Fast Forward

I've been reading some alarming news lately about Netflix's push to do away with their disc rental service. I watch plenty of their streaming offerings, but the catalog isn't terrifically vast by any measure. I'm not too worried that certain titles will become completely unavailable, but whatever the next platform is for getting your hands on titles that aren't available in streaming form, there are going to be some irksome growing pains. All this is to say that I've kicked up the pace on getting through movies I've been avoiding in my disc queue. And that's led to some interesting movie juxtapositions. Normally, I'll watch a movie, let it sink into my brain for a couple of days, then move on to the next one. But with a sudden burst of viewing efficiency, I knocked out an action movie, a drama, and a kids' movie in rat-a-tat succession.

The first was Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which was released in 2011. I haven't been the biggest fan of this franchise, but haven't minded them, either. They're inoffensive action flicks; the last thing I'm looking for them is any sort of complex, coherent plot. This latest one got surprisingly good word-of-mouth reviews, though, so I tossed it onto my queue... Where I promptly started ignoring it, mostly due to its 133-minute running time. I finally forced myself to sit down and watch, and found myself enjoying it more than the previous three put together. What changed? The director, for one. J.J. Abrams is really good at concepts, but can get bogged down when it comes to execution. This movie was Brad Bird's live-action directorial debut, and though the running time is long, he kept it going at an economical pace. This movie has a compact story that actually makes logical sense, and could be followed. There are still gadgets and stunts aplenty, but the plot isn't being wholly supported by people ripping latex masks off their faces every three minutes.

Next up on the stop-avoiding-this list was Martha Marcy May Marlene, which also came out in 2011. I remember Elizabeth Olsen getting raves for her performance when the movie was released, but I wasn't anxious to dive into a tense movie about cults at the time. But no more procrastination! The movie cuts back and forth between scenes of Olsen's character's days living at the compound of a cult she once belonged to, and scenes in the aftermath of her escape, when she crashes with her sister and brother-in-law and attempts to readjust to a normal life. There are a lot of really fascinating themes that are well-developed throughout. Normally, an audience can't understand why a character would want to join a cult, but this movie shows how magnetic a supportive "family" could seem to a lonely soul. And how a "normal" existence can seem empty and pointless. Still, I wasn't as in love with this film as the critical community was. Maybe I would have felt differently if I had seen this while its praises were still thrumming across the internet, but as it is, I found that it crawled up its own ass a little bit. The script is simple and spare to the point of ridiculous at a few points. Scenes of deliberate ambiguity seem to shout "Look how artistic I am!" when straightforward, concrete resolution would have been more effective. There's more to like than dislike about Martha Marcy May Marlene, but I'm not surprised that I viewed it as homework for so long.

Finally, I wrapped up my week of cinematic gorging by catching up with Disney's 2009 animated offering, The Princess and the Frog. I'd been curious to see how the once-powerful 2D animation studio was doing ever since Pixar redefined what a kids' movie has to be these days. I'm not going to go too much into plot, because it's a standard Disney progression of a girl achieving her dreams and true love after overcoming dangerous obstacles. You know the structure by now. But there are a couple of interesting things that set this princess movie apart from the ones that have come before. Tiana is the first African-American heroine in a Disney cartoon, but beyond a callous jab from an unsympathetic character (a jab that will fly over any youngster's head), her race is never an overt issue in any way. Even though the movie takes place in '20s New Orleans, Tiana's best friend is white, and her intended prince is an unnamed European-ish meld (he looks vaguely Hispanic or Arabic). Tiana is also the first Disney heroine who works, and works hard. Sure, Cinderella had to scrub a castle, but Tiana has to hold down actual jobs. Pocahontas notwithstanding, she's really the first heroine who embodies American characteristics, and I really like how it comes off.

