Were the World Mine

"Were the World Mine"
Tom Gustafson, 2008

The hero of “Were the World Mine,” a new film that is based off of Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” is a gay teenager named Timothy (Tanner Cohen), who attends a private, all-boys high school. Timothy has already come out to his mother, who, as a single parent struggling to find work, views his sexuality as yet another burden that she must carry. In P.E., he's often teased, and occasionally beat, by other students, with the encouragement of their pugnacious and homophobic coach (Christian Stolte). Timothy escapes from his travails by fantasizing about the hot guys in his class singing to him, shirtless, and in near-perfect synchronization, as if performing in a play.

Coincidentally, Timothy has a class with an affable English teacher named Ms. Tebbit (Wendy Robie) who encourages him to audition for the school's rendition of “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Timothy, as it turns out, is a natural actor with a lovely voice. He's an untapped talent, and is given the leading role as the fairy (har har), but he has another unusual gift – he can make the love potion in Shakespeare's play work in real life. He gives nearly everyone in the town a whiff of the potion, which makes the person – or victim? - fall madly in love with the first person they lay eyes on.

Timothy, by way of his drug, receives the affections of the really cute captain of the rugby team, while the rest of the town's “moral” centered-ness disintegrates. It's surprising that given the setup, the profusion of hot guys, and the above-average visuals, “Were the World Mine” is so dull. Every gay person can relate to Timothy's crush on the high school jock, and how such people turn out to be incredibly hetero-normative. It's a fantasy that I thought I'd like to see play out on screen, but the film is really dealing with obsessions, not with love as it so claims.

A straight friend accidentally receives a dose of the love potion, and promptly grows enamored of Timothy; he's willing to fight to the death with the rugby team's captain for Timothy's favor. “Were the World Mine” feels deceiving because it puts such unreasonable obsessions on the same level as Timothy's real life crushes. This is not so much a film about a gay teen's fantasy, though this is what the film is really trying to be about, as it is a semi-cautionary tale about how unhealthy it is to obsess about other people. I would be content with an exploration of either aspect, but given the rather sloppy way in which the film is conceived, neither part plays out to a satisfactory extent.

At the end, after Timothy has “had his fun,” he casts a spell on everyone in town, returning them to their normal, pre-obsessive states. But everyone has, to some degree, had their eyes opened about love, acceptance – or something. It's not entirely clear what the lesson is, but it isn't all that important anyway. What matters most is the revelation that the rugby captain has really been in love with Timothy all along, and that it took the spell, the lifting of social misgivings about homosexuality, for him to finally accept that. So, our hero becomes a part of the gay fantasy incarnate. But it remains nothing more than a fantasy. Like waking from a dream, the contrivance of it all makes us feel not joy at Timothy's victory, but disappointment at its very flimsiness.

Rating: 5

First Viewed: 11/25/08, in 35 mm projection - IMDb

Beautiful Thing

"Beautiful Thing"
Hettie Macdonald, 1996

"Beautiful Thing" is the film adaptation of an English play about two teenage boys who fall in love with each another. It's a cute story, but it does nothing for me. It is the type of movie that doesn't strive to surprise or enlighten us. It makes us feel good that things work out, which is exactly what what we expected from the start. Most of the scenarios suffer from an intangible, musty feel, as though the filmmakers demand that we feel for these characters, even though they are obviously nothing more than flat and largely unconvincing actors spouting out requisite lines about angst and love. On the upside, the relationship takes place in a very average setting - low income housing - between two very average-looking and socially awkward guys. I suppose there is something comforting and uplifting to be found in that, for us normal, and still single, viewers at least.

Rating: 3.5

First Viewed: 11/22/08, on DVD - IMDb

Snow Angels

“Snow Angels”

David Gordon Green, 2007

In our introduction to the unnamed town in which David Gordon Green's film “Snow Angels” is set, we witness an off-key high school band practicing on the football field. It is the middle of winter, and we can see the students' breaths as they maneuver through the freezing air. There is a certain resignation in their labored movements and in their inability to please their increasingly frustrated band leader, who is considerably older than his students. Here, Green establishes an interesting rift between a frustrated younger generation and an older one that is even more resigned to its small-town fate; it feels like members of both generations have been sapped of creative and emotional energy by the literal freeze that envelops their town.

Green, working with the cinematographer Tim Orr, carefully constructs the film's atmosphere by washing his characters in bright white light and keeping them confined within the frame, either in close up or long shot; the town somehow feels empty and claustrophobic at once. Within such a high-pressure setting, Green is intent on exploring the notion of the family ideal, and specifically with how that ideal is always sought after – if not expected – and never reached, with disastrous consequences.

