Fashionably Late: Sacha Baron Cohen and Brüno

(I originally wrote this review for the Santa Fe Reporter, where I'm one of their hard-working and ruggedly handsome editorial interns, to be put on their hugely successful blog, www.sfreeper.com. However, I was assigned this at a time when I was too busy/tired/lazy to get it finished at a reasonable time- when I finally presented it, everyone had long forgotten about Brüno and his antics. For the sake of my own bemusement, and to try and make this blog not seem so gosh darn dead, I offer you this review which would have no doubt garnered thousands of reads and mounds of critical acclaim on the Reeper, as opposed to here, where I'll no doubt be beaming with pride if I get a single comment on it. Enjoy!)

Does this bug you? I'm not touching you. Does this bug you?

In a strange way, there’s a sense that the apparent failures of Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles’ Brüno- its mixed critical response, its apparent inability to spawn a pop culture catchphrase out of Brüno’s “Vassap!” in the same way Baron Cohen did with nearly every word he uttered in 2006’s Borat, the reports of repulsed moviegoers fleeing the theater en masse – could really be its greatest successes. If Baron Cohen’s mission from the start has been the decidedly political one of exposing us (“us” being the American public, cultural elites… really anyone he ends up interviewing) as an ugly, bigoted and ultimately hypocritical lot, what could possibly fulfill that goal better than- in the space of less than three years- creating a pop icon out of the misogynistic, thoughtless, funny-accent-wielding Borat only to turn around and make a cultural villain out of the misogynistic, thoughtless, funny-accent-wielding Brüno… the difference between the two, of course, being that Brüno is flamboyantly gay? Indeed, aside from looking rather embarrassingly out-of-the-loop (as certain groups did in railing against Borat’s obviously in-bad-taste, button-pushing portrayal of Kazakhstan and its people), what feels rather unfortunate about certain gay rights activists speaking out against the film is that they seem to miss that, under the film’s miles and miles of dick and ball jokes, there lies, in its own twisted way, a call for tolerance as Baron Cohen sometimes literally puts his life at risk for no more awful a crime than making unsuspecting victims uncomfortable.

Don’t get the wrong impression, though, as at the end of the day, Brüno is still, at the risk of sounding vulgar, all about balls- namely, the gigantic pair hanging on Sacha Baron Cohen. Witnessing Baron Cohen, in character and flanked by AK47-wielding guards, tell a terrorist cell leader that his “King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard, or a homeless Santa,” almost makes the most suicidal stunts of the Jackass crew appear staid and sensible. It’s in these situations where Brüno shines, offering not cutting-edge comedy so much as scenes that become comedy by virtue of how far past that edge Baron Cohen is willing to go. There’s something bordering on the sociopathic in scenes of a nude Brüno attempting to force his way into the tent of a homophobic deer hunter in the middle of the night or, as the handlebar-moustached character-within-a-character “Straight Dave,” Baron Cohen and costar Gustaf Hammarsten passionately making out as they are pelted by cups of beer and more than a few folding chairs in the middle of a mixed martial arts event that Baron Cohen and company had promoted on their own with hilariously over-the-top shirts proclaiming the straight pride of those attending. Had Brüno been presented as an almost Jackass-style collection of stunts, the film certainly would have been more successful, both as a comedy and as an incidental indictment of America’s odd dual obsession/repulsion with violence, sex and masculinity. Instead, we’re privy to a loose narrative concerning Brüno and his travels that may, more than anything, make Baron Cohen’s comedic weak points glaringly obvious. Satirizing celebrities who make sex tapes and adopt African babies, for instance, can’t help but feel incredibly stale and limp at this point in the game, while a brief segment of Brüno’s fake Austrian TV show that compares Autism and Chlamydia as to which is more fashionably “in” and the film’s constant references to Hitler feel like the last dying gasps of the kind of South Park-style transparent, transgressive attempt to offend at any cost that seems to be going out of fashion in favor of a more subtle, sophisticated approach (see: Zach Galifianakis as the only point of interest in The Hangover). What’s disappointing about Brüno is not its “controversial” material, but just how behind the curb Baron Cohen seems this time around. What’s even more disappointing, though, is that society at large seems to be even farther behind- more offensive than any of Baron Cohen’s antics is the hacking to bits and heavy editing of certain scenes, mandated by the MPAA to escape the dreaded NC-17 rating. What one comes away with from these mangled scenes-mostly those of imaginatively over-the-top and clearly simulated gay sex- is Baron Cohen’s impish delight in offending and pushing boundaries of taste… and of the movie industry’s general inability to treat its audience as discerning, intelligent creatures that understand the concept of “humor”. In a decade that has seen so many ups and downs in the fights for gay acceptance and marriage equality, Brüno may just stand as one of its oddest relics- as tepid and lazy at points as it is overwhelmingly brave and brilliant in others, and at once both enemy and product of the fears and irrational prejudices of society at large. Whether or not Brüno and its humor appears antiquated years from now, one can at least hope that its priggish, unsophisticated reception does.

