That the press will do anything for a story is hardly news, even to the moviegoing public in 1937. To paraphrase a great line from a great movie, anything is grist for their mill. Then and now, there is nothing sacred for a story, no means too ridiculous to get that story, and there are no limits in skewing that ‘news’ in serving the needs of the owners, investors, and advertisers in your media network. The inherent falsehood in news is not limited to the press – everyone is complicit, from the businesses that profit off goods related to the story, to the ordinary reader who gets to feel patriotic, inspired, or disgusted from what little they understand about the facts. Everyone agrees to the affair, often because their worldview is supported. Ace in the Hole is the final word on the subject, but prior to that masterpiece came Nothing Sacred. An odd and cynical piece about the laughable bullshit shoveled hither and yon as a story gathers steam, it represents a lighthearted but accurate indictment of how a falsehood requires a conspiracy to exist – a conspiracy involving everyone.

New York City is introduced with emblazoned titles that joyfully shits on the affair we are about to see. “Skyscraper champion of the world! Where gold bricks are peddled, and truth is crushed to the earth, arising again more phony than a glass eye.” The Morning Star is not only an institution of the City, but is eager to support any source of news. The Sultan of Marzipan is hosted by the Morning Star to raise money for a new temple, or at least he was about to before his wife strolls in to bust him in a hilariously deadpan “Yeah, that’s him”, as if this happens now and again. After the public revelation that their friend the Sultan was actually shining shoes at the train station, the paper is humiliated, and the journalist who broke the story is demoted to obituaries. They all need a new project to regain their self respect, and what better way than to attach themselves like a remora to a girl irradiated in a factory accident?

Hazel Flagg is a patriotic name, and damn if she doesn’t signify the chance for a veteran journalist and his newspaper to redeem their good name with a heartfelt bit of popular sentimentality. She is dying of radium poisoning, and with a few weeks to live, journalist Wally Cook (Frederic March) journeys to her small town in Vermont to whisk her away to New York to write stories about her bravery straight from the heart, and make her the toast of the town. Hazel (Carole Lombard), however, is not sick, and as her incompetent drunk of a doctor breaks the news to her, she bursts out crying. She preferred death to living in a shithole of a town. Strangely, the entire town is tight-lipped about the accident that allowed the radium exposure in the first place; every business in town is owned by Paragon, where the accident occurred. There is a fascist element to this that is disturbing, as every citizen is hostile to anything that threatens the company, elevating the generally threatening nature of the usual small town bumpkin to Children of the Corn level. Hazel tries to tell Cook that she is unfortunately fine, but he is so possessed by the idea of resurrecting his career that he doesn’t hear a word, and promises her the fame and fortune of New York City. With that, she no longer has any reason to be honest.

From here, the screwball comedy takes over, and Lombard and March demonstrate their gifts for extracting humor from the ridiculous. What is striking is how everyone believes, and yet nobody could possibly be taking this seriously. The paper’s reporting is histrionic to a degree that would embarrass Tyler Perry. The mayor riders her fame for PR purposes, giving her the key to the city. Hazel is showered with excessive shows of adoration and gratitude that would not benefit a dying person – the people are performing for their own enjoyment. As Cook later notes, “We’ve been [the people's] benefactor – we gave them a chance to pretend their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.” Her town covered up a radiation accident by paying off the town, and everybody was quick to take the cash, more protective of the crooked company than their own people. Cook and the Morning Star used her to skyrocket their circulation, and did so on the cheap. All Hazel got was a trip to New York.

Nothing Sacred makes clear that news is entertainment first, and the source of the news is a liar. More importantly, the readers are even greater liars because their desire to believe makes the lie into the truth. When Hazel is about to be outed in a scandal, she tells the truth to key players who make it clear they have a stake in her eventual bloody demise. Of course, this would not be a truly cynical work of art if any redemption inadvertently occurred. Everyone agrees to keep the ruse alive, from the newspaper who pays for the tropical disappearance of Hazel Flagg to the readers who blubbered unconvincingly about this inspiring whomever they will never meet or care about. Nothing Sacred lacks some of the acerbic wit of Billy Wilder’s best movies, but none of their entertainment value, from the sharp dialogue to great visuals (like fawning newspaper stories about Hazel being used to wrap fish, or a restaurant advertising “Hazel dined here! – All kinds of cheese and baloney: our specialty). And of course nothing quite equals Frederic March punching a woman dead in the face.

From IMDB trivia:
To discourage March’s attentions, Carold Lombard invited him to her dressing room one night; after preliminary fumbling, March discovered to his disgust that she was wearing a rubber dildo. He never bothered her again.

Once a character becomes a protagonist, they tend to cease being a human. Flaws are sacrificed to maximize appeal for an audience, rendering the behavior of a character unrecognizable to someone from planet Earth. That this is dull beyond belief goes without saying. Having flawed, stupid, offensive, or otherwise shitheaded characters make stories far more involving since we can recognize a bit of ourselves in them. This is borne in mind in Chronicle, which posits a creation story for three kids who acquire telekinesis from an unidentified source. Most superheroes in pop culture got their powers at random, yet the powers are invariably held by principled individuals. Either one is an altruistic guardian or an epic villain. Well, powers can be exercised by nitwits, too. This theme was explored poorly in Jumper, where a teleporting dullard used his godlike powers to gather a little cash and eat a sandwich on the Sphinx. Well, this movie executes its task quite well, and declares its first-time director as a surprising talent.

