SUPER 8: One of the Most Romantic Films of the Year

Since it’s Summer release in 2011, no film has been more indicative of its own downfall than J.J. Abrams’ SUPER 8, a cinematic valentine to its film’s co-producer, Steven Spielberg that is distractingly disguised as a sci-fi thriller and is quite simply, a motion picture placebo. If one were to brand and market said placebo, an apt name for the ineffective product would be “Déjà Vu”. Rife with homage to the filmmaker, it’s hard to discern whether the film is being self-referential to the 8mm film format in its moniker or whether it’s Abrams’ way of highlighting ‘eight’ (more or less, but it appears he miscounted as there are more) of Spielberg’s ‘super’ bodies of work, most particularly: JAWS [#1]; CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND [#2]; POLTERGEIST [#3]; E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL [#4]; THE GOONIES [#5]; “Amazing Stories” (Season One, Episode One: “Ghost Train”) [#6]; EMPIRE OF THE SUN [#7] and JURASSIC PARK [#8].

From the perspective of cinematic equipment, namely a tripod (notice its skewed point of view reflected in the film’s poster), as well as its appearance as a three-legged war machine in the sci-fi classic (and Spielberg’s 2005 re-boot), WAR OF THE WORLDS [#9], Abrams’ film-within-a-film likewise falls flat in an uncompelling fashion under the strain of such weighty adulation for his Amblin mentor and fellow producer - - much like the young filmmakers’ tripod collapses during the visually remarkable train crash and pivotal centerpiece in SUPER 8. In order to understand the crucial significance behind this cataclysmic sequence and why it was filmed over one year in advance of the film’s release date requires going back quite a few years.

Spielberg has said that his earliest childhood memory which impassioned him with his love of filmmaking was Cecil B. DeMille’s THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH that features a disastrous train wreck [see #6] created in the heyday of Hollywood crews’ skillful production of models, pyrotechnics and special-effects movie magic. Of the six children in SUPER 8 to first witness the catastrophic head-on collision of the pick-up truck derailing the multi-car Air Force train which unleashes an alien creature, it can be surmised that Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is the biographical construct of Mr. Spielberg, who, as a hobby in the film, creates and paints model train cars (later used during the staged train crash over the film’s closing credits) much like Steven did during his youth: Exhibit A | Exhibit B | Exhibit C

Watch the train crash in SUPER 8. At the very moment the pick-up truck’s two pairs of wheels merge with the track within striking distance of the trajectory of the train (just as Klaus [Lyle Bettger]’s vehicle did in DeMille’s film), the doomed lovers in Charles’ (Riley Griffiths) 8mm zombie film, “The Case”, utter the lines, “I love you so much’ and ‘I love you, too” moments before a shower of explosive, animated steel and debris surround the filmmakers as if they’re evading enemy gunfire in Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN [#10]. It’s curious that The Cars’ “Bye Bye Love” is playing in the soundtrack en route to the location-shoot at the train station - - could this perchance be Spielberg intimating ‘goodbye’ to the special effects filmmaking techniques of yesteryear, at once, so dear to his heart, as we enter the fully-digital arena of the 21^st century or is it simply an attempt at foreshadowing through the characters’ dialogue their fateful goodbyes? My money is on the former.

SUPER 8 has quite a bit to say about the act of looking. Like an adept filmmaker who is able to anticipate a problem on set, notice how Joe (initially tasked with being a grip and makeup artist) looks over his shoulder and is the first to be aware of the potential destruction about to befall his young friends. There is even a hollowed reverb element in the sound design to accentuate his close-up gaze of the oncoming disaster in the vein of the visually unsettling dolly zoom (or “Hitchcock zoom”) in VERTIGO or Spielberg’s use of the effect in JAWS. However, “The Case” is not Joe’s film. The film’s enthusiastic director, Charles, like J.J. Abrams, is strictly in it for the “production value” and focuses his tunnel vision on documenting his shot unable to foresee the damage about to come his way. Likely crowding his vision is Abrams’ penchant for lens flare which would’ve gotten a filmmaker fired in the good ole’ days of the Hollywood studio system.

It might be more significant that Joe is the sacrificial ‘lamb’ as the film’s youthful protagonist. The other characters and elements that permeate SUPER 8 seem to attract to him much like the emptied train cargo of mysterious, magnetized cubes which pull towards each other for reasons yet unknown. Just as Elliott (Henry Thomas) was initially ignored by those in his orbit [see #4], by the climax of E.T., after he forms a connection with an alien botanist, he becomes the central focus of attention towards which his peers gravitate. Similarly, Elliott’s family unit is broken by the exit of a parent (his father, a consistent theme in Spielberg’s work). In Abrams’ film, the Lamb family experiences the tragic loss of its wife and mother from an accident at the town’s steel mill. If it weren’t for the alien being escaping its steel prison cell of the train car and wreaking havoc on the fictional town of Lillian, OH, the death of Elizabeth Lamb (Caitriona Balfe) was already responsible for sending shockwaves through the tight-knit, mid-western town.

Strangely, the action that unfolds seems awfully familiar and starts to resemble a cinematic town full of filmic neighborhoods we’ve visited before. When the kids aren’t borrowing their parents’ automobiles, they get around with the assistance of their trusty bicycles [see #2, #3, #4, #5]. The military occupies the town of Lillian (named after Abrams’ grandmother) [see #1, #2, #4, #7] in an effort to cover up a government project which involved keeping an alien being captive as people are inextricably snatched [see #1, #2, #3, #8] by a nearly-unseen, tentacled beast who is pilfering various appliances [see #4] to construct its spaceship (aided by those cryptic, shape-shifting cubes). Unmanned automobiles in a used car lot {perhaps a nod to USED CARS [#11]?} spin out of control [see #3], levitate and magnetize to the spacecraft for additional ballast before the creature uses it to depart its water tower launch pad towards an extra-terrestrial destination at the fascination of the film’s surviving onlookers [see #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 ………. ].

Ordinary kids pitted in Extraordinary situations … Joe (SUPER 8) and Barry (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND) share striking, ‘70’s similarities.