Brüno (2009, d. Larry Charles): 2.5/4

Turn it up, Bring the Noize: Public Enemies

TWO THOUSAND NINE THE NUMBER, ANOTHER SUMMER (GET DOWN)

There are roughly one and a half... maybe two scenes of any real heat in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (as I didn't realize I was making a shitty Michael Mann pun as I wrote that, I hope you'll forgive me). I say "and a half" as a way of mediating the unease I feel in labeling these scenes as such, as they are all quickly and gracelessly defused moments after they're lit. One (more or less) of these scenes finds Marion Cotillard, as Dillinger's love interest Billie Frechett, cuffed to a chair in the Chicago Police Department as a big ol' brute of an officer tries to beat some confessions out of her with a stiff back hand and, at one point, a phone book. For the first time during the film's two-hour-plus running time, my noodle began buzzing. Was Mann finally giving us the ugly climax of what had seemed to be a film-long investigation into the bureaucratic hell made of law enforcement with the advent of Hoover's FBI and its dehumanizing, incompetent, vicious tactics born more out of personal insecurities than respect for the word of law? Would we finally see some sort of dialogue regarding the reasons that, as a nation, America lifted John Dillinger and not the Good Guys up to the status of Folk Hero as we faced the (1st?) Great Depression? No such luck, as immediately before our slobbering oaf of a law enforcement agent is able to lay Billie out with a haymaker to the kisser but good, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), like the hand of benevolent God, is able to intercede (right as the brute is rearing his right arm back, natch) and, more, carry the quivering dame to safety. The only other scene I'll mention right here is near the film's final minutes, as Johnny Depp's John Dillinger is enjoying his final film at Chicago's Biograph theater before meeting his demise outside its doors. The film's Manhattan Melodrama, a movie I admit to basically not knowing anything about and also admitting to know wanting to see a whole lot more than I want to see Public Enemies for a second time. As the film plays, it becomes apparent Dillinger is finding himself, his own worldview and, finally, his own coda in the characters onscreen- "What's life but losing it", "It ain't worth it if I can't live how I want", all of that. Of course, this scene is ruined by the film's overbearing score- a score that ruins a frightening amount of scenes, truth be told- and the fact that this moment lives only as one, confined little moment. It does nothing to encapsulate, clarify or make beautiful anything we've learned about Dillinger up to that point, and it doesn't even carry over to lend a sense of tragic fate to Dillinger's assassination mere moments later.