At the center of Green's film is the very sad narrative concerning Annie (Kate Beckinsale) and Glenn Marchand (Sam Rockwell). Theirs is a marriage that has gone to the dogs, due to Glenn's drinking problem. During the day, Annie works at a crappy Chinese restaurant, takes care of their daughter and, at night, has sex with a co-worker's husband at a cheap motel. Glenn, who now lives with his apathetic parents, is in recovery. He has turned to God, and he's trying his best to find a job and to win back Annie's trust. But that proves to be an idealistic goal, because Annie, with good reason, refuses to let him take care of their daughter. Glenn, in his deep sorrow, his desperation, and his disillusionment with a society that is supposed to provide people a second chance, once again turns to drinking, and his behavior turns increasingly erratic. His story is a tragedy, and Rockwell's performance is a devastating portrait of all the things that can go wrong in a marriage converging upon an individual.


Green provides a counter-narrative of sorts in the relationship between a high school band member named Arthur (Michael Angarano), whose parents, while highly successful career-wise, also have a rocky marriage, and a girl who has just moved into town named Lila (Olivia Thirlby). It's a refreshing story, and both actors nail the sweet, almost bashful nature of their burgeoning attraction for one another. Within “Snow Angels,” though, it feels like an alternative reality, the ideal relationship that, in Green's mind, exists without the prospect of all-too-early marriage between two immature individuals. It is not surprising, then, that the Glenn-Annie narrative doesn't always mix well with the Arthur-Lila narrative. As Glenn heads into even more despair, resorting to desperate measures that feel weak, and scripted, precisely because of their very theatricality, Arthur and Lila have sex for the first time. It's a baffling juxtaposition, but with these two competing narratives, we have the sense that there is a reinvigoration, a thawing, with each successive generation, but that the ones who are left behind resort to self-destructive behavior. Perhaps that is their only recourse, and, perhaps, this is best for the town in general, so that those looking ahead for a better future can continue their endeavor unabated.

Rating: 8.5

First Viewed: 11/17/08, on DVD - IMDb

Quantum of Solace

“Quantum of Solace”
Marc Forster, 2008

James Bond, in his numerous iterations, has emerged as something more than a character: he is an icon. What this icon represents has changed from film to film, but it generally relies upon several things – the agent's charm, his gadgets, his unprecedented capacity to seduce women, and his ability to enter and leave a film relatively unscathed, in time for the inevitable sequel. On a few occasions, the creators of Bond films have tried to step out of the constraints imposed by such a timeless icon by killing off a character that he truly cares for, with the hopes that the audience will perceive Bond more as a character than an icon, a human rather than a joke (Roger Moore in “Live and Let Die”) or a ruthless machine (Timothy Dalton in “License to Kill”). “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” and, more recently, “Casino Royale,” are such films, and because of their focus on the emotional aspects of the character, they serve as excellent, distinctive chapters in the franchise.

“Quantum of Solace” begins where its predecessor, “Casino Royale,” left off. James Bond, who is played by Daniel Craig, is seeking revenge for the death of his girlfriend, Vesper, who was played by Eva Green. In the process, Bond discovers that there is an international criminal organization called QUANTUM that is largely responsible for much of the world's instability and, perhaps, for Vesper's death.

Craig plays Bond as a resolute and, on rare occasion, sexy psychopath. It is a convincing performance, but the problems with “Quantum of Solace” arise not from Daniel Craig, but from the way in which the film was conceived. The director Mark Forster wants to address the many potentially fascinating aspects concerning Bond, but, while juggling the surfeit of activity, he crafts a disappointing film that is average in nearly every way. First and foremost, Forster wants to make his film a spectacle, but his action sequences are uninspired and poorly executed, entailing an assault of quick edits reminiscent of “The Bourne Ultimatum” (the technique isn't nearly as effective in this case) and poorly implemented C.G.I.

And then there is the nature of Bond himself. Forster attempts, in a rather perfunctory manner, to tackle the contradictions that are at the center of this man. As “Casino Royale” illustrated, Bond was trained as a killer, but he is ultimately a human, fallible to such things as falling in love. In “Quantum of Solace,” Bond is a ruthless killing machine who defies M's (Judi Dench) orders and, while deftly absorbing numerous kicks and punches, kills numerous suspects. Perhaps Bond is reacting, violently, to his own weakness, suppressing his emotions because, when he allowed them to shine through, he was hurt in an unprecedented way, much more so than the physical assaults he regularly endures. But this is my own observation about the matter, taken almost entirely from my viewing of “Casino Royale.”