In Chronicle, three average high school kids acquire great power from a Somethingorother, and find they can move objects with their mind, and with time can move themselves, and greater objects. Rather than proceeding to heroic actions, the characters actually act like high school kids, which is not only refreshing, but more interesting than the standard storyline. They are not especially bright, imaginative, or introspective, and despite one of their number regularly trying to quote Jung or whatever, the dialogue is almost entirely idiotic rearrangements of “Dude! Bro! We got to do something!” Annoying to listen to, but this is how people generally speak, rarely with any threat of proper grammar or profundity. They have no imagination, so the time is spent pegging each other with rocks, lifting up skirts with leafblowers, or committing pranks on others. Really, these are kids being kids, and without much thought beyond the next minute. With time, their strength increases, their abilities open doors that they recklessly explore, and anger allows the story to take an inevitable trip into violence. One is a popular Dude who is none too ambitious and hence unlikely to cause harm; one is an extremely popular jock who would probably have become a superhero if he weren’t the black guy; and the last is the socially inept loner with a video camera.

The loner (Andrew) is the best-written character, meaning he turns out to be the most flawed. One thing Chronicle does well is capture the psychosis factory that is high school. As taxpayer-subsidized babysitting, it functions as a prison where the strong torture the weak in training for adult life where pretty much the same thing happens except the upper classes and cops replace the jocks. At least that is how it appears to the socially backward. Rather than the sort of fiction where the misfit becomes a champion when given power, in Chronicle the misfit remains so, except able to wreak havoc on those who were cruel to him. In a way, these beatings become a way to figure out one’s place in the world, and a chance to learn how to counter the attacks of the strong. Andrew only becomes the strong, and exerts as much cruelty as he can muster. The Dude is a cipher who is interested more in safety than telekinesis.  It is notable that his cool guy character suggests that the socially inward types are best sequestered by rigid social structures or else workplace shootings would become commonplace – you don’t often see calls for a garrison of the nerdpen.

I should mention this is a found-footage film, meaning lots of shaky-cam and migraines, but it is skillfully done. The power to move stuff enables the camera to float around, so the shots are more steady and cinematic at times. The special effects are pretty good considering the budget is modest, and it makes great use of an increasingly large sandbox for the three to play in. The bulk of the film is given to discovery of these powers, which is vicarious fun, and the story is allowed to find its own way. Ultimately, Chronicle rests on some superhero movie cliches to close out the film, but for the most part this is entertaining and interesting. The film announces Josh Trank as a name to watch, capable of crafting something unique and thoughtful with no budget in a crowded marketplace.

The Hollywood Knights has been labeled a virtual copy of American Graffitti, which is a fair accusation in that it is a nostalgia trip through the early sixties with a constant soundtrack seemingly lifted whole from AG. There are important differences, however, as AG is a shallow exercise in milking Boomers for cash (a task Lucas would perfect over the next few decades) that reaches awkwardly for profundity as the young protagonists stumble towards adulthood. Hollywood Knights, on the other hand, uses nostalgia as a frame on which to hang dumb jokes, clever pranks, and a welcome helping of T&A as the Eisenhower 50s yields to the rebellion of the 60s. It never claims to be profound, beyond arrested adolescence screaming its last; maybe you relate to it, or maybe you are one of the fuckheads who despised the idea of peace without honor. Either way, it is more entertaining than its predecessor and is a greater movie by virtue of having better racks, a funner subtext, and a strangely hot Fran Drescher.

On Halloween night in 1965, Tubby’s drive-in is to be torn down solely due to the menace of the gang Hollywood Knights, who terrorize the moral guardians with flaming bags of dogshit on front steps or drive-by moonings. The clear and present danger from this malevolent force is like an amorphous hydra, ever present and ready to retaliate with eggs to the windshield should a compatriat fall. They are everywhere and nowhere at once. The pillars of this society consist of Jack and Jacqueline Friedman who meet with community movers and shakers in Beverly Hills. Their goal is to take down the miscreants in their midst, and they are sure of success as God is on their side. Ms. Friedman is a bit distracted from her mission from God by constantly groping and copulating with her friend Nevans in whatever hallway or car is available. Jack is also the high school prinicpal (or something) who is a source of sputtering rage whenever the Knights intrude on his wholesome plans for the school. When the pep rally is interrupted by gang leader Newbomb Turk’s transcendant version of Volare, or the talent contest is bested by a Knight portraying a one-armed violinist, Jack is apoplectic with helpless rage.

The first and last line of defense against the Knights are police officers Bimbeau and Clark, who are quick to anger and kick ass, usually of the wrong people, and using force for the sake of.  They mirror pretty much any cop you run into who got into the job as an outlet for impulse and anger control problems. More importantly, they represent the face of Nixon’s Law and Order ideology that backs the Silent Majority of the Friedmans. Together they are all-powerful yet impotent, having all the money and enough political connections to demolish a private business for personal reasons. And yet they must stand helplessly and watch as their imagined ideal society falls to pieces despite their zealotry, signified by an offending ass hanging out a window.

Newbomb Turk, as played by Robert Wuhl in the greatest performance of his career (take that however you will) is the spiritual leader of the Knights and his passion for reducing the moral majority to its proper level is equaled only by his imagination for some fucked up gags. It isn’t enough to block the public toilet at the drive-in that Officer Bimbeau is about to use; Newbomb also locks the door, detaches the doorknob, piles the doorway two feet deep with garbage, and plugs the police car’s exhaust to ensure that the cops are at boiling point when they extract themselves from the pile of rotting shit they fell into. Now, that’s being thorough. They anticipate every opportunity to spoil the well-constructed facade that decent society has crafted, all in the name of fun, and to revel in bringing everyone to the same level. As Ms. Friedman gets rogered by her buddy, the Knights are there to ensure it becomes a public event. When high society has a party, the punch is spiked by that most precious of fluids. And the caterers are carefully instructed to drive right across the garden because it will be demolished the next day anyway to make space for the Newbomb Turk Memorial Library.