Steven Spielberg is one of the most recognized, respected and strategic film directors in the world with entertainment properties valued in the billions of dollars. He has either mentored or (executive/co-) produced films by such directors as Frank Marshall, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante, Matthew Robbins, Kevin Reynolds, Todd Holland, Phil Joanou, Brad Bird, Barry Sonnenfeld, Michael Bay (who, coincidentally, was also known at the age of 13 to have a fondness for blowing up his train set and filming it with his 8mm camera), Peter Jackson, D.J. Caruso, Jon Favreau and others. In some of these relationships, Spielberg has humbly foregone the screen credit either for financial/political reasons or more assuredly, because he was passionate about the project and wanted to solely be its cinematic benefactor. To have such a prolific cinephile with a deft hand in his/her ring would surely be any filmmaker’s delight. Even upon Stanley Kubrick’s passing and after many private conversations on the craft of filmmaking and collaborations on the film which Kubrick stated was more suitable to Spielberg as it was “closer to his sensibilities”, Spielberg directed the ambitious A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

J.J. Abrams and his many ‘easter eggs’ (here, Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD) … Not seen on the wall is Charles’ other poster for John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN which takes place primarily in Haddonfield, IL. Haddonfield, NJ is the home town of the film’s producer/screenwriter Debra Hill - - as well as Steven Spielberg's home when he was a child.

Many of the aforementioned filmmakers have succeeded/are succeeding in their own right because of their individual creative, stylistic voices and the emotions they evoke in their respective audiences. Unfortunately, the young filmmakers’ inside references to George Romero in their construction of a low-to-no budget zombie horror picture in SUPER 8 are overshadowed by Abrams’ direction of his film in which “The Case” exists: a 112-minute master class on the essential cinema of Steven Spielberg.

Alexander Pain-ful’s, “The Decadence”

Despite the film’s gorgeous tropical vistas of the Big Island and its lushly photographed, Pacific-kissed and sun-blessed archipelagos, complemented by wall-to-wall Hawaiian folk music typically equated with relaxation and warmth, Alexander Payne’s THE DESCENDANTS is no cinematic day in paradise. When Phedon Papamichael’s camera isn’t capturing sumptuously picturesque island-soaked skylines, the film has a lot of weight in familial relations and shows how characters are inter-connected, most particularly through financially vested interests in an ancestral trust. And if it wasn’t for the “The” in the film’s title, one might think the film was entitled, “Decadence”, for its gluttonous excess of Hawaiian beauty and parallelization of moral deterioration. Entitled is a fitting word. Payne’s tropical tragi-comedy dramatizes that purveyor and haole land baron, Matt King (thespian ringleader and the consistently glib and ever-smug, George Clooney), oversees a trust that owns 25,000 acres of prime Hawaiian real estate in an impending sale to a commercial owner who will blight said land with hotels, franchised stores and various and sundry tourist traps. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, King’s wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), is on life-support following a devastating water-skiing accident whose mortal decline counterbalances the meteoric rise of the financial sum expected from the sale of the Kings’ land investment. As the hereditary woes escalate in Payne’s pictorial paradise, each of King’s flawed archipelagic family members and close friends exhibit signs of arrested development and unlike the visually arresting backdrops on which they’re projected against, their actions in the film just aren’t pretty.

Nearly the entire cast is portrayed as vulgar, vitriolic, eccentric and depressive - - its adults and their children - - and ironically, the longest smile and the film’s most thoughtfully happy instance comes complements of Elizabeth King just moments before she succumbs to her accident-inducing coma. The adults lead a lazy existence with a foundation based in wealth management as they don shorts, flip-flops and casual wear in corporate settings while the children harbor an entitlement that they feel they can hurt those around them by texting injurious messages to fellow classmates, flipping people off, engaging in excessive name-calling, entangling themselves into their parents’ affairs, etc. Their respective futures appear destined for failure unlike those of their forebears who struggled and triumphed in their endeavors and provided the fruits over which the contemporary King clan labors. The film’s most potentially authentic emotional moment appears and in Payne-ish fashion, is crushed in a swell of sarcasm and obscenity when Troy (surfing guru, Laird Hamilton) directly connected to Elizabeth’s accident, tries to pass along his warmest regards and nearly looks as if he’s going to break down when King and his youngest daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller), brush him off. The authenticity of this moment is intensely and dramatically palpable yet is immediately destroyed giving way to scenes of relentlessly bad parenting, inappropriate slang words for a woman’s vagina (repeatedly uttered by young girls no less) and introductions of characters so incredibly kooky and ill-mannered that their presence seems like an excuse for a chuckle. Therein lies the double entendre of the film’s title - - THE DESCENDANTS - - whereas the King family descends from ancestral Hawaiian royalty, Payne charts a coarse course into a contemptibly immature realm which consumes all who are connected with the King fortune.

Decay and deterioration of communication (paralleled with the decomposition of Elizabeth’s mortal body and soul) exists between family members and dear friends which seem to serve as recurring punchlines rather than sharp examinations of human nature. Sensitive familial ties as fragile as these literally hang by a thread which seem destined to snap at any moment. THE DESCENDENTS is over-crowded with so many dysfunctional moments that it’s any wonder the King family finds any resolution to the number of problems which swirl around them and are yet to appear in their fictional futures. They can rest easy in knowing there is a financial safety net secured by the struggle and heartache of their ancestors to brace their descension into further depths of despair. Payne’s microcosmic view of humanity is distorted. What is especially troubling is when this brand of dark humor and dramaturgy draws laughs and sympathy from moviegoers. Thankfully, this has been isolated to a few floating islands in Mr. Payne’s paradise which is indeed very troubled.

Although there is more harmony in the film’s use of traditional Hawaiian music than between the film’s characters, the soundtrack has an adverse effect with regards to the accompanying visuals and actions that unfold. Similar to Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE employing a soundtrack of Calypso music, the music’s mood utilized in THE DESCENDANTS has a contradictory effect and becomes monotonously jarring, despite the few instances of diegetic music, for instance, where a Hawaiian band is playing in a dive bar.