In honesty, there are a few other scenes I could list in a like manner, but the fact of the matter is that all of them- from Dillinger seeing his own news clippings and the pictures of his deceased comrades on the walls of his very own investigation bureau, to the look of despair and guilt on Purvis' face as he allows a wounded bank robber to be tortured for whereabouts, to the numerous bank heists and shootouts- are sabotaged from the start, doomed to sink into the indifferent and pretty empty spectacle that is the bulk of this movie. My friend Eric told me that he saw the crew, out n about his Chi Town neighborhood, when they were filming the final, fateful scene. They shot it outside of the real Biograph, but to make the scene fit they still erected entirely new '30s-style buildings and scenery on the spot. That, along with the last two scenes I spoke of, are instructive, at least for me, with what's ultimately the problem with the film. It mistakes trivia and triviality as realism, the indistinct and the faux-verité as the gritty, and, perhaps most fatally for this particular work, the historical and the mythic. Let me be clear, though- it is not the obvious use of digital photography (here running the visual gamut from "very ugly" to, for a surprising amount of the film, "sleek, streamlined and really quite nice, actually") or even Mann's kinda-trademark, sorta-shakey cinematography (is this a trademark of his? Having only seen, like, Collateral, I realize that's a kinda irresponsible claim to make, but I get the feeling that it's at least partly correct) that make me feel that Mann was aiming for a work of historical, gritty realism... ok, it's not just that. It's also his lack of any real stylistic or tonal flourishes, his unwillingness to allow any of the character's neuroses and hidden motives (hidden, of course, from even themselves) to bubble to the surface and become actual themes, and his weaving of the myriad historical nuances, figures and events into one of those nearly impossible to follow Factual Tapestries that usually leaves one chomping at the bit to run home to Wikipedia and find out just who the hell Baby Face Nelson was and which character in the film was supposed to be him. I admit I'm not really an opponent of this particular sort of narrative, as it often leaves room for viewer's reasoning, knowledge or, barring that, thirst to gain this knowledge to kick in, but the fact of the matter is Public Enemies plays, more often than not, less like a thrilling gangster film and more like one of the fastest-paced, most confusing advertisements for a book on the subject I've ever seen. Rarely did I fully grasp what was going on, where it was going on, why and with whom it was going on- indeed, I thought the film was ending about 20 minutes sooner than it actually did when I mistook a gunned-down gangster to be Dillinger himself.

I fear I have wondered into the realm of the technical and narrative gripe... BUT WAIT! I have more gripes. What I'm trying to get to with all this is that Mann has crafted a work that is, among other things, preoccupied with the depictions of the crime and times of John Dillinger in a historically accurate, unromantic fashion, and this particular style becomes at least underwhelming and at worst moth-ridden and downright unsalvageable in the face of the structure and content of the film. The thing is, the other aspects of the film- the acting, the writing, the dynamics between cops and robbers- lack that grittiness or psychological realism. Indeed, they're almost embarrassingly underfed- Depp's Dillinger is played like an only-slightly-subtler Jack Sparrow, allowed to swagger and rumble and live the high life while strapped with dialogue so quick-witted and perfect that any guy in the theater who has ever attempted to smooth talk a woman should be waxing indignant at the falsity of it all. Look, I can respect this image of the ideal, infinitely suave, devil-may-care-and-I-actually-mean-that male figure... I just can't respect it when it's passed off as objective reality, as the traits of a goddamn historical figure ferchrissake. It's The Man With No Name given a name, a date of birth and death and a place in our history texts- there's nothing admirable about that, in my estimation, and there's little that's joyful about it either. There's gotta be something churning underneath the hood of this John Dillinger, something that gives him a reason to rob banks and seek thrills and vow his never-ending love to Billie moments after meeting her... just don't expect to find it anywhere within Public Enemies. The result is a character (and performance... I suppose laying out my reasons for my relative antipathy towards Johnny Depp recently is an activity for another day) so slight, forgettable and underfed in motive and humanness that one gets the feeling that Dillinger plays a bit part in his own story. Sadly, there's nothing else to pick up the slack- Bale's Purvis is too tepid and, frankly, uninspiring to stand a chance against the bravado image of Depp robbing banks in all black and a Beretta in each hand. Cotillard's Billie is given all of about 15 minutes of screen time, begging the question as to why this slight and rather odd relationship merited becoming the film's central emotional pillar. The fact is, there's nothing really great and nothing really that bad here- it's all just mildly palatable and empty, like a friend's collection of vacation pictures. It indeed seems best to describe Mann's work here as a sort of artistic and historical tourism- a work preoccupied with scribbling down facts and figures and taking a snapshot of the scenery with no attempt at grace or a deeper, lasting meaning. He delivers a work that aims for little and delivers little and invokes the spirits of Film Noir Past at its own peril. What you get through the experience is the image of Johnny Depp toting a tommy gun as he rides through the streets on the side of an old Buick and, truth be told, some really impressive gun sound effects (really, 1930s weaponry has never sounded better)- what you leave the theater with, though, is the nagging question of why all of that didn't pack the kind of power and lasting impact it shoulda.

