Very Bad Things (1998, Peter Berg)

So here's a movie that I have been trying to warm up to since 2002. It's called Very Bad Things, and listen to me when I say that I do not think it's possible for a dark comedy to be much darker than this one. To me, Very Bad Things is among one of the bleakest and most unpleasant comedies I think I have ever seen. Often times I've seen horror movies that have large bouts of humor in them. Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead, Motel Hell, The Frighteners, and even American Psycho are all horror films that blend the humor with the horror in a way that is creative and often times bizarre. However, I think that Very Bad Things is one of the first out-and-out comedies that more resembles a horror movie than a comedy. There are violent scenes in this film that are so grotesque and so disturbing that it almost feels like I'm watching a film like Wolf Creek or The Hitcher than I am a kooky comedy about a group of buddies that turn on one another in bloody and disgusting ways. This film is macabre, it is cruel, and it is a reprehensible movie. That's not to say that it isn't well made or even funny. It is. However, this film's sense of humor, personally, went way over my head. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't really care for this film, but I will admit that, upon my most recent re-watch of Very Bad Things, it is starting to kind of grow on me. Having seen this movie over ten times, I'm starting to wonder if that's really such a good thing. 

The storyline resembles that of a bad sitcom than it actually does a movie. Kyle (Jon Favreau) is marrying his psychotic girlfriend, Laura (Cameron Diaz). His best man Charles, played by Leland ("he made me fuck her!") Orser, and a few of his buddies, Rob (Christian Slater) and brothers Adam and Michael (Daniel Stern and Jeremy Piven) decide to have a bachelor party in Vegas before the wedding. As they party the night away, their booze and drug fueled hi-jinks eventually lead them to their hotel room where they invite a hot stripper/hooker named Tina up for some mischief. Jeremy Piven engages in a ferociously hot sex scene that meant a lot to the twelve year old version of me. Unfortunately, the fun night turns tragic when Tina accidentally gets a gruesome death involving a shower hook. What follows is a series of horrific events in which nobody can stop screaming, characters go completely insane, innocent people are butchered in very cruel and unusual ways, and then Cameron Diaz gets involved and ends up turning an already very ugly situation into an even uglier situation in a way that is rather Shakespearian, at least in my opinion. Nobody has a good time and (very) bad things happen to every single one of the characters. Ultimately, the goal of the film is to try and top itself every time it doesn't seem like it can't get any worse. It succeeds in spades at pulling this off, but in my opinion it comes at the price of the actual humor of the picture. I'm not quite sure what it was about this movie that deterred me so greatly from its ugly material. I love dark humor, and in my opinion a dark comedy should ALWAYS try and go out of its way to push itself to the far corners of human depravity and cruelty. There was just something, however, about this film that is inherently not funny, and I cannot put my finger on it.

Part of my reason for writing this review was to try and figure out why it doesn't really make me laugh, but I've gotten this far into it and I still cannot describe what it was about this film that bothered me so badly. The second death scene in the film (of which there are many more to come as this film's body count actually grows fairly rapidly) sickened and disgusted me, and I personally felt that the scene was not so much as daring me to laugh as it was trying to force a laugh out of me. However, take a look at a similar scene in the movie Shallow Grave, a similarly grisly dark comedy directed by Danny Boyle that involves depraved human beings fighting over a briefcase full of money. There are death scenes in that film that transcend comedy and enter into surrealist territory. Very Bad Things is a film I feel shouldn't have any reason to not transcend to those depths, but for some reason doesn't ever really quite pull it off and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why the hell it doesn't. I thought that maybe its because the events of the film occur so fast, but in reality they don't. Actually, things progress at a similar pace to the 80s dark comedy Heathers, ironically also starring Christian Bale (in fact, that film is even referenced in Very Bad Things at one point.) Heathers was a movie in which the over-the-top situations were only made that much funnier because the scenes of violence were so raw and realistic, and juxtaposing the scenes of humor with the scenes of death and murder made the punch line work so well. David Lynch's Blue Velvet had a similar approach, although that film took a totally opposite tone to the subject matter. Instead of having the scenes of violence and brutality be realistic, Lynch gave the film a suspenseful atmosphere so that, for example, a scene that was obviously supposed to have darkly humorous undertones like the scene in which Dennis Hopper screams that he'll fuck anything that moves before hitting the road with his buddies in a very cartoonish manner was made all the more horrifying due to the disturbing nature of the scenes leading up to it. 