The elder King, father-in-law, Scott Thorson (Robert Forster), is naïve to the fact that his “good girl” and “devoted”, “faithful wife” to Matt, has been having an affair with another man and treats her with compassion and dignity which is most becoming of a father. Upon his lips approaching his daughter’s mortal cheek for the last time, Matt, his daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and her simpleton beau, Sid (Nick Krause), peer into Elizabeth’s hospital room from the hallway to watch humanity be exhibited, albeit through a small, sliver of an opening of the door. King hasn’t the slightest inclination of the meaning of fatherhood as he consults those in his network of family and friends (even his eldest daughter, Alexandra) for advice. He even refers to himself in voiceover as a “back-up parent”.

This proves one thing: when faced with mortality, the cast of characters move about the screen in a harried fashion. Matt runs several blocks in flip-flops to the delight of sheepish audiences not accustomed to such behavior out of the mega-star which is delightfully pretentious when he could’ve simply driven his car resting idly in the driveway. And his nuclear family goes on their own bounty hunt for the man with whom Elizabeth has been sleeping.

Even Hawaiian and pop-cultural icon, Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman, “Dog the Bounty Hunter”, makes a brief appearance via his television program of the same name. This is a trope that King follows when he goes on his own mission to seek out and serve his unfaithful wife’s suitor, Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard). Imagine a bumbling, middle-aged “Magnum, P.I.” leading his own brand of Keystone Kops or Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade donning flip-flops and casual fatigues as opposed to his fashionable suit and sans a legitimate private investigator license. (Ironically, Clooney’s portrayal of Matt King physically appears casually fatigued throughout the film.) Upon seeing the motley crew of modern-day gumshoes stealthily seeking out Speer, the image of them comes across as more of a family outing to dinner and a movie rather than an impromptu manhunt.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that a responsible father would prefer to engage in such activities on his own rather than having to involve his youngest children and explain any potential repercussions likely to occur. Although the hunt for Speer serves no financial bounty for King and Company, it is eventually revealed that the hunted Speer will come into a bountiful sum of money if King’s trusted ancestral estate is sold to Speer’s commercial employer. Herein lies the conundrum: when pitted between choosing to sell the land or not, this will make Matt’s immediate family filthy rich and bestow a huge commission to Brian Speer in the process or King can maintain the dignity of his descendants visualized in the obligatory scene when Matt literally shines a light on photographs of his ancestors as he opens the seemingly long-closed shades in a cottage tomb of relics, framed pictures and keepsakes of his family.

Sadly, it is Elizabeth who insists through her Will that she be removed from life-support if there seems no chance of recovery and her body isn’t able to keep. This document thereby becomes the second instance of legal trouble for King to overcome; a gross contemporary representation of bodily maintenance compared to what King’s ancestors had assuredly implemented for their own well-being. It just seems quite value-less when one has to involve power of attorney to avoid spoiling like milk, as King’s father-in-law, Thorson, puts it. The duration of the film depends on Elizabeth hanging on for dear life, just as she clutches onto her small hand towels, so that those close to her not only have ample time to pay their final respects, but have the opportunity to offer forgiveness and/or right their wrongs with the soon-to-be-departed. It is therefore especially chilling when King vehemently curses her imminent corpse as he comes to grips on his inheritance decision knowing that she has been unfaithful to their holy bond of marriage.

The film shows that mortal death is inevitable. Robert Forster’s portrayal of Scott Thorson doesn’t look too far off either. Whoever oversaw his make-up and decor really made him look dreadful. (It didn’t seem so long ago that he knocked one out of the park in JACKIE BROWN as skilled bail bondsman, Max Cherry - - that ball is still soaring overhead.) THE DESCENDANTS not only shows the face of death by way of Elizabeth’s mortality, but also magnifies and inspects it on numerous occasions and when it takes on another form after cremation, the film comes to rest on its post-mortal ashes as they’re shoveled into the Pacific Ocean to descend the Polynesian depths. Elizabeth’s face is an image that is multiplied many times over in a child’s photography assignment at her elementary school. Its cooling visage is even applied with makeup. There is something terribly wrong about all of this.

On the other hand, George Clooney’s Matt King, though living and breathing, is utterly emotion-less with a consistently gravelly inflection. When he’s portraying happy, it appears to be sarcastic. When he shows anger, it still appears facetious. At once, when the script calls for him to be overcome with sorrow, his expressions of grief and anguish are wooden and just plain sad.

The film will unequivocally cater to mainstream audiences in the nation’s blue states; which is interesting, because one might deduce the correlation of first-generation Greek, Director Alexander Payne’s cultural affinity for the color, blue. Ironically, it was in Ancient Greece that there was a lack for a word for blue. Yet it has since become the prevailing and national color of the Hellenic nation (as well as a repellant for evil spirits and flies). Likewise, Payne’s films (most particularly evident in SIDEWAYS and THE SAVAGES) have slyly garnered an attraction to those audiences of a socially aware, liberally elitist, granola nature.

Were it not for the exalting imagery of the Hawaiian setting, THE DESCENDANTS appears as if it was contrarily produced and shot on a shoestring budget. The mise en scène of the various residence interiors, Alexandra’s private school, the hospital and adjoining beach venues exude a feeling of “on location” and look as though the film crew just happened to show up to film the respective environments. Coupled with this is an inordinate amount of close-ups, specifically in the exchange between King and Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges). At the pivotal point when Hugh reveals the connection between Brian Speer and King’s ancestral investment, one close-up here would have been more effective. Instead, a monotonous series of close-ups ensue that are both uneven and makes one wonder if Payne shot the scene in this manner because he was in short supply of background extras the day of the shoot.

In the surf laden atmosphere of Hawaii, perhaps it would’ve been to Payne’s benefit to hang ten - - of his fictional cast of characters - - whose depressive and ultra-distressed existences make THE DESCENDANTS look more like a BLUE HAWAII. Come the finale, the King family sits down to ice cream (ala Marc Forster’s MONSTER’S BALL) perhaps to soothe their exacerbated tummies of the mutual stresses they overcame prior as they watch Luc Jacquet’s documentary sleeper, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. If Payne is trying to relate the treacherous journey of the (emperor and female) penguins to that of King’s similarly “ancestral” breeding ground, then that is a further insult to the viewer - - quite frankly, the journey of the penguins is more arduous and exciting and portrays a more stable vision of parenthood despite the harmful elements that swirl around them as they help strengthen and develop their young.