There are a couple of subplots that seem tossaway until they fit into the larger picture of a nation in transition. Four pledges to the Knights are dropped off naked in the middle of Watts with instructions to 1. carry a spare tire all the way back to Tubby’s, and 2. request in person a song on their favorite radio station. On the way, these honkys manage to bond with some black dudes and score some weed on the way to accomplishing their goal. The hippie generation thus was born. Sort of. The other subplot has Tony Danza and Michelle Pfeiffer reflecting on their imminent divide. She is aspires to be a nude double for actresses who sound less bubbleheaded than her, and he is a drunken bum. This doesn’t go very far, other than highlighting the long term of being a Hollywood Knight, in that old age does not bode well for those talented only in faffing about. Danza’s friend is about to ship out to Vietnam, which is ‘nothing’ to those in the know. As California Dreamin blares from the speakers, he is coming to know fear for the first time. All these things, including the recklessness of youth and the enjoyment of time wasted, is coming to an end.

Theirs is an example of the panic inevitable when one comes to realize that upon growing up, there will be nobody to catch you when you fall. The fucking around and showing up the prudes are victories, but are bittersweet at best. On one hand, it is satisfying to watch the ridiculous policemen fail in spectacular fashion to assert their authority, and the moral guardians get caught mid adulterous coitus in a humiliating spectacle. On the other, even in defeat, these twits still rule the world, and will continue making life miserable for the rest of us. And we either become them, or rebel pointlessly at the bottom of society. Not much of a choice, but we all must make it.

“Nowhere are Misery, Desperation, and Crime more welcome than here. You, my most loyal subjects, as Louis XIV, my uncle, left you to me, I shall leave you, more numerous still, to Louis XV and his successor. For misery, desperation, and crime are fecund. Enter, and let joy reign supreme!”

If you want to examine the decadent insanity possible in the abuse of a monarch’s absolute power, you could craft a thoughtful and brutal treatise on the subject, or you could revel in the insanity and have as much fun as the monarch. The director can be as mercurial as a king, and in that sense, Bertrand Tavernier has the best of both worlds in his luminously batshit Let Joy Reign Supreme. France in 1719 was in decline after the successful rule of Louis XIV, with the largest population in Europe in the midst of unrest, rising poverty, and widespread violence with frequent conscription of commoners to colonize Louisiana. Phillipe d’Orleans is the Regent, having denied the ascendancy of the king after annulling the will of the mouldering Louis XIV. He was famously an atheist and a libertine, concerned with living the high life over the affairs of state. He denounced censorship and decreased taxation, promoting public schooling while reveling in the arts. The ashes of this spoiled kingdom, as well as that of Louis XV, concealed the smoldering coals of the coming Revolution. Though Let Joy Reign Supreme does traffic in philosophy, it is content with being as bugnuts as it is brilliant.

With the sumptuous portrayal of the Regent’s court of excess, it is cynical, anarchic, and darkly hilarious. Surreal elements abound with a sardonic sense of humor, one feels an attitude that nothing in life or death is of any worth; except to feel alive. Politics is stripped bare to its grounding in parasitism and avarice, while the opposition is made up of the most pathetic revolutionary this side of Life of Brian. There may be no central point to be gleaned from this work apart from gaining a sense of how chaotic the march of history can be, even in retrospect. This movie is not to be understood, but rather experienced. It washes over you, and afterwards you wonder what the fuck happened as you straighten up the room. To set the pace in the opening scene, a priest performs a ceremony wherein field mice are excommunicated, while a nearby pedophile attempts to kidnap two little girls. Then things get strange.

Phillipe is depressed, having witnessed the death of his favored daughter, who was as mad as she was promiscuous. The autopsy examines the body noting significant brain damage and a pregnancy (multiple births likely caused her demise), and the physicians present declare she died of gluttony. Phillipe felt that shitty doctors were the cause, but never mind. Thus distracted, the Marquis de Pontcallec hatched a conspiracy with his fellow nobles to topple the Regent by inviting Spain to use its coast to land an invading army. His land of Brittany was wracked by starvation, and so he had little funding for visiting brothels, let alone gathering an army. Boasting a regular force of thousands (in actuality only three), he failed to get support from anyone other than the Spanish army, mostly because they were kind of expecting to support an army. Instead, it was only Pontcallec, proudly armed with his fearsome weapon, the mistoufle. This was a pistol tied to a pitchfork, and was as effective as it sounds. Jean-Pierre Marielle plays Pontcallec as an amiable oaf, defiantly inscribing letter after letter to the Regent, often with subsequent corrections following a failed threat.

Phillipe Noiret plays the Regent as oddly detached, only distantly concerned with the future of his seat while surrounded by enemies. He despises the church and its hypocrisies, of the clergy’s enthusiastic culling of Prostestants, and of its profligate corruption. As one priest claims the Church is apolitical, Phillipe dryly notes that their sales of arms to Native Americans who convert to Christianity is inherently political. Still, he is no angel, and gleefully takes part in the corruption. His primary aspiration is to secure another underage girl to his harem, preferably if they are into menage a quinze.

His chief advisor is Abbe Dubois, a fellow atheist and pimp who aspires to be mitered an Archbishop. It is a practical desire – “I am a born pagan, but an Archbishop is untouchable.” He has no care for the Regent, hoping only to get the appointment before his boss dies mid-orgy, and is the source of most of the court intrigues. Fortunately, no time spent in exposition is wasted – DuBois explains his ambitions to a whore with her ankles wrapped around his head. He is a cackling twit who is too bent to be labeled a madman – who would want to appear principled in this mess? In any case, the Church endorses his mitre, and in exchange the Regent will not force the Church to sell land to the poor at a price they can afford. A plan more pernicious even than public schools. Everything about the court is rotten, from royal family who extort Phillipe for bribes to the local enforcers who round up the whores and homeless for deportation to the Americas. In one scene that amuses the fetid souls among us, a priest performs marriage rites for a crowd of scores of such people, so any fucking on board the ship has the consent of God. Soldiers and officials alike are either bribed or duped easily; this is anarchy with a bureaucracy.

The real entertainment here are the bizarre setpieces that serve to highlight ignorance and decadence in the most hilarious possible way.