Very Bad Things does all of these things, but for some reason it just doesn't work for me. And no, its not because of the supposed racial implications of the screenplay pointed out in Roger (god rest his soul) Ebert's hugely negative review. In my opinion, those aspects don't exist. No, I have come to the, unfortunate, opinion that the film just doesn't make me laugh because it is (god I hate to use this phrase) not my kind of film. There is something that I just do not find funny about it. It might be the tone, it might be the approach, it might be the characters, it might just simply be all three at once. I don't know. I don't think the movie is badly made in the least. I think its a good movie that deserves the audience that it has, and honestly I don't think it's a painful film to sit through at all. I'll watch it any day of the week if someone wants me to, and I won't mind doing it. I'm just not going to find myself laugh much. I'll chuckle at a few parts. There's a scene involving the proper way to bury a body that I find kind of charming in its weirdness, but I can't really bring myself to laugh at it for whatever reason. Laughter is the best medicine, but I think this film would have worked better as just a straight horror movie. I know many folks who would strongly disagree though. I know a woman who is almost sixty years old, a very sweet and gentle older woman who loves animals and people and children, and she has told me straight on that she saw Very Bad Things in the theater and that it is her number one favorite comedy and one of her favorite movies of all time. This film has an audience, and its audience will always love it. I, however, cannot be privileged enough to be a part of that audience, and I feel kind of bad about it. 

6/10

Tetsuo, the Iron Man/Tetsuo (1989, Shin'ya Tsukamoto)

Tetsuo can best be described as an experience. To say that it is merely unconventional is a very gross understatement. It may be unconventional, but it is gloriously so. But to reduce it to nothing more than a silly cyberpunk's wet dream would not give it the proper credit it deserves. This is a film that doesn't necessarily relish in its very unconventional presentation; it, instead, manages to play out in a 100% straight forward manner without any asides to the audience and asks you to just go along for the ride (when I said ask, I actually meant commands). The result is at times nauseating, at times thrilling, at times horrifying and totally perplexing. It's a film that can't help but vex its viewers, film aficionados or not.

To say that Tetsuo vexed me is an understatement. But it was right up my alley. It combines science fiction elements (the 'metal fetishist' is a futuristic wet dream--or nightmare, whichever you prefer) into a universe that wears influences from the films of David Lynch and David Cronenberg. The imagery is suitably nightmarish and almost desperately frantic; at its peak, the sharp editing is paired with a soundtrack that consists simply of metal clanging together. Through the use of such an inherently basic idea, the director is able to fashion an atmosphere for this tale that is, all things considered, what I've come to call manic oppressive. There's a lot to take in here. The splice from clang to bang to startling image and back to clang again is not for the faint of heart, or for those with weak stomachs. It's hard to not feel pumped up and absorbed, only to find oneself teetering at the other end of the spectrum, into feelings of revulsion and distaste.

The nightmare unfolds entirely in black and white. I daresay, were it in colour, the effect would come across a tad like a cartoon. I believe the use of colour would have overridden its vision. We'd become too absorbed in the spectacle, rather like how the films of someone like Dario Argento have been criticised for their opulent use of bright colours (as one friend of mine put it: 'We'd have The Wizard of Oz on steroids.'). But the spectacle itself must be given its fair credit, for director Tsukamoto succeeds magnificently with what was actually a very low-budget. Watching this film however, how could you ever tell? Tsukamota is the Renaissance Man of this picture: He not only directed it; he was also in charge of principal photography and art direction, was the mastermind behind many of the special effects and we wouldn't have one hell of an editing job without him at the helm. And it's interesting, very interesting, to note just how successfully this film came to fruition with barely any of the trappings that our ever advancing technology has come to afford.