DRIVE: Scorpio Descending

"Making a movie is casting a spell."

Kenneth Anger

Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s neo-noir/road movie hybrid, DRIVE, stunningly captures an enchanted ‘80’s cosmos amidst a decaying asphalt desert of Los Angeles by displaying his cunning abilities as a maestro - - or magician- - capable of harnessing music, visuals, symbols, sounds and employing essential film references and genre devices to be used at his command. As the film opens from darkness, a directive is being uttered by Driver (Ryan Gosling) in the form of an incantation after a revving engine is heard in the distance through an atmospheric night time ambience while burbling notes arise from the soundtrack which summon images of a sorcerer’s cauldron filled with a bubbling brew.

There's a hundred thousand streets in this city. If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place, I give you a five-minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes, then I'm yours, no matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that, and you're on your own. Do you understand? Good. And you won’t be able to reach me on this phone again.

As the sequence unwinds, the camera slowly sweeps through Driver’s domicile, at first, focusing on a marked-up map of Downtown Los Angeles followed by Driver surveying the L.A. cityscape out of an apartment window. Emblazoned on the back of his jacket is a golden scorpion which seems to take on the significance of a supernatural totem. As he speaks to his client over the telephone, an intermittent burst of neon glows under his white jacket as if he were standing over a fire-burning kettle simmering a glowing, pink potion.

Driver (Ryan Gosling) begins to stir the pot … and cast his spell over the City of Angels.

When coupled with the schematic diagram of the city streets, it appears as if he is performing a cinematic incantation over the city and fashioning its landscape to his wishes or, at least, projecting onto the city a series of specialized escape routes he is about to maneuver in his trusty, steel steed. Either way, some kind of sorcery is indeed stirring.

Navigating through the city’s gritty arteries, penetrated by glittering neon and sparkling traffic lights, takes on a spectral, otherworldly quality. As Driver takes refuge in the mobile, womb-like sanctuary of his automobile, while being bathed by green, red and sepia-colored light, other cars and street lamps pass by him like fleeing phantoms and surges of electricity in a modern, yet, retro-noir terrain.

Upon arriving at a pre-determined rendezvous point, he meets a pair of crooks cloaked in dark clothing who are about to perform a heist and it is revealed that Driver is their hired wheelman responsible for their getaway. The five-minute countdown begins and Driver initiates the stopwatch feature on his wristwatch while donning a pair of Gaspar 2204 driving gloves echoing the predominate use of gloves of this type in the decade of the eighties. No modern conveniences like digital timepieces or cellular devices are employed. Driver triggers a walkie-talkie connected to a police band and along with him, we wait, in anxious anticipation. He also flips on the car radio just in time to catch the remaining fifteen minutes of a professional basketball game in the nearby Staples Center which will parallel the suspenseful intensity of Driver eluding the authorities (by land and air) in a cat-and-mouse chase traversing the highways and byways of the City of Angels. Pulling into the Staples Center’s parking structure moments after the local Los Angeles team proves victorious, Driver successfully ditches the car and walks out of the structure unscathed as scores of fans seemingly cheer along with him at his momentous escape from justice.

What we come to know about Driver is the following: above all else, he drives, but beneath his restrained exterior, he’s a man of few words who speaks softly and carries a big stick; he spends his days performing stunt work for the Hollywood film community, but mostly works in a garage; he moonlights as an anonymous wheelman on heists and never works with the same client twice; he has no name to speak of; he doesn’t smoke, but has a fondness for bracing toothpicks between his lips; he’s focused, skilled with his hands and a man of his word; Driver is at his most optimum strength when he is behind the wheel ofan automobile - - it seems to magically recharge his lifeblood; he switches cars as quickly as he does his outfits/identities (mechanic, stunt man, cop, cold-blooded killer, guardian angel) and he doesn’t have any partners. However, his credo against forming partnerships changes when he enters into a relationship with a neighbor in his apartment complex with whom he becomes smitten, Irene (Carey Mulligan), who has a young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos), to whom he offers a token of goodwill, a toothpick.

Extra-diegetic music enters this stage of the soundtrack that not only punctuates Driver’s connection with Irene, but underscores what they might be feeling for one another, complemented by energetic, synth-pop notes reminiscent of the ‘80’s; songs like “A Real Hero” by College featuring Electric Youth

And you have proved to be a real human being and a real hero; A planet on a cold, cold morn’; 155 people or more; All safe and all rescued …

and “Under Your Spell” by Desire,

I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I do nothing but think of you. You keep me under your spell…

the latter of which expands on the film’s affinity for spell casting.

The film posters for DRIVE and RISKY BUSINESS exhibit a stylishly ‘80’s font with a penchant for automobiles.

But, historically, all good spells must have a treacherous counterpart. Within one week of their burgeoning relationship, Irene’s husband, Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac), enters from the wings (supporting the film’s symbolic myth of angelic purity) who has been let out of prison on good behavior. He immediately becomes a friend of Driver and is far from sinister, however, his release from redemption unleashes the wrath of his former associates, Nino (Ron Perlman), a Jewish gangster and purveyor of a local pizzeria; his henchman, Cook (James Biberi) and Cook’s loyal subordinate, Blanche (Christina Hendricks). Nino’s business partner and Driver’s reluctant nemesis, Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), gradually counteracts the potency of Driver’s magic.

Obtaining the opportunity to act outside of the comedic box from which many are familiar with his performances, Albert Brooks is no stranger to violence. His earliest film role was as Tom, a campaign worker in a New York City Senator’soffice in Martin Scorsese’s, TAXI DRIVER, where the film’s “ticking time bomb”, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) sees it as his duty to clean up the polluted mean streets of Scorsese’s vision of New York City through violent vigilantism.

