There aren't too many movies that I can watch over and over without ever getting sick of them. Almost every movie I've ever seen has at least one part that I go "meh...we can skip that." But of the 10 or so films that I can watch without ever tiring of them...two of them star Gene Wilder.
I can't remember how old I was the first time I ever saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but I do remember that I almost shut the TV off when Violet Beauregard turned into a blueberry. I'd begged to stay up past my 9:00 bedtime to watch the movie on ABC Family, and then promptly regretted it when Augustus Gloop went up the chocolate pipe. But I do remember my first look at Gene Wilder--how much I liked his purple Wonka coat, how reassuring his low voice was, how much I wanted to pet his soft, curly hair, how his blue eyes reminded me of my dad's. I'll never forget that first look, because for the rest of the movie I was alternately fascinated and scared--except for my first look at the chocolate room. To this day, I still tear up at the sound of the opening notes of "Pure Imagination," and until today, I couldn't for the life of me have told you why.
Looking back, that was one of the defining moments for me as an artist. I'd never read the book, so that was my introduction to Willy Wonka, and that movie, to me, was exactly what I wanted to make--again, I couldn't have told you that at the time, but now I know. It was a little quirky, a little weird and a bit scary, but there was so much beauty there, so much mystery and so much hope. And at the center of it all, a weirdo, a most lovable weirdo, who I could love and be a little afraid of at the same time.
Years later I read the book and could not picture anyone else, any other actor in the world, as Mr. Wonka. Gene Wilder, with his perfect combination of calm and excitement, of threatening discipline and loving reassurance, with all his quirks and secret little smiles and perfectly straight-faced delivery of lines like "If the good Lord had intended us to walk, He wouldn't have invented roller skates," he was Wonka, plain and simple. I love Tim Burton--you all know I do--but no one, not least of all Johnny Depp, could ever embody Willy Wonka as Gene Wilder did, and no movie could ever replace Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
As is the case with most of the people and things I now love, it took me a while to recognize the genius of Gene Wilder and the movies he chose to be in. Young Frankenstein and Willy Wonka scared me; Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak went over my head. But over time, I learned to love him. The first time I saw Young Frankenstein, I cried before the opening credits were even over, but by the time we moved to the suburbs when I was twelve, Halloween season wasn't complete without it. When I got to Interlochen, I got teased more than once for preferring "funny" versions of movies that everyone else thought were classics, being called "immature" for preferring, for instance, Stir Crazy to The Shawshank Redemption. I didn't mind. Wilder's humor appealed to me a lot, far more than the dramatics that everyone else referred to as the only quality cinema.
I've always had particular taste when it came to comedy. Again, if you show me something like Stir Crazy, I will laugh myself sick; put on Superbad or This is the End, I'm bored in five minutes. I've sat stone-faced through movies that had my friends in stitches--but I have yet to see a Gene Wilder film that failed to make me laugh at least once. Am I picky? Old-fashioned, when it comes to humor? Undoubtedly, but I don't care.
Mr. Gene Wilder, you have made me laugh more times than I can count. I spent so much of my childhood and adolescence learning humor from your films. You were a brilliant actor, but more importantly you were, as far as I'm concerned, a genius and a sweetheart. You deliberately kept your illness a secret to protect the kids who grew up loving your movies. And for that, you will forever have my admiration. Thank you, thank you for being the kind of person a kid could look up to, for giving the world so much joy and for living such a great life. You so deserved your fame--and now you deserve your rest. Thank you for everything. You will not be forgotten.
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Monday, August 29, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
What happens in film school...goes on the internet
It's been too long! Well, that's what happens when you start a new job, I guess. ANYWAY! A Jungle Book review is forthcoming, but first, a word from our sponsors...
