black comedy – Page 3 – Late to the Theater

Gyllenhaalin’ Skincrawlin’ Entry: Nightcrawler (2014)

Nightcrawler is an absolutely brilliant film. It’s a modern noir take on a generation raised by journalism and the internet without being preachy, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for fans of dark humor and incisive social commentary. Since they are both about sociopaths, it inevitably draws comparisons with films like Taxi Driver and American Psycho, with good reason.

[SOME SPOILERS!]

Nightcrawler surprised me. I had read the reviews on a few sites and knew it was good, but it also looked like the kind of dark thing I’ve been trying to avoid lately. A veteran of some pretty weird and extreme cinema, I wasn’t interested in spending 90 minutes with a Jake Gyllenhaal who keeps dead babies in his freezer or something. I barely leave the house as it is.

But as I said, it surprised me. For one thing, although it explores the pathology of sociopaths, it wasn’t as violent as I thought it would be. Gyllenhaal’s character of Lou Bloom is certainly a dangerous person, incapable of empathizing and soon begins leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, but the movie is almost like an origin story for a serial killer who hasn’t quite gotten started yet. Instead, it posits something even scarier – not a killer who hunts and pursues prey, but an opportunistic predator a little lower down on the food chain. Bloom is the kind of predator who has the patience to cultivate relationships and then strike when people are at their most vulnerable. In the Wiki entry, the filmmakers said that they were trying to characterize Bloom as a jackal, and I think they really succeeded. Some opportunistic predators are the last thing prey sees before they die, just as happens in the story.

The story is thin but more than balanced by the brilliant characterizations and performances. As mentioned, Gyllenhaal plays Bloom, a sociopathic autodidact who aggregates data like an algorithm, a metaphor fitting for the internet age without being overbearing. Just like Gmail doesn’t understand the context of some of the weirder terms in my personal emails (true story: years ago in my Google ads sidebar an ad for a white supremacist website came up because I was lamenting the existence of neo-nazis- No Gmail, that was wrong) Bloom fails to understand meaning or context. A junk metal scrapper and small-time thief, he wanders across the path of some freelance videographers and scents opportunity. Soon he’s haunting the police radio band and rushing to the scenes of crimes, sometimes before the first responders themselves arrive (another horrifying point, how late the cops sometimes are to the party) and capturing all the gory details with no concern for personal boundaries or the law.

He hires an employee played by Riz Ahmed, a sort of shiftless stoner guy. I’d never heard of Ahmed before but I loved the vague, ‘wait what’ tone of his performance. I hope he goes far. The scenes where they’re tearing around L.A. in Bloom’s sweet red SRT (and somehow not being noticed by the cops) are so well-done.

Rene Russo, perfectly capturing the world-weary newscaster with decades of bad road behind her as Nina Romina, is Bloom’s connect for buying footage. Although she senses the sickness behind the smile, she needs his footage and can’t cut him off, and soon finds herself strong-armed into a “relationship” with him.

As I said, the trope’s familiar but the strength of the performances saves it. If you’re going to have a film about a sociopath, your lead has to have the right kind of eyes, and Gyllenhaal does.

The Abyss Stares Back! — When the abyss stares back, it will have Jake Gyllenhaal’s eyes.

Bloom has studied human behavior and empathy, and on the one hand he is absolutely earnest in his desire to please Romina. He knows all of the notes of the symphony but none of the meaning, and everything he does is calculated to benefit himself, so it makes sense that he really believes he can help her, because by extension he’s helping himself. Of course that’s not the problem; the problem is that he is forcing her into a relationship with him and leaving quite a trail of bodies in his wake.

BAH. There was a scene that I can’t find a .gif of that is just hilarious and shows the weirdly playful side of the movie, and it occurs during their disastrous and deeply unsettling “date.” Ah well! I’m curious to know if other people laughed the way I did at a certain line.

Bill Paxton shows up as a competitor of Bloom’s, who is obnoxious at first but comes to recognize Bloom’s talent and suggests a partnership, which Bloom blows off.

Look again at that gif up above. Look at the beautiful eyes, the self-assuredness, the complete confidence that Bloom emanates: He is right and she is wrong, he knows what’s best, and she just needs to accept it. Sociopaths are known for their charm and charisma.