A major influence on Scorsese’s filmmaking and an obvious reference to DRIVE is Kenneth Anger’s experimental short film, SCORPIO RISING. It also contains little dialogue (actually, none), religious symbolism, a noticeable pop soundtrack, a ritualistic worship of automobiles (namely, motorcycles in Anger’s film) and those that drive them as well as its most dominant symbol - - the scorpion - -which is branded on the back of Driver’s jacket. As Driver zips up his jacket, he keeps his back to the camera and takes his time in the zipping motion giving the viewer enough time to linger on the image of the jacket and take in (fetishize) the potentially cult-status (and rebel-like torso) of Gosling in his role of Driver. Incidentally, Anger said of his film that “Scorpio is the sign of the Zodiac that rules the sex organs and machinery.” Similar to the characters that populate Anger’s film, Driver and Shannon (Bryan Cranston), Driver’s employer and trusted business counselor, work religiously on the automobiles at their Reseda Boulevard garage when Driver isn’t taking one of their prized beauties out for a spin. Upon being wounded in the film, the aptly named Doc (Russ Tamblyn), operates on Driver in its repair shop as if it were a hospital. Shannon, an arch priest in the vaulted church of his sacred garage, along with Driver, make up a religious order of customized car manufacturers. Developing the motif of angels at work, while repairing a car part in his apartment, Driver’s circular desk light hovers over his head like a halo, perhaps, symbolizing him as a guardian angel.

Bernie Rose, on the other hand, conjures up thoughts of one who has a sharp, thorny nature. Stabbing and eviscerating his enemies with jagged objects and razorblades is his signature technique, much like whipping into one’s adversary like with the stinger of a scorpion. A former film producer in the ‘80’s, this wildly uncivilized behavior may stem from one (or several) of the plots of his string of action B-movies he produced which he tells Driver his critics thought too European, yet which he immodestly claims were terrible. During the process of DRIVE, as enemies stack up against Bernie and his temper heightens, not only does blood sloppily begin to spill as it did in his ‘80’s schlock, but DRIVE, likewise, explodes into a hybridized star burst of genres, yet maintains its neo-noir veneer.

As if Refn’s vision of Los Angeles weren’t grim enough, Bernie brings about an ominous cloud of darkness over everyone in Driver’s orbit. These include both Irene’s family and Shannon, the latter of whom calls Driver “special”, admits to exploiting his talents and does everything in his power to maintain their personal and working relationship. But feeling double-crossed after a heist gone horribly wrong at Driver’s expense, Bernie cuts Shannon down to size with a straight razor. Immediately after meeting Bernie for the first time, Driver appears in a successive shot asking Benicio, “Is he a bad guy?” Whether or not he’s truly referring to Rose or to the cartoon they’re watching which features a shark (also an animal with sharp, pointed protrusions), is ambiguous, but one thing is for certain: Driver’s casted spell over the plane of the city is wearing thin.

Contrasted with Driver’s offering of a toothpick to Benicio, Cook gives the boy a bullet to hold onto and orders him not to lose it. And at one instance, when Irene jokes with her son by sweetly calling him a monkey, Bernie, in another part of the film’s universe, vehemently calls Cook a monkey, along with another expletive with great, damning effect. Bernie also matches Driver’s use of statistics when he explains there are roughly two thousand heists in the city of Los Angeles per year, some of which he may be personally responsible for. The setting of DRIVE in Los Angeles, California, specifically in the context of the Western United States, pays homage to and has an undeniable reference to the western film, most particularly, George Stevens’ SHANE.

Driver’s first appearance and back-story, like Shane’s (Alan Ladd), is ambiguous and he eventually resides in the same apartment complex after meeting the Gabriel family where he engages with them in a communal fashion just as Shane did at the home of Joe Starrett (Van Heflin). Both Driver and Shane spend valuable time with the young son of his respective parents. Sexual tension between Shane and Joe’s wife, Marian (Jean Arthur), also exists between Driver and Irene. The placement of the principal characters at their first meal together in the Starrett home resemble that of the first meal that Driver shares with Standard, Irene and Benicio in their apartment.

During their meal, Standard recounts how he first met Irene at a party and when he introduced himself as “Standard”, she quipped,“Where’s the deluxe version?” and gives a brief, yet longing look at Driver. (Just as in Kenneth Anger’s short film, KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS, where The Paris Sisters’ song, “Dream Lover” is featured, Driver, himself, is a custom car commando/aficionado and the possible object and “deluxe version” of Irene’s affections.)

References to the western film continue to abound: as Shannon soups up Driver’s getaway cars and stunt mobiles for the movies, at one point, he reveals how he dropped in three hundred horses under the hood. In the film’s daylight hours, storefronts (the pawnshop) and restaurant interiors (Nino’s Pizzeria and the diner where Irene works) all share a similar stone décor resembling a stone tableau one may have seen in abundance in the Los Angeles desert. After Bernie washes his bloodied blade clean in his modest apartment, he sits down to relax in his living room chair adjacent a movie poster called “Slinger”, quite possibly, an abbreviated form of the predominately used term in typical western fare: “Gunslinger”. One characteristic that the featured cast in DRIVE share with those in SHANE is that they’re good with their hands, whether they’re customizing or modifying a car in a garage, wielding a blade and a hammer or pulling shotgun shrapnel from one’s body. And just as it’s illustrated in SHANE, there is very little gunfire that is passed (less than ten shots) between characters. But when it is present, it explodes at a deafening pitch like thunder. And in time, Driver may also share mythic status similar to that of the “Man with No Name” character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western pictures in his “Dollars Trilogy”.

As soon as the ingredient of greed enters the seething mixture of Nino and Bernie’s recipe for destruction, the city and its inhabitants are vectored into a subversive state of decadence and bloodshed. When Driver repeatedly pounds Cook’s hand with a hammer in a strip club and then threatens him with a hammer and nail to his forehead, several nude strippers breathlessly sit by and stare and resemble frozen mannequins who no longer seem to know how to react to such violence. Another scene of intense bloodletting exists when Driver and Irene share the film’s longest and most passionate kiss in an elevator (along with a male passenger on Nino’s payroll) and moments later, is gently guided to another side of the elevator so Driver can pummel Nino’s henchmen’s head to a bloody pulp in the opposite corner. In this respect, DRIVE starts to verge into the territory of grindhouse and the splatter film in its excessive stabbings, slashings and physical destruction of the human body complements of its B-grade producer, Bernie Rose.