- Phillipe is too busy to discuss the conspiracy against him because porn slide show.
- Pontcallec hides in a convent, leading him to hide in a tub with a hot nude lady of the cloth while soldiers storm the building knocking nuns over like bowling pins.
- The vaunted military of France demonstrates its new cannon by missing a carriage with shots at point blank range while Phillipe gropes one of his hoes. The future King Louis XV whines for the carriage to contain a condemned man, else this is no fun.
- There is a Piss Boy. One of the attendants at the court walks around with a pail.  I thought that bit from History of the World was a joke.
- Check out the banquet centerpiece.

The denouement is as bizarre as the rest, as a commoner is killed in an act of negligence, sparking an event that heralds the coming Revolution. A simmering anger from the misrule of the Regent is given release, and though the anger is directed at the elite, it is unfocused and not necessarily purposeful. This is how political change occurs, uncontrollable, amorphous, impossible to predict and driven by unseen factors. Though the masses can be manipulated, they cannot be denied when they hunger. Perhaps that illuminating exchange seems tacked on, as just about anything would when attached to a story this fucked. It does lend a feel of consequence, a word utterly alien to anyone holding power. The masses will rise against tyranny, though not necessarily in the name of justice, or in the name of anything other than anger and the driving force of the herd. In the meantime, enjoy the delirium as history marches past us, occasionally clothed, usually indifferent, and without a shred of decency or mercy.

“Take that, foolish African!”
-  Line from the film or Lucas to his new audience?

During the Second World War, 450 black men were sent into aerial combat, running more than 200 bomber escort missions, and during Red Tails, we feel as though we have seen all 200 in real-time. George Lucas is executive producer, and he has announced that this is his last (except not really) popcorn film. Apparently, it attracted so little interest that Twentieth Century Fox distributed only if Lucas paid for everything. If he were working a corner, that’s like paying the clients for the right to call yourself a hooker. Still, Lucas has been chipper about this foray into attracting a Black audience and their dollars, boasting about a mostly Black cast, director, producer (not himself, although if he claimed to be Black, that would have been awesome), and writers, with a score by Terence Blanchard. The deck has been stacked. At an advance screening, Al Sharpton exclaimed “It’s probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen!” Ever the voice of measured calm. Why Tyler Perry wasn’t tapped to direct is beyond me, but that would have made Red Tails a hilarious smear of histrionic twaddle. I suppose this cast was in part to enable the tower defense of RACIST against any attacks on its shitty quality, but if Red Tails is representative of the Black Community, then its production team is guilty of hate crimes. The story of the Tuskegee airmen is pretty good, but you would have no idea from this dull piece of fuck.

The acting is terrible, listless, and occasionally sounds like the words are being read off cue cards by someone at gunpoint. Terence Howard plays a Colonel who needs to give periodic triumphant rah rah speeches, except he couldn’t express real emotion if his shoes were on fire. Cuba Gooding has not been a mark of quality since maybe Boat Trip, and he chews on a pipe like a five year old went into Dad’s drawer and found a new toy. His attempt to do a ‘grim’ face is more pathetic than a worm on a hook trying to escape. The dialogue is bad enough to make the Nazi characters sympathetic. Lucas bragged that there is an hour of combat scenes, and I think that is probably true. But that means over an hour of quiet scenes of chatting and bonding where the screenwriters futilely attempt to simulate what humans call ‘conversation’. Some of these include white people who bandy about epithets to remind us idiots that there is this thing called racism, and, against all we once thought, it is indeed bad.

The characters are stock from stem to stern; the leader with self-doubt, the aggressive hotshot, the Jesus freak. The whites are all kind of the same person. There is one German character who is skilled, and hunts American pilots because he is evil, not because it is his duty as a soldier. He uses the line above, which just made my day. The rest is dull exchanges with such bon mots as “Let’s give the newspapers something to write about”, or “How do you like  that, Mr. Hitler?” During the opening credits, American bombers are shot to shit because the escort fighters ran off to shoot down enemy fighters instead of protecting the bombers. One pilot exclaims “Damn those glory grabbing bastards!” Now if only there was a group of pilots that would be proper escorts… I wonder if the film will fill that need at some point with some scrappy underdogs. And I wonder if some of these honkys would eventually have a change of heart, or if the leader develops self-confidence or the hotshot gets shot down after doing something inadvisable. Red Tails is unpredictable like LA weather. The death of the hot shot is especially funny, as a whole subplot is set up where he romances an Italian woman and they are all set to be married. It resembles that scene from, well, Hot Shots!, where one pilot is about to go on a mission and tells his wife he loves her while black cats cross his path, he walks under a ladder, she breaks a mirror, and expresses just how perfect life is. When you reiterate a storyline from a spoof in your dramatic film, there is a serious failure at the screenplay stage.

Meanwhile, the combat video game scenes are okay, but the breaking planes are as interesting as so much balsa wood, and the deeply boring execution makes the action even more listless and pointless. The sound quality also sucks, going in and out in the wrong places. I know the actions of the Tuskegee airmen were actually important during the War, but if the filmmakers don’t give a shit, I don’t see why I should. The scenes of BANTER and the love story via translator dictionary, the pointless subplot about a POW camp that barely exists and passes like a fart in a blizzard, oh god, make it stop. Even the remarks about race fail to arouse, as other films have rendered the subject with a sense of history and scope.

Lucas admitted that the legions of fanboys have worn him down about his aggressive milking of Star Wars. Who knew the random and pointless anger of the internet could accomplish something great? Still, he is planning to pursue small art films, so we will get to see CGI clouds add texture to small personal dramas or something. Well, small art films and the next, hotly anticipated Indiana Jones movie where Indy fights Nazi exiles in Brazil to establish a public health care system.