The film's primary theme is the ever present fear of technology. Our protagonist (it's difficult to use that word here, believe me) is a product of the very same ominous world we are introduced to, when the opening credits present us with the hiss, whir, hum, rattle, rock and roar of some rather obtrusive machines. Indeed, they seem to be alive, hellbent on taking over. As always, it only takes one man to get the ball rolling, for better and for worse (mostly for worse). To find one's body morphing to the point where sexual assault is best committed with the aid of one's personal power drill (that image is as unsubtle as it gets) is akin to the sort of body horror that allowed films like Cronenberg's Shivers, Rabid and particularly Videodrome to acquire such rabid fanbases. The industrial horrors in this manic oppressive environment can also be seen at home in David Lynch's stomach-churning Eraserhead. The smoky closeups on a dank environment edging ever closer towards utter ruin are startling. After a while, you become numb, for like a machine, you've come to exist at the point where flesh and emotion are no longer perceptible assets of the human condition.

And after a while, you come to realise that you, like this film, have become unreal. This is truly as absorbing as cinema gets.

9/10

L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)

The success of Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential, adapted from a novel by James Ellroy, has been so monumental that one might neglect to read the novel out of the desire to spare themselves some disappointment (we are talking about one of the most successful films of the 1990s, after all). The novel itself is a rich and multi-layered piece of work; the film captures much of its spirit and is an excellent adaptation, even if it omits quite a few subplots and eschews Ellroy's signature staccato style. Ellroy's nihilistic vision of Los Angeles's devoutly corrupt law enforcement is kept 100% intact--without that, this would be, frankly, nothing.

The biggest reason why Ellroy chose to make crime novels--his own books a significant step above what we've come to define as the potboiler--is because he was affected by crime at a very young age; his mother, Geneva, was murdered in 1958 when the future author was only ten years old. L.A. Confidential's Bud White serves as an Ellroy stand-in; he witnessed his mother's senseless murder at the hands of his father at the tender age of sixteen and has, to put it mildly, gone slightly off the deep end since. With White as a window into the troubled writer's soul, we come to gain a better understanding of the cast of characters and their fixation on what they've come to call absolute justice. The moral dilemmas at the crux of this story are centred around the three main characters--White, Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes--and the brands of justice they've come to see as appropriate. White isn't the only angry soul here, however: Exley's entire existence has come to revolve around calculating each and every move in his swift rise to the top of the police force and Vincennes finds himself at a moral crossroads when debating whether or not to avenge the murder of an up and coming young actor on the wrong side of the tracks. Each man is nearly religious in their need to tear themselves apart and has made a business of doing so their life entire (Ellroy has certainly done so, recounting his attempts to dig up new information surrounding his mother's murder in his 1996 memoir, My Dark Places).

The film is flashy and is very well paced, moving swiftly and adeptly through each new twist and turn, never skipping a beat from start to finish. But because much of the novel had to be compressed, even omitted, to accommodate a respectable theatrical running time of just over two hours (a miniseries would be the best way to tackle each and every plot element, to be quite honest), the events follow a climactic, rather than episodic structure. The novel covers a span of seven years in the lives of these men; the film speeds up this same timeline. It's a virtue of the screenplay that none of the action feels inconsequential. There is a through line in each role: character motivations are fluid, make sense and any arcs are kept intact. Most every character here is a plain old snake in the grass, but you have to admire their devotion to their duties, even if the methods to each individual's madness isn't particularly just at all.

It's interesting to note this key difference in tone between novel and film. Ellroy wrote the novel in staccato beats. The chapters are short, the sentences crisp. The majority of these chapters rarely exceed four pages in length. You blink and then they're gone. It's a busy read, but not a particularly difficult one. It even manages to be somewhat charming in its precision and command of era-appropriate slang. When coupled with the use of a positively gaudy third person narrative, the result is enough to make you want to tap your feet. It's a form of a literal jazz. You find yourself right at home in your favourite smoke-choked tavern. For a novel with a West Coast setting, however, the style is more reminiscent of East Coast bebop and hard bop--fast and distinguishably frenetic--than the more calming interludes in Hanson's picture, which are juxtaposed against a taut, sharp as nails script. The film is moody, even melancholy. Even the palette is made up of muted yellows and oranges (Charlotte Perkins Gilman would approve, I guess). The soundtrack, featuring compositions by such names as Joe Bushkin and Bennie Benjamin, is hearty and impassioned.