Now look at this:

I hate that I made such a pat point, but it really is amazing, his performance. He was nominated for a Golden Globe, but not an Oscar. There are so many great, passionate actors in the world! I would give them all Oscars if I could! Heh, and then everyone would be special so no one would be special.

Anyhoodle, Nightcrawler is an absolutely brilliant film. It’s a modern noir take on a generation raised by journalism and the internet without being preachy, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for fans of dark humor and incisive social commentary. Since they are both about sociopaths, it inevitably draws comparisons with films like Taxi Driver and American Psycho, with good reason.

Nightcrawler is available on Instant Watch.

Penny Dreadful: Loves and Thoughts on Showtime’s Amazing Victorian Horror Mishmash

Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or (giggles) BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.

[This is a spoiler-free entry for Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, Seasons 1 and 2]

My best friend recommended I check out Penny Dreadful about a year ago. On a whim, I bought the dvds, thinking that if I didn’t like it I could give it to someone who did – and I was a gigantic fool for thinking that.

The very first episode drew me in – a rare thing these days since it usually takes me until the 3rd episode to really get interested in a show. With most series that’s how long it takes the crew and cast to get their feet under them and really start moving things alone. A show like PD, which only has 10 episodes in a season (and is expensive to make, I mean the COSTUMES! The SETS!), doesn’t have the luxury of a few “throwaway” episodes and has to be gripping from start to finish. It caught me just a few minutes in and hasn’t let go yet!

The show has so much going for it, it would take about 10k words to really get into why people should be watching it, but here are just a few moments and thoughts on why I am enjoying it so much. I shall keep them spoiler-free!

The Characters

It’s a testament to the amazing actors that I literally CAN NOT pick a favorite character. I love them all!

As an English lit nerd, I love that some of the classics of Victorian horror/science fiction literature have been assembled on screen in such lush detail and surroundings. As history nerd, I love that certain problematic aspects of the Victorian age are addressed and explored, sometimes in the background and sometimes in the fore – slavery, imperialism, Native American genocide are all discussed and inform the world in which the characters live [NOTE: while the issues are touched on, they are not the focus of the show; this is a show about hot people doing interesting things in amazing costumes on amazing sets as they explore the darkness within the human soul vs. the darkness of actual supernatural evil].

Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), is an invented character but she combines many of the common Victorian female tropes even as she challenges them. I like to think she’s based on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, or Oscar Wilde’s mother. She’s intelligent, outspoken, and has a rapier wit. She hangs out with a bunch of dudes in a time when a man and a woman being alone in a room for more than five seconds could bring ruination on a woman’s good name. She also deals with some of the pain in the ass prejudices women had to put up with at the time – such as being dismissed as being ‘hysterical’ and dealing with mental problems. Green makes Vanessa the center of every scene with her animated face and occasional moments of pinpoint comic timing – and when she has one of her many dark moments, then you’d best plug in the nightlight and break out a blankie because it’s getting SCARY up in here.

This moment in the second season is ABSOLUTE MAGIC.

Ethan Chandler, played by Josh Hartnett, is another delightful explosion of tropes. An American, he is a walking lesson of the existential guilt most modern Americans feel about the ‘let’s settle this land and pretend the people already living here aren’t really people and MANIFEST DESTINY FTW GUYS’ problem. Ethan was in the military and assisted in the extermination of tribes (a difficult thing to accept about his character I admit), and now works as a sharpshooter for a Wild West show when he isn’t diddling starstruck chicks whom he forgets the moment he leaves town. He’s busily drinking himself to oblivion when Vanessa approaches him in the first episode. Hartnett is the kind of actor who can make folding laundry watchable – which is funny because when he first came on the scene back in the early 2000s I thought of him as another pretty boy who’d be in a bunch of romances and then fade away. The more fool me – it’s clear that he was studying at the McConaghey School of Enlightenment and I am terrible and judgmental.

Dear Mr. Hartnett - You Are Awesome, Forgive Me for Being a Judgmental Idiot — Dear Mr. Hartnett – You Are Awesome, Forgive Me for Being a Judgmental Idiot, Wuv, Jen!

