Fell Behind Due to Such an Amazing Week

Sunday night, I finally got to see a musician that's been kicking around since the '90s, mostly famous for his time as the singer/guitarist in the band Soul Coughing, and then, perhaps for more indie credibility, he's been steadily touring behind his more experimental solo music. Of course, I'm talking about Mike Doughty.

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Film 291
"Dare"
starring: Zach Gilford ("Friday Night Lights") and Emmy Rossum

"Dare" is the kind of movie that tries to be unconventional, in several ways, but it ends up failing on almost all accounts.

Emmy Rossum plays a theatre geek who is also a bit sheltered and prudish. She's looked down on by her peers for her lack of life experiences, so to speak. And she's trying out for a role in a school play that requires her to utilize more experience/background than she's capable of. After an intense encounter with an alum to the high school theatre department (played by Alan Cummings), Alexa (Rossum) decides to take to method acting in order to become more like the character she wants to play. In doing so, she becomes the kinky, geek theatre girl as she seduces the supposed asshole/popular/yet reserved boy, Johnny (played by Zach Gilford). And then, writer/director Adam Salky also adds into the mix, a confused, maladjusted gay teenage boy, Ben, who happens to be Alexa's best friend. And so, just as you probably guessed it the weird high school drama film becomes somewhat of a love triangle. And what makes the film not really work at all is the way director Salky decided to split it up into three character subplots (but not really, because the story continues as it would normally, except we get a black screen after each third of the film that says another character's name, which would mean we're about to learn more about them or that the story will now focus on them. It doesn't really work, though, because each character already doesn't get enough screen time to really get to know them. And because they only get a third of the time allowed in a 90 minute film, they are forced to change too quickly. None of the performances are very convincing, other than Johnny's quietly reserved presentation. You can tell that there is something deeper going on with him. His parents are not present at all (except for a rather bitchy, young stepmother, who takes his keys away) and you get the sense that he's trying to fill some kind of void they've left by become close with Ben and Alexa. He wants to feel wanted by them. Ben wants him to be his first lover/boyfriend, while Alexa wants to simply have meaningless sex with him in order to better herself as an actress. Johnny is just looking for friends. Johnny turns out to be rather sensitive and Alexa turns out to be kind of a bitch, only looking out for/concerned for herself. Johnny ends up on the losing end of the friendships with two terribly self-involved people.

Ultimately this is a film with three teenagers who screw around because of their absentee parents.

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Film 292
"Happy, Texas"
starring: Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn, Ally Walker, William H. Macy

Here's another movie about mistaken identity and being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. It centers around 2 convicts who have escaped custody thanks to a fight in the van with another convict as they are getting transported which causes an accident. The two convicts that are handcuffed together are the mild mannered Harry Sawyer (Jeremy Northam) and the hot-tempered Wayne Wayne Wayne Jr. (really? that's a bit ridiculous), played by Steve Zahn, who always seems to find these kind of characters. They end up stealing an RV at a gas station, and take refuge in a small-town called Happy, Texas. What they discover, though, is that they are quickly mistaken for the owners of the RV, who happened to be two gay men who travel around Texas consulting on beauty pageants. Chappy Dent (played by William H. Macy) is the sheriff in town who discovers them but doesn't know they are outlaws, and thus begins their adventure as mistaken beauty pageant consultants. Chappy Dent is too much of a dim-witted sheriff that he almost seems like a caricature, as do many of the people in the small town of Happy.

The plot thickens as the convicts think they're found out and are about to get arrested, but instead, they get hired as their town's beauty pageant consults. Ah! Mistaken identity. What kind of movies would we have without it. Of course, it leads to plenty of humor and hijacks, as well as confusion. Especially when you add into the mix a very attractive local bank president, in Ally Walker (from NBC's "Profiler" remember that show?). The convicts, Wayne and Harry, are planning to rob the bank after gaining the townspeople's trust and then taking off for their own separate lives. But, instead, they feel adopted by the townspeople (damn those Southerners for being so damn nice) and Harry has a change of heart. It doesn't help that he also falls in love with the bank president (Walker), even though he's supposed to be gay.