A little background: when I was still in college, I had a lovely teacher who, for the purposes of this post, shall go by Professor Smartass because, well, that's exactly what he was. He looked like Sherlock Holmes and dressed like Don Draper, but oh good God the pure gold that came out of that man's mouth...I'm not kidding, we actually had a swear tally for him because he dropped f-bombs like they were going out of style.
So it didn't take me very long to decide to record his finer quotations and squirrel them away in my film theory notes for safekeeping. I don't know if I can use any of this in a movie script later, which is technically the purpose of stolen dialogue (a thing I picked up from another of my teachers, this one in actual film school), but it's still pure gold and that's all that matters. Here are some of Professor Smartass's best moments. (And yes, there is cursing in this post. Not very professional, I know...but neither is saying "f that" in the classroom. You'll see.)
"The quizzes were okay...the lowest grade was a 60, the highest was a 100. There was some decent bullshitting going on!"
"If I was sitting here and the wall started talking I would not think, 'Oh, that's probably a voiceover!'"
"You have a research plan due for a research paper, the prompt for which you have not yet received...that's fucked up!"
(On Easy Rider)
"They can't really do worse than Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra...so why not just give Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper $500,000 and a ton of cocaine and see what happens?"
(On Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
"The film is trying to ease us into this shitshow!"
"Have any of us gone to a store where we could ask them to erase our memories? I don't mean, like, a coffee house in Amsterdam, I mean they put, y'know, that giant metal sieve, or whatever they put on his head in that movie..."
"The Warsaw Pact caused countries to break away from Communism, because who the fuck wants to be a buffer?"
"It will ROCK YOUR DONKEY."
"In the mid-sixties--I almost said the mid-SEXties, in the MID-SEXTIES..."
(on Italian neorealism)
Student: The audience found L'Aventura boring as heck.
Professor: "Boring as heck"...I think that's the nicest way it's ever been put.
(on sexist advertising)
"All these women, scantily clad, are not only holding these giant phallic bananas, but at some point they actually dunk them into a vaginal fruit cup."
"Now, the problem is that most people don't know what the fuck they're talking about."
Professor: The 3rd cinema...third world? What were the other two?
Student: First and second!
Professor: And we have a winner for "Jackass Answer of the Year!"
(on Soviet Montage)
"Is there any other way to interpret that? No! Eisenstein doesn't give a shit! He's kino-fisting you in the face!"
"Life sucks...I dig it!"
(on Citizen Kane)
"They gave Orson Welles a rare offer: make whatever film you want, and we will not fuck with you."
(on a movie mob boss)
"He has all these suits, he steals Michelle Pfeiffer from his boss, he has a pet tiger at one point...so yeah, things are pretty fuckin' good for him, right?"
"She's involved in , you know, drugs, crime, guns, maybe some casual terrorism..."
"It's totally arbitrary, calling this concept 'Objectif'...it could have been named, 'pile of bullshit,' who knows?"
Professor: What are you doing, Kelsey?
Kelsey: Um. I'm playing with play-doh. (holds it up so he can see)
Professor: Oh, that's fine. I thought you were texting. Go ahead.
"Now, Krackauer's not fucking around!"
(on the variety of art today)
"So, we have Mozart, and then we have Paulie D."
"Unfortunately, that did not play out, and so we still have to watch Justin Bieber on television."
(on Hitchcock)
"He has experience with the shit hitting the fan."
"Hitchcock was a genius at this, he forced people to identify with these crazy-ass bastards!"
(On Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo)
"This dude is batshit crazy!"
(on the new wave)
"It was basically a total shitstorm for 20 years--and it was AWESOME."
"You get to walk out of the theater after the movie ends, go back to your job and go, 'whoa, hey, I didn't kill someone today!'"
(on German expressionism)
"So what, are we supposed to think 'Wow, they have really weird windows in Germany?'"
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari--I don't know if you've seen it, but it's about this sleepwalking crazy dude that kidnaps women."
(on class discussion)
"Shit might get a little dicey."
"To use the technical term, this is a janky-looking website."