Sir Malcolm Murray is another delightful deconstruction; played to the hilt by the glorious Timothy Dalton, Murray divides his time between exploring Africa, being a shitty father, and being a shitty husband. He’s the engine that drives the story of the first season, and he’s powered by enough self-importance and unshakeable firmness of character that he could make a lord-shaped hole in a brick wall. Of course his demons come home to haunt him, but watching Dalton chew scenery is one of my favorite pastimes and he plays the character beautifully. Much of the first season revolves around his attempts to find his daughter Mina (and if you know anything about Victorian literature, yes, it’s THAT Mina).

“Feel Free to Lose Yourself in My Eyes… Or My Beard… Either way you’ll be warm.”

We also have Victor Frankenstein, played by Harry Treadaway with staring, glassy-eyed perfection. It’s hard to bring something new to such an old, familiar character, but Treadaway makes every movement and thought riveting. His Frankenstein is a species of unusual optimist, at once deeply cynical about religion while incredibly naive about human relationships, to the point of denial–fitting for a man who only believes what he can physically quantify.

GOSH. I am running out of raving room! And I haven’t even covered Billie Piper (MAGIC as Brona the Irish prostitute), Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, Rory Kinnear as… well, I don’t want to spoil it. His entrance is QUITE…ripping? *upper crust English laughter*

There’s a moment in the very first episode that caught me, and I’ll share it here because it’s such an elegant hook and I don’t think it really counts as a spoiler.

Vanessa and Sir Malcolm employ Ethan as a hired gun to guard them down in a vampire’s den. A fight breaks out, and a vampire barrels across the room toward one of the men, intent on gutting them. With no gun or weapon, Vanessa steps in and gets in his face with absolute self-assuredness. Armed with nothing more than glower power and disapproving Victorian schoolmarmishness, she has the stopping power of a Desert Eagle and the vampire is frozen in place. She’s no damsel in distress, and I love her for it. Sure, she’s in danger at times, but so are the other characters and I love what a weird family of beloved misfits they become.

Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or *giggles* BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason–, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.

Penny Dreadful is available on DVD and on Showtime. The 2nd season just ended but the show’s been renewed for a third. Check it out if you like your horror served hot and with some dashedly witty dialogue!

Have *you* seen Penny Dreadful? What did you think?

Apples and Oranges Entry: OZ and Orange is the New Black

I love Orange is the New Black. Unflinching without being obnoxious, it was brave and awesome and it took a huge risk and totally paid off. It brought Laverne Cox onto the world stage, and started a lot of intelligent conversations about race and how people of color are portrayed in the media. It was AWESOME. And to compare apples and oranges, I am comparing it to HBO’s brilliant prison show OZ.

Welcome to Apples and Oranges! This is a new feature I’m trying out where I compare incomparable things only because of a thin thread connecting them.

[Some spoilers, but I haven’t finished the 3rd OITNB season yet so please avoid spoilers in the comments!]

Ain't no party like a Litchfield party! — Ain’t no party like a Litchfield party! Also this is clearly from season 2.

OZ was literally what gave HBO its middle name of “god damn this is some fine television right here.” It began airing in 1997 – almost twenty years ago! – and depicted the lives of inmates and staff at the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility. It contains many alumni of other HBO shows, particularly The Wire. OITNB is similiar in a lot of ways, although WAY less brutal.

I admit it’s unfair to compare the shows because OITNB takes place in a prison, and OZ takes place in a max facility. Basically, it’s the prison where you go if you don’t behave in regular prison and they get tired of your shit. Please also note that I am not going to try and make some grand point about the difference between men’s and women’s prisons, because that would be asinine; these are fictional products inspired by reality, but do not function as examples of such.

In OITNB, people get their feelings hurt and sometimes get beaten up, or even beaten to death.

In OZ, they got their faces caved in or fed ground glass until they bleed out.

So, you know, different playing field, different rules.

Oz’s legacy is so ubiquitous its title sequence was lampooned on the Venture Bros, which is a major benchmark of pop culture– sort of like being parodied by Weird Al.

AND when Homer went to jail on the Simpsons, his little hat was a nod to Simon Adebisi’s own ever-present accessory. THAT Is a whole other level of pop-culture achievement!

Requirement of Being Cocked at A Sassy Angle: Check!

And the original in all it’s glory:

Granted it's a little bigger, but it's ALL in the angle. — Granted it’s a little bigger, but it’s ALL in the angle. Also if you find this picture frightening, you should; Adebisi is not a nice man.