Steve Zahn always does a good job with these zany characters and he gets the most laughs because he's not that bright and he talks a bit funny (although, I don't think that's a mannerism specific to the character, but rather, just the way Zahn actually talks). Wayne gets pretty involved as the beauty pageant consultant, if not only to impress the girls' teacher (whom he ends up hooking up with), but also because he's actually grown to like these little girls. It was interesting to see Northam, who is a master in British films (re: "Emma" and "The Ideal Husband"), because he's definitely playing out of his zone, as a convict, but he does a decent, convincing job.

This is a good-natured, good-humor film that doesn't really pound you in the head with obvious or ill-intentioned humor. It's not obvious, and William H. Macy's character, who turns out to be gay (asking out and falling for Northam's Harry Sawyer) is an interesting twist in the story. It's a film that doesn't poke fun at homosexuality, which was a relief.

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Film 293
"Maniac"
starring: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder, Genevieve Alexandra
directed by: Franck Khalfoun

"Maniac" is the kind of movie you read about (it's a remake from 2012) as a bold adventure in filmmaking. It's bold and it's risky. It's a little bit "Taxi Driver" and a little bit "American Psycho." It's also a bit of a grindhouse homage. It's a slasher film. It's a horror film. It's a psychological thriller, to an extent. It's just as much disturbingly disgusting as it intends to be. It deserves every bit of the R-rating that it got.

Elijah Wood plays the title character, Maniac aka Psycho. His MO is scalping his female victims and affixing them to his mannequins, which he restores as a bit of a hobby/job. He is very messed up in his mind. Like, seriously. Almost just as bad as any of the other film psychos. Oh yeah, he also has a bit of the Norman Bates' traits, in that, Maniac (Wood) clearly has some mother-issues that he hasn't dealt with yet. This background story comes in flashbacks of scenes between Frank aka Maniac and his neglectful mother, the late prostitute (America Olivio) as she conducts her business right in front of him (at least in every flashback we witness).

I don't know how much of an "original" film this remake is because director Khalfoun basically spend the entire film throwing another pieces of horror films into the story, just to make sure we know that he didn't get his sick sense of filmmaking from himself, that it actually came from somewhere, and that it's been around for quite awhile, so we, as an audience, shouldn't pretend to be as shocked as we probably will be if you see this film. There were definitely some parts that I found hard to watch, for its shock value, and it usually takes A LOT to make me a bit cringy. It's also weird that the film is about 755 through Frank's point of view, and then it switches when Frank wants us to see him, in his bizarre fits of oncoming rage in the form of migraines. It's confusing, as a viewer. Either stick with the Maniac's point of view the entire film, although a shaky camera would've been a little much to handle, or go for the viewer's point of view.

Where Khalfoun’s “Maniac” fails to cut deep is in sketching the unlikely relationship between nutso Frank, who runs a mannequin shop, and sweet Anna, who somehow maintains an interest in the asocial weirdo while borrowing his dummies for her downtown L.A. gallery installation. Frank tries to control his murderous urges, declining to kill Anna when he has the chance, although the beauty-and-beast interplay rarely resembles anything emotionally authentic. It's too bad, because the film could've been something more if it had focused more on Frank's relationship with Anna (as pseudo as it seems). 

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Film 294
"Fargo"
starring: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steven Buscemi
written and directed by: Ethan and Joel Coen

"Fargo" is almost 10 years old (made in 1996) and it still stands as one of the best, most original films of all time. It is a dead-ringer for the small-town life in the frigid winter of North Dakota (and switches to a few locations in Minnesota, perhaps equally as frigid). It's a film by the Coen Brothers, who have had a few misteps along the way of their filmmaking careers, but perhaps because everything they've done since has been measured up to this film and "The Big Lebowski"(which may have been just as original). Why is "Fargo" so original? Because it contains within it an excellent story, and it moves from genre to genre fluidly and seamlessly. At some points it's a satire, then a straight-on comedy. it's also a suspenseful thriller and it's violent (just wait for the ending). I love what Roger Ebert said about the film when it first came out:

To watch it is to experience steadily mounting delight, as you realize the filmmakers have taken enormous risks, gotten away with them and made a movie that is completely original, and as familiar as an old shoe - or a rubbersoled hunting boot from Land's End, more likely.