Public Enemies (2009, d. Michael Mann): 2/4

"I have read in La Nouvelle Critique under the byline of Francis Cohen that Stalin was literally the greatest scholar of all time, since he was the receptacle of all the knowledge in the Communist world. I'll properly refrain from denying Stalin the personal and historical excellence that these films attribute to him. But what I am able to see after a moment's reflection is that I am being asked to accept as real an image of Stalin that rigorously conforms to what the myth of Stalin might be, or had better be!
No construct of the mind could better satisfy the demands of propaganda than this one. Either Stalin is a genuine superman, or we are being presented with a myth. It is not my purpose here to argue whether or not the idea of a superman is a Marxist one, but I will venture to say that myths function aesthetically in the same way for the Western bloc as for the Eastern, and that, from this point of view, the only difference between Stalin and Tarzan is that the films devoted to the latter do not claim to be rigorous documentaries." - André Bazin

The Machine Within The Machine: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Drag Me To Hell

Boo Hoo

I'm a bit surprised at myself that I even took the time to write out the full name of Transformers 2 in the title above. Partly because I don't care, and partly because I honestly thought I didn't know its full title. Blame it on months and months of advertising, perhaps, that I was able to somehow pull the full title out of my ass, a feat that I fear, just mere days after witnessing the film, I will not be able to do for the film's plot. The fact is that just like Michael Bay's first Hasbro-toyline inspired debacle two years ago, the experience of watching the film is much like coming face-to-face with a void that leaves in its wake two n a half hours that feel as close as I think I've come to a complete arrest of all mental function; the visual experience of the film is somewhat akin to crossing one's eyes and blinking as fast as possible for 140 minutes, but the experience on any other conceivable level amounts to little more than a slight, vague sense of outrage and very little else.

The fact of the matter, maybe, is that hating on Michael Bay and the abhorrent fruits of his labor is something I admit I'm a bit tired of doing. Maybe because most people, on some level, sense that this shit is everything that is wrong with cinema, wrong with America, wrong with humanity- Transformers 2 is bloated, graceless, obvious, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, anti-intellectual, disgusted by sexuality and degrading about the human body, infinitely violent and baldly fascistic- all, of course, while proudly flaunting its bigger and bigger weaponry like so many erect dicks on the set of a hardcore porno (a weak comparison, I admit- at least a porno has something within its frame that is more than a smattering of 1's and 0's in a vain attempt to convince the viewer there is something of interest to be seen). The point being, you certainly knew this already, and for me to deride it being all these things strikes me as about as impotent and packed to the gills in cliche as any and every scene of Transformers 2. In fact, I'd even say that the incredible, all-encompassing ugliness of Bay's work does more good than ill for me- at a time in my life when I'm afraid I've become too content with the world and where its headed, Transformers 2 reminds me that there are indeed still elements so ugly and hateful and so lacking in art and humanity that I feel compelled to fight back in some way, in any way. It reminds me that some are, at best, indifferent and, at worst, rooting for a vision of the world in which all females are either hysterical, nightmare mothers or objects (pretty literally here- every female worthy of desire here is so drenched in oil and spray-on tan as to appear horrifically artificial and plastic) to masturbate to, where a couple of gold-toothed, tired-lingo slinging, voiced-by-a-white-guy (Tom Kenny, lord forgive 'im) self-admitted illiterate black robots figure as perfectly suitable comic relief, and where our purest, truest heroes ask an incapacitated foe whether he has "any last words" before blasting him between the eyes at point blank. It's rotten to the core, no doubt- but I think its clear that those who give two shits about the directions and dialogues of serious film, those who see cinema as more than a place to turn off your brain for a few hours, don't need to even see the thing to get that feeling. It's the Slumdog Millionaires and the Junos of the world, in all honesty, that I am most troubled and incited by- films every bit as rotten but in a package insidious and shiny enough to cause thoughtful, caring people to think they are watching something of merit, of nutrition and importance even. Basically, I don't really want to harp on Transformers 2's failings as a worldview (which every film, no matter how small, ultimately is) and success (if that's what you'd call it) in capturing the hateful, cynical center of a hateful, cynical auteur.

