Hot French, Chain-Smoking Adventuresses

I can hear the accordion music from here.


Is that French Johnny Depp?

Bronson

I really don't know quite how to feel about this movie. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just kind of. . . I don't know. I'm not even indifferent about it, but it isn't of a quality, one way or the other, where I can say that you should see it or not. I'm simply confused and, in a rare turn of events, I am at a loss for words.

But I'll try to fill up this page anyways.

My main confusion about Bronson is that I don't know what kind of movie it is and I suspect it doesn't know either.

It's an interesting experience and it certainly is not a bad one, but the movie is a tad bit all over the place-- or it would be if it were more manic. The failures of the film come in around the edges. They're ambiguous little leaks that mean nothing on their own, but start to mean a whole lot when you find yourself ankle deep in constable blood and mustache wax. That is to say there is no one cock up in the movie that weighs it down, it's just a lot of small, almost unnoticable things.

The main problem I found was that I have no idea what to make of Bronson. What's worse is that I don't think that was the movie's intention. Instead of leaving the film with the kind of "I think the movie meant this" and "No, I think the movie meant this!" experience, I just kind of left it with a severe lack of evidence for whatever theoretical argument I was going to yell at my equally theoretical girlfriend.

The movie doesn't quite spell out what kind of animal Bronson is. Is he insane? Is he just an asshole? Is he a genius? Is he a man out of time? Does he just like to punch men in uniform whilst naked? I have no idea. I'd like to think I understood Alex De Large or Barry Lyndon or the King of New York or Andy from Shawshank, but with Bronson, I've got no clue what the fuck he is. It doesn't exactly make for high drama when I don't know or can't know what the main character is going to do. It's like making a character piece about a great white shark. It's going to be fun, whatever happens, but I feel entitled in saying that at the end of the experience I'm not going to be left with any serious life lessons.

Obviously if the narrator/main character doesn't have a distinct personality-- and he is in every single scene-- then the film is not going to have a distinct personality. The director Nicholas Refn is obviously a talented man and I look forward to his next film (the trailer of which I have linked her before), but his talent alone is not enough to guide this great character (the real life character Charles Bronson, I mean) into a great film.

He has a strong voice, so that isn't what's wrong with it. It's just that I feel like I'm reading his dialogue-- without the inflections or emotions of a human being, how am I supposed to know what this dialogue means? But the movie isn't ambiguous, it's just ill defined. If it ambiguous was what the movie was going for, I feel it'd be a bit clearer to me-- as strange as that sounds. I think the problem isn't that the movie wants to confuse the audience, it's that the movie is confused by itself. Is is a crime drama, is it an art house movie? Is it a character study, is it a theatrical production? Is it a British Bob's-yer-uncle-crime-wank or is it a kitchen sink drama?

Well, I guess it's all of these things and none of these things. As I write this, I realize that's a horrifically poltroon-like cop-out, but it's as close as the truth as we're ever going to arrive at in a fucking blog post. The movie is confused. It isn't bad, as I've stated far too many times (as if it needs its defenders), but it's a flawed movie.

A noble, flaw, I guess. Bronson is a movie which desires to be something else-- something greater than the rest-- but can't quite make it and that is a failure worth seeing, worth thinking about, worth blogging about.

Failures are wonderful. They shouldn't be castigated as much as they usually are, because, as far as art is concerned, when great men fail, they fail spectacularly. Just think about the Challenger 7. That took thousands of hours of work, labor, and ingenuity and it all ended up in a horrific tragedy. But, are any of you going to forget Challenger 7? No, you aren't, because even the failure is capable of leaving an indelible mark on yourself. Bronson is not on par with half a dozen astronauts exploding, don't think that I'm comparing the two. What I am saying is that even when things are irrecoverably fucked up they can still create a memorable and-- dare I say-- positive experience. Bronson is that kind of a failure.

A few people have been throwing around "in the style of Kubrick" but other than the fact that the movie is incredibly well shot and acted, I can't quite see the similarity. Maybe I'm just ignorant. I don't see it. But maybe the folks who are laying down that kind of a statement have only seen A Clockwork Orange, which as my High Life hazed mind recalls, had more than a few important musical interludes-- Oh, and it involved crime and Bronson involves crime, so there must be some kind of blood relation between the two.

It's a bullshit comparison, but Bronson is not without its sublime beauty. The opening scene is a wonder to behold and I'd like to believe that even the empressario Kubrick would have liked to have composed an opening like this one:

Watching this scene again makes me think: You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to watch this movie again.

