KICK-ASS KICKS ITS OWN …

"Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: "With great power comes great responsibility." This is my gift, my curse."

Peter Parker/Spider-Man

From the onset of Writer/Director Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the Marvel comic book of the same name, KICK-ASS, we’re immediately thrust into an opening credit cloud reminiscent of Richard Donner's in SUPERMAN where production companies “Marv” and “Plan B” zoom past us in a New York City skyline which resemble obliterated fragments of Superman’s native Krypton. It’s fitting that the primary colored “Marv” seems like a dilapidated namesake of the popular comic book publisher “Marvel”, but as a cinematic marvel, KICK-ASS ain’t. What the film is, however, is a wholly manufactured male fantasy replete with animated violence a gogo, a fetishized Catholic schoolgirl uniform and enough foul language to satisfy anyone suffering from vulgarity withdrawal. As a film that is assumedly studied of the vast and ever-evolving comic book universe, its own attempts at originality are futile and clichéd with thematic ideas that come across as something the writers may have overheard in a middle school hallway peopled with comic book aficionados. That the film opens in the clouds is just where the writers’ minds exist and where the film belongs confirming this element of heightened fantasy.

Enter the narrator, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), the ordinary alter-ego of the titular and not-so-extraordinary “Kick-Ass” and a self-proclaimed lover of comic books who is frustrated by the fact that everyone in his orbit gives in to thugs and that no one stands up for the common people when danger is imminent. After a run-in with a pair of lowlifes (and a car!) that nearly cripples him (simultaneously displayed as a ‘kids-don’t-try-this-at-home’ warning against vigilantism), David undergoes a surgical procedure that provides him a metal skeletal structure that helps secure his mortal superiority which he likens to Wolverine’s internal mechanics. Like the costume that he dons, David is still a little green and like the stripes that adorn it, he’s still a bit yellow, but even as he fumbles, he’s not entirely a coward either. But neither was Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s classic, TAXI DRIVER, which the film has more in common with than say, BATMAN, SPIDER-MAN or SUPERMAN. At least these films (and comic books) contained a city/nationwide and/or global threat with scores of multiple lives at stake compliments of a deranged nemesis.

Kick-Ass’s nemesis: Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), a stereotypical Italian kingpin with a penchant for orange (clothes, furnishings and interior design) and whose employees’ only value to the film is to supply an ample body count upon their demise. His taste in art is equally grisly as he owns an ochre-colored painting/lithograph of a skull that graces his kitchen wall and a pair of Andy Warhol’s “Gun” in his private office that together celebrates the film’s reflexivity of violence. Frank’s inside man in the police force has an even more intimidating moniker: Detective Gigante (Xander Berkeley). D’Amico’s characterization is introduced in a scene suggestive of the one in Director Sam Raimi’s DARKMAN when the crooked Robert Durant (Larry Drake) removes a man’s finger with a cigar cutter. Frank inflicts the same pain upon one of his own with a pair of heavy-duty pliers which becomes the crux of the film’s threat-less agenda and possibly the film’s greatest flaw - - that there is no ultimate threat to mankind or the Gotham where the film takes place - - D’Amico is not only hell-bent on taking out Kick-Ass, but his only other intention is to protect the integrity of his drug-ring while simultaneously killing his own men in his lumber yard which acts as a front for his cocaine-running organization.

David’s superhero status is anything but super, yet his exploits spawn a comic book series, a costume line and even “Kick-Ass Cappuccino”. His fame reaches the world wide web wherein he inspires a father and daughter duo, widower Damon Macready a.k.a. “Big Daddy” (Nicolas Cage) and Mindy Macready a.k.a. “Hit-Girl” (Chloe Moretz), the latter of whom has a battery of foul language that is as hard-hitting as her fighting abilities, to publicly show off their own superhero-like outfits while engaging in their own brand of renegade vigilantism. It becomes a detriment that Hit-Girl’s course profanity and shameless killing sprees nearly hinder the charm that she so obviously exudes. The Macready’s relationship when compared to the Lizewski household is a peculiar one in that there exists no mother figure in either - - which probably accounts for the film’s numbing barrage of expletives that pass every character’s lips like bullet-fire from a pistol. Elizabeth McGovern, a fine actress in her own right, is given less than 15 seconds of screen-time as Dave’s mother before succumbing to a fatal aneurism over breakfast. The late Mrs. Macready is featured as a drawn character in the film’s only animated sequence whose inability to pay the bills after her husband is wrongfully sent to prison (c/o the corrupt D’Amico) abuses drugs to the point of suicide prior to giving birth to their daughter. The Macready’s interaction with one another resembles that of a father and son playing catch at the ballpark more so than the healthy rapport a father figure has with his daughter. This is later intimated when D’Amico (while holding a pistol to Hit-Girl’s forehead) exclaims how much he wishes his son, Chris a.k.a. “Red Mist” (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), were more like her and had the capacity of her highly-skilled fighting talents.

