The