"And I didn't know what to do, so I drew a picture of a hippopotamus and a truck."
A little background: when I was still in college, I had a lovely teacher who, for the purposes of this post, shall go by Professor Smartass because, well, that's exactly what he was. He looked like Sherlock Holmes and dressed like Don Draper, but oh good God the pure gold that came out of that man's mouth...I'm not kidding, we actually had a swear tally for him because he dropped f-bombs like they were going out of style.
So it didn't take me very long to decide to record his finer quotations and squirrel them away in my film theory notes for safekeeping. I don't know if I can use any of this in a movie script later, which is technically the purpose of stolen dialogue (a thing I picked up from another of my teachers, this one in actual film school), but it's still pure gold and that's all that matters. Here are some of Professor Smartass's best moments. (And yes, there is cursing in this post. Not very professional, I know...but neither is saying "f that" in the classroom. You'll see.)
"The quizzes were okay...the lowest grade was a 60, the highest was a 100. There was some decent bullshitting going on!"
"If I was sitting here and the wall started talking I would not think, 'Oh, that's probably a voiceover!'"
"You have a research plan due for a research paper, the prompt for which you have not yet received...that's fucked up!"
(On Easy Rider)
"They can't really do worse than Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra...so why not just give Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper $500,000 and a ton of cocaine and see what happens?"
(On Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
"The film is trying to ease us into this shitshow!"
"Have any of us gone to a store where we could ask them to erase our memories? I don't mean, like, a coffee house in Amsterdam, I mean they put, y'know, that giant metal sieve, or whatever they put on his head in that movie..."
"The Warsaw Pact caused countries to break away from Communism, because who the fuck wants to be a buffer?"
"It will ROCK YOUR DONKEY."
"In the mid-sixties--I almost said the mid-SEXties, in the MID-SEXTIES..."
(on Italian neorealism)
Student: The audience found L'Aventura boring as heck.
Professor: "Boring as heck"...I think that's the nicest way it's ever been put.
(on sexist advertising)
"All these women, scantily clad, are not only holding these giant phallic bananas, but at some point they actually dunk them into a vaginal fruit cup."
"Now, the problem is that most people don't know what the fuck they're talking about."
Professor: The 3rd cinema...third world? What were the other two?
Student: First and second!
Professor: And we have a winner for "Jackass Answer of the Year!"
(on Soviet Montage)
"Is there any other way to interpret that? No! Eisenstein doesn't give a shit! He's kino-fisting you in the face!"
"Life sucks...I dig it!"
(on Citizen Kane)
"They gave Orson Welles a rare offer: make whatever film you want, and we will not fuck with you."
(on a movie mob boss)
"He has all these suits, he steals Michelle Pfeiffer from his boss, he has a pet tiger at one point...so yeah, things are pretty fuckin' good for him, right?"
"She's involved in , you know, drugs, crime, guns, maybe some casual terrorism..."
"It's totally arbitrary, calling this concept 'Objectif'...it could have been named, 'pile of bullshit,' who knows?"
Professor: What are you doing, Kelsey?
Kelsey: Um. I'm playing with play-doh. (holds it up so he can see)
Professor: Oh, that's fine. I thought you were texting. Go ahead.
"Now, Krackauer's not fucking around!"
(on the variety of art today)
"So, we have Mozart, and then we have Paulie D."
"Unfortunately, that did not play out, and so we still have to watch Justin Bieber on television."
(on Hitchcock)
"He has experience with the shit hitting the fan."
"Hitchcock was a genius at this, he forced people to identify with these crazy-ass bastards!"
(On Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo)
"This dude is batshit crazy!"
(on the new wave)
"It was basically a total shitstorm for 20 years--and it was AWESOME."
"You get to walk out of the theater after the movie ends, go back to your job and go, 'whoa, hey, I didn't kill someone today!'"
(on German expressionism)
"So what, are we supposed to think 'Wow, they have really weird windows in Germany?'"