The violence that ensues verges into Tarantino-esque territory (punctuated in one fight scene with soundtrack-sampling by Ennio Morricone), although what unfolds can only be characterized as senselessly mind-numbing, contemporary video-game warfare that traps so many films of this caliber by making their characters worthlessly expendable while getting a chuckle out of audiences. What makes a film purely Tarantino-esque is that characters in Quentin’s films engage in ‘higher’ (left-) brain processing and that their destruction is dependent on not only their physical actions, but how they engage in a dialogue with one another. Another highlight to QT’s films is that his characters are so memorable that they become something of a legend which is achieved compliments of a strong screenplay. When it’s all said and done, there is nothing entirely redeemable about KICK-ASS in the least. His adventures are hardly inspiring to any audience member wanting to become a superhero or even an above-average hero especially after undergoing various tortures such as being stabbed in the chest, run over by a car, beaten with a baseball bat, a pair of brass knuckles ...... Even Dave’s bumbling as a normal guy-cum-superhero comes with its own baggage of adolescent awkwardness. And not only does he have to wrestle with two identities, add to the mix a third sense of self as he pretends to be gay to get closer to the girl he loves, Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca), which predictably releases a series of immature jokes at Dave’s expense from his peers - - and invites more chuckles out of the audience.

Cursing throughout the film is not only habitual but almost as present as automatic speech fillers like ‘er’ and ‘um’ which makes more valid the lack of language abilities and ‘lower’ (right-) brain functioning of its characters. Neurologists have also released studies confirming that ‘illiterate’ swear words are about four times more remembered than ‘educated’ words in traditional language. So apart from its other major accolades and accomplishments GONE WITH THE WIND has amassed since 1939, it’s line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” was chosen as the #1 movie quote by the American Film Institute and cost producer David O. Selznick a legendary $5,000; more of a risk to include in the film against the period’s stringent Hollywood Production Code than the contemporary rapid-fire assault on the senses and the ears of current audiences, wouldn’t you say?

After the film’s bloody conclusion, Red Mist alters the color scheme of his costume to orange (continuing his father’s color of choice) as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl literally fly off into the sunset like a classic Western but with aerial technology. Life seems back to normal before Red Mist (rather resembling the tortured character of James Franco as “New Goblin” after his father’s death in SPIDER-MAN 2 & 3) pulls a gun on the audience and fires at point-blank range as the screen goes black - - which maintains the film’s treatise and just about makes all the violence that happened before it consistent; this time, inflicting more on its viewers. *Regrettable sigh*

If one were to disavow their suspension of disbelief (which I did on numerous occasions), another curiosity is the film’s depiction of vanity license plates. Is the significance of the “Kick-Ass” license plate affixed to the cab destroyed in the film’s opening minutes supposed to support the fact that Kick-Ass himself has become a Gotham icon? How does Red Mist get his “Red Mist” vanity plate so quickly when it typically takes 6-12 weeks to get one delivered in the mail?

P.S. As an aside, keep in mind that no screen ‘daughter’ in the history of cinema kicked more ass than Ann Blyth’s “Veda Pierce Forrester” in MILDRED PIERCE - - all without uttering one obscenity.

GREENBERG, Los Angeles: An awkward town with an abundant soundtrack

“Life is wasted on … people.”

Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller)

Imagine a malcontented Alvy Singer (Woody Allen, ANNIE HALL) stranded in Los Angeles after recovering from the hospitalization of a mental breakdown whose only solace is bringing misery to those in his orbit and drafting correspondence to various heads of corporations whom he feels are responsible for the breakdown of American culture and values. Therein lies the premise of Noah Baumbach’s study of Angeleno neuroses: GREENBERG. The film has all the makings of being categorized under the low-grade production aesthetic of the Mumblecore movement but instead has a balanced mix of celebrity and non-professional talent making observations of their adult (and young adult) lives while having a studio polish c/o Focus Features under the NBC/Universal Pictures brand and a soundtrack so massive that its CD accompaniment would far outlast the film’s running time. Add to that a continuation of the stereotype of the smug yet struggling Santa Monica Farmer’s Market shopping, art-house theatre patronizing (FYI: the Laemmle Monica 4-plex movie theatre is located at 2^nd Street and Santa Monica Blvd. adjacent to the popular organic street market) aspiring Hollywood singer/actress sure to satisfy the film’s core audience.