What I'd rather harp on, with all that said, is the film's utter and complete failure as a film, as an action piece with any possible reason to invest thought or feeling or as an agent of the most primitive cinematic gift, that of sight. If Transformers 2 feels hopelessly antiquated and outdated socially and thematically, just get a load of its visual and narrative presentation- the whole thing plays like a computer graphics demonstration; that is, it plays like every empty and forgotten "Whiz-bang" blockbuster that relied on the spectacle of technology predestined to appear helplessly corny and, well, antiquated mere seasons after its release. That Transformers 2 one-ups these films, however, by appearing visually outdated and pathetic upon its release is almost beside the point but still worth mentioning. In the rare instances when they aren't contorting and spinning themselves into an incomprehensible, eye-splintering digital maelstrom, the titular robots display features so ill-defined and murky that the idea that we were ever meant to relate to or even believe in these creations is cast into serious doubt. That these gigantic machines appear to be weightless and of a variable size doesn't help matters; they move about without causing so much as an imprint in a field of grass (except, of course, during actions scenes where, from what I can gather, Bay's technique involves throwing the camera in the air as hard as his crew can while simultaneously blowing up every real object on the set) and see-saw from as huge as a building to just a hair taller than human companions given the particular technical (and, no doubt, creative) limitations of each scene. These digital atrocities, because they are digital and because they are atrocities, lend themselves perfectly to Bay's signature worst-thing-you've-ever-experienced style of action filmmaking. Every action scene plays roughly the same, with the indistinguishable forms of two or more fighting Autobots and Decepticons rendered into the empty spaces of the shakiest, most ineptly filmed landscapes you ever did see. The experience, again, is akin to doing that trick where you turn your eyelids inside out with your pointer finger and thumb and, once you've done that, start darting your vision left and right as fast as you possibly can. For 2 and a half interminable hours. It's painful, yes, but more than a little boring, which leads me to the real question at the heart of Transformers 2: Who cares? Who COULD care? What is there to care about? At what point do the interests of humanity and the interests of two or more indistinguishable fighting digital robots intersect? The genocidal body count of every action scene in this film reminds us early and often that puny human weaponry is useless against these giants- why have a single soldier on the ground of any of these battles? Perhaps as a weak attempt to create some sort of urgency and reality to all these battles, but the fact is that the sight of a few dozen extras being squashed by imaginary robot feet doesn't stand a chance to the overwhelming falseness of the whole affair. Any human interest or faculty is pulverized, literally and metaphorically, by these weightless and flat place markers performing feats that make no logical, emotional, or aesthetic sense. The real casualty here, of course, is reality- any sense or scent of it. We are left staring at a screen filled with an almost literal void- works of fiction and fantasy intended as the real and fragments of the real shattered to fit a fantasy, neither of which coming close to something persuasive, artistic, compelling or fully realized. It is, simply put, no exaggeration to say that any camera in the hand of any person the world over capturing any image, no matter how mundane or graceless, is infinitely preferable and, on some level, truly superior to the rape of the senses that Bay offers here. I do not intend in saying this to propound a populist or egalitarian vision of cinema but instead to uphold the importance of a fundamental realism in the cinematic arts. This is not to declare digital imagery and special effects an enemy of the state, as it were, but to declare that an interest of some sort be allowed in these images- there should be something more than the satiation of the most naive, uninformed instincts behind them. I proposed as a joke to a friend that this movie could be improved by screening the film in 3D but with only the digital special effects appearing 3D. The more I think of it, the more I am certain that such a gimmick would legitimately and seriously improve the experience of the film. It would add a reflexive and structural element to the movie and at long last, and if only in the most literal sense possible, relieve the film of its suffocating flatness.