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari--I don't know if you've seen it, but it's about this sleepwalking crazy dude that kidnaps women."
(on class discussion)
"Shit might get a little dicey."
"To use the technical term, this is a janky-looking website."
"And I didn't know what to do, so I drew a picture of a hippopotamus and a truck."
...and now I'm homesick for college. Excuse me while I go e-mail my teachers and tell them all how much I miss them. :)
Thursday, July 9, 2015
The genre judgement conundrum
Okay, I’ll admit it: sometimes I don’t practice what I preach. I’ll write here all night and all day about not judging a movie before you see it, watching a variety of movies instead of sticking to your favorites, seeing movies outside your preferred genres, giving movies a chance even if they don’t get good reviews…but I confess, there are a lot of movies where I take one look at the trailer (or a DVD cover) and go, “Nope. Not a chance.” I have my pet peeves within a film, and if I know going in that the film I’m watching has those issues, it’s practically guaranteed I won’t like it.
I can’t stand gore or torture porn. If you ask me to watch Evil Dead or Saw I will run away. I don’t like supernatural horror, mainly because it scares the hell out of me, but also because those movies have a tendency to rely on archetypes and jump scares instead of fleshing out a real story. I don’t like R-rated comedies where 90% of the jokes revolve around sex, controlled substances, or petty crime. Oh, and don’t even ask me to consider knockoff parodies like the Scary Movie series--there is no chance in hell. I hate those cheap comedies most of all, because all I can think about when I watch them is, if only I had those resources…God, what I could do instead of making crap like this.
So when I found myself putting Ted into my DVD player, all I could do was stand there, disgusted, and ask myself, what in God’s name am I doing.
Let me back up here and explain that back in May, Ian took me to Motor City Comic-Con and it was pretty much the best date of my life. I got to sit in on a panel with a Supernatural writer, meet some of my favorite actors, and oh yeah, meet and talk to Billy Boyd--thanks to Ian, who surprised me by not only taking me to the con, but getting me a photo op with my favorite Hobbit. So, to thank him, I offered to let him pick the next ten movies we saw together. So far I’ve loved all of the ones we’ve seen (up to yesterday we’d watched treasures like The Truman Show and Angels in the Outfield) but when he came over the other day he handed me a DVD that I desperately wanted to throw in the trash can.
I hate, hate, hate movies like Ted. They are full of raunchy, cheap jokes that rely on shock value and foul language instead of actual humor. The acting is usually half-assed at best, unless a weirdly good actor randomly ends up in an otherwise-shitty movie. One of the reasons I get so pissed off when people like Ethan Hawke compare all mainstream films to “hamburgers and hot dogs” is because it means they’re lumping in truly brilliant blockbusters, like Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, to crap like This Is The End and Epic Movie. These films are, in my mind, truly empty entertainment. I can’t remember the last time I watched one of those movies and came away thinking, “Y’know, I’m glad I watched that.” I’d sooner watch any of the junk featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 than put myself through Superbad, Bridesmaids or The Hangover.
So you can imagine it took a fair bit of convincing to get me to watch Ted. Ian had to repeat over and over that it was really cute, that the jokes weren’t all centered around sex, that it was one of Seth MacFarlane’s better projects, and that the acting was actually pretty decent. I tried to guilt him out of it, reminding him that my ex had once forced me into seeing Scary Movie 5 and it gave me nightmares and I hated porn jokes and can’t we please watch, I don’t know, Nightmare on Elm Street instead? But he reminded me of my promise and I finally gave in and watched Ted.
Now, I won’t say I loved it. I didn’t. It was decent, but it’s not going to be on any of my top ten lists. And I can see why it wasn’t an Oscar favorite. I can’t say I’m suddenly interested in watching another handful of similar comedies. I’m not about to run out and see the sequel, and God knows it’s not going to turn me into a MacFarlane fan.