The film’s greatest detriment is its consistently awkward screenplay wherein characters’ dialogue with one another drips with acid and cynicism when it’s not being clumsy or wrought with despair. Since a dramatic film of this type is only as strong as its characters, it’s difficult to appreciate the experiences that unfold when they and the characters that populate them are thoughtlessly and unfairly scrutinized. And what could have been insightful and honest observations of topics that run the gamut of struggling with a music career to get a recording contract, caretaking for an animal diagnosed with depression or conversing with impressionable teenagers about the arts and career paths (while abusing cocaine, valium and hard liquor) result in long-winded, angry, often-times profanity-laden diatribes compliments of the titular Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller). Anyone who has lasted one month in Los Angeles will no doubt be aware of the existence of these types of misanthropes. Knowledge of such characters is only heightened upon working in the Entertainment Industry.

Stiller’s oeuvre can only be characterized as excessively screwball where jokes are more often than not directed at his characters’ expense; with regards to his cinematic personae, one has to wonder whether he has a really thick skin or is just not very bright. What differs in his performance of Greenberg, however, is that he is more genuinely human than comical, albeit flawed over multiple fronts:

• he can’t maintain or complete a healthy/logical conversation with anyone (see the series of jump cuts during his face-to-face talks with other guests at the children’s birthday party);
• he sets a weak precedent to a group of twenty-somethings twice his junior by ridiculing their taste in music (Korn) and their (skillfully positive) ability to adapt to new technologies and social networking tools (while doing a line of cocaine and excitedly and rudely hopping over guests to change the music selections at a party);
• he doesn’t engage in efforts of intimacy with his love (hate?) interest, Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) (their first sex scene when he literally dives head-first into her vagina is not only awkwardly choreographed, but leaning toward offensive - - especially since he demeans and walks out on her after each sexual encounter); he also offers her a cheeseburger immediately after she’s had an abortion;
• and he’s unable to recall the name of the child and girlfriend of his close friend (with whom he’s known for over twenty years).

Details such as these are not only not verging on slapstick when delivered by a supposed comedic actor (Stiller), but intimates a reaction of awkward silence in any sophisticated audience member - - especially during the particularly anti-climactic scene when one of the letters which Greenberg had focused a majority of his attentions in his correspondence with several franchises and corporation heads is printed in the newspaper … and is quickly forgotten about so as to amble into the next scene. There is also something tragic in the fact that Florence (Greenberg’s brother’s trusted personal assistant), an ambitious singer in Hollywood, no less, isn’t familiar with such popular songs as Albert Hammond’s, “It Never Rains In Southern California” or Oliver Stone’s classic film examination of ‘80’s excess and greed, WALL STREET. In her favor, that Florence is not familiar with the latter only more strongly suggests her innocence as she is pitted on the spectrum opposite the corruptible Greenberg. Upon deeper examination of the film, one might draw a parallel with regard to this innocence that Florence shared with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character - - not so much of the character, Beth, herein, but rather, Brad Hamilton’s younger sister, Stacy, in Amy Heckerling’s FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH where she was impressionable to the peers in her circle, how she engaged in sex with multiple partners complemented by unusual acts of coupling and most particularly, the abortion that both experienced in the finale of both respective films. Leigh, who created the story with fellow writer/director Baumbach (also her real-life husband) perhaps wanted to add a bit of cinematic self-reflexivity which is nearly unmistakable.

Los Angeles has been exploited for its natural, rugged beauty, perennially fair weather climate and ravishing vistas ever since “Uncle Carl” Laemmle took the Twentieth Century Limited train ride West from his New York office to Los Angeles to put Universal Pictures into commercial operation. Many films since that epic trip have shot on location in Los Angeles, but few have turned their cameras inward to catch the city at its most candid and intimate than such classics as: SAFETY LAST; DOUBLE INDEMNITY; IN A LONELY PLACE; THE BLUE GARDENIA; REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE; STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET; IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD; MODEL SHOP; MYRA BRECKENRIDGE; BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS; CHINATOWN; SHAMPOO; HELTER SKELTER and contemporary classics: THE PLAYER; SHORT CUTS; JACKIE BROWN; BULWORTH; MULHOLLAND DRIVE; TRAINING DAY and COLLATERAL - - complete with expansive views of cityscapes, gorgeous beachfront properties, haunting alleyways and street corridors with shots close enough to see the grit or blood-stained pavement that immerses the viewer in its surroundings - - a cinematic womb of the City of Angels - - that is at once trapping, seductive; haunting and comfortable. One of the most strikingly evocative films of modern-day Los Angeles is GRAND CANYON, a studio picture (Twentieth Century Fox) directed by Lawrence Kasdan that deftly captures the tragedy, extra-marital love, possibility of miracles as well as one of the most cleverly uttered phrases in cinema with regards to watching films and its relevance to answering life’s riddles.