The wild and freewheeling nature of Jazz Age New Orleans is incorporated well into the plot, as is voodoo, used for both good and evil. Unfortunately, the music isn't as memorable or catchy as in other Disney movies, but it's one of the strongest stories in the entire canon. And at the end, Tiana may be a princess, but she's still American; no kicking back on a castle throne for her. It was an entertaining movie, and I think Disney did an admirable job creating a modern character with agency and goals that reach beyond kissing a handsome boy, so kudos to them for that.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: B
Martha Marcy May Marlene: B-
The Princess and the Frog: B+

The Pantheon: Can't Hardly Wait

What separates a movie that I simply like from a movie special enough to deserve inclusion in The Pantheon? There are a bunch of criteria, but one of the big ones that can bump a movie into hallowed status is that it's a perfect representation of a particular genre. You'd think a topic like high-school-kids-throw-a-party wouldn't be broad enough to be considered a genre, but there are more than enough entries to consider.

John Hughes naturally ruled the classic era, with iconic party scenes in Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and so on. I loved those movies, but was too young to really relate to the characters. Parties with peers that didn't include parental supervision and birthday cake were still a long way off. Once I became an actual teenager, though, high school party movies took on a new dimension. The '90s marked the beginning of the hyper-precocious teen character, which got overused in a hurry. The idea of how teens act needed skewering, and thankfully, along came 1998's Can't Hardly Wait.

It's tough to recommend this movie to people, not because it isn't great, but because people stop listening when you tell them the "main" character is played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. I know, I know. But hear me out. Yes, Hewitt's Amanda Beckett is an idealized version of the popular girl (mercilessly and hilariously mocked later in Not Another Teen Movie), but she detracts very little from the fun of this movie. The sensitive writer (Ethan Embry) pursues her. The wannabe (Seth Green) pursues sex. The nerd (Charlie Korsmo) pursues revenge. Most of the other party guests are just pursuing a drunken stupor.

EVERYONE is in this movie. Ready to hear who puts in at least an appearance? Lauren Ambrose. Sara Rue. Jason Segel. Selma Blair. Clea DuVall. Donald Faison. Breckin Meyer. Freddy Rodriguez. Eric Balfour. Amber Benson. Jennifer Elise Cox. Jenna Elfman. Melissa Joan Hart. Jerry O'Connell. Leslie Grossman. Jaime Pressly. Peter Facinelli. Sean Patrick Thomas. You really need to have this movie in your back pocket when you're playing connect-the-actor.

Is it a deep, touching sociological portrait of teenage life in the '90s? Hell, no. But Can't Hardly Wait is hilarious, and easily one of the most insanely quotable movies I've ever seen. You know you've got a friend for life if you meet someone who knows what you're talking about when you describe someone as "Kind of tall. With...hair. And wears T-shirts. Sometimes."

Bloodless Chew

Top Chef - Season 11, Episode 5

It's been a busy week, so I'm just now getting around to addressing the Halloween episode of Top Chef, which was terrifying...in that it was a vegan challenge. Vegan plus cheese, of course, because rules are haaaaaaaaard. I don't mean to imply that all vegan food is gross. Some of it is plenty tasty (see below), but it doesn't exactly lead to the most delectable or varied dishes in a stressful reality competition challenge.

Goat Cheese Fondue with Fried Zucchini and Vegetable Ceviche

The chefs gave it the old college try, so stop by What'ere, Jane Eyre to consume Episode 5. No animals were harmed in the making of this episode, except for the eliminated chef. But I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that nobody's losing much sleep over that one.

Fall Movie Preview: November 2013

I always think of the autumn film season as containing the heavy hitters of the year. No matter what I see or don't see, I'm pretty guaranteed to be attempting to catch up on movies released around this time before an Oscar pool lands on my desk next February. So imagine my surprise when I skimmed through the articles about November's movies in the Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview, and found almost nothing to sink my teeth into. Weird! Even the ones worth mentioning below are maybes (or in one case, an outright no). It's been a fairly weak season for both movies and television, but I have no complaints about that - it gives me a chance to finally catch up on older things I've been meaning to get to. Martha Marcy May Marlene, here I come!