But…
But for all its flaws, Ted is actually pretty damn cute. It’s raunchy, yes--for anyone who hasn’t seen it, allow me to drop a little spoiler: the teddy bear gets laid--but there’s enough wit in the humor to offset some of the more tasteless potty humor. Okay, maybe it’s still about as stupid as you’d expect (at one point I told Ian “if they make one more fart joke I’ll throw something") but there are some pretty good lines, there’s some nice banter here and there, the celebrity cameos are well-timed, and the romance between Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis’s characters is actually fairly believable. Not only that, but there are some moments that would make any Tumblr warrior proud: a gay love story is casually tossed in and treated like it’s no big deal, and at one point Wahlberg’s character sarcastically says that if he’s assaulted it’s his fault for “asking for it.” Little things like that keep the movie from collapsing into pure, unadulterated piles of yuck, but underneath all of the both PC and non-PC humor, the whole thing is actually…sweet. Surprisingly sweet, in fact, given that the film is about a foul-mouthed twentysomething teddy bear and his childish human BFF.
Like I said, I’m not about to run out and rent all three of the Hangover movies. And no power on this earth will make me see the rest of the Scary Movie franchise. And, please, someone shoot me on the spot if I ever think about making a movie with that many fart jokes. But watching Ted--and actually enjoying Ted--gave me a new perspective. I’ve been sulking furiously over every last indieWIRE article that makes fun of Jurassic World or insinuates that blockbusters are empty brain candy, only to turn right around and call a whole other genre “brain candy” without even watching the majority of the films in that category. And that, as I’m sure any sane person would tell me, is not fair.
No, Ted isn’t a masterpiece. But it’s still a movie that took time and energy and, yes, a lot of money to make. Someone had to come up with the idea, however cringe-worthy, of letting a cute, fuzzy teddy bear have sex with Norah Jones. (And can we just take a minute to admire the guts it took for that woman to take on a film role where she fondly reminisces about getting it on with a frickin’ stuffed animal? I’m not sure I would’ve done that.) Someone had to write, direct, film, edit, and distribute this thing. Just like all my favorites, Ted was the product of a group of very dedicated people who didn’t give a shit about anything except the fact that they had a story to tell.
And whether you liked the film or not, you’ve got to at least give it some credit for that reason alone. At least, I have to. Because I can’t call myself a bad-movie champion, and give the critics hell for judging a movie based on its genre, and then refuse to give movies like Ted a chance.
I can’t stand gore or torture porn. If you ask me to watch Evil Dead or Saw I will run away. I don’t like supernatural horror, mainly because it scares the hell out of me, but also because those movies have a tendency to rely on archetypes and jump scares instead of fleshing out a real story. I don’t like R-rated comedies where 90% of the jokes revolve around sex, controlled substances, or petty crime. Oh, and don’t even ask me to consider knockoff parodies like the Scary Movie series--there is no chance in hell. I hate those cheap comedies most of all, because all I can think about when I watch them is, if only I had those resources…God, what I could do instead of making crap like this.
So when I found myself putting Ted into my DVD player, all I could do was stand there, disgusted, and ask myself, what in God’s name am I doing.
Let me back up here and explain that back in May, Ian took me to Motor City Comic-Con and it was pretty much the best date of my life. I got to sit in on a panel with a Supernatural writer, meet some of my favorite actors, and oh yeah, meet and talk to Billy Boyd--thanks to Ian, who surprised me by not only taking me to the con, but getting me a photo op with my favorite Hobbit. So, to thank him, I offered to let him pick the next ten movies we saw together. So far I’ve loved all of the ones we’ve seen (up to yesterday we’d watched treasures like The Truman Show and Angels in the Outfield) but when he came over the other day he handed me a DVD that I desperately wanted to throw in the trash can.