That photo accurately depicts the real Simon Adebisi; he’s a handsome, highly intelligent man played to the hilt by the magnificent Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, but my GOSH was Adebisi a great villain. On the show, almost every character, no matter how brutal, was given some kind of humanizing moment that allowed another facet of their personality to shine through. My memories of the show are hazy but I don’t recall Adebisi ever having that moment (although dropping his pants and fiddling with his bits during his physical was hilarious, and apparently the actor’s improvisation).

One thing that OZ did so much better than OITNB was letting the viewer pick their narrative; for white, middle-class viewers like me, the story of Tobias Beecher heading to prison after drunken vehicular manslaughter was our window to this world. But the beauty of the show was how it drew us into those other windows as they opened wider and wider, providing other characters – Alvarez, Augustus, Poet, Kareem Said, Wangler, a forum for their stories.

I will totally admit that the premise of the first season of OITNB, of a ‘good girl’ going to prison, was what drew me in. That and curiosity about what women’s prison might be like, especially since I’m too lazy to go read about it myself. And naturally at the base of such curiosity is the self-absorbed First Wonder of the First World, Could I make it on the inside? Piper’s story was the main narrative, and that got me watching. But you know what? By about midway through the second season I was absolutely done caring about Piper because the characters around her were so much more compelling and had eclipsed her. At this point, everyone else in the prison is more interesting to watch.

So when season 3 began with her reunion with Alex and the selfish thing she did to achieve that, I sort of stopped giving a shit. Now obviously I have a lot more of this season to get through and since it’s OITNB, shit will go down and things will happen, but I’ll be honest, every time Piper is onscreen my mind starts wandering. She doesn’t seem to be growing as a character and her emotional gurning is so infuriating. When Red tells her to get in touch with her inner Russian and she immediately puts that into practice by pretending to ignore Alex and then having hatesex with her, I threw my hands up into the air because I just didn’t care. And then Alex forgave her! I get that they’re stuck inside and have to make the best of it; I suppose the one character’s (can’t find her name, sorry!) monologue about how prison is a band-aid and nobody who’re friends on the inside can sustain their relationships outside comes into play here, or will later in the season.

I wouldn’t mind if the story wandered away from Piper and her boring entitled bullshit to focus on more worthy characters. I know that Taylor Schilling is doing her best with her performance, and the show has certainly pulled back from her narrative, but I wouldn’t mind if it left her even farther afield. It still feels like she’s the sun and all the other characters orbit around her, but she’s very slowly collapsing in on herself and in danger of becoming a black hole.

Awful But Accurate Depiction. Also I think they PS’d Chapman’s eyes blue; in the show her eyes are dark brown. Also Daya looks AMAZING here! That glow! Those lips!

Oz’s strength lay in the showrunners following ALL the stories, not just one. It feels like when Piper finishes her sentence, OITNB will end, and that’s just not what the show is anymore. It’s done too much for the LBGT community (Laverne Cox was on TIME MAGAZINE!) and for actresses of color to go out that way.

Have you watched either show? What are your thoughts?

A Hysterical Man’s Thoughts on Mad Max: Fury Road

I am hurting from not seeing it. HURTING.

So I plan on buying two tickets, both to support the movie, and because the theater owner is closing the theater for my friend’s bday.

Normally I skim Jezebel headlines and don’t read too many articles (as a laid-back social progressive, their inexhaustible supply of outrage tires me) but this one caught my eye. I haven’t seen Mad Max yet but I REALLY want to!

The New Mad Max Film Is So Feminist My Scrotum Killed Itself.

Excerpt:

“Anybody who has seen the original three Mad Max movies knows that women exist for one of four man-created reasons: to be raped so Mel Gibson can get mad, to be sexual partners with a guy trying to kill Mel Gibson, to be murdered so Mel Gibson can get mad, and to force Mel Gibson to fight in the Thunderdome. They have character names like “Nurse,” “Nightrider’s Girl,” “The Captain’s Girl,” and “Victim.” ALL OTHER REASONS ARE A PERSONAL AFFRONT TO ME AND THE SACRED LEGACY OF MAD MAX, WHOSE HAUNTED EMOTIONAL EMPTINESS I RELATE TO ON A VERY DEEP LEVEL DESPITE THE FACT THAT MAD MAX WATCHED HIS FAMILY DIE IN A HOPELESS FUTURE HELLSCAPE AND THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME WAS THAT SOME GIRLS SAID THEY DIDN’T WANT TO BUMP UGLIES BACK WHEN I WAS A TEEN.”