November 1

About Time: This didn't make much of an impact on me the first time I read about it, but every piece of internet chatter I've seen since then has made me more interested. It's about a young man who learns that the men in his family are able to skip through time. But this is no Looper-esque thriller. It's apparently a lot more philosophical, and raises good questions about the things in life that really matter to us. I doubt I'll see it in theaters, but it sounds like a great rental.

Ender's Game: This is the outright no I mentioned above. And it's not just because of the loathsome Orson Scott Card, who wrote the book the movie is based on and serves as producer on the movie (though that's the biggest reason). The word "boycott" is thrown around too much these days. I think it should signify an organized group who pledges to avoid a product/service, and encourages others to do the same. Me choosing not to spend my money on any Card-related property is not a boycott. But even setting aside Card's personal politics, I still wouldn't be interested. I'm seemingly one of the few people who didn't really care for the book, I found Asa Butterfield kind of grating in Hugo, and the early reviews of this movie agree that it's fairly bland and generic. At this point, it's got about six strikes against it, and I won't be going anywhere near it.

November 15

Great Expectations: Watching a film adaptation is certainly not equivalent to reading the book it's based on, especially if that book is an enduring classic. However, it can be a good way of introducing yourself to the story, if the film is made well. My only exposure to Bleak House was the miniseries, and here we are at another Dickens masterwork that I was somehow never exposed to in high school. Mike Newell is an adept director, and I'm sure Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes will acquit themselves well, so if this gets any sort of decent reviews, I look forward to settling in with it some snowy evening.

November 20

Her: A lot of movies pull me in simply by virtue of an intriguing premise. In this one, Joaquin Phoenix plays a writer who buys a computer operating system whose voice is so engaging and sympathetic that he begins to fall in love with it. Scarlett Johansson provides the computer's voice, which is inspired casting. Her rasp is half the reason I sat up and took notice of her in Ghost World. Amy Adams and Rooney Mara play the women in the protagonist's life, so it's a solid cast all around. Add Spike Jonze in as the director, and I'm officially interested.

November 22

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Middle entries are usually the weakest points of trilogies, but judging from the trailer for this movie, it'll be plenty exciting. Though I dislike most of the dystopian YA fiction that joins The Hunger Games on the shelves, I did enjoy this series. Some of the casting of the other fighters in this return to the arena has me scratching my head, but I'm more than willing to give the newbies a shot. I still think Lenny Kravitz was a terrible choice for Cinna, though.

Nebraska: I really like Alexander Payne's movies, and this upcoming one has some interesting facets to it. It's the first movie of his that he directed from a screenplay that he didn't write. It stars Will Forte in a non-comedy role. Nebraska is a black and white drama about an old man (Bruce Dern) and his son on a cross-state road trip to collect a sweepstakes prize. Dern has already won an award at Cannes for his role in this movie, and I haven't read a thing about it that doesn't suggest I'll quickly be adding it to the list of Payne's successes.

November 27

Frozen: The characteristics of animated movies that will or will not grab my attention seem so arbitrary. Why does this musical version of "The Snow Queen" appeal to me so much, when things like Turbo and Epic pass by with a shrug? The female leads may provide a clue. In this movie, Idina Menzel voices a queen that has accidentally cursed a land with eternal winter, inspiring her sister (Kristen Bell) to go on a journey to break the spell. I have seen no indications of this movie's quality; it could be be delightful, insufferable, or anything in between. It's definitely on my radar, though. Anyone want to loan me a kid I can pass off as my niece so I can go see it without seeming creepy?

Horror Fanatic

Halloween is my favorite holiday, but as has been well-covered on this page and many others, I can't handle gory movies. It's a total bummer. Thankfully, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining is more about atmospheric horror than guts and torture, so I don't have to have that glaring blank in my film viewing experience. It's a fun movie to watch, but not the one I'm writing about today. Nope, today is all about Room 237, Rodney Ascher's 2012 documentary about the various theories that Shining obsessives have about the film's underlying meaning.