Viva Riva!
Djo Munga crafted a gritty urban crime drama with energy to spare, and it benefits from strong performances and the uncommon setting of Kinshasa. The unique aspect, though, is its uncompromising honesty. The story has no apologies for its lurid subject matter, graphic violence, sex, lesbian action, and the utterly corrupt characters that make up the heart of Viva Riva. Ridiculously entertaining, while having neither sympathy nor mercy for the characters held in thrall to the relentless Congolese beat. This is in some ways an exercise in style, but it never drifts too far from the central theme of the gravitational center of money, and how it drives and destroys everything we see. Sure, the men and women kill for money, but without cash flow, like the gasoline Riva brings to the city, nothing shall move.

Tree of Life
One of the most ambitious films of this decade, or indeed any decade, Tree of Life grapples with the most basic and unanswerable of questions. Ostensibly about a father raising his children, it becomes a meditation on how we relate to the processes that created life around us; or maybe it is about how we deal with a distant deity and make sense of religion; or using vast perspective to understand where we fit in the struggle for life and how we find our way. There are as many interpretations as there were viewers of this transcendent film. I considered it through the perspective of the father; falsely confident about how the world is around him, he feels his way through the process of rearing his kids, never able to know the wisdom of his actions until long afterwards. You tell me.

Melancholia
Crippling depression isn’t so bad in the end of days – if Earth is about to collide with another planet, then having an apocalyptic view is a positive boon. While a fascinating consideration of how different personalities deal with the yawning precipice of oblivion, it allows the audience to understand and perhaps internalize the power of depression. That being said, Melancholia is uncommonly entertaining, with shockingly beautiful compositions. The end is nothing to be worried about, after all.

The Artist
A minute or so into The Artist, I had forgotten I was watching a silent film. The surprise here is the extraordinary skill Hazanavicius brings to telling a story with spare dialogue, scrupulously constructed visuals, and the faces of two of the best performances of the year. A star-making turn by Berenice Bejo is matched by a pitch-perfect Jean Dujardin (who already is a star via the OSS films). As far as bittersweet films go, this ode to the glory of old Hollywood is as bitter as it gets. But that is the central theme – the Artist, if they truly believe in their art, wish only to entertain, and that for a brief time. The crowd, adoring though it may be, will move on, never to return. ‘That is life’, as one character says. So why is one of the best films of the year in a dead medium?

Princess of Montpensier
Passion destroys all it touches in this sumptuous costume drama from a master of the craft. Against the backdrop of the pointlessly bloody yet enthusiastically fought war between Huguenots and Catholics, a similarly aimless love triangle reveals the destructive force of passion amongst shallow people who have yet to learn that life is not to be taken too seriously. At least not if it is to be understood. Populated by mostly narrow-minded characters driven by emotion to destructive ends, we get to view the awkward dance of human nature as people labor against their best interests. All in the name of love, pride, honor, and faith – all variants of foolish passion. Seldom has the cataract of human conflict been viewed with such thoughtful reserve.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams
This odd meditation on our history and how we interpret those frozen moments in time captured in ancient objects fascinates beyond reasonable comprehension. The rare experience of the Chauvet Cave becomes the centerpiece for a review of prehistoric peoples, or at least our guess as to who they were based on what was left behind. This sets up the amazing sequence of slow shots of the oldest cave paintings of the world, preserved for tens of thousands of years. Primitive, yet sophisticated in use of contrast and medium, and in the creative use of the contours of the cave; possibly the greatest works of art in human history.

The Red Chapel
A thoughtful commentary on the slippery nature of truth in documentaries, all masquerading as a sublime practical joke on North Korea. A group of comics seek to show the creepy and self-destructive culture of the world’s most isolated country using the dumbest imaginable stage comedy show. Meanwhile, a simple and goofy expose becomes something else entirely. As it turns out, propaganda goes both ways, and The Red Chapel becomes not only wickedly funny, but also ends up burying the guerilla documentary as a fundamentally dishonest genre.

Meek’s Cutoff
A small band of settlers strike west in search of a new life, and in Oregon circa 1845, they find themselves utterly lost, without water or food. Guided by one of the better-constructed unreliable narrators in cinema, their guide Meek has a shortcut in mind. As they press forward into nothingness, we are lost with them in this wilderness. Lacking in traditional narrative structure or any sense of closure, Meek’s Cutoff is a unsettlingly immersive experience as we join the characters in not knowing whether salvation or death can be found beyond the next hill. Perhaps they will make it, as it is always just a bit further. We must do without a hero or any real guide, just as they do, and have no idea who is speaking the truth. Metaphorically rich and thematically dense, one could see it as a simple treatise on the nature of risk while in the midst; the risk of trusting to fate, the gamble inherent in retaining one’s humanity at the cost of safety, and the payment demanded by ill fortune. In more concrete terms, it is a cry from a nation, once emboldened by Manifest Destiny, that has completely lost its way.

Certified Copy
There are no immutable truths in art, as in life or love – subjective in all ways especially regarding perspective. Straying across subjects about art, authenticity, and how these could apply to men and women, courting and married, now and long into the future, Certified Copy is a brilliant work that does not fit any conventional narrative mold. Part of the way into this feature, an antique dealer and a writer appear to be discussing the inherent value of copies against the original – and then the goalposts are moved in a way that shifts the subject, bringing subtext to the surface, and telescoping time in dramatic fashion. Bold and meditative, and benefits from repeat viewings as the person we are changes with time – as would one’s view of this film.

Life, Above All
A blistering indictment of South Africa’s response on the level of health ministry, government, and society, Life, Above All is a deeply intimate look at the effects of a pandemic that has crippled an entire continent. But never mind the mind-boggling statistics of HIV – this focuses on one family that is being devastated by the disease, but even more so by the malignant actions of the community around them. Belief in magic and curse rules the land, and provides a protective curtain behind which the plague spreads unchallenged. This film deftly addresses the war between fact and superstition, and the proxies that fight on their behalf. There is no other way to deal with adversity of any kind other than head-on, and it can be said that AIDS has been less damaging to Africa than the ignorance that nurtures it.

