Movie chat

I wrote another film synopsis, this one based on a golden-age-of-Hollywood piece that was shown in my Intro English class. The fractured femme fatale is played by an oversexed forties starlet called Gene Tierney who's sort of a proto-Angelina Jolie. I can only assume that both are the product of some gene splicing experiment gone horribly wrong. At any rate, the two women have cornered the global supply of eyeball surface area and disproportionate bust.

In the 1945 Fox box office smash Leave Her To Heaven, Gene Tierney portrays the oppressively gorgeous Ellen Berent, a hystrionic harpy with an Electra complex the size of Vermont, who roams through life using her shrill beauty to bludgeon man and woman alike into accord with her capricious agenda. In our story, the recipient of her questionable attentions is a hack writer named Richard Harland who, navigating the rocky New Mexican coutryside terrain on a research trip for his next Zane Grey ripoff, accidentally trips and marries Gene Tierney.

Mr Harland and his psychopathic young bride whisk away to the glamour and excitement of rural Maine, where the marriage quickly begins to go sour. The viewer is inclined to discourage reconciliation, feeling that the couple have made a reasonable go of matrimony during the past 17 hours, but Harland digs deep and finds a way to completely ignore the fact that Ellen is an Annie Wilkes-like lunatic who wishes nothing more than to love him and squeeze him and hold him forever and ever, with admittance being refused to any family or friends who wish to witness the grotesque spectacle of their 'love'.

Richards takes exception to Ellen's Pat Buchanan-esque isolationism, and between this and Chill Wills' fireside Francis the Talking Mule singing, the stress drives Ellen to unbecoming social behaviour. In one such example she blows off some steam by drowning Richard's physically disabled brother, little Danny (or was it Bobby or Timmy?), possibly because his efforts at cuteness-based manipulation were beginning to overshadow her own.

Devastated by the apparently accidental loss of his all-American sibling, Richard finds his life bereft of golly gee whiz spirit, and decidedly less swell. Ellen's ovaries rise to challenge, however, and all memory of the hapless Danny is erased the second a fetus is conceived. Ebullient, Richard sketches a terrifying harlequin on the wall of the nursery in order to prepare the zygotic newcomer for life under the homicidal circus performer who carries it. No amount of spooky clown drawings, however, can make the tedium of pregnancy tolerable for Ellen, who swan dives down the staircase in an effort to give the baby an early start on swimming lessons, resulting in an aborted pregnancy.

As an American writer in the 1940's, Richard is no stranger to sexy women being portrayed as morally deficient, and he eventually figures out the true cause of both deaths, resulting in Ellen's swift dismissal from wiving duties. Having been given the pink slip by Richard, she decides it's really not her colour, and slips into a modest green satin number in time for her final picnic. Ellen puts away a corned beef sandwich seasoned with arsenic, and promptly croaks, but not before concocting an elborate ruse designed to ruin the life of her angelic cousin, Ruth. It's a bizarre kamikaze maneuver confirming for the viewer how completely batshit crazy is the late Mrs. Berent.

At this late stage of the film, it abruptly transmogrifies into a courtoom drama; apparently one set before the invention of the term “conflict of interest”. Ellen's jilted fiancé, the incomparably creepy Vincent Price, argues her case with more passionate vitriol than you'd expect from your average cuckolded district attorney, repeatedly attempting to extract an admission of the love between Richard and Ruth. The whole affair is reminiscent of a giggling grade school bully at recess, and the viewer half expects his closing comments to the jury to be something like “Richard and Ruth, sittin' in a tree/ K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

In the climactic scene, Richard drops a bomb on the jury, tattling about how mean Ellen actually was, and everyone buys the story wholesale. As an accessory after the fact to Danny's drowning, he gets sent up to the big house for two years, and has to watch out for his “Back of the Moon” in the shower.

The film is visually arresting (shot on location in New Mexico and Maine), and spins a pretty absorbing yarn for the viewer, even as it closely adheres to safe, established noir norms of the day in most respects. One can't demur overly at the predictable femme fatale character, since it was par for the course in mid 40s Hollywood (and still is), but it bears noting that the depiction of females is fairly reprehensible. In this movie's weltanschauung, women are either sweet, wholesome madonnas who submit wordlessly to near endless abuse and domination, or unscrupulous, wildly jealous temptresses; not a pleasant dichotomy. Even so, it's a great film, once these mysogynistic roles are placed in their proper historical context, and still entertains and provokes 60 years after its theatrical release.