In GREENBERG’s attempt at becoming a ‘Los Angeles picture’, that the film’s overall mood is grim and listless gives little hope for the viewer in appreciating its multiple settings. One of the film’s singularly remarkable sequences is when Greenberg climbs into a swimming pool at his brother’s Hollywood Hills home just as a helicopter buzzes overhead. The camera follows Roger’s side profile into the deep end and as the buzzing of the copter’s blades intensifies, Greenberg’s paddling against and slapping of the water grows until he repeatedly strokes for and reaches the safety of the pool’s stepladder. He can’t seem to do anything swimmingly for himself and like his brother’s ailing dog, Mahler, needs constant attention. When the attention of Florence satisfies him, he enters into a tantrum which occurs repeatedly throughout the film and is anything but humorous. The emotional disorder/nervous breakdown card is an easy out for an actor/filmmaker when depicting a character’s helpless state. After the climactically wandering voicemail message which Roger leaves for Florence, the only redemptive act he engages in as a form of apology to her for all of his prior improprieties is his willingness to measure, nail and properly frame a picture for her into her studio apartment wall.

Greenberg’s pretension and condescending nature to those in his sphere (who also refers to L.A. patrons in the local bars as “bridge and tunnel” when there is no bridge or tunnel comparable to those that exist in Manhattan regarding the derogatory East Coast phrase) is compliments of the film’s writer, Noah Baumbach, a native New Yorker himself, who provides the film with no positive core values whatsoever and possibly Ben Stiller’s most irritated (and irritating) character to date (save for his Orderly in HAPPY GILMORE). It is with this that I charge Baumbach for not fleshing out his protagonist and supporting characters in a script that lacks not only redeeming value but also risk; what there is no end of are awkwardly misguided conversations accompanied by commonplace camera-work and lackluster set-design (see Mumblecore). For all of Roger’s flaws, one never gets the sense that he’s sincerely ‘crazy’ or emotionally disturbed. He takes on a vow to do nothing so why should anyone care to take the opportunity to join him in his adventures and pursuits through this brief portion of his screen life? Morbid curiosity? Get one’s admission’s worth?

Roger continues to walk in Los Angeles (on one occasion, passing a FAST & FURIOUS [another Universal Picture] movie poster which dates the film) as he did in New York. He relies on others for transportation because he doesn’t own a car (meanwhile his brother is a wealthy hotelier who can’t provide one for him?) when he’s not engaging in erratic behavior as is personified in the tube dancer he passes on multiple occasions at a nearby car lot. If it was Baumbach’s intention to depress his audience for living (or who happen to live) in Southern California, he absolutely succeeded. At least when Alvy Singer (Woody Allen, ANNIE HALL) arrives in Los Angeles, he has such a deep-seated aversion to Southern California that he becomes ill and immediately has to return to New York - - that’s funny! Hint: Greenberg?

Next to Gerwig’s undeniably affable portrayal of Florence Marr, the ever-quirky Rhys Ifans who plays Ivan Schrank, Greenberg’s confidant and “man” gave the film’s strongest and most believable performance. In a landscape of eccentrics and classifiable oddballs, for once, the expectation that Ifans would also exhibit goofy tendencies was soon obliterated giving him an edge that took him by way of the high road as he mingled with Greenberg’s quirks and was able to come out the straight man. Like George Bailey’s, Clarence Oddbody or Pinocchio’s Jiminy Cricket, Schrank is more than just Greenberg’s conscience and mortal guide, he is his closest friend who tries to help Roger regain some semblance of normalcy in an existence clouded by misery and ever burgeoning doubts of his family and friends. Schrank is the antithesis to Greenberg in that both failed in their combined efforts to succeed in the music industry, but the former was able to maintain a family and not let life’s worries affect his character; Greenberg on the other hand, chooses to hold a grudge against society and becomes the eternal bellyacher.