Then there are the performances, all of which are commendable. We have, of course, the ever reliable Guy Pearce, in the role that made a name for him outside of Australia (and who doesn't love The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?). His Exley is every bit as slimy as he is in the novel and is expertly concealed underneath a facade that is brimming with charm and even graceful poise; indeed, it is his handsomeness that is most adept at concealing his thirst for titles and promotions. Russell Crowe is Bud White, all mad-dog-rampaging-with-a-heart-of-gold six feet of him. He is ferociously magnetic. Kevin Spacey is cool and collected as the greasy Jack Vincennes. The supporting cast, which includes James Cromwell as the detestable Dudley Smith, Danny DeVito as gossipmonger Sid Hudgens and David Strathairn as the nicest pimp you ever did see, is on point. If the film has been accused of having one blight on its near impeccable surface, it's Kim Basinger and her performance as the sultry Lynn Bracken, a prostitute who has been surgically altered to resemble Veronica Lake. But to claim Basinger is little more than a raving beauty would be doing her a great disservice. She doesn't have the material here to necessarily bite, or even scathe, her fellow performers (as she does so magnificently in 2004's The Door in the Floor), but she is divine in her subtleties. If anything, her Lynn Bracken is the one character with the most internal conflict: The one difference is that she is not above allowing herself to feel warmth, warmth that exists above and beyond any baggage she may carry. She is the perfect foil to Crowe's Bud White, who may possess a soft heart, but is only taught to love and most of all accept, under her watchful eye. Basinger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance: It is not what I personally would have chosen, but it is a worthy and even inspired choice.

When at film's end, Ed Exley watches the calm and composed Lynn (who has by now fallen hard for the wounded, if now more peaceful, White) drive off into the distance, we see just how high the stakes have been. Ellroy described Exley's farewell as one of a man being alone with his dead and true, the journey has been perilous. A lot of blood has been shed (and some bear the guilt more than others). But if justice truly is absolute, then one must push forward with even greater drive and conduct themselves in an even greater crescendo. Whether the body count grows higher and higher is not, necessarily, of great concern. There's always another crime scene to clean up.

This is L.A., after all.

9/10

Roadway for Life That Doesn't Exist/Putokaz za zivot koji ne postoji (2007, Branko Radakovic)

NOTE: This is the second film I've had the pleasure of reviewing for director Branko Radakovic (and the second one that's been a very long time coming). Henceforth, any other future reviews will be a hell of a lot fresher and should, all things considered, follow a far more linear timeline (isn't it funny how much life can get in the way sometimes?).

THE REVIEW:

I suppose you could say what struck me the most about Roadway for Life That Doesn't Exist was its sheer chaotic presentation. True, Good-Bye to Video Tapes! (review here: http://2or3thingsiknowaboutfilm.blogspot.com/2013/04/good-bye-to-video-tapes-2010-branko.html) was very chaotic. It was reminiscent of a music video that combined elements from Kraftwerk music videos and Michael Haneke's The Seventh Continent (I know...whoa.). But if a videotape has a shelf life, first manufactured before sent off to shops and then promptly purchased followed by how ever much time until the tape itself begins to unwind or sunlight wreaks its havoc on the print, then what must it be like to never even see the light of day at all?

Is it a purgatory? Do we float about aimlessly, neither here nor there, forever on the fringes of a life that could have been, gazing through mirrors at our potential reflections?

Is it an all consuming blackness? Do we just stop, waiting, ever fearful, that with that one tick of the watch, we'll peter out and eventually die, a victim to each passing second?

Or do we just walk, walk until we find a crossroads, an intersection, another map highlighting different routes? And what must it be like when the direction becomes entirely inconsequential? Wouldn't that mean the life that inhabits those shoes is inconsequential as well? To even mention the word 'abortion' could open a big can of worms, but as Mr. Radakovic himself puts it,

These are the last moments of utter confusion for a being that has not even begun to live...being in the uterus, which has life and guidelines, but thanks to others, that will is taken away...it is aware of the need to live, but at the same time, it knows that it will be destroyed.

Certainly this vision could be described as inherently abstract. And I urge readers (and viewers) to look a bit between the lines. It can do art a great disservice when simply relegated to political factions, particularly when the art itself might not necessarily have been made for political means. And while every interpretation has its merits as long as its properly supported, the public need to classify has sent many a writer, many a painter, many a vocalist, many a filmmaker, into the depths of artistic and social ruin.