In Driver’s fateful confrontation with Bernie, they face off, two scorpions with blade-like precision, orchestrated with their dueling figures in shadow, as their writhing, silhouetted torsos are projected onto a sun-baked parking lot. Their struggle escalates, but it becomes indistinguishable who will overtake whom. Enter a wink to the slasher film, notably PSYCHO, when Driver sits in the seat of his car, (potentially) mortally wounded and stares off into the distance as Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) had done in Hitchcock’s classic slasher. As the camera crawls up Driver’s bloodied torso, into his face, several beats pass until he finally blinks. (This echoes to two earlier scenes when he engaged in a light-hearted blinking showdown with young Benicio.) Unfortunately, Marion Crane never blinked again and shares a similar fate with Bernie Rose. By simply sitting in the driver’s seat after his struggle with Rose, Driver looks as if he is being imbued with some kind of magical energy (or fuel) and seems to be recharged as soon as “A Real Hero” returns from the extra-diegetic ether of the soundtrack. Driver sees the end of his way of life which parallels Shane’s final words:

I gotta be going on. Man has to be what he is. He can’t break the mold. I tried it and it didn’t work for me. There’s no living with a killing. Right or wrong, it’s a brand and a brand sticks. There’s no going back.

By the finale, a man of his word, Driver sticks to his guns and does what he does best behind the wheel of any car he can manipulate: he drives - - into the dark corners of a constructed city he thought he understood - - which may or may not be potentially supernatural - - guided by a superior, innate driving prowess. And as director Refn’s spell disintegrates, so, as we’ve seen, the city begins to crumble; first, into decadence, then, into darkness from where the film originally entered. Chances are, Driver will be fine. As his former employer and mentor, Shannon, once spoke of his skills, “You put this kid behind a wheel, there's nothing he can't do.” That’s his character! And in a final nod to SHANE, Driver heads off into the dark unknown as his magical lifeblood trickles from his body - - and Scorpio descends (?) …

CONTAGION: Sick Degrees of Separation

And on the Second day, director Steven Soderbergh divined a plague. His cinematic creation of the destruction of the human race complements of a lethal fomite contagion, however, is far from biblical proportions and from the outset, is more appropriately a low-budget hyperlink film with a digital gloss. Each sequence of the film is hosted (literally) by a character who may potentially play host to a virus that impacts the visual chain of events that follows or precedes it. Whether or not a character resides in San Francisco, France or Hong Kong makes no difference as in some way, shape or form, will act as a catalyst with others in the global network care of a virus which consumes its prey faster than Fed-Ex or Pings that are transmitted on an Internet Protocol. In the realm of hyperlink cinema, CONTAGION is a multitasker’s delight; imagine IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD stripped of its comedic elements and featuring just as many stars as in the heavens whose respective actions commingle, converge and collide with one another in horrifying, feverish, paranoiac fervor. In the film’s first five minutes alone, Soderbergh subjects us to various propositions of how the unexplainable and seemingly unassailable pandemic is transmitted: through human contact, sexual intercourse (STD), the flu/common cold and/or fomite contamination. And quite unexpectedly, for the duration of Soderbergh’s latest cinematic experiment, an audience member assumes the role of a willing participant included in the Petri dish of the movie theater along with the neighbors, cultures and bacteria that might be lingering and festering in its dark surroundings.

Since the release of his debut feature and sleeper hit of 1989, SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE, Soderbergh has consistently tread a fine line between mainstream commercial filmmaking and low-to-no budget cinema. In so doing, he has strategically managed to satisfy both studio heads at multi-million dollar entertainment conglomerates and audiences with a voracious appetite for art house cuisine while multi-tasking behind (and often in front of) the camera and shuttling between the roles of writer, producer, editor, cinematographer and director. Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC, an instant classic about the global war on drugs replete with an inventive, color-coded composition and a tension-inducing, handheld, guerrilla filmmaking approach (yet distributed by a major studio) balanced by a truly effective ensemble cast, exhilarated critics and cinephiles alike and may, quite simply, be the filmmaker’s masterpiece as rumors begin to swirl of his imminent retirement from the craft.

CONTAGION, on the other hand, sneakily introduces a war on communication, most particularly, the social network, in which we are currently engaged in both our waking moments and sleeping hours. And just as an exchange of information, if it is potent enough, may be transmitted from one source to another in the social network at an accelerated rate where it succeeds in becoming viral and trends to the point of becoming extensively popular, Soderbergh hypothesizes that a hybridized infection, likewise, can either spread directly or indirectly at an alarming capacity until it absorbs our lives and the fabric of our global society. It’s an ambitious concept and bloggers, tweeters and the mainstream media are caught in the crosshairs. Contagion, the term itself, originates from various meanings and translations for “a touching, contact”, “communication of disease” and “the transmission of disease from one person to another”. With the breakdown of communication comes the collapse of social mores and customs such as talking to and touching others and as the film’s taglines insist, “Don’t talk to anyone” and “Don’t touch anyone”.

The film’s production company, Participant Media, endeavored to create a social action element to engage its audience ‘participants’ in viral preparedness, but I think that Soderbergh’s motives are more elusive and that his attempts are to denigrate the ever-moving procession of social media in all its guises, be they Twitter, Facebook or Google+. So where there’s the strain of mutated animal DNA compounding the disease in Soderbergh’s film, there exists the strain of being contaminated by relentlessly invasive social media portals. In an interesting twist, Soderbergh affiliates the menace of the airborne pathogen with potentially injurious pharmaceutical corporations and the investment community whose ulterior rationale may not be to immunize but to weaponize and whereas an antidote to the virus is concerned, to monetize. The cold gaze of these bureaucrats at the subsequent media being relayed to them via television of the momentous discovery, likely in advance of a vaccine, coupled with the apathetic configuration of their placement around the model boardroom table, speaks ominous notes. Meanwhile, as residents of the world engage in quarantine and disengage from contact with one another, others desperate enough in seeking fast-tracked recovery, sacrifice common human decency by raiding pharmacies around the globe for a homeopathic remedy called Forsythia rumored to be successful in warding off the contagion. This alternative cure is eventually exposed as a placebo peddled by a false prophet, Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), who delicately juggles social relationships with crooked investors in the pharm industry along with his followers on Twitter and online readers in the blogosphere.