The unresolved conclusion leaves open the possibility that Florence may accept Roger and give him the attention for which he yearns. Personally, I would have thought it terribly amusing if Greenberg had left the voicemail for someone else. At least it would have kept the comedic tone consistent. On another personal note, I appreciate that Baumbach and the Music Supervisor approved the inclusion of Duran Duran’s “The Chauffeur” - - it’s a great song (and has a stylish video). Regrettably, I think that’s why it was chosen for the film i.e. there is no underlying significance (which I’d go so far as to say that it could have referred to those persons who give Roger a lift in their car) and fits the mood of the scene in which it was used: reminiscing, Greenberg listened to it when he had done cocaine in the ‘80’s. Deep.

There’s Nothing Suspenseful About a Character Who Lives Forever: My Musings on THE HURT LOCKER

"This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war …"

Opening titles of Lewis Milestone’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)

"The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug."

Opening quotation of Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER (2009) c/o Chris Hedges, “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning”

Why do I go to the movies? For the length of time it takes for my bladder to hold out (Hitchcock was onto something there), the movie theatre seems an opportune place I can patronize to release the stresses of my day and/or escape from reality. Images flashed onscreen from the projector overhead complemented by sounds emanating from the corners of the enclosed screening quarters can trigger earlier thoughts or convictions I may have had that are manipulated by characters and shapes as they wriggle and bend through beams of light on the vinyl screen before me. This experience can be a place of negativity or something completely positive and escapist. I suppose that once I select a comfortable cushioned chair to sit on after passing through a threshold of double-doors as an aroma of warm-buttered popcorn and stale nacho cheese sauce fills my nostrils, I feel like I’m in my very own hurt locker.

Why do soldiers go to war in the movies? Most films in the War genre tend to serve up eternal conundrums that go unanswered not because there’s a specific reason why one fights - - it could be for the sake of pride for one’s country, to uphold security, for reasons only they themselves know - - but probably because it is something more elusive than that. Is it the thrill of victory; are soldiers in it to win it? Or is success to win dependent on the desire to get out with one’s own skin when staring death in the face?

Enter Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner): James is somewhat like George Steven’s “Shane” in the way he’s able to easily ingratiate himself into Bravo Company than he is fresh meat for the grinder. And like Alan Ladd’s titular character, he expresses a weariness as if he’d just been intensely and emotionally drained by some (or a series of) disaster(s), while exuding a cool detachment against life’s trivialities. Just as Shane’s origin is unexplained, from where exactly does James hail? James takes command of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad with his new team members Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) after their Staff Sergeant, Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), is regrettably killed by a ‘roadside bomb’ in an excitedly explosive scene unleashed in the first ten minutes of Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER. That Thompson’s orthodox approach to bomb disposal is procedurally by-the-book, James’ methods are otherwise employed with controlled abandon complemented by a hint of adrenaline abuse. His teammates are not happy.

Upon their initial meeting, Sanborn quips to James that the name of their Camp recently changed names from Liberty to Victory. Unable to sense sarcasm and immune to healthy human interaction, James isn’t aware of the joke because he harbors an obsession with disarming bombs that gives him a veneer of militaristic Teflon. Generically, the film as a film of War is a façade, as SHANE is not a Western so much as it is a Dramatic parable. THE HURT LOCKER is more reminiscent of a Detective film: where an exploded bomb and its accompaniment of aimless confetti-like shrapnel or a bullet emptied from a sniper rifle will not only send one to the hurt locker, but to “The Big Sleep” and as James evokes Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade or in this case, Sam Grenade, he is tasked with disarming a series of elaborately-designed, inanimate exploding devices utilizing complex facilities of deduction.

James feeds his craving for adrenaline by disarming bombs and keeping the inactive detonators in his footlocker as a reminder of what may have destroyed him. Is it really James then, that’s detonating the bomb, or is it the bomb - - which tests him each time - - that is slowly disarming James and his crew to the point of sending them to oblivion? The bombs resemble human machinery complete with wires, cogs, colors, wheels and a battery, like a beating human heart. The characters are just as hollow as these bombs. Eldridge, the one soldier who shows an affection for his therapist shares the only visible attempt at connection with another human being and the boy’s doctor, like clockwork, is predictably destroyed thereby re-leveling the playing field.