Which I think means I liked it.

A Boondoggle

WC Fields is fantastic. I don't just say that because it's a requirement I agreed to in order to live in my dad's house, it's the plum truth. And, like my father, I'm going to require from henceforth, if you want to be my friend, you must see The Bank Dick.

It's for your own good.

BUT DON'T JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT!

The Bank Dick is about a drunken man that's as ugly physically as he is emotionally and somehow, by stumbling his way through the movie, he stops a bank robbery and becomes filthy rich, because of course he does. There's practically no plot to speak of in the movie, which is fine, since the only purpose of the plot in this particular film is to string together little comedic episodes, one after the other.

The one thing I really don't like about the movie is that it showcases just how poorly the slidewhistle has aged. On the other hand, it amazes me that anyone ever thought that it was funny unironically.

And now, without further ado, the punchline:

A Word From David Mamet

I love David Mamet. Even though he's got more than a few dogs under his belt, when he writes something well, it's downright, bloody amazing. And even when he is writing some of the more questionable works in his body, he's still writing exactly what he wants to write, which, unlike a lot of hacks and sellouts, I can respect him for it.

A few years back, he wrote a letter to the writers of The Unit. His bits of advice follow:

THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. *YOU* THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE *EVERY* SCENE IS DRAMATIC.

And,

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. *NOT* TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”

And,

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

He's great. I love him. Listen to him, will you?

Here's my Card

Once More With Feeling

As I understand it "Mick Jagger solo album" are four of the most frightening words in the English language. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to inflict this on you:

Just a Little Something I'm Working On

I think I'm going to try to make a shirt out of this.

The Worst Detective

Ain't No Party Like a Hamster Party

A Sign of Bad Times

About a year or so ago, back when I actually lived in Long Beach, I went through a phase where I would watch There Will Be Blood about once a week. It was a good phase and a fairly productive one. It helped me a lot with the story I was writing (which I just recently finished and submitted) and, even if I wasn't writing, I enjoy this film immensely. Maybe it's just all of the film education that's been crammed up my butt over the past three years or maybe it's because I'm so emotionally invested in this movie, but the more I watch it, the more I love it. It's a perfect movie. I love No Country For Old Men, but if There Will Be Blood had bested it for Best Picture, I would have been perfectly okay with that. It would have deserved it.

I originally saw There Will Be Blood with a stranger who is now a very good friend of mine. His name was Will and we met on a forum. We were both film nerds and we both wanted to see There Will Be Blood something fierce, so we decided to hang out and go see the flick down at the Arclight. The movie was great and while at Baja Fresh, we ran into Trevor from The Whitest Kids You Know. It was a formative day and one of the better ones I have of Los Angeles proper.

On a side note, Will also loves this movie, but he hasn't watched it since it came out in theaters for fear of it not measuring up to the first experience. more Blood for me, I guess.

Anyways, There Will Be Blood is built into a lot of memories of mine and, what's more, is that it's a really goddamn good flick. Without going on too long about why that it, suffice it to say that I find it amazing because there is no feasible, logical reason why the movie works. It simply shouldn't. If anyone else attempted this movie, it wouldn't work. There's probably a thousand examples in cinema of a movie like this going wrong and for some reason, this time, some strange alchemy allowed it to not only exist, but be one of what I think will be the greatest films of all time.

At least it will be one of my greatest films of all time. That must be worth something.

Anyways, another friend of mine Steven, who I've known since kindegarten, have been getting together, drinking, yaking, and watching great movies. Blade Runner is one of them. Miller's Crossing is another. Chinatown was one and so was Narc. This past Sunday we decided to re-watch There Will Be Blood. It was a good choice.

I've watched this movie maybe a dozen times and I've realized that the more I watch it, the more I empathize with Daniel Plainview. There's no way that can be a good thing. While I don't exactly understand his psychosis or his maliciousness, there's a part of me that perfectly understands the kind of driven, withdrawn enmity that he feels about the people around him. While I thankfully have more friends that he does, I get how a person can get so wrapped up in this bitter little ember inside of themselves.

And maybe that's why I like this movie so much. It doesn't waste it's time with story or morality, it just shows the life of an irredeemably angry man slowly picking away at himself for no apparent rhyme or reason. And there's no reason something like that should be this watchable.

This sounds incredibly stupid as I write it, but the movie is as uncompromising as Plainview himself. Each form is perfect in its own little way.