Kubrick was a meticulous director with an eye for detail, so according to the interview subjects in Room 237, there can be no such thing as an extraneous prop or continuity error. Everything must mean something. Is The Shining about mistreatment of Native Americans by white settlers? Is it about the Holocaust? Is it an extended confession that Kubrick helped fake the moon landing footage? Did he plant a subliminal "Fuck you!" to Stephen King in a traffic scene? Each of the interviewees takes one of these tacks, and holds so tight to their perceived solution to a code that only they have cracked that they can't see anything else. The documentary makes some clever choices in outlining these people's hypotheses.

For one, we never see them. All of the theories are explained in voice-over as we see the relevant scene they're discussing. There are no slick editing cuts; at one point, one of the subjects has to step away from the microphone to talk to a fussy child. And although some of these ideas are laughably cuckoo, the film never goes out of its way to either endorse nor ridicule them. At one point, one of the interviewees insists that Kubrick has photoshopped his own visage into the clouds, and Room 237 merely plays the scene without bothering to point out where this supposed face is meant to appear. Needless to say, it's just clouds. At no point does this film ever point out the outlandish nature of the interviewees' claims explicitly, preferring to just present them as-is.

These people are all interviewed separately, of course, and it's amazing to hear how confident they are as their conflicting theories are put forward. After all, this movie can't be about American Indians and the moon landing, and watching the interviewees cherry-pick "evidence" to support their individual arguments is fascinating. That's not to say that nothing of value is gleaned from the interviews. One subject has done extensive work into the architecture of the Overlook Hotel, and points out that it's actually an impossible structure. There are windows displayed in what should be interior rooms. People turn corners that lead to hallways that should be on another floor. This may have been done to amp up the confusion and tension of the movie's atmosphere, or perhaps it didn't enter into Kubrick's calculus at all. What it probably didn't mean is that we're all trapped in a mythological maze that is symbolized by a ski poster on the wall that may or may not look like a minotaur if you squint at it hard enough.

In many ways, Room 237 could be subtitled Confirmation Bias: The Movie. If all you're looking for are scenes featuring multiples of 7, then that's all you're going to find, even if the most important number in the movie isn't one. By focusing so intently on individual elements of the film, these would-be academics completely miss any sort of big picture. So by not verbally outlining any sort of concrete thesis, Room 237 is actually able to put forth a really interesting one: Consider your source.

Room 237: B+

Put a Ring on It

Mood always affects how entertainment strikes us. Something that seems dumb and pointless when I'm feeling grumpy may come off as silly fun when I'm in a better mood. Looking back at Season 7 of How I Met Your Mother, I wondered if I would have been kinder to it if I hadn't been slogging through Serious Life Stuff. Probably not, as it turns out. I've been feeling just fine lately, and when Season 8 became available on Netflix instant streaming, I was happy to sit down and shotgun it.

Nope. It looks like my argument that this show hit its peak in Season 6 is gaining strength, because while Season 8 wasn't actively bad or anything, it never comes close to capturing the breezy tone it had back then. Part of the problem is the well-worn trope of writers attempting to shake up the group by adding a baby. Has that ever worked, by the way? I know that Alyson Hannigan's real-life pregnancy needed to be handled in some way, but including baby Marvin on the show quickly slowed the early episodes down to a crawl. No pun intended. There was nothing about Marshall and Lily's approach to parenthood that we haven't seen before, and I could feel myself glazing over when the episode conflict centered around finding a babysitter or whatever-the-fuck.

I've also never really bought Robin and Barney as a plausible couple, but to my surprise, Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders made it seem a lot more natural. Barney trying to reconcile his horndog ways with his impending nuptials was expertly mined for some snappy comedy, and throwing in Patrice as a possible spoiler to the relationship was genius. That just leaves Ted, and of course, he's still the weak link. I can't really hold that against Season 8, though, since he's been the worst for the past several seasons. I'm not sure how many idiotic grand romantic gestures we're supposed to find lovably misguided rather than asinine are yet to come, but he really needs to stop ruining weddings and job interviews in his quest for The One.