Featured in the film is a third-person shooter video game played by one of the soldiers: “Gears of War” which connotes the iconic image of Charlie Chaplin caught in the gears of the mega corporation as he struggles to survive the harsh world of Industrialization. James, Sanborn and Eldridge are also each cogs in the machine of war who are a few rungs above the common grunt in the way they use their wits to disarm nasty little bombs which hold immediate invitations to their respective demise. Unlike the subdued propaganda of War in Milestone’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Bigelow’s vision of War as a drug (as is seen in so many contemporary television-commercial and video game PR in their exhibition of soldier-turned-instant-hero set against a choir of alto and soprano voices accompanied by heavy metal music-stylings and unsheathed silver rapiers in overblown CGI visuals tinted with red, white and blue) is unsavory exploitation of human life. Milestone’s classic at least makes the bitter pill of war easier to swallow by labeling the new schoolboy recruits “fresh from the turnip patch”. If we have learned anything from the War classics, War is Hell … Quiet … Solitary … Dirty … and wrought with anxious anticipation. Conversely, James’ War is reckless, wild, and epitomized by revolt; he is a charming, poster-boy rebel (James Dean parallel?) construct of the New War who relaxes to heavy metal music and showers in his gear and military fatigues. In a world overflowing with prescription drugs, painkillers and various narcotics, it’s easy to reduce War to a lethal drug (or a bumper sticker) that chooses in whose veins it will rush. I like to think that survival instincts are what pump and pulsate through one’s bloodstream and brainwaves. The threat of War instigates survival and is an exterior entity that can be equally welcomed or ignored by any candidate so willing to engage in or avoid it. Survival is everlasting so long as you continue to breathe and heightens when an element of risk appears.

Thematic ideas take precedence over filmmaking technique in THE HURT LOCKER which for the most part is hollow and clichéd. Apart from the stylized slow-motion photography of rubble levitating from the sun-baked earth triggered by massive explosions, the film’s you are there shaky camerawork leaves little to be desired. The sniper sequence is nearly devoid of suspense and trades nominal dialogue for (what felt like) a quarter of an hour of cinematic boredom which begged me to ask myself, “did they just run out of a screenplay”? The sensitive guiding of the sniper battle in Stanley Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET was far more inventive and inducive of the onset of grey hairs.

The film unfolds like an ambling version of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s white-knuckle WAGES OF FEAR on foot that isn’t as suspenseful and is literally a pedestrian effort. If at least one of the bombs that James was disarming went off, I would’ve been slightly more intrigued - - even Bogie’s gumshoes were occasionally battered and bruised by his nemeses.

Once James returns home to his family, domestic life mirrors scenes reminiscent of the cold, barren environment of Andrei Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS. The atmosphere is stagnant. Never has a supermarket and its patrons seemed less alive. Compared to the environs of Iraq, James’ hometown belongs six feet under ground (that is, if you could actually level an entire city; see 2012). With a dead world that’s wet, somber and abysmal where James seems utterly out of place, this last entry in the film felt as if there could have been more potential to be even emptier. James is depicted as a consumerist drone and slave to domesticity, although what’s lacking is the necessary ingredient of what his life before wartime was really like. When given the opportunity to explain to Sanborn why he chooses to fight, he literally shrugs off the question - - a microbe of a hint would've been perfectly acceptable. It’s in Iraq that James belongs but who’s to say that his home, amidst countless explosives to disarm, isn’t in the Middle East? While donning his heavy military battle suit, he moves just as casually as he did when he pushed the shopping cart down the aisle of the grocery store, but he is compelled by an innate obsession to destroy that which causes mass destruction.

THE HURT LOCKER is not a film worthy of Best Picture (of 2009). Lewis Milestone’s classic ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, however, was and still is the ultimate cinematic example of disillusionment, loss and self-sabotage ever put to screen. Not only a tour de force, it is the most intimate tour of duty for those who have enlisted. THE HURT LOCKER may be relevant given the contemporary handling of its subject matter and execution of military vernacular and soldiers’ duties, but its combined elements don’t make it a standout like a detonative device flawed by a frayed wire. Lew Ayres’ character, Paul Bäumer, in Milestone’s film shares a commonality with James in that he can’t stomach returning home after his tour is over. While sitting alert in a trench, the only link between Paul’s home and the people that populate it which has become misunderstood and unwelcoming to him is the innocent flight of a butterfly that conjures up memories of a time and place (and a personal butterfly collection) that he considered full of warmth and sentiment before being seduced by the corruption of War. He’s in his own hurt locker; his own hole, to contemplate, observe and protect against enemies. The hurt locker only has room for one - - it is the place where we can individually relax or tangle with our inner demons and an ethereal plain where we ultimately live on or die out. By peaking out of his hole to reach for the winged beast, an enemy sniper climbs out of his and fires hot lead at Paul sending him back into his muddy cavity as he coils inward like a dying dog. We never see that in James. He arrives in Victory Company and we have no back-story: only that he’s highly skilled at disarming bombs and not getting blown to smithereens. That to me, isn’t suspenseful and quite frankly, lacking in entertainment.