What if life has ceased to exist for the living? And shouldn't we pity the living as opposed to the dead, for it is the dead who are truly relieved from all their concerns? And what of the dilemma of bringing a child into the world when one feels aimless, or when one feels their child could become a victim of the many trappings of society, where the ease  to slip into a life devoid of contribution is tempting, even thrilling, for some? Becoming a parent is scary business! Mr. Radakovic became a father not too long ago himself:

Like David Lynch in his private life, I did not want to become a father, but I thank God now that I raise my son...that I will be a father, it was disturbing to me then, but at the same time, that relieved me to dare, finally, to make the film, freely and spontaneously.

Serbia itself (along with the rest of the Slavic countries) have often been derided in the media for constant political upheaval; I still don't know what to do about the problems in other countries and how can we say that our leaders do, let alone their own? But the willingness to live is the first step to success. Chaos and confusion find themselves distilled in the presence of those with the desire to believe in something other than waste and disappointment--to grow accustomed to such, to grow to expect it can be dangerous.

But in every life, there is hope. I can see that roadway shimmering brightly. It's out there, somewhere. Fitzgerald himself described it as the orgastic future stretching out before us, so close...yet so far.

But one has to try, no?

7/10

Mysterious Skin (2004, Gregg Araki)

NOTE: Only a moment of inspiration from a friend stopped this review from languishing in the drafts section and eventually in the trash section for the last year and a half. Who would have thought?

I subject myself to Mysterious Skin at least once a year. The film is, to this day, one of the few films that affected me on such a profound and personal level. I saw a lot of myself in Neil, perhaps too much. This recognition allowed my very first viewing to be riddled with painful catharsis; but Mysterious Skin is, above all, a story about healing. Its subject matter is only for those in possession of a strong stomach. And if you've tried, in vain, to find a film that tackles the subject of sexual abuse intelligently and sensitively, then you can quit your search. This film is the real deal.

CONVERSATION BETWEEN A FRIEND OF MINE AND MYSELF:

Friend: It's one of the few movies that I think is near perfect.
Me: Which is hard, for you, no?--Since you're such a perfectionist and all.
Friend: I'm hard to please.
Me: I know you are. You mentioned not being too impressed with Silver Linings Playbook and our company stared at you like you had a flesh eating virus.
Friend: And you'd like to hear why I like it so much? It's because it's so well translated and I've read the book multiple times. The way they handle Eric isn't, you know, to my exact tastes, but that's a tiny complaint. It's a great adaptation.

And of course it is. Director Araki leaves his mark on the film--he expertly, almost hypnotically, breathes life into Neil's first encounter as a child with the man who'd become the model for all his other sexual conquests, if not necessarily his relationships, but is able to do so in a manner that is tastefully rendered. The abuse itself adheres to the powers of suggestion and all that is implied is crystal clear thanks to uniformly great performances from the cast, who approach the material with great respect, even gusto, fully aware that what they are accomplishing is no easy feat: They are giving a voice to material that, until the film's release, was considered practically unfilmable.

And while Araki manages to make the story's content absolutely filmable, he is more than well aware of the sheer level of discomfort that any viewer would experience (how can your stomach not begin to lurch at the way Bill Sage's Coach looks at young Neil with a combination of longing and something that almost resembles respect?).

AND BACK TO US:

Friend: And then there's the way you can feel Neil's--how do you describe it?
Me: Satisfaction?
Friend: Yes! That's it--satisfaction at being able to connect. Because he knows, even if the abuse isn't, exactly, comprehensible to him, that he's found a level of understanding.
Me: And many young victims will rationalise until they feel safe; there's this denial that they were ever victims in the first place.

Which is why Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance as the tortured Neil is one for the ages. Levitt is a wonderful actor, but he has yet to hit this peak again; I daresay he's still waiting for the right role. His Neil has grown accustomed to straddling the line between 'normal' and being no one other than 'himself' for so long that he's bursting at the seams with resentment, resentment only his closest friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) is allowed to see. And as she tells Jeffrey Licon's Eric in one pivotal scene,

Once I'm gone, you'll be all Neil has and you have to understand one thing. Where normal people have a heart, Neil McCormick has a bottomless black hole. And if you don't watch out, you can fall in and get lost forever.