The Muppets
The visionary creation of Jim Henson is now regarded with nostalgia – but The Muppets make it clear that the show is not over yet. The consummate entertainers unite in a knowing and clever film that is a tribute to entertainment and entertainers. Equally turns touching and hilarious, The Muppets is a fitting way to reinvigorate the stage show and reestablish Kermit and Company. Welcome back, guys.

There are no immutable truths in art, as in life or love – subjective in all ways especially regarding perspective. As the film opens, James (William Schimell) discusses his new book that considers this view. A copy of a work of art has worth, as it can be carefully crafted, beautifully made, and ultimately leads us back the original. One work of art, placed in a museum, is an example; a brilliant forgery of a section of fresco, its origin remained undetected for centuries, and so over time it was considered as great as its source. Elle (Juliette Binoche) attends the book discussion and is intrigued by this author. They meet over coffee, just for a few hours as he needs to be back at the train station for departure. They argue the merits of authenticity in ways that are literate and bleed over into philosophy and personal issues. Elle’s son is present at the book discussion, and their combative relationship gives a hint that the goalposts are about to be moved. When this occurs, Certified Copy becomes a different story entirely. This shift is not meant to logically ‘work’, but to change our perspective, first subtly, then seismically in this thoughtful film.

It is impossible to discuss how this works in Certified Copy without thorough spoilers, so it would be best to see this remarkable film before reading anything that critics babble about. There does not appear to be a puzzle to decipher, nor a sensible plot to follow – director Abbas Kiarostami has something else in mind. This is a free-flowing film about how our intellectual and philosophical ideas intrude on relationships, and how time changes those relationships. Elle and James at first appear to be flirting, though she with greater aplomb than he. His is a reserved way, his intellectual ideas stacking together in ways that eventually appear to be cushions against emotional involvement. When it becomes clear that they are in fact married and have been for fifteen years, this places in sharp relief her neediness against his detached manner. They bicker about his perpetual absence, the difficulty she has in raising their son, as the art conversation mutates into one of marital strife. She complains about her insolent and distant son, his impractical theorizing, and is quick to attribute any of his actions to a lack of caring. Elle is annoying and at times insufferable, but no more so than any person you would live with for a decade and a half. James is irritable and appears ready to bolt at any given moment, given to interpreting actions in fairly useless ways. Their arguments become less meaningful with time, much as most married couples will seem to event subjects over which they disagree, the real reason lying thankfully buried.

As the story progresses, and the sun begins to set, their anger dissipates in a way that portends the end. James’s detachment becomes more evident – he is going to leave her. Love has dissipated for no specific reason, as people grow apart. The train station departure becomes a final goodbye, left hanging in the air at the end as if to suggest there is no such thing as true resolution. Though the unusual narrative structure would appear to be a showy muddle, it is a way to telescope an entire marriage into a single day. The courting, the union, the differences, the finality. Such jarring shift in perspective can be helpful in seeing through the mundane; ask any divorced couple why they separated, and the explanation is unlikely to make much sense barring drug problems or physical abuse. When one dies from a thousand cuts, no single laceration stands out in memory. By focusing the hemorrhage in a single meeting, it all becomes clearer. The rapid character alterations for James and Elle translate to changes that occur over months, and makes a great deal more sense in retrospect. Even so, the things they argue about still make no sense, nor would they to any people on Earth apart from the couple trapped in the relationship. Nobody else can be expected to understand.

Another older couple are introduced during an apparently irrelevant disagreement about the meaning of a sculpture where a man protects a woman. The elderly man (who, as it is insinuated, may as well be his father) advises James that all Elle needs to be happy is his hand upon her shoulder, an easily applied symbol that he is indeed there, and cares. This is the sort of advice that is simple to give, but hard to take, the gulf between the two far beyond his reach. Earlier, James discusses the inspiration for his book, and it turns out to be a woman walking with her son, always apart. She is unwilling to wait, he unwilling to catch up; it turns out to be Elle and her boy. This at first is played as an awkward coincidence, then later an indictment of James’s distance from his own family. As the couple’s marriage ages by years before our eyes, these seemingly unrelated passages acquire greater meaning.

Certified Copy is a work of considerable wisdom, with an intangible quality you can appreciate as art, with intellectual ingredients that remain in the mind long after the credits roll. Viewers who are now or once were married can see something in themselves in the dialogue, those moments to come, and those events long passed, neither of which could have been foreseen or prevented. Or perhaps they could have been, had the union been stronger; one can never know until the memories are distant. There is a detached element to the film that does not deign to paint divorce as an evil; not all couples are meant to be. If anything, most are not. Who will your significant other be a few decades from now? An impossible question, as you have no idea who you will be by then. It is the blindest guess imaginable, and upon it our whole lives hinge. These and other thoughts come to mind after this magnificent film finished, and surely there is more to consider in Kiarostami’s elusive triumph.

Design for Living is, in one, an opening salvo, declaration of war, and funeral pyre for open regard to sexuality in Hollywood. As its title suggests, this is a treatise, a vision by which one can live. There are men, women, and sex, but the cornerstone of this way of life is honesty. Frank, unadorned honesty for all facets of life. In the opening scene, Miriam Hopkins’s character shares the train bunk with Gary Cooper and Frederic March, awakening them both literally and figuratively by placing her legs upon the bunk between them. She is open about admiring them both, wanting them both, and proceeding to sleep with both. There is a fracas, to be sure, but there is a gentleman’s agreement by which they are to share her friendship and no sex will be involved.