Mishap in the Imagination Station

I thought I'd take a stab at writing a Michael J. Nelson-esque (if I may flatter myself) film review. Well, it's actually more of a complete, though somewhat inaccurate, recounting of the movie, since it gives away every single plot point, plus the climax. Uh, spoiler alert, I guess. Also, this synopsis may not make a lot of sense if you haven't seen the film in question: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

A paean to the inspirational power of creativity, imagination, and sassy midgets, the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is the story of the titular wandering occultist, portrayed with wizened aplomb by old-as-the-hills Christopher Plummer, and his Leary-esque quest to spread psychedelic awareness to the world. We learn that Plummer, along with the gnomelike Verne Troyer (Warrick Davis was unavailable due to a scheduling conflict), was made immortal millennia earlier after Satan visited their mountain top monastery. Croaky songster Tom Waits appears as Old Gooseberry, who cruelly mocks Parnassus' quaint faith in the power of story-telling to sustain the world's creative energy. The scorned ascetic has his guard bird befoul Waits' immaculate felt bowler, but the potty humour is not enough to deter Beelzebub, as he tricks Parnassus and grants him his misguided wish of eternal life. Cursing his penchant for scatological hijinks, the old monk is doomed to wander creation for eternity, increasingly ignored by a jaded public benumbed by Michael Jackson and the films of Ivan Reitman.

Many years later, the dejected Parnassus is a drooling pisstank loitering in the bleak vicinity of London in a mossy caravan. Now he is accompanied by his moon-faced, nymphet daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), and a young sleight of hand artist named Anton. They squander their youths as unpaid barkers for Parnassus' whiskey-soaked spectacle, attempting to lure passersby into a magic tin foil door. The few hapless individual who blunder inside the Imaginarium enjoy a whimsical, lighthearted neverland where they realize in dazzling technicolour their wildest dreams, the only catch being that Satan seems to invariably capture and condemn their souls to damnation for all time. It's a fresh take on the traditional Christian concept of perdition, and I believe theologians of every stripe will feel the need to consider the concept that each person's eternal soul may in fact rest on the alcohol fueled fever dreams of a pseudo-eastern travelling magician. The terminally pert Valentina, harassed by the fervent attentions of her fellow junior huckster, Anton, longs for a life of domestic mediocrity, but loyally sticks around to perform her duty of parading her pubescent gams for her increasingly unstable father's depressing travelling circus. Valentina is kept in the dark about the fact that, in exchange for dear old dad's immortality, the Arch-Fiend is owed Valentina's soul upon her sixteenth birthday, now mere days away.

The downtrodden band comes upon a hanged but still attractive man as they cross the Thames. Aware that Heath Ledger is even better in death than in life, they use Verne Troyer's fishing rod to retrieve the pendulous hunk in a daring acrobatic operation. He's still alive, it turns out, and although his claims to amnesia seem about as plausible as a Flying Spaghetti Monster, the guillible quartet quickly adopts him, saddling him with uninspired handle 'George'. However, in the first of many confusing identity changes, Parnassus soon uses an ancient phrenological technique to discover that George's true name is Tony, and Tony and Anton set about obnoxiously bickering over the attentions of the underaged Valentina, the conflict exacerbated by their nominal similarities. The Lilliputian Troyer attempts to intimidate Tony with a long-winded moniker that bespeaks Sicilian lineage, then immediately backs down and offers the more concise 'Percy' as an alternate form of address.

The nefarious Waits returns to Plummer three days before Valentina's B-day, and eager for sport, hoarsely proposes a kind of spiritual pissing contest. The first to capture five souls will be the winner, and therefore will have rights to the never-autonomous Valentina.

By this point, the viewer can't help but realize that Christopher Plummer is merely performing a wrinkly modern reimagining of his role as Captain Georg Von Trapp. Saddled once again with a coterie of rancorous youngsters, and harried at every turn by the raspy taunting of the archfiend (= the humorously bumbling Nazis), the booze-soaked Parnassus is tried to the limits of his patience until, in a fit of pique, he flings the diminutive Troyer to one of the muddy patches of gravel which constantly surround the insolvent travellers. Enter Tony as Julie Andrews who uses his infectious enthusiasm to cure the youngsters' grumpiness, leading them in a song about a few of his favourite things: occultism, autoerotic asphyxiation, and sex with minors.

Tony, whose facade of relative wholesomeness is almost cracking by now, is still fairly bursting with cheeky charisma, and modernizes the clunky sideshow by moving it to a shopping mall and dressing Anton as a husky woman. Percy is transformed into a minstrelsy tar baby and ensnares the morbidly curious, well-heeled London shoppers who crowd the stage for the chance to experience the orgasmic acid trip offered by Parnassus, who appears poised to win the metaphysical wager. Things quickly go south when a gang of Russian gangsters appears and, mysteriously eager to rearrange Tony's face, plunge into the Imagination Station after him, sending Parnassus' liquor addled mind into a tailspin.

The rest of the movie mostly takes place against an outlandish backdrop of shifting absurdist fantasies which only confirm for the viewer that you can take the Terry Gilliam out of Monty Python, but you can't take the, etc. Tony transforms into Orlando Bloom, and then into George Clooney, and finally we see him as Cary Grant.