It’s… *wipes away a tear*… it’s such glorious, glorious parody.

I haven’t seen it yet because a friend forbade me to until his birthday, so a bunch of us are getting together on Thursday night to see it.

I am hurting from not seeing it. HURTING.

So I plan on buying two tickets, both to support the movie, and because the theater owner is closing the theater for my friend’s bday.

New Cult Classics: Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil

I can totally laugh at jokes that poke gentle fun at Southern people, because if you can’t laugh at yourself you’re probably taking yourself too seriously. Southern people are dramatic, we indulge in family squabbles, we have crazy-ass relatives who are always setting themselves on fire or outrunning The Law or some other thing that you might see on COPS. I fully acknowledge this, and I embrace my heritage. But, as Jesse Custer himself said, “You don’t start raping tourists because you had grits for breakfast.”

I had no idea what I was in for when I hit “play” on Tucker and Dale. I heard good things, but nothing detailed. And as with many films I take a gamble on, I figured I could just shut it off if I didn’t care for it.

I figured it would be yet another tale of clean-cut, All-American youth taking a wrong turn and encountering inbred, cannibalistic, rapacious hillfolk mutants. And the movie certainly sets up that that is what’s going to happen: we are quickly introduced to a car-full of privileged young College Kids on holiday, passing some reefer around, and the girls are appropriately scantily clad.

But before I got much farther, let me explain something.

Growing up a Southern person, you hear jokes. My mother is from a small town in South Georgia, and my father was born in West Virginia and moved to Florida at a young age. Never mind that West Virginia was actually part of the Union, and, you know, the whole state was created because the inhabitants were Pro-Union – most Americans don’t know or care about that, and I’ve heard more than my share of ‘Ha ha, Southern people are inbred and live in trailers and swamps and rape tourists!’ unjokes.

That said, I can totally laugh at jokes that poke gentle fun at Southern people, because if you can’t laugh at yourself you’re probably taking yourself too seriously. Southern people are dramatic, we indulge in family squabbles, we have crazy-ass relatives who are always setting themselves on fire or outrunning The Law or some other thing that you might see on COPS. I fully acknowledge this, and I embrace my heritage. But, as Jesse Custer himself said, “You don’t start raping tourists because you had grits for breakfast.”

And as I was delighted to find, the College Kids are not the protagonists; Tucker and Dale are.

The setup starts to unravel when College Kids realize they forgot the beer, and stop by a gas station to stock up. The gas station is appropriately derelict and filled with rusty farm implements and animal parts, and some local weirdos are lurking nearby.

After an unnerving encounter with some of the dingy local color, the story begins following these two-the eponymous Tucker and Dale- and everything becomes a lot more interesting. Tucker and Dale have recently purchased a “vacation cabin,” (played by a Backwoods Murder Shack Style #4) where they are looking forward to some drankin’, fishin’, and relaxin’.

They set to fishin’ and drankin’ that night, but the relaxin’ part gets screwed when they see one of the College Girls take a nasty fall as she attempts to go skinny dipping. They row over to save her and find she’s unconscious. Naturally, when the the other College Kids witness Tucker and Dale dragging her limp, naked body into their skiff, they assume the worst.

The rest of the film is a series of unfortunate events that seem to mercilessly incriminate our hapless heroes. It’s a hilarious takedown of the genre, and I won’t spoil it by going on too much further. But the bees and chainsaw moment is just magical!

Fans of NBC’s 30Rock will recognize Katrina Bowden, who played vapid and ridiculously hot intern Cerie. When I saw her name in the credits I thought ‘oh, they found a hot girl, that’s nice’ and I totally ate my words: she has great comedic talent and plays the highly likeable heroine, Allison. I think she has a great shot a comedy, and I hope she gets a chance to show off that talent more.

The movie has a 7.6 on IMDB, and is highly rated on Netflix. If you’re a fan of deconstructive, intelligent horror comedy like Cabin in the Woods, or Shawn of the Dead, you will definitely like this movie. I can’t say it’s as great as those and has nowhere near the production value, but it definitely belongs in their company for the writing and characters alone.

Check it out!