This is bollocks, of course, since there is desire in the air and little reason to curb it. She provides them with companionship, and blunt assessment of their career paths. Cooper plays an artist, and she informs him that after appraising his painting with a friend of hers, that friend never spoke to her again (burn). March is a writer of unpublished plays, and while he defends his writing to her, she simply repeats “rotten” until he starts to hear the word (serious burn). Well, they are both terrible at what they do, which is why they live in a filthy Parisian flat and subsist on miracles. Cooper strolls down to the laundry to obtain some clean shirts from the pudgy woman who runs it, “mustache or not”, since he has no money. Still, after they have shared this extraordinary woman, and they acquire some perspective, their fortunes look up. Their work is featured, and success comes from it, in no small part due to her salesmanship and connections in the business world. Such good fortune cannot last, however, as love clashes with practicality, and her insistence on “no sex” becomes more of a guideline than a rule.

The film is filled with droll wit, adapted from a play by Noel Coward, and as directed by Ernst Lubitsch, is briskly paced with a playful ear for dialogue that largely dispenses with the original play of all its contents bar the title. It invited the ire of censors, and despite (or because of) box office success it was later refused a re-release by the Hays Office. As it turns out, decency must be the murderer of honesty, in real life as it was in the film. The Hopkins character is an archetype of a rare woman in film – the liberated. She loves men and has little use for shame, that being an emotion better suited to puritans or the underdeveloped. She has a friend who is devoted to her to the point where he warns the two artistic ruffians to stay off his turf. “You never got to first base, did you?” is March’s sarcastic reply. This friend is made a mockery in Design for Living, as well he should be. He desires the libertine, only to control her, as he should not be the only repressed one. “Immorality may be fun, but it isn’t fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.”  His is a laughable attitude, but representative of the moral guardians who would soon muzzle American film. Lubitsch has no misgivings with making a joke out of this line, later featured in one of the men’s stage plays with a howling audience.

Strange how a film from 1933 remains timely. Even today men and women have the most extraordinary difficulty being honest with each other about what is truly wanted. Cooper and March’s characters have the same problem, as their gentleman’s agreement is trampled upon. Hopkins later admits “I am no gentleman.” Still, the Madonna-whore still corners the market on how men view women, and what is expected from their behavior. A woman like Hopkins would be desired as much as she would be reviled, often by the same person, even today. Lubitsch wished open conflict upon this attitude, as well as the idea that men and women cannot be flexible in love, friendship, and heavy pumping. This is his thesis, and a genuinely great film – his Design for Living.

Genre exercises are a way to conceal deeper motives within film. While we are occupied with the stimulation of basic emotions (action film-anger, horror-fear, romance-stupidity), other messages have a way of sneaking past or leaving a greater impression than if they were fed to the audience in a more obvious fashion. The Quarry is ostensibly a noir drama; a man who remains unnamed is on the run from police, adopts the identity of a priest, and hides in a rural town in the Northern Cape region of South Africa. The film is minimalist almost to a fault, with a lack of any real backstory for the characters. A yawning echo chamber is created with empty space where background details would normally serve as entertaining distraction. During those voids, the mind is left to wander and wonder why any of these people are here. Without plot points to serve as guideposts, the audience projects its own fears and anxieties upon The Quarry, and this is where the film excels. We are drawn along by the spare story and led into the layers of subtext like a vacuum draws air.

The Stranger begins and ends the film on the run; from the very start we know where this is heading, and the vanishing point provides a portent of sustained anxiety. He has no backstory; we do not know what he did or if he indeed has a plan. We know only that he has escaped and does not intend to stop running. As portrayed by John Lynch, he is gaunt, laconic, and a fascinating cipher. He strikes one as a danger, but only by virtue of desperation. He also carries a deeply buried guilt that ties into the strongly religious subtext. On the road he is given a lift by a priest who is on the way to a rural township to replace a departed minister. The ride and gifts of food and cigarettes would seem a kind gesture, but there are no saints here. Everyone has their reasons for what is given and taken. The Stranger kills him and takes the man’s identity; this is not a surprise, as every action seems telegraphed ahead of time in a miasma of dread. He continues to the church where he is taken in and he rests on actual sheets for what appears to be the first time in years. Of course, there is no rest here as the authorities still search for him, his truck is broken into by a thief who learns that The Stranger is no priest, and a sardonic police captain takes an interest in him.

Identity is malleable, and in The Quarry it is clear that Who We Are is not as important as What We Seem. The Man is white, and so receives a certain measure of trust; this is a truism in South Africa then and now. The captain greets the new priest: “I was expecting a Coloured Man.” He responds: “We all are by now, in this country.” Long through its history South Africa has had a rocky relationship with race and identity. From the violent interactions between European colonials and the San/Khoikhoi peoples on the cape and later the Bantu-speaking peoples of the eastern regions, to the Byzantine laws that created the separation of Apartheid, there has been the assumption of white superiority. Whites receive better education and resources as they are expected to utilized them best; they are above reproach. Blacks and the various subgroups designed to keep Blacks, Coloureds, Asians, and Indians at each others’ throats are assumed to be at war with Whites, and this is not really untrue. There is some honesty to acknowledging the tribalism inherent to our human species, but the legal structures were designed to oppress as much as keep separate, and so the results were disastrous.

In The Quarry, the Man is a killer, but is assumed to be innocent with no real discussion on the matter. A Coloured man (half-White, half-Black – the term is in correct use today and has a different connotation from the American term) is blamed for the murder when a body is found, and the evidence is circumstantial, but his color is most damning. This is not unusual, but The Man is seized by guilt in a way that is individual, but is also a commentary on South Africa’s discomfort with its racist past. The Man is an unknown quantity, and so other characters project their own prejudices on him as an audience surrogate; at the same time, we do the same thing, writing The Stranger’s backstory as the movie goes on. Even today, people acknowledge the unfairness about the past without coming to real terms with it. We see the same phenomenon in the United States with Whites and Blacks ever at odds with how to deal with economic and social disparities between race while assuming all is equal after a Black Presidency. Whites cannot deal practically with the circumstances of the past that gave them an advantage, while Blacks cannot come to grips with the ways their culture has been corrupted and become counterproductive. The dialogue is stifled, our mutual loathing becomes a silent, withdrawn geniality.