Newly buxom Anton rescues the feckless shapeshifter from the Slavic hoodlums, and Tony repays him by spiriting away the love of his life. Tony performs a statutory rape upon Valentina as their barge rocks sordidly down a river of Kool-Aid, and then things get weird. New shit comes to light. We realize that Tony is some manner of mischievous phantasm who has no concern whatever for the plight of children in reduced circumstances. Parnassus feebly falls down a couple of times. Waits harps away with his wirebrushed vocal cords. Finally, Valentina discovers that her eternal soul is being toyed with, and in a fit of childish pique over the fact that her father would risk consigning her to eternity in Hell she decides to spite him by choosing an eternity in Hell.

But the Prince of Darkness is sorry in the end to see the game finish, so he makes yet another deal with Captain Von Trapp, and together they cheerfully preside over Tony's lynching at the hands of an angry mob of black-tie fundraiser patrons.

So, Valentina is saved from unending malediction, and the film closes with a shot of a grubby, unkempt Parnassus peeping through a plate glass window at Anton and Valentina as they cloyingly dote on their soon-to-be unmanagably self centered child in a hip Soho eatery. The doctor beams down at Percy and resurrects the film's odd anti-joke wherein, in moments of warm commiseration between the immortal odd couple, Parnassus muses winkingly through his ungovernable facial hair, “What would I do without you, Percy?”, to which his bantam companion, with the apparent intention of jocosity, replies, “Get another midget.” Why aren't you laughing?

If the ending, in its portrayal of staid domestic normalness, seems to be a contradiction of everything the film has appeared to previously advocate, then deal with it. Nobody said Terry Gilliam movies were supposed to make sense.

Hermetic Seal of Approval

I feel like withdrawing from people lately. Doing so produces, by turns, two very different emotional results. Sometimes, when I turn down that party or show, or dinner invitation (usually begging off with some half legitimate excuse, like 'homework', which, depending on the subject or class, can be virtually never ending, making it the perfect cover), I feel liberated, and disciplined. My time is my own, free from the incessant demands of my friends. I can hole up in my little loft and put my efforts towards whatever I feel. I can read, write (rarely), watch movies, practice music, sketch, do the aforementioned homework (which usually leads to a pleasantly broadening plenitude of loose ends being pursued on Wikipedia and in the dictionary), or whatever strikes my fancy. Other times, I only seem to end up miring myself in an endless loop of time wasting activities, most of which involve my computer, that leave me feeling headachey and sad. The x factor seems to be how much energy and motivation I can summon; if I make it over the energy hump, and do something creative/productive, I invariably find that causes the energy and inspiration to multiply, ultimately leaving me in an optimistic, clear headed mental state. I must continue to seek discipline in life. It's never been my strong suit.

Bye Bye, Bad Man

The idea of a blog has always intrigued me. Blogging culture, if such a term can be used, seems like an ideal milieu for laying down thoughts and recounting events, both as personal record and as a means for friends and acquaintances to investigate what the one or the other is up to.
I like the non-invasive aspect of blogs. There's no need to directly send your words to any one person, thus one avoids putting pressure on anyone to directly respond. The words just sit there, ignored or appreciated; unobtrusive yet eminently available to those who care to look.
I hate public advertising, yet I love the proliferation of information and general electronic clutter we're experiencing in our lifetimes. The key, to me, is choice. This blog method simply allows the dissemination of ideas, news, or just amusing nonsense, without impinging on our friends' innate right to solitude and silence. Anyone who know me knows I've appreciated their respect for my own self-imposed isolation at many times in the past, and to this day.
It's essential to articulate one's experiences in some form or another. It helps us to acknowledge the reality of our particular situations. The written word has a way of helping to shine the light of truth on one's own fallacious reasoning, and also of helping to crystallize our better ideas. I choke on words like 'validation', but there's no denying that it's apt.
My own life has been characterized by a certain inclination towards intellectual laziness and a general lack of discipline. It's my hope that writing about my life from time to time might help me in my recent efforts to escape my natural torpor, and spur me onward to living a more energetic, engaged, and healthful life.
I've recently been inspired and amused, by turns, by others' blogs, and I hope that I can make a small contribution to the wealth of honest, unpretentious writing that exists on the internet, despite the plenitude of empty, distracting content that vastly outnumbers it. I look forward to a collective departure from the culture of vapidity, hostility and snarkiness that generally characterizes internet discourse. Selectiveness has become a more important quality than ever before. Discretion really is the better part of valour. If what I'm saying strikes you as a waste of your time, I urge you to stop reading and call your grandma, or go to the park, or just find something better on the internet.
I guess I'm exhorting myself more than anyone. I often find that the advice I dispense to others is the advice which I myself need to be given. I want to live with energy and thoughtfulness. Why this is such a struggle beats me, honestly. Where there's a will, though....