I'm being hard on this show, because it used to be one of the cleverest comedies I watched, and for two seasons in a row, it's tipped into overly-emotional melodrama. That doesn't mean I won't watch the final season when it becomes available to stream. I definitely want to see the closing chapter in these character's lives, and I'm sure there will be plenty of heartwarming moments. I just hope they remember to aim for the funny bone, as well.

How I Met Your Mother - Season 8: C+

Food Morning, Vietnam

Top Chef - Season 11, Episode 4

Man, it's been too long since I've had some good Vietnamese food. It's time. And hey, getting a table at a Vietnamese restaurant should be pretty easy while the World Series is going on. Nobody's catching the game over a bowl of pho.

Vietnamese Barbecue Shrimp with Creole Spice Butter

So if the thought of fish-head soup and black pepper squid draws you in as much as it does me, go check out Episode 4, which is now up at What'ere, Jane Eyre. With fourteen chefs still remaining, it seems like we haven't made much of a dent in this season's contestant pool. But at least I can match faces with names now.

(F)ine Arts

I am not, by nature, a competitive person. I can get a little wrapped up in trivia contests, but other than that, I don't much care whether I win games or contests. If handled well and fairly, though, it can be entertaining to watch other people compete. A lot of reality shows bank on this, but sometimes they really fall down on the whole "handled well and fairly" aspect. Documentary films about competitions tend to put more thought into the process, and generally come off a lot better as a result.

When I read the plot summary of First Position (2011), which involves six kids training for the Youth America Grand Prix of ballet dancing, I was immediately on-board. It sounds like the love child of Every Little Step, and Spellbound, both of which I really liked. Unfortunately, this film doesn't come close to reaching the heights either of those two did. It starts well, though. We dutifully follow these dedicated youngsters as they put themselves through physical and emotional hell in order to have a shot at a scholarship or job offer. Ballet dancers have short careers and must begin when they're young, so none of the kids have much of a life beyond dance; it occupies all of their time and thoughts.

Where the film starts to lose me a bit is the realization that these competitors are all so...similar. One of the great things about Spellbound was how kids from all walks of life were represented, and how their approaches to spelling bees were so vastly different. First Position can never quite separate out its competitors to an appreciable degree. The film tries to get around this by featuring kids of different races. White, Latino, Asian, and Black competitors are all featured. There's a girl adopted from Sierra Leone. An immigrant from Colombia. A kid from a military family stationed in Italy. But despite their physical differences, all of their processes are the same. All of their goals are the same. They all have coaches and supportive parents willing to pour money and attention into their child's aspirations. It's heartening to see, but not especially exciting in a movie that's ostensibly about competition.

The dances are all fun to watch, and very impressive, given the ages of the dancers. There's nothing very attention-grabbing or new - Pina really spoiled me on that front - but everyone is clearly very talented. As we reach the end of the movie, though, it once again loses some punch, and once again, it's because the urgency of the competition is lacking. We've been told throughout the film how the competitors have poured years of work, sweat, blood, and tears into just one opportunity to wow a panel of judges, and how few people are rewarded for that effort. So what happens? Everyone wins. Well, not "wins", but not a single featured dancer walks away empty-handed. Everyone gets recognized in some way, be it with a medal, a job offer, or a scholarship.

If this were a documentary about the stress that children have to go through in order to make it as a ballet dancer, I'd be thrilled that all of the subjects come out ahead. I'm glad that good things are happening for them. But this film is billed as a competition, and if you're going to market your film like that, not everyone can get a blue ribbon and a hearty handshake. First Position won all sorts of festival prizes and is generally regarded as a real crowd-pleaser. Crowd-pleaser it may be, but I'm afraid I can't be as effusive. This is the Hallmark card of documentaries - it's capable of being cheerful and sentimental, but warm fuzzies are pretty much all it has to offer.