It is along similar CGI-centric lines that I found an unlikely and rather welcome ally Saturday night in Sam Raimi and his latest, Drag Me To Hell. I have seen the film described as something of a Rosetta Stone for Raimi and his work, a claim I admit I am not equipped to affirm or deny. I know pitifully little about Raimi's oeuvre- I enjoyed what he did with the Spiderman franchise and I'd even, without embarrassment, count myself as one of the few who really liked the goofy "Peter Parker goes emo" scenes in Spiderman 3, but I've never been a fan of his beloved Evil Dead series, and I've seen very little outside of that. That said, I was informed enough to come into Hell expecting Raimi's sorta-trademark Spookhouse approach to horror, and I admit that I found it almost wholly charming and fun. To call the set pieces and visuals (especially in the film's second half) expressionistic doesn't even begin to cover it, and sorta misses the point besides. It's the kinda of film that loves film and loves being a film, and throws all the fake blood, maggots, decrepit old women and icky bodily fluids it can to disgust the uninitiated and prudish and delight the true believers. I think that at least part of my aversion to Raimi's Evil Dead series is my preference for horror that takes itself a bit more seriously- that said, I couldn't help but grin in appreciation when the Lamia, the demon sent to Drag to Hell our cursed protagonist, manifests itself as two hoofed feet casting a shadow from behind a closed door. Raimi has reached a pretty great balance between traditional special effects and CGI here, at some points approaching the idea of the kind of digital graffiti that may well go towards saving CGI from itself and its worst instincts. I've never been the biggest proponent of digital effects, but it's inspiring to see a film like this use the technology in a way that's sly and self-knowing and joyfully over-the-top. There's a sense of hope here that those most ready and able to deal with such effects in a creative way simply haven't been given the chance yet, and that the reason such effects are so often used as cheap cop-outs and empty spectacle is precisely because uninventive, unimaginative brutes like Michael Bay have been those privileged enough to access it. That said, there' still something that draws some of my affection away from Drag Me To Hell, and I can't pinpoint exactly what. Perhaps there's something a bit too self-aware about it at points, a critique that I might also bring over to my feelings about the Evil Dead series. I'm drawn, for whatever reason, to consider 2007's I Know Who Killed Me and to view it as a modern classic the more I think of it. That Lindsey Lohan-starring flop had a real spine to it and a strange spark of insanity that allowed it to tell its absurd and trashy story in an honest and strangely affecting way. Raimi has a spine and a spark of insanity, no doubt, but it's of a different kind. I don't feel a sense of danger in applauding or defending his work. I get the strange sense that Sam Raimi and his work is nearly identical to the sort of "paracinematic", fringe, midnight-movie experience I cherish heartily, yet is in some way still a distant, foreign cousin. It's perhaps that Raimi winks too much, that at the end of the day, no matter how slimy and disgusting, his films tell us to smile when we wouldn't need to be told. It's still better than being told to smile when it's the last thing we want to do, of course, and with a summer of movies that have so far proven to be very little except dreck, Drag Me To Hell stands as a very pleasant surprise.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009: d. Michael Bay): .5/4
Drag Me To Hell (2009, d. Sam Raimi): 3/4