One character who ignores the online chatter is Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) who might be likened to Robert Neville, author Richard Matheson’s lone survivor of a vampiric pandemic in his classic horror novel, “I Am Legend” which (at the time of this review) has not only been adapted to film on four separate occasions, but was the inspiration for George Romero’s 1968 seminal zombie film, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

The Legend of the Last Omega Man on Earth

Although not necessarily an ‘Omega Man’ warding off vampiric infestations, Emhoff is surrounded with societal unrest and disorder and in a way, is pardoned from the plague because he doesn’t want to socialize and would much rather stay behind closed doors and keep to himself. As he strives for privacy, notice how his daughter, Jory (Anna Jacoby-Heron), continues to use her cell phone to text SMS messages with her boyfriend, Andrew (Brian J. O’Donnell) and in one instance, tempts fate and risks sharing the plague by kissing after making dual snow angels in the single-digit cold Minnesota weather. On multiple occasions, Mitch tries to annul the kids’ relationship, once going so far as to fix Andrew in the sights of the double-barrel of a shotgun. Even more significant is how the patriarchal Emhoff is seemingly immune to the virus which gripped his wife, Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), supposedly, the second carrier of the virus and their young son, Clark (Griffin Kane). For inexplicable reasons, Mitch has built an immunity to the virus just as Matheson’s hero, Robert Neville, convinces himself of his insusceptibility to the global plague because he was bitten by an infected bat (bearing a thematic similarity with the climax of CONTAGION) as opposed to another diseased human being and survives his daily life by locking himself in and riding out the storm of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles in the prison of his own home.

Soderbergh may be urging us all to embrace privacy. As demonstrated in his 2002 re-boot of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi epic, SOLARIS, at its core, is about one man alone on an island of his own thoughts. Scientists aboard the space station hovering over the oceanic planet of Solaris would much rather mingle with their respective ‘guests’ (loved ones who they each left behind in their past on planet Earth who are reproduced by the sentient powers of Solaris’ waves) than each other. As Mitch fondly looks at pictures taken on his dead wife’s digital camera, he whimpers with remorse for her and, just as the suicidal/dead wife, Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk), had been resurrected by the power of her living husband (Donatas Banionis) Kris’ thoughts being beamed to Solaris creating a reproduction of her presence on the space station, Mrs. Emhoff is ‘resurrected’ in non-linear fashion on Day One in Macau just long enough for us to see how Soderbergh’s virus was initiated. Arriving at the film’s climax, the reveal of the virus’ origin is exposed as likely a propagandist element warning corporations of their invasion of the natural world and the consequences that follow - - for it is Emhoff’s mining company responsible for disturbing a jungle, which unsettles a banana tree safe housing a nest of bats, one of which is a carrier of the disease who jettisons its half-chewed morsel of banana into a horde of hogs awaiting slaughter - - a cinematic domino effect that leaves a disrupted global discourse in its wake amidst a Solarian-like sea of Purell hand sanitizing lotion.

Always a bridesmaid … always distasteful.

From top to bottom, Director Paul Feig’s BRIDESMAIDS is a coarsely disjointed effort that relies on the success of its jokes (which come across as one-liners dispensed at an evening of mediocre stand-up comedy) and the ability of its Writer/Producer/Star/Maid of (Dis)Honour, Annie (Kristen Wiig), to carry the film on her shoulders. In Wiig’s defense, as an alum of the Groundlings sketch comedy theater as well as a “Saturday Night Live” veteran, she makes for an impassioned headliner who seems at ease in carrying out a legion of uncomfortable improprieties. For one thing, BRIDESMAIDS immediately seems like an inappropriate title for the film given the fact that it commences with Annie and her on-again, off-again beau, Ted (Jon Hamm), engaging in over a half-dozen sexual gyrations in the first tenth of the film sprinkled with interspersed grunts, demands and other sounds of salaciousness. What is the purpose: to show how agilely kinky they are or unhesitatingly unsettle the audience - - because, and with no intention of sounding like a total prude, is it terribly funny or just graceless? At least any educated (or not) viewer could instantly anticipate the comedic awkwardness of THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN upon seeing its Writer/Producer/Star/grown-male protagonist curled up in his sheets in the opening shot of the film awaiting the buzz of his 7:00 AM alarm in a bedroom populated with STAR WARS and “Mystery Science Theatre” ephemera, action figures and a ball cap adorned with the image of Jack Skellington. Unfortunately, the joke’s on Annie as Ted deceitfully asks her to leave his plush pad whilst cunningly leaving the door open for future trysts. However, that his motorized driveway gate is literally closed prompting Annie to not only scale it to exit, but also engage in the walk of shame, reinforces the fact that she’s perpetually behind the eightball.

Annie has hit the bottom (and never seems to reach the top) of her personal and professional endeavors because of her consistent bad-life choices and inelegant remarks she shares with those in her orbit. That’s not to say that those in her network are more well-behaved than she, quite the contrary. Each character is distinctly branded and fulfills their abject personas whether it’s Annie’s mother (the late Jill Clayburgh) reciting objectionable commentary from her AA meetings or Annie’s invasive, British roommate Brynn (Rebel Wilson) pouring a bag of frozen peas onto her back to soothe the pain of a recent Mexican worm tattoo curving around her fleshy middle or Annie’s fellow bridesmaid, Megan (Groundlings alum, Melissa McCarthy), shamelessly admitting upon their first introduction that she’d “climb’ Annie’s Mistaken Fella (Hugh Dane) ‘like a tree”.