Neil is a tragedy in the making, used to concealing his deepest pains and regrets under the guise of the cocky, ball-busting hustler persona he presents when out cruising. But even his sexual experiences can't go off without a hitch; there is the scene where he feels Richard Riehle's Charlie (more specifically, Charlie's teeth) get a bit too close for comfort (shortly after this experience, he discovers that he has crabs) and the scene where he finds his assurance contested by a client (John Ganun) who cannot believe the gall of a young teenage dunce who doesn't even bother bringing, let alone using, his own condoms. He is the opposite of Brady Corbet's Brian, who is aware that something terrible, something that cannot be rationalised, happened to him as a child and who has graduated from being a hypersensitive youngster to an awkward high school nerd whose sensitivity can be felt resonating in every second you spend staring into his sad, blue eyes. As Levitt's polar opposite, Corbet hits similar heights (and his success playing this shattered soul has allowed him to succeed playing other tortured, even morally ambiguous characters on the indie circuit this past decade). Not a drop of the pain these characters inhabit feels at all inorganic or forced. And with Araki at the helm, their moral dilemmas, as well as their desire for peace, are communicated brilliantly, without a second's misrepresentation of the message at hand.

The film benefits from a beautiful soundtrack (and never before has the music of Sigur Ros been used to such devastating effect) and beautiful cinematography that captures the blankness of the Kansas landscape to chilling effect. Yet the film unfolds slowly (in layers, much like an onion) so that the bleakness of the location doesn't hit home so powerfully until you've been watching for quite some time (unlike a film like, let's say, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, which is horrifying to watch precisely because the location is exactly as empty and draining as the characters claim from the second you have your first look at it during the opening credits). There is also excellent support from Mary Lynn Rajskub as a young woman who believes she may have been abducted by aliens (and who serves as Brian's first introduction into the sad truth that may be his life; Rajskub is almost ethereal in her presence, existing in a space where only her feet are reminded of her existence on this earth, which is exactly how her broken Avalyn seems to live, if she even lives at all. The biggest surprise for me, interestingly enough, is Elisabeth Shue as Mrs. McCormick, who does what a great actor is able to do: communicate so much with only a glance, with only the simplest of gestures. Mrs. McCormick knows that something happened to her son, but she can't seem to put her finger on it. And if she has, then the prospect is too frightening for her to admit. The love she has for her child transcends any of her past mistakes--the scene where she holds on to her son at the bus station before he boards his ride to New York, where she breathlessly whispers

You'll always be my baby. Don't you ever forget that.

is astounding in its raw power. This is truly one of the great unsung 'background performances,' one that manages to assault the gut with a subtlety that often goes unnoticed.

I think it's time for me to revisit this film again.

AND BACK TO US:

Friend: I didn't know you were such a fan.
Me: There's a lot people don't know about a person, wouldn't you agree?

10/10

The Quiet American (2002, Phillip Noyce)

NOTE: I am reproducing a paper I wrote recently that was a critique of both Graham Greene's novel as well as the film. It was quite fun to write, even if the entire semester has left me with a relentless desire to punch myself in the head (MAKE IT END, ALREADY!). So, in the meantime, while I continue to work on filling out job applications, I'll leave you all with this. Enjoy!

THE REVIEW:

Graham Greene's The Quiet American is the story of Thomas Fowler, an opium addicted war reporter (for to be a correspondent would imply he's far more involved in the Vietnamese conflicts than he'd personally care to be) who has resigned himself to dying in Saigon. There's a wife back home in England you see, but there hasn't been a spark there for years. Fowler's fears of old age and infirmity are sedated in his relationship with the lovely Phuong, a possession he must fight to keep when Alden Pyle, the American of the novel's title, becomes fixated on her himself.

Pyle, Fowler believes, is little more than a prattling fool and, he muses sadly, "I might have saved all of us a lot of trouble, even Pyle, if I had realised the direction of that indefatigable young brain" [17]. He is young and considerably naive, lacking the wisdom and insight to see just how his very presence threatens to catapult not only Vietnam--but the trio of Pyle, Phuong and Fowler himself--into social ruin. Fowler is publicly direct if quietly cerebral; his personal reflections on life on the opposite end of the world, a life which bemoans the input of men like Pyle, men who are "young and ignorantly and silly" and who are ordered, without a practical notion in their heads for they've no experience other than what they've read in books, "to win the East for democracy" [23], were instrumental in attaining The Quiet American a reputation bordering on sheer notoriety for its profoundly anti-American stance; Fowler represents logos in the novel's romantic triangle. He spends much of the story speaking bitterly, recounting, almost wistfully, the tale that led to the mess directly in front of him. He feels personally threatened by Pyle's youthfulness, if not his intelligence. Fowler, who could boast plenty of the latter attribute, spends much of the novel in an opium-induced haze, which makes many of his stances and arguments, if compelling, rather unreliable.

