jürgen fauth’s muckworld

The promising first half of George Stevens’ Texan epic sets up a tiresome three-and-a-half-hour descent into mediocrity. Displaced northern bride Liz Taylor slowly fades from the center of the story, nouveau riche James Dean is woefully misused, children come and go, and Rock Hudson’s stubborn cattle rancher is granted an improbable redemption. Giant keeps pulling its punches, and in the end, it’s home sweet home and upstart Jett Rink lies under a table where he belongs. After 201 minutes, we have arrived in the cornball fifties, cheated out of any kind of pay-off, and that’s the real tragedy.

No doubt There Will Be Blood owes more to Giant than just the Marfa location; in fact, Anderson’s film feels like Giant’s evil twin, made up of all the scenes the other movie suppressed: the real drama, the truth of the matter. You know, the good scenes. After the jump, screenshots from both movies that seem to talk to one another, in the spirit of Kevin Lee’s influence spotting. Don’t click if you haven’t seen the movie yet: There Will Be Spoilers. For more Blood talk, I Drink Your Milkshake.com is the place.

Giant. George Stevens, 1958. ***

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There will be puns, there will be awards, there will be awesome. Based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, Paul Thomas Anderson (whose movies I often failed to appreciate in the past) has made a magnificent epic about the price of the precious resources, liquid and otherwise, that we extract from the ground — and from other people. Daniel Day-Lewis is reliably fantastic as Daniel Plainview, a prospector turned wealthy oilman and all-around American monster, but the real stunner here is Paul Dano as his nemesis, the pimply-faced fire-and-brimstone preacher Eli Sunday.

This one’s got “movie of the year” written all over it, and I’m already itching to see it again as soon as possible. We’ll have much more on this before the December 26 release. I drink YOUR milkshake!

UPDATED: My gushing review is now up at About Worldfilm.

There Will Be Blood. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007. *****

• Karina Longworth found two tacks from the terrific score, and here’s the latest trailer:

Just in case you somehow managed to avoid the longest-running TV sitcom in American history, do not worry: The Simpsons Movie is careful to include everybody in the fun. In the opening minutes, after Itchy and Scratchy have landed on the moon and everybody in the audience has been declared “a sucker” for paying good money to see what you can get for free on TV, the script introduces every character fresh.

Here’s Homer, the oaf, and Marge with the blue beehive. Earnest adolescent Lisa has a new cause and a new crush, baby Maggie knows how to fend for herself, and Bart–well, Bart should need as little introduction as the “evil corporate mascot” he impersonates with a black bra on his head. In the process, some of the essence that has gotten away from the characters over the years is restored: Lisa playing her saxophone, Bart riding his skateboard through town naked, Homer equal parts stupid, selfish and compassionate with a pet pig that rates its own theme song. Call it “Homer Begins,” call it “Casino Springfield”–you’re not required to know anything about the extended cosmology of the Simpsons to enjoy their movie.

But it helps. As far as I could tell, The Simpsons Movie is stuffed with enough in-jokes and references to past episodes to keep a dozen Internet forums humming for months.The supporting cast seems to include every character who’s ever appeared on the show, and many of them have lines. The animation–the familiar vast fields of flat, juicy color bounded by satisfyingly thick black lines–looks great on a movie screen. For this fair-weather fan, the laughter started during the studio logo (!) and didn’t end until far into the credits. (Make sure to stay for Maggie’s first word.)

The plot? Like most things Simpsons, it loses in the telling, so let’s just say that it’s appropriately large-scale for the movies, and each of the principal characters is tested to the breaking point — as it should be. Beyond that, it’s worth noting that the movie’s villain is the American government. Ruled by a president who’d rather “lead than read,” Springfield finds itself at the mercy of a corrupt official (voice of Albert Brooks) whose response to a natural disaster is even worse than FEMA’s. Clearly, somebody in the Simpson White House doesn’t care about yellow people.