‘Pretty in pink’ these girls ain’t - - at times, they’re not so much crude as they are downright cruel. It’s when Annie addresses a brusk, young female customer in her jewelry shop with the universally reprehensible four-letter “c” word does her boss, Don Cholodecki (“MADtv” veteran and Groundlings alum, Michael Hitchcock), permanently dismiss her from his employment. Annie’s temper tantrum at the gift-giving ceremony provoked by her jealousy of fellow, upper-crust bridesmaid, Helen (Rose Byrne), is wickedly over-the-top as she initially criticizes those responsible for its event coordination followed by her personally destroying the French-themed (‘her idea’) regalia at the bridal shower. The film also dips into the bowels of scatological humor with a bit of retching thrown in for good measure when the girls and the bride-to-be mix upset stomachs due to badly prepared Brazilian food with the sterile surroundings of an upscale wedding dressmaker shop. But in all seriousness, is there anything more detestable in mainstream cinema than Rob Reiner’s classic “barf-o-rama” featured in his STAND BY ME?

Fashioners of contemporary comedies seem as if they’re constantly trying to out-do each other by inexhaustibly pushing the level of raunch to new heights - - or shall I say, lows. It now seems so very long ago that screwball comedy mavens like Carole Lombard, William Powell, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell performed their roles from polished screenplays which were as timeless and literate (and extraordinarily funny) as those constructed by the Bard complemented by graceful, masterful direction from the likes of Howard Hawks, Gregory La Cava, Ernst Lubitsch, Leo McCarey, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder … stand-up maestros such as George Carlin, Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor and (as of this review) living virtuosos like Ellen DeGeneres, Phyllis Diller, Eddie Izzard, Bob Newhart, Don Rickles and Chris Rock pepper their audiences with wit and laughter while skewering relevant topics (and often other living persons, politics and events) of the day with intense fervor and infallible timing without constantly spewing extraneous vulgarities to lower in dignity not only themselves, but more importantly, their audience, which nowadays seems commonplace.

Modern comedic filmmakers (save for Woody Allen, Albert Brooks, James L. Brooks, Mel Brooks [no relation between the triumvirate], Nora Ephron, Christopher Guest, Amy Heckerling, Reginald Hudlin, Mike Judge, Nancy Meyers, Bob Odenkirk, Rob Reiner, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, Keenen Ivory Wayans and a handful of others) remind me of chaperones supervising hyperactive children in a sandbox wherein its comedic elements are relegated to mockery, base human behavior of the lowest common denominator, obnoxious noise and distractions of color, props and other contrivances which has further extended virally into contemporary commercials and television shows, not to mention banner ads on the Internet. And like a sandbox, it consists of little depth and dimension; jokes, like sandcastles, which are molded to creation, crushed and recycled (lately, Hollywood has been imitating the British sandbox model e.g. "The Office") … and it looks like fun to play in for a half-hour and then gets really old, really fast. A hybridized (and bastardized) blend of reality-based entertainment with deadpan comedy seems to be the in vogue style (e.g. “The Office”; “Parks and Recreation”; “Modern Family”) where wooden insults are traded amongst characters more often than actual jokes. Bob Newhart, a first-class “straight man”, succeeded in his deadpan craft (in radio, television and film) because others around him displayed emotion to off-set his mental superiority and supposed smugness. With everyone performing in a similar wooden tone, for example, in “The Office”, makes its imaginary paper supply company, Dunder Mifflin, seem like a rather cold, un-funny and difficult situation and place with which to connect. If anything, the program would benefit from a laugh-track or ‘live studio audience’ to give it vitality and personality.

There isn’t much of a connection in the BRIDESMAIDS’ screenplay either. Most sequences and characters that occupy them seem like they’re inserted there as an excuse to introduce new talent found on the stand-up circuit. If not, they provide opportunities for movie-goers to spot notable alumni of The Groundlings or comedic veterans of stage and screen like bridesmaids Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) of “Reno 911!”; Becca (Ellie Kemper) of “The Office” who’s role here isn’t much of a departure from her mousy persona at Dunder Mifflin. And there’s Lillian (“Saturday Night Live” cast-member and Groundlings alum, Maya Rudolph) as the blushing bride to be wedded to muted Dougie (Tim Heidecker) of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim program, “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”.

Although it’s not very funny to see a cameo by ‘90’s Grammy Award nominated group Wilson Phillips as they’re lampooned by the cast in a surprise concert during the wedding finale singing “Hold On”, it is a curiosity that earlier in the film during its excruciatingly overlong airline sequence that Annie quips to Flight Attendant Steve (Groundlings member, Mitch Silpa) that “It’s the ‘90’s.” It may be just me, but I thought it was much funnier when the cast of THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (incidentally, voted by AFI as one of the Top Ten movies of 2005 and a stronger, more cohesive comedy than Feig’s film) broke out into a song-and-dance number of The Fifth Dimension’s “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” which was emblematic of Steve Carell’s affable Andy finally losing his virginity. “Hold On”? Personally, I couldn’t wait to be ‘let go’! Was there any significance of their performance other than Lillian being a fan of the band when she and Annie were growing up? It just felt rather insulting; as if they were being depicted as has-beens. Besides, it’s not the first time Wilson Phillips has been mocked by the “Saturday Night Live” team before.

When it’s all said and done, one might argue that BRIDESMAIDS succeeds as a “Brat Pack” film similar to those popularized by the late (great) Writer/Director, John Hughes; the caveat being that the script is a dull comparative and that it’s overflowing with raunch. THE BREAKFAST CLUB, also a Universal Studios Picture (now, merged with NBC is likely to keep generating crossover in their film, television and talent properties), likewise features five characters from disparate backgrounds introduced to each other through a pivotal event (high school detention vs. Lillian’s marriage) whose bond grows through the course (vs. coarse) of the film. The MPAA is certainly tested and harsh language is utilized to enhance the daring script by Hughes whereas Team Wiig/Mumulo’s screenplay (Annie Mumulo, a Groundlings alum and the “Nervous Woman on Plane” who foresees their plane going down) appears as if it’s an unending series of one-liners, curse words and non sequiturs. Come the final shot of the movie, metaphorically (and derogatorily, my apologies), it’s as if two pigs, Annie and her suitor, Officer Nathan Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) are driving off in the patrol car. I like to think that Rhodes is using the tactic of taking a call to transport Annie to the police station to lock her up for the night to show her the error of her ways.

As an amusing side note, the Danish translation of the film’s title is BRUDEPIGER … that’s pretty funny happenstance.