There is a strong religious subtext to The Quarry, though there does not appear to be an actual God at work. The Stranger is a priest and despite knowing not a word of verse, takes to the task well. He is seen as a good man, and wears the frock skillfully, his sermons fed by his intense fear and guilt draw full crowds. The Baptist Church provides him with a haven, and temporarily forgives him his history, but he is on the run even when stationary. Fate hangs over his shoulder, as expressed by a particularly depressing service quoting heavily from Jeremiah. The police captain is intrigued, and glimpses the shame that bleeds off The Stranger in waves. Still, the guy is a white priest, and must be beyond reproach. This country has deep religious roots, and the relationship the Whites have with God have been useful in both justifying subjugation of inferior races and assuaging any guilt coming from inequality. The Battle of Blood River in 1838 was a retaliatory strike against King Dingane for the slaughter of Piet Retief and hundreds of unarmed settlers who were invited to dine peacefully with the Zulus. When Andre Pretorius’s foray resulted in thousands of dead Zulu warriors and only two minor injuries in his own camp, it was clearly a Covenant with God to dominate this land. Though muted today, these beliefs remain buried close to the surface. It is an uncomfortable history, but religion is both a salve and an albatross upon the people of South Africa. When The Stranger’s church is burned to the ground, it is clear that religion is no longer relevant to where the nation is headed, and provides no protection from the past.

The Quarry was made in 1998, after the collapse of Apartheid and in the midst of South Africa’s economic free-fall. It is not hopeful about what would happen when the inevitable arrived. The Man is destined for a violent end, and this is a commentary on the uncertain future of South Africa. The Afrikaner police captain pursues the Stranger, who is running out of road; a new country is about to emerge from Apartheid, and its history may destroy its hope for a peaceful future. Though the handover of power to the African National Congress was seen as a triumph of reconciliation, thousands died in the political strife during elections, and even today South Africa is effectively a one-party state. A Tswana gentleman once told me that democracy was of dubious value. “One man, one vote means everyone votes for one man.” Economic differences between the racial groups are actually worse now than during the reign of the National Party.

The Quarry has dual meaning. A man is slain, his body dumped in a rock quarry, a common sight in a nation that made its fortune off mining. The Stranger is forever pursued, he is the quarry of the police. A country with an awkward sense of itself is chased by its own history, by fits and starts coming to terms with a past steeped in religion, violence, racism, and acceptance. Lynch gives a memorable performance embodying a nonspecific Man both frightened and resigned, and a symbol well rendered. When he is compelled to preside over a funeral and realizes that he will shortly be presiding over two more that he will cause, he is driven to act. There is no practical way to bury the past. It is in the moments of self-destruction that we as individuals and as a society can move towards a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us. As a symbol, he silently reconciles with the black man who faces execution under a racist system, and they head off together to an uncertain future which may be more honest, but in which nothing is promised.

Growing up with The Muppet Show in my formative years meant exposure to a vaudeville tradition dating back to the 1880s at a time when stage performance was becoming a lost art. Kermit fronted a remarkable host of talent that kind of made you forget they were puppets, with a backstage part of the show that highlighted the work that went into this cultural touchstone. After several feature films of decreasing entertainment value, the Muppets themselves seemed to fade into history, losing their relevance forever. As it turns out, good entertainment is now and always will be relevant. In an ocean of market-tested and thoroughly homogenized products, the Muppets are a seamount that is once again breaking the waves. I never was a fan of Jason Segel, but he is my fucking hero for forcing into existence a Muppet Movie onto a pop culture stage that has forgotten them.

The Muppets is a film wonderfully knowing about the status of its subject, and makes a tremendous running joke about it throughout. The gang has gone their separate ways, Kermit living in obscurity in a dark house that holds him in more than holding intruders out. I may be stretching here, but his estate recalls Norma Desmond’s sans pool toy. Piggy is a fashionista in Paris and distant from her past and her love. Gonzo is a CEO of a plumbing company who so longs to return to show business that he carries a business self-destruct remote on him. Fozzie, hilariously, works the Reno motel crowd in a variety show that is a terrible knockoff of the Muppets that sings chintzy ads for casino mummies. They must unite to resuscitate the show and save their theatre from an evil oil company executive who really should have been played by Nicholas Cage, but instead is done by Chris Cooper.

The emotional anchor of the show, however, is Walter, a muppet who oddly is the brother of Gary (Jason Segel), and feels as out of place with other people as the Muppets in general would feel in the show biz. Gary is drifting away to his girlfriend (Amy Adams) while Walter must be left to his internal struggles. Throughout, the songs are lively, the dialogue endlessly referencing the past of the Muppets and of Hollywood in general, of the artificiality of musicals, and the weird concept of guest stars. At the same time, it celebrates traditions, from the variety show origin of The Muppet Show itself to cliches like saving the whatever from a villain by putting on a show. With a knowing wink throughout, The Muppets celebrates most of all the joy of entertaining the world, and makes a very strong case for why the Muppets matter in an age of TV shows like Punch Teacher (inspired for a tossaway gag). There is no protective shield of smartassed irony or cynicism here; the performers are bare and vulnerable, and they are here to entertain YOU. Anything is open for a laugh, including kidnapping and a barbershop quartet version of Smells Like Teen Spirit (it plays funny as shit, trust me). Even minuscule details, like Beaker working in the Large Hadron Collider provide a laugh for those paying attention.

The experience you have will depend on whether you grew up with the Muppets. Those unfamiliar will be entertained; the children I shared the theatre with had a ball. The adults who felt the tug of nostalgia were transported. Except maybe that rap bit with Cooper. That’s the problem with skit shows. Not everything sticks, but the Muppets are more than willing to toss just about anything, including themselves, at the wall. Welcome back, guys.