I hate, hate, hate movies like Ted. They are full of raunchy, cheap jokes that rely on shock value and foul language instead of actual humor. The acting is usually half-assed at best, unless a weirdly good actor randomly ends up in an otherwise-shitty movie. One of the reasons I get so pissed off when people like Ethan Hawke compare all mainstream films to “hamburgers and hot dogs” is because it means they’re lumping in truly brilliant blockbusters, like Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, to crap like This Is The End and Epic Movie. These films are, in my mind, truly empty entertainment. I can’t remember the last time I watched one of those movies and came away thinking, “Y’know, I’m glad I watched that.” I’d sooner watch any of the junk featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 than put myself through Superbad, Bridesmaids or The Hangover.
So you can imagine it took a fair bit of convincing to get me to watch Ted. Ian had to repeat over and over that it was really cute, that the jokes weren’t all centered around sex, that it was one of Seth MacFarlane’s better projects, and that the acting was actually pretty decent. I tried to guilt him out of it, reminding him that my ex had once forced me into seeing Scary Movie 5 and it gave me nightmares and I hated porn jokes and can’t we please watch, I don’t know, Nightmare on Elm Street instead? But he reminded me of my promise and I finally gave in and watched Ted.
Now, I won’t say I loved it. I didn’t. It was decent, but it’s not going to be on any of my top ten lists. And I can see why it wasn’t an Oscar favorite. I can’t say I’m suddenly interested in watching another handful of similar comedies. I’m not about to run out and see the sequel, and God knows it’s not going to turn me into a MacFarlane fan.
But…
But for all its flaws, Ted is actually pretty damn cute. It’s raunchy, yes--for anyone who hasn’t seen it, allow me to drop a little spoiler: the teddy bear gets laid--but there’s enough wit in the humor to offset some of the more tasteless potty humor. Okay, maybe it’s still about as stupid as you’d expect (at one point I told Ian “if they make one more fart joke I’ll throw something") but there are some pretty good lines, there’s some nice banter here and there, the celebrity cameos are well-timed, and the romance between Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis’s characters is actually fairly believable. Not only that, but there are some moments that would make any Tumblr warrior proud: a gay love story is casually tossed in and treated like it’s no big deal, and at one point Wahlberg’s character sarcastically says that if he’s assaulted it’s his fault for “asking for it.” Little things like that keep the movie from collapsing into pure, unadulterated piles of yuck, but underneath all of the both PC and non-PC humor, the whole thing is actually…sweet. Surprisingly sweet, in fact, given that the film is about a foul-mouthed twentysomething teddy bear and his childish human BFF.
Like I said, I’m not about to run out and rent all three of the Hangover movies. And no power on this earth will make me see the rest of the Scary Movie franchise. And, please, someone shoot me on the spot if I ever think about making a movie with that many fart jokes. But watching Ted--and actually enjoying Ted--gave me a new perspective. I’ve been sulking furiously over every last indieWIRE article that makes fun of Jurassic World or insinuates that blockbusters are empty brain candy, only to turn right around and call a whole other genre “brain candy” without even watching the majority of the films in that category. And that, as I’m sure any sane person would tell me, is not fair.
No, Ted isn’t a masterpiece. But it’s still a movie that took time and energy and, yes, a lot of money to make. Someone had to come up with the idea, however cringe-worthy, of letting a cute, fuzzy teddy bear have sex with Norah Jones. (And can we just take a minute to admire the guts it took for that woman to take on a film role where she fondly reminisces about getting it on with a frickin’ stuffed animal? I’m not sure I would’ve done that.) Someone had to write, direct, film, edit, and distribute this thing. Just like all my favorites, Ted was the product of a group of very dedicated people who didn’t give a shit about anything except the fact that they had a story to tell.
And whether you liked the film or not, you’ve got to at least give it some credit for that reason alone. At least, I have to. Because I can’t call myself a bad-movie champion, and give the critics hell for judging a movie based on its genre, and then refuse to give movies like Ted a chance.
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