He couldn't be more right.

Here's the plot in a nutshell, because I want to avoid spoiling your experience of such an amazing film and demand that if you haven't seen it, you must go now.

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy almost as great as you'll ever see him) is a car salesman who is in desperate need of money in order to make an outside business deal. In order to avoid his wife (who comes from a wealth of money) and his father-in-law (the owner of the dealership), Jerry decides to take matters into his own hands, so to speak, by hiring a couple of scawny lowlifes named Showalter and Grimsrud (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare, aces in the hole), who I couldn't really help but see as nods to a couple of other dim-witted pawns from Shakespeare in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (because they are both sent on missions). These two lowlifes are hired by Jerry to kidnap his wife and Jerry promises to split the $80,000 ransom money they are to ask for with them. Seems simple enough, but of course, things go wrong in completely unanticipated ways, which helps move the film along and creates twists and turns aplenty.

All the "action" happens in Brainerd and the police chief is a pregnant woman named Marge Gunderson (played superbly by Frances McDormand, who is also perhaps at her absolute finest in this role and has everything about being from Fargo, ND down to a tee- love her accent).

Since I couldn't possibly put it any better than the writing of the now deceased Roger Ebert (a master at the craft of film-reviewing):

Macy, who has played salesmen and con men before (he's a veteran of David Mamet's plays), finds just the right note in his scenes in the auto showroom. It's fascinating to watch him in action, trying to worm out of a lie involving an extra charge for rust-proofing.

“Fargo” is filled with dozens of similar moments that make us nod with recognition. When the two low-rent hoods stop for the night at a truck stop, they hire hookers. Cut to a shot of bored, mercenary sex. Cut to the next shot: They're all sitting up in bed, watching “The Tonight Show” on TV.

But the true star of the film, besides the well-executed script, is clearly Frances McDormand. My hat is off to her. This is an absolute delight and one of the reasons why watching films for this project, or just simply in general, can be an amazing experience. 

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Film 295
"On the Doll"
starring: Brittany Snow and Josh Janowicz
written and directed by: Thomas Mignone

Here's a film that intends to tell the dark and dirty side of the story to the sex trade (in any sort of fashion), but it really failed on all levels for me, because the script is really terrible. In fact, I lost interest in it, about 20 minutes in, but I powered through it, even though I hated it.

The film tells the unrelated stories of a number of individuals, all of whom appear to be little more than teens, somehow involved in the sex trade. Chantal is an escort, working to make money to support her boyfriend’s dream of recording an album. Melody and Courtney are high school students lured by a teacher into an on-line porn site while Balery, a call girl and dancer, employs Jaron to help her exact revenge on a cheap customer. Individually, the ideas for these stories are all interesting but they suffer from a number of problems ranging from poor acting to painful dialogue. 

The film tries hard to tell important stories but it only manages to touch the surface, providing interesting ideas that are never fully developed. The dialogue itself is juvenile and awkward and though this can be seen as somewhat realistic and an argument can be made that that is how kids in those situations might really talk, I didn’t buy into it. To make matters worse, a number of the back stories and situations feel forced, as if they were written to make a point rather than tell a story, and as a result, the characters are flat.

The acting too leaves a lot to be desired. Brittany Snow, the biggest name on the cast listing, is only appealing when she angrily beats on her victim in a scene which is brutal out of context but surprisingly un-emotional when seen as part of the film. Shanna Collins provides an interesting dynamic between professional door-to-door call girl and woman blinded by love but perhaps the most interesting, engaging and best played storyline is that of the school girls portrayed by Candice Accola and Chloe Domont. Lost girls caught between innocence and sexual awakening, they are drawn into the twisted world of the sex trade by a man who showers them with the wrong kind of attention. Their fall feels real and urgent and their story, though its time is limited, is the most well developed and complete and as a result, the best of the script.

I really did not like this film and would not suggest it to anyone.