Doubt

Yes yes, the first post in...oh I don't want to even think about it.

I must admit that the major critics' disdain for Doubt is a bit perplexing. Perhaps it is the season's tendency towards an endless parade of very serious, thoughtful, and above all Oscar-eligible films (not movies) that is starting to drag the reviewers' mental equipaje down into doldrums ravine. I can't really blame them - even the feel-good Slumdog Millionaire is a little too preoccupied with its own reputation to sink comfortably into a nice fuzzy armchair.

All of which is very odd, for Doubt is, in some odd, subversive ways, the darkest of comedies. Now there's a claim! But when the marvelous, magnificent, mad-madame Meryl Streep glowers down into the camera and ghoulishly slurps out "So...it's happened," I can't help but savor the moment just as much as she. In a film that seems all about people consuming one another, I have to say, the feast is delicious.

This mad-hatter supposition may make slightly more sense when one pauses to consider that the writer (both of the play and the screenplay) and director is John Patrick Shanley, whose most famous previous work is probably Moonstruck (along with Joe Versus the Volcano, which is even more bizarre). Moonstruck is a wonderful bouncing fairy tale of a piece that carreens from scene to scene with a wonderful abandon that much of Hollywood seems to have forgotten, but I can't help but see a few gasps of it in Doubt.

Oh yes, the movie is "slow" compared to other serious movies of its type, although not to other plays. While scenes never seem to plod on longer than their fitness would permit, one gets the feeling while watching that, aside from a few at the beginning and ending, the intervening bits could be jumbled about in almost any order while retaining much the same feel. What falls out of this structure, part poison-tipped vignette and part picaresque melodrama, is an overall portrait of (mostly) pre-Vatican II Catholicism, the 1960s in general, and, of course, the nasty little things humans get up to when they rub shoulders in too tight quarters.

Yes, the film is about priests and little boys. Well, not really, but a great deal of discussion takes place in the movie regarding such a subject, so it seems wise to mention it. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as delicious and understated as ever (one day they will bottle his voice and sell it as the most select of men's perfume), Father to a church and to a school, the latter presided over by Principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). It all begins when the young, naive Sister James (Amy Adams) bears to Aloysius (pronounced "Ah-lo-ISH-uz") her newly kindled concerns regarding Father Flynn and a boy, Donald Muller. The good sister is hardly surprised - after all, it was she who first set the poor James out on the hunt for suspected patriarchal depravities. Instead, she simply grimaces (while cackling on the inside), and begins licking her lips in anticipation of the good Father's expulsion.

There are too simply many delicious little layers in the piece to unravel. Certainly the movie's eponymous doubt is one of the main themes, for the good Sister Aloysius's lack of said doubt is curiously juxtaposed not against that of her antagonist Father Flynn, but rather the audience's own. Characters stamp in and out of nobly dilapidated offices and launch an unending spray of wonderfully understated (except when they're not) attacks and defenses, but we never actually learn the truth or see the deed done. Indeed, we never see much of our primary characters, so bitterly entangled as they are with each other. We are given hints of previous pasts and possible transgressions and nothing more, as if Father Flynn is instead parishioner to a congregation of ice bergs, floating serenely beneath the surface until the occasional, thrilling collision.

Before we finish off this beast, a special word must be said for the character of Mrs. Miller, both in the careful, wonderful potrayal by Viola Davis, and the manner into which she slots into the story. Yes, the story begs us to set up a great comparison between Flynn and Aloysius (as do the reviews, and the movie posters), but the story is really much too complex for just that, and the movie is in danger of having its thunder stolen by the small, energetic scene between the concerned sister and the mother of the boy in question, Mrs. Miller. It turns out that things really aren't so simple after all, neither for the hidebound Sister who sees only what she wants to se, nor for the predetermined viewer who went into the film knowing exactly what it was going to be about and now finds themself confronted with a different beast entirely. Oh yes, priests and little boys...but are you so sure? If anything, it does start to seem a bit...doubtful.

The movie ends as abruptly as it begins, with a few raw pieces of editing in the middle to remind us that this story was a play in the beginning, dammit, and with just about as much resolved as when it started. Something happened in between - many things in fact - but it seems less like a story to me than a portrait. Beautiful, yes, thought-proviking, perhaps, but still stuck in a single moment. In other words, the movie is delicious, but is about as filling as a cake with just as many layers. One can sit back and let the four fabulous performance wash over you, drink in the catharsis like molasses from a barrel, but in the end I suspect you will feel as if you should have eaten the main course after all, instead of skipping straight to the dessert.

Cars

(Yes, this review is horribly late....luckily, no one's around to care)

By now, everyone knows what to expect going into the latest-and-greatest Pixar movie: computer-generated graphics, anthropomorphic characters, a kid-friendly atmosphere, funny gags, adult inside jokes, and a very well-written story.

Hmm...let's see. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, aaaaand...yes. No worries people, we're safe.

As one might expect, Pixar's Cars takes place in an alternate-universe USA where everyone (and, in many cases, everything) is an anthropomorphisized car of some form of another. In the NASCAR-like races around which the story revolves the racecars are cars, the spectators are cars, the commentators are cars, and even the insects are cars (the comically inclined can probably guess which model). Windshields have become eyes, intake grills mouths, and (extremely dexterous) wheels hands. While effective, this transformation is not perfect and leads to a few disconcerting paradoxes, such as how the main protagonist of the story would be able to pick up the small model versions of himself that dot his transportation trailer.