One of my favorite film-watching metaphors is Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW in how L.B. Jeffries is confined to his wheelchair like an audience member whose cinematic world opens before him through the curtains of his windows much the same way the curtain in a movie theatre unravels in front of a vinyl screen. Similarly, Bigelow (whose remarkable body of work includes contemporary classics NEAR DARK, POINT BREAK and STRANGE DAYS) attempted at disarming me by pushing buttons, pulling strings and snipping away at fibrous wires that affected my various emotions, vulnerabilities and preconceptions - - and I was very much hoping to explode with enthusiasm - - but I just couldn’t detonate.

‘Bonnie and Clive’: Lessons I learned from AN EDUCATION

The London captured in Director Lone Scherfig’s early 1960’s suburban portrait of Twickenham isn’t yet swinging, but it’s a tidily-organized, austere destination that is characterized as cold, damp, gray and dimly lit where diegetic echoes of French, Jazz and American Pop music emanate from wax and cigarette smoke floats amongst the musical notes. A cleverly designed title sequence (one in which Saul Bass would probably be proud of conceiving) moves in rhythm - - and in shapes and scribbles of ‘white chalk’ - - to Floyd Cramer's #1 hit (in the U.K., 1961) "On The Rebound" (a figurative title indicative of sexual relations yet to come) while the canvas of the movie screen is at once denoted to a chalkboard signifying: Class is in session.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan), is at the top of her class with marks destined to promise her a seat at the University of Oxford. At sixteen, she gracefully exudes a beauty and maturity not typical of her classmates with one foot in adolescence and the other in adulthood. A storm is afoot and changes are brewing in Jenny … and London. While leaving her literal classroom on foot during a rather torrential rainstorm, prosperity (twice Jenny’s senior) rounds the corner in the guise of David (Peter Sarsgaard) who welcomes Jenny into the comfortable confines of his Bristol luxury automobile. I was reminded of The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”:

Wet bus stop, she’s waiting

His car is warm and dry

Like any naïve schoolgirl of the ‘60’s not accustomed to contemporary Stranger danger and with the added element of wet discomfort from the rain, Jenny eventually accepts his invitation after some clever wordplay. Additionally, she bargains for the temporary shelter of her cello and the objet d’affection for David as he is a lover of classical music and all its instruments. Incidentally, Jenny resembles the curvaceous shape and size of her negotiating chip and is undoubtedly an instrument with which he himself would like to play.

Music takes on an especially powerful significance in the film (as is typical in Screenwriter Nick Hornby’s work e.g. HIGH FIDELITY and ABOUT A BOY) with tracks that mirror Jenny and David’s playlist of their relationship including: “You've Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger”; “Comin’ Home Baby”; “Teen Scene”; “Tell The Truth”; “Sweet Nothin’s”; “Since I Fell For You” and “Your Heart Is As Black As Night”. Musical cues subtly match moments of characters’ dialogue and actions for instance when David hatches a plot to lure Jenny to Paris on a Friday while Beth Rowley smokingly sings “A Sunday Kind Of Love” at the exact moment she belts out she doesn’t want a “Thursday, Friday or Saturday” kind of love. And when David and Jenny wander through a crowded casino club and Ray Charles’ backup singers cry out of the jukebox (for David no less) to ‘tell the truth’.

David reveals he is a man of the world, an accomplished jetsetter and bachelor or rather, a rebel whose suave veneer would equate him with Ian Fleming’s James Bond and it’s to David whom Jenny wishes to be bonded. Eventually, the two ‘life’ enthusiasts attend a classical music concert with David’s friends and ‘business’ colleagues, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike) who further take Jenny down the rabbit hole of art auctions, martini lunches, chain-smoking and sophistication.