First Position: C+

Bitch Craft

People use the word "hivemind" in a derogatory way, and rightly so. Usually. While I'm all about taking hiveminds like partisan political websites to task, there is one area where coalescing opinions tend to help me out. On the entertainment websites I frequent, The Wisdom of Crowds Rule frequently applies. Sure, I'll like things that other people hate, and vice versa, but if the bulk of commenters start talking something up, that means it's worth checking out more often than not. So when Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23 started getting slathered in praise over at the A.V. Club, my interest was piqued. When Netflix added it to instant streaming, it sealed the deal.

This was not a show that lasted long - only 26 episodes. ABC canceled it in the same purge that took out Happy Endings. I mean, why wouldn't they? Gotta make room for gems like Lucky 7! The name certainly didn't help. Beyond involving a mild swear and then taking it back by referring to it as "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23", it simply takes too long to say. I took to referring to it as "Bitch 23", which saves all sorts of time. If that wasn't enough, ABC decided to jumble the airing order of episodes, causing characters to jump wildly in time. It was a mess.

All that said, it wasn't a bad show. It deals with fresh-faced naif June, who moves to New York and becomes roommates with the drunken, pathological liar Chloe, who's best friends with James Van Der Beek. At the outset, the plotlines deal with a cheery June trying to befriend an evilly selfish Chloe. As the show settled, though, it expanded to embrace fun side characters like Eli, the pervy next door neighbor, and Luther, James' devoted assistant. Naturally, with stories like Chloe intentionally sleeping with June's fiancee on her birthday cake in order to expose his infidelity, the show veered into the cartoonish at times, but that's not a detriment. Despite Chloe's psychotic tendencies, she and June do forge a friendship, of sorts, and it was fun to watch their habits rub off on each other.

Did the show deserve the critical tongue bath it got, though? No. It was a perfectly decent comedy that probably would have developed into something even better had it been given more time. As with all short-lived shows, its legend grows over time until it becomes hailed as a perfect entity. Sometimes, I share in that delusion (Better Off Ted, Dead Like Me), and sometimes I don't (Freaks and Geeks, Terriers). Bitch 23 falls squarely into the latter group; it was a pretty good show that made me laugh out loud a handful of times. Sure, it's kind of a bummer that it got canceled so swiftly, but not to the point that we should be rending our clothes or anything.

Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23: B-

You Suck

Two things drew me to Austin Grossman's 2013 novel You before I had heard even the basics of the plot: I really enjoyed Grossman's debut novel Soon I Will Be Invincible, and my sister mentioned that You involved video games. Sold and sold. I dove in with unbridled enthusiasm, ready to enjoy another sharp, witty novel - and giddy over the possibility that it would have a bunch of gaming in-jokes.

Oops. I'm at a loss, here. There's no way to fully explain how stultifying, how pointless, how shockingly... bad this book is. I can't understand how someone who came out of the gate so capably turned around and wrote such a plotless, meandering, wall of stream-of-consciousness text. The fact that it's based in the world of video game production didn't help at all. This book could have taken place at a pie-eating contest, and still been unforgivably boring. I've seen some comparisons to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One flying around, and yikes. While I enjoyed Cline's book, it was not without some problems. Compared to You, however, it's Twelfth freaking Night.

The narrator is uninteresting and unfocused. All of the side characters (save one) are utterly pointless, and the one that has a glimmer of promise is underused. How much more can I really say? It all comes back to the same point. This book is akin to listening someone tell a two-hour story about parallel parking. Dull, dull, dull. Listen, there's no shame in having only one celebrated work; it's a damn sight better than having zero. We think nothing of pasting a one-hit-wonder label on musicians that have only one good song in them, and maybe it's time we started realizing that authors can have the same limitations. If Grossman can bounce back with the next one, great. But I've got only one thing to say to him for now: I hate You.

You: D