Does The Simpsons Movie achieve the lofty heights of brilliance the show regularly scaled during its mid-nineties heyday? More than just the longest episode, is it also the Best. Episode. Ever? I’m pretty sure it’s not, and I don’t think it could have been. Try as they might, The Simpsons simply aren’t as vital now as they were during the Clinton years, when their whiplash wit, easygoing snarkiness, and compulsive pop referencing influenced an entire generation’s sense of humor. If anything, The Simpsons succeeded so completely that they faded into the fabric of our culture, and going to Springfield for an hour and a half feels a little bit like going home. No matter where you’ve been for the last 18 years, these are some very familiar characters with very familiar voices. Seeing them up on the big screen, it’s like we knew all along they had it in them to become movie stars.

The Simpsons Movie. David Silverman, 2007. ****

Once a year, Americans like to celebrate their country’s greatness with giant psychedelic spectaculars that aren’t about anything but the now and the wow. I took some shots from Long Island City’s Gantry Plaza State Park, across the river from 42nd Street. You can view them as photo set or as slideshow.

The second time around, Borat isn’t quite as hilariously shocking, but its knotty complexities only grow deeper. When you’re not busy rolling in the aisles, you’ll actually notice that some of Sacha Baron Cohen’s victims hold on to their dignity rather well. Certain jokes are such self-reflexive boomerangs that you have to hear them more than once to figure out exactly who the target is (like the one that goes “You telling me the man who try to put a rubber fist in my anus was a homosexual?“) Others have been quoted in outrage so much that the actual punchline went forgotten: the “Running of the Jews” bit doesn’t actually pay off until the last scene of the movie, where Borat says, “It’s cruel. We Christians now!” while a crucified townsperson gets poked with a pitchfork. Questions about what’s real persist–I’m not sure who said it first, but the line about all movies being documentaries applies.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Larry Charles, 2006. ****

• YouTube pulled it, but Yahoo Video still has Sacha Baron Cohen’s Golden Globe acceptance speech.

Over the years, Roman Polanski’s culture shock thriller has acquired an additional level of disorientation: Harrison Ford gets lost in Paris, and the movie gets lost in the Eighties. Emmanuelle Seigner plays a greedy drug mule in Madonna duds, and together they’re desperately seeking Betty Buckley. Narrative and film grammar have grown a lot tauter since 1988, so the title doesn’t quite ring true anymore, and the terrorists aren’t nearly menacing enough. Anybody who’s ever suffered the indignities of consulates and embassies will thoroughly enjoy Polanski’s jabs at American bureaucracy. Achtung cinephiles: the region 1 DVD is pan-and-scan.

Frantic. Roman Polanski, 1988. ***

[tags]film, 3 stars, roman polanski, paris, harrison ford, emmanuelle seigner, betty buckley, eighties, pan-and-scan, bureaucracy, america, madonna[/tags]

In this very scary documentary, Christian fundamentalists brainwash their children (”they’re so usable!“) to create God’s army and bring about the end of days. Pastors Becky Fischer and former Presidential advisor Ted Haggard come off as complete creeps; the children are victims of what amounts to abuse. This is well put together, and Air America Host Mike Papantonio adds some much needed perspective & commentary.

Jesus Camp. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2006. ****

[tags]documentary, film, 4 stars, religion, creepy, jesus, christianity, fundamentalists, america, politics, heidi ewing, rachel grady, mike papantonio, ted haggard, becky fischer[/tags]

There’s no doubt in my mind that Sacha Baron Cohen’s outrageous comedy is going to be huge–he had a Wednesday afternoon crowd of New York’s finest critics howling for 90 minutes straight. The humor’s as broad and silly as anything Will Ferrell has done, but it feels much more dangerous and true. As Borat travels west across the country with his bear and his ice cream van, he doesn’t just reveal his own stupidity but also that of everybody he encounters. Frat boys, dinner parties in Southern mansions, Trump Tower, a Virginia rodeo, an antique shop, Pamela Anderson–nothing’s safe from Cohen’s sophisticated satire, disguised as backwater idiocy. It’s not often that we walk out of a comedy hurting with laughter and wanting to go back to see it again as soon as possible. There’s a lot more I want to tell you, but I’d just be spoiling the jokes. Very nice. Opens November 3rd.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Larry Charles, 2006. ****

• Watch the first four minutes of Borat online

[tags]borat, comedy, 4 stars, kazakhstan, america, sacha baron cohen, satire, pamela anderson, bears, hand party[/tags]