Speaking of the protagonist, lhere's your obligatory short plot spoiler: speedy-fast racecar Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson, who for once manages to keep his Hans character from polluting his current role) is obsessed with winning the whatever-cup and landing a lucrative advertising deal. However, when on his way to the Big Race, he gets detoured into hobunk Radiator Springs, NM (or perhaps AZ) which has been forgotten by the rest of the world, and forced to repair his careless damages to the area, he learns that friendship and an appreciation of the moment are far more important. The movie finally culminates in the Big Race, where McQueen's newfound wisdom is put to the test in a final showdown with Obvious Foil Character (Michael Keaton).

What you're waiting for me to say is that the story isn't very good, which I won't, because it is. I left the theater suffused in the same contented glow that all the previous Pixar films have bestowed upon me. That said, compared with the genius of Toy Story or The Incredibles, Cars does fall short in some hard-to-define way. We still have memorable characters, great gags, and an engrossing manner of storytelling, but I can't but feel that I've seen this story before.

Which is exactly the problem. Half a sentence into any synopsis of Cars's storyline, most people will roll their eyes and go "oh, it's that kind of story." We all know how it's going to turn out in the end, and Pixar kindly obliges us by not deviating very far from it (although they did manage to surprise me a little at the end). Does this make the film unenjoyable to watch? No, not at all, but it does remove some of the Pixar magic that we've grown accostomed to. In previous movies, the latest representational innovation (e.g. toys as people, real monsters under the bed, bugs as people, etc.) was built on throughout the movie and helped to prop up the story as it went along. In Cars, once you get over the "hey, they're cars...and people...like...peoplecars..." effect, there's not as much to dazzle you.

In many ways this may be because Cars, in addition to treating the normal Pixar subjects of friendship and redemption, is deeply involved in a specific era and location, and a deep and obvious love of cars themselves. The careful ways in which car models were chosen and adapted to intimately reflect and enhance the characters' screen presences makes this movie a must see for any car buff out there. While all of the models have been adapted to comform to the movie's anthropomorphism, each still manages to radiate the feeling of the original model, and the visual style of the movie manages to capture the strange beauty that can be found in car models, young and old.

Dancing toe-to-toe with this love is another love - this one of the Southwest, whose own beauty is portrayed just as lovingly, although I think in this case the movie is not quite as successful. That said, anything short of the original will be in some way suspect in my book. One of the major subplots of the movie deals with the boom era of Route 66 and its eventual withering at the hands of interstate 40. In the 1930's and 40's, before the coming of Eisenhower and his interstates, there was no real concept of a superhighway, and travel between California and the rest of the country took place along a winding road called Route 66 that bounced around much of the Southwest in a vaguely easterly direction. An entire culture of service stations and highway towns sprang up across this road, and much of what we consider to be diner culture has its roots in this era. With the coming of I40, which was a much straighter and faster road located much farther north, most of the kudzu-like villages growing off 66 withered and died (at which point the metaphor completely breaks down, as kudzu is the only indestructable substance in the universe). The movie deals with all of these in loving detail, although ending in hope rather than depression.

These two subjects are tied so closely with my appreciation of the film that I can't imagine that it will have the same kick if the viewer dislikes cars and car shapes and has never been to the Southwest (something, by the way, that should be corrected as soon as possible). While these sub-subjects tend to compete with the main storyline, they are also some of the more intimate and enjoyable parts of the film. There is a certain throwaway shot towards the beginning that I believe is the first film representation of I40 at night, and perfectly captures the feeling of driving a long and lonely interstate in the dark with nothing but the swish of passing tractor-trailers and their glistening ruby running lights to keep you company. This was perhaps my favorite part of the film, split-second though it was.

In closing, yes the film is good and yes you should go see it. This stands double for people who love cars and/or know the Southwest. The film is filled with masterfully-executed gags, amusing guest appearances (i.e. Dale Earnhart Jr., the car guys from Car Talk, and others), and that warm fullfulling feeling you get after seeing a truly good movie. I do find the rather stereotypical representation of the hillbilly toetruck (Larry the Cable Guy) and the obviously "black" and "mexican" cars a little saddening, but the film manages to treat these characters with enough respect that the stereotypes themselves are not immediately insulting. That subject is something worthy of a complete and separate post, so I shall conclude by saying go see the damn movie.

-fire_eye

I can't use i.e. without thinking of Snatch.

Some quick trivia

While giving the links on the side a cursory edit, I was reminded of a phrase that most Americans are familiar with, although few actually know where it comes from. It goes something like this:

"<object>?! <object>?! We don't need no stinking <object>!"

Where the object substituted in is usually something humorous, such as penguins or door knobs. This is actually a misquotation of an old black and white film, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which tells the story of a group of men who find the mother of all gold strikes in the Sierra Madre mountains, but who are all eventually consumed by their own greed before they can ever spend the money. The original quotation goes:

"Badges!? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!!"
(more info at Wikipedia)

The movie stars Humphrey Bogart, who we are all used to seeing play essentially the same character in classics like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. While these are both wonderful movies, Madre is interesting in that it's one of his few films where he doesn't strut around in his normal cloud of brooding noire swagger. Instead, he's a poor scruffy lowlife who not only looks like he's permanently functioning in a state of the morning after, but also manages to become one of the creepier villains to come out of that period of film making.

The movie is strange and refreshing, although will probably seem a little slow to modern audienes.

First Recommendations

I know no one is listening yet, and I have a strict policy against talking to the wall, but I'd just like to say that there are two things everyone needs to watch. No exception. I'm looking at you, Lincoln.

First, go see An Inconvenient Truth. For the sake of your children and your moral integrity. No buts.

Second, go to the PBS website and watch this episode of FRONTLINE.

Okay Internet, be ye fairly warned.