Even Jenny’s traditionalist parents, Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour) living in their impeccably straight-laced surroundings (which seem to be lacking in substantial lighting fixtures) are no match for David’s quick wit, incomparable charm and when all else fails, social lubrication. Equally (if not more so) focused on Jenny’s achievement of higher education and place in the world, Jack is the clichéd stick-in-the-mud (who’s unjustifiably racist, most particularly to Jews) father with standards of excellence and frugality he wishes to impress upon his daughter e.g. when he goes so far as to check the front lawn to see if their family owns a tree upon which money grows. David is the attractive landscaper (ala Rock Hudson, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS) who will chop down that trope.

With clever playacting and promises that he is able to introduce Jenny to Clive “C.S.” Lewis, the accomplished author, Christian apologist and former member of the Oxford faculty, David has Jack and Marjorie eating out of his hands which makes one wonder if he’s done this before (more on this later). Fallen under David’s seductive spell, Jenny’s parents are just as smitten as she is and allow him safe passage through their parental insecurities to Oxford and later, Paris. She trades in her gray school uniform for more colorful frocks and begins to sacrifice good grades for an education in worldly wisdom under the tutelage of David.

Everything seems bright and promising for Jenny until the rug of disillusionment is pulled out from under her when she discovers that David and Danny are actually self-employed sneak thieves who steal fine goods that (in their estimation) their owners cannot appreciate. To stay with David and condone such behavior suggestive of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would go against everything Jenny has learned in her parent’s upbringing. She has a choice and for sake of argument (and the story), she decides to stay with David. No matter how difficult a relationship with David might be, to leave class (in mid-semester) would assuredly produce a failing mark.

Once in Paris, their relationship seems sealed as they reveal their respective sexual prowess to one another: that of a virgin on her 17^th birthday and an experienced older man who is just as shy as she is. An uncomfortable silence is punctuated by sounds of airplane take-offs and landings at an airport nearby while images of framed jumbo jets don the walls in their Parisian accommodations. The steps that have been taken up until this moment (despite the criminal behavior) has been carefully plotted and organized and through the act of sexual surrender on both their parts, there is nowhere for the happy couple to go but up as their relationship literally takes off and Jenny’s chances at Oxford are left to crumble on the runway.

Jenny and David return to London and break the news of their engagement to her parents to their devout satisfaction. Jack’s initial hope for his daughter to attend university is further shattered as he reveals that once his daughter found a capable husband to share a life with, that nothing else really matters. And for extra credit, Jenny seals the deal by standing off against her headmistress (Emma Thompson) and dropping out of school much to her favorite teacher Miss Stubbs’ (Olivia Williams) dismay. She is now free to lounge around Danny’s palatial residence, eat fine food, libate on exotic cocktails and swap fine clothes with Helen … A+.

David treats his new in-laws to a dinner out on the town, but reveals two flaws in his coordination of logistics: his Bristol requires a fresh tank of diesel which he didn’t plan for and he should’ve scraped the automobile for clues if he was going to leave it alone to pay the station attendant. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it most certainly also caught the cad. After searching through the glove compartment of David’s car, Jenny not only finds an empty pack of Bachelor-brand cigarettes (fitting name since David and Jenny are about to marry and he’s no longer a Bachelor) but freshly-opened envelopes addressed to David and his wife’s home. Controlling her rage, Jenny orders David to take her home - - the proverbial honeymoon is over.

David drops off his in-laws (soon to be out-laws), heads for the security of the bottle and for once is unable to consult his charm in conversing with them. With Jack, Marjorie and Jenny waiting for David to arrive with his apologia inside their home (now in absolute pitch darkness), David reverses his car in the middle of the street which glares his headlights into their living room (the brightest light that’s filled their home the entire film) and they’re able to not only see through his veil of deception, but Jenny learns her lesson and knows what she must do: return to school to complete her A-levels after which she is accepted into Oxford.

Throughout Jenny’s learning process, David brought with him a color (to oppose the dull gray and red brick consistency of Jenny’s neighborhood) and excitement (visual aids and class trips) that wakes up her conservative family to the possibilities of a new brand of post-war London which would soon welcome the Beatles and really swing. Off screen departs David and his Bristol and in its place would soon appear Cadillac automobiles.

Jenny’s (and London’s) maturation process leads her through a coming-of-age odyssey at once fascinated by the pleasure principle - - with a voracious appetite for culture, cinema, fine cuisine and classical/popular music - - who learns to accept her current state of reality and return to complete her proper education. By obeying this reality principle and reserving the lessons (fantasies) she had learned from David, upon being asked to travel to Paris with one of her similarly-aged Oxford peers, Jenny expresses great desire as if she’d never been - - which appears as if she has a lot to teach him and each other … Class dismissed.