quite fair. I've rarely seen a film with so little new happening. I've read a few defenses of TRON that seem to boil down to, "You guys don't get it. It's all about Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth and the 7 Steps of the Hero and bio-digital jazz."

Guess what? We all get it.

I'll freely admit I've never read Joseph Campbell. Or Jungian archetypal theory. I honestly don't think I have to anymore. Because every childhood story I've seen is based on it. TRON LEGACY is more than happy to just plug its characters into the world's most basic formula and sit back and let the story tell itself. This is a film that desperately wants to be about "everything - science, medicine, religion", but only has the soul of a computer - endlessly outputting data from code. It's that exciting.

That tagline on the poster is quite apt - "it's not just a game anymore" perfectly distills how not-fun this movie is. There are occasional action beats that look cool and have clearly been designed with the idea of "This'll be a killer trailer shot", but these moments only serve to remind you of how hollow the rest of it feels. In fact, what this really feels like is a fanboy trailer, expanded to two hours and given $200 million dollars, with little regard for plot or character or purpose.

Maybe I'm just bitter. But when I think of a new generation of fanboys growing up on this kind of drivel, it's like going to a pop machine on a hot summer's day only to find out it's full of Fresca. And I just want to tear somebody's arm off.

The Top 10 of 2010

Do you believe in heliocentricity? Well then, Happy New Year, you crazy sun-worshippers!

In the spirit of universe-defining observation, allow me to (ever so) humbly present my best-of list for the year. Some of these choices might be attacked, but like the Platos of yesteryear, the haters'll eventually come around.

10. UNSTOPPABLE

Did you think this wasn't going to make the list? C'mon, son.

9. PIRANHA 3D

Oh good Lord, the ridiculousness.

8. TOY STORY 3D

Pixar proves they can make anything amazing, even a film about mortality.

7. SPLICE

Beautifully warped.

6. BLACK SWAN

Darren Aronofsky proves he knows how to have fun.

5. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFTSHOP

The most fun you'll have at a documentary all year.

4. NEVER LET ME GO

Quiet sci-fi with a hell of an emotional gut-punch.

3. MARWENCOL

The finest documentary of the year.

2. INCEPTION

The zero-G fight is pure cinema.

1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Perfect.

The truth is, I didn't see a lot of films this year. That will change. But here's a quick list of things I missed this year that I have a sneaking suspicion might have made the list:

A PROPHET

WINNEBAGO MAN

GET LOW

CATFISH

HOWL

THE RED RIDING TRILOGY

Feel free to passionately disagree/talk about how Dren should have pheromones/snicker about Jerry O'Connell etc. below. In the meantime, I'll see you at the movies!