What then, of Phuong? We know that she is young. We know that she is beautiful, beautiful enough to incite a tug-of-war between the two men for her affections. But the character of Phuong, who represents the ethos in this story, has been criticised for being precisely that: simply a body with no mind to grant her a true purpose. It was only through our in-class discussions that I began to seriously consider Fowler, who appears to possess enough brain for the two of them, and his state as an unreliable narrator. It was in precisely these same discussions that I was reminded of just how successfully the Vietnamese left their enemy forces at a severe disadvantage after supplying each man with enough opium to fall a horse. Just how much does Phuong truly care for Fowler, or Pyle for that matter then? She does move out--and quickly--when Fowler is caught in a lie regarding his wife's potential divorce by Pyle, who tells Fowler very explicitly that "She can survive a dozen of us" [124]. How convenient that a creature so adept at survival in a country as torn apart as hers could find company in the arms of two men with precisely the sort of connections, the sort of information that could send rival forces of the Vietnamese to their knees. Phuong just might be the story's most unlikely opportunist, but more on her later.

The ethos, or spirit of this novel, lives and dies entirely with Pyle. What he may lack in practical life experience, he makes up for with considerable passion. Passion begins with his almost religious devotion to the writings of York Harding and the rise of the "Third Force," worthy of "fanatic gleam" [17] and ends with his knifed corpse found floating in a nearby canal. Unbridled passion is what propels him to capriciously declare himself in love with the ever compliant Phuong while effortlessly calculating all the correct ways to court her and eventually win her heart (a romantic but silly notion in the lawless East). Pyle's belief in the greater good is what he believes grounds him, even if to others it may seem he has his head permanently stuck in the clouds. It is Pyle's spirit that permeates the entirety of this novel. It is the driving force between Fowler, an older gentleman loaded down with his own personal baggage and Phuong, who is, in Pyle's eyes, a victim of circumstance, someone who, by sheer accident of birth, is worthy of being saved, whisked away to a democracy and taught the ways of civilisation. His ideals may not survive, but they've permanently affected Fowler, who is complicit in the man's death. He does say, after all, "that everything had gone right with me since he died, but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could I say I was sorry" [180].

Phillip Noyce's 2002 film adaptation of The Quiet American is a fine film indeed. Its high production values allow it to boast a certain authenticity; there is an almost surreal (opium-induced perhaps?) beauty in the lush locations and a keen understanding and correlation between time and place. Therefore, we easily accept Michael Caine as the curmudgeonly Thomas Fowler with his political have's and have not's and none of Fowler's intelligence, nor his midlife crisis exacerbated by Pyle's (Brendan Fraser) romantic inclinations towards Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) is lost in translation. Fraser has always struck me as a performer accustomed to coasting through roles but this film boasts one of his better performances. His Pyle is slick, even slimy, at times, but Fraser's knack for playing the "hapless everyman" (see Bedazzled or the lesser Dudley Do-Right) is appropriate here--hardly ever has there been a person as out of place in a room as Pyle in the scenes where he professes his love to Phuong (insistent, all the while, that Fowler accept his public displays as those of a gentleman about to woo a lady). Fraser is believable; his wide eyed innocent gaze makes him look like he's dropped in from another world, which is exactly what the "Third Force" megaphone Pyle has done to begin with.

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise here is the way Noyce approaches the scenes with Fowler and Phuong. These scenes oftentimes feature an aroused, if affectionate Fowler accepting a pipe of opium that Phuong so graciously offers. The way the camera lingers on Yen's face is ominous; there is always a subtle beat. The score diminishes ever so slightly to a key somewhere in the appropriate minor and Yen's eyes are brought into focus: There is little love in them, if any, at all. The way Yen delivers the line "What does he do?" to Fowler shortly after meeting Pyle for the first time seems more calculated than anything. If a body is a vessel, then Phuong is using hers precisely for her own devices; perhaps she was written so blandly because Fowler could not possibly be aware of her ulterior motives.