Forster's film isn't nuanced enough to deal with these implications seriously. One of the film's biggest failings is its insistence on spoon-feeding this concept through its almost sadistic fascination with violence. Violence can be used to powerful effect in films, but in "Quantum of Solace," it is used as an assault on its viewers. We constantly witness Bond beating up various enemies: some are thrown off of roofs, others are stabbed with glass shards, and a number are knocked out cold in an elevator. What we witness - or at least try to, thanks to the shoddy way Forster has shot and edited his film - is an invincible machine doing what he does best. Anthony Lane, in his excellent review, mentions that there is also a masochistic thread running throughout the film; Bond wants to murder people so that he can hide his own troubles, and render himself, to some degree, numbed. But there is no rhyme or rhythm to the violence committed by our machine of a protagonist, and after only a few minutes, we simply don't care what he does or what happens to him.

Everything in the film, the action sequences, the exploration of our complex protagonist and the silly, threadbare plot, feels obligatory, but uninspired. The film is approached with an attitude that, much like its protagonist, borders on the indifferent; the result is neither exciting nor compelling. Once again, the complex humanity, the character, behind Bonds' cold exterior has given way to broad strokes, this time veering towards the portrait of Bond as a machine. Admittedly, Craig's rocklike visage emphasizes the exterior rather than the interior, but, as we've seen with “Casino Royale,” the character can and has been successfully tapped into. This time around, James Bond, the icon, has persevered.

Rating: 5

First Viewed: 11/14/08, in 35 mm projection - IMDb

Caché

“Caché”
Michael Haneke, 2005

In “Caché,” a TV host named Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife, Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche), receive a bizarre tape, which depicts their house being photographed from an unknown location. The anonymous creator of said tape has wrapped it within a drawing of a child vomiting blood. It's extremely unsettling, but when the couple go to the police for help, they are told that they are on their own – unless they are actually attacked, of course. From there, we watch Georges and Anne as they try to go about their lives in a normal manner, even while outside forces are striving to disrupt such routines.

The title, “Caché,” translates to “hidden,” which is a theme that trickles down through the entire film. The director Michael Haneke constructs his film around a series of interactions between his characters, all of which are played out in their entirety. It is an engaging method that both belies and accentuates this central motif, because while watching these characters, we get the sense that there is much more to them than meets the eye, and that merely witnessing their interactions doesn't quite do them justice. Georges, for instance, is trying to hide the fact that the anonymous person who sent the tapes is probably the son of a servant during his childhood, who is angry at him for unstated reasons. Yet he lies to Anne about what he really knows. Why does he do this? Georges tells her that he doesn't want to hurt her; he is really saying that he doesn't want to resurrect memories that will hurt him.

“Caché” is fascinating because of its very ambiguity, because of this tension that arises when we are, at least ostensibly, made witnesses to everything that occurs, yet are forced to extrapolate what exactly is going on. But such an approach has the unfortunate effect of making it difficult to consistently connect, on an emotional level, with the characters. This is particularly apparent in the narrative concerning Georges and the anonymous person. That narrative culminates in an utterly random explosion of violence that elicited – at least from this viewer – a chuckle, rather than a gasp of horror. Perhaps this is what Haneke was trying to go for: we can't really react well to such a situation, because the connection between Georges and other characters always will be, for us, the uninitiated viewer, poorly developed. What Haneke ultimately appears to be telling us is that we can't truly know anyone, much less a couple of protagonists in a two-hour film.

Rating: 8

First Viewed: 11/7/08, on DVD - IMDb

An Update

Hello! I haven't written many film reviews recently because I've been occupied with school, following the election, and watching films for my Hitchcock class. In general, I write a lot of reviews when I'm on break - this summer, I was usually writing at least five reviews a week! By the end of this weekend, however, I hope to post a review of the film “Caché” as well as my thoughts on the passage of Proposition 8.

I have changed the look and layout of my blog because I was getting kind of tired of all the blue. But I'm open to any feedback regarding the changes.

Last night, I took part in a huge march in San Francisco, in protest of the passage of Proposition 8. There were at least several thousand protesters, and we marched from Market Street all the way to the Castro District. The march was an awesome, peaceful show of solidarity; the culmination at Dolores Park was a bit disappointing, though - it was, like, a transsexual speaker with a DJ playing music, encouraging people to dance. That was rather lame.

Here are some pictures that I took, just to show how huge it was.