More often than not, the triad of logos, ethos and pathos is used to illustrate a group of characters and how they are suddenly, for better or for worse, thrown together. But the film of The Quiet American, much like the novel, is about people who couldn't be any farther apart in upbringing, ideals and aspirations. If the "American" of the title is a stranger in a strange land, then Fowler should get in line to hop on the next plane out.

8/10

247°F (2011, Levan Bakhia)

I sort of stopped working on JOKE REVIEW OF THE MONTH when real life intervened and took me away from writing for a good while. At the moment, I am a student praying for the final three weeks of the semester to fly by quicker; and still, there is nothing that fries the IQ down to room temperature than a film like this one. I think it'd be fun to list off some reasons, so let's start, shall we?

1. Nothing goes on. And I really do mean nothing when I say 'Nothing goes on.' Three boring little twits are locked in a sauna by their mean little prankster of a friend and they spend the final hour of the film doing nothing but crying and bitching to each other. No more and no less.
2. There's a subplot that never goes anywhere involving Jenna (Scout Taylor-Compton, of Rob Zombie's  Halloween fame) and her trauma over having survived a car accident that killed her last boyfriend. Being in the sauna makes all those bad memories come back because burning to death in a sauna is totally the same thing as being crushed into itty bitty pieces by an incoming tractor trailer. In all seriousness however, this plot line is inadequately constructed and doesn't appear to follow any sort of through line. Jenna comes across as merely annoying because contrary to popular to belief, sticking a 'tortured past' on Random Character #1 does not a good character make, nor does it provide for good writing. And sure, while this film is appropriately low-budget, a little bit of effort could go a long way. I've seen other straight-to-video horror flicks (take 2001's Slashers, for instance) that defied their nonexistent budgets and that managed to simply be entertaining rather than all out frightening because it was evident that the writers were bringing their creativity to the table (and if you've seen this film, then you know that the death scenes are pretty epic; effective and disheartening, which is quite the achievement when you notice how terrible the performances are). As such, everyone here, especially the traumatised Jenna, is cookie-cutter to the point where it's painful.
3. There's another subplot that adds absolutely nothing to the film involving the uncle of the main character and how the two of them cavort about after the bitter nephew locks his friends up in the sauna because...because...because...why, exactly? Oh, probably because he's a douche, but that's a whole other story altogether because if you want to see his motivations explored, then you better make your own film because Levan Bakhia is too good for that.
4. Where is the conflict? Did it escape the sauna before they did? Where's the thinking, the planning? Where are the actual arguments that stem further than, simply, I need to get out of here! When a film is 2.5 parts concept with the remainder being actual execution, you know you're in for something terrible. It doesn't help that the other two actors (Travis Van Winkle, aka Quintessential Blonde Jock from the 2009 Friday the 13th and Christina Ulloa, a fellow graduate from the B-school of Acting) are devoid of charisma whatsoever; the attempts at chemistry are futile. Their dilemma is stilted; their relationships are equally as inorganic (thus, any attempt at conflict would yield similar results). It just doesn't help that the action (however little there may be) is continuously crosscut with scenes of the fourth wheel friend partying it up--NEWFLASH: We don't care.).
5. The ugliness of the film is apparent. Technically speaking, the film is disappointingly average, so it makes sense that this would only be found in the bargain bin at your local retailer (right next to such American classics as The Hive and every Sci-Fi (oh, I'm sorry, I meant ScyFy) channel original movie to come out in the last decade. I suppose you could give it a couple of points for cinematography, but we are, after all, talking about a film that can't make the prospect of burning to death in a sauna claustrophobic or even interesting for that matter. When everyone is harmed by nothing other than their own terrible stupidity, then you know that the levels of laziness that went into writing the script must have charted straight up into the stratosphere.
6. That poster is the most disappointing poster ever. Payoff 54, Where Are You?

This is yet another film that sensationalises an apparently true event (it reportedly happened in the country of Georgia, where this was filmed and where the filmmakers are actually from) but true events don't necessarily make for captivating films. In real life, the culprit who locked his friends into the sauna claimed to not have remembered that he'd locked them in after waking up the following morning (lay off the reefer, my good man!) and thus proceeded to search for his companions elsewhere.

And something tells me that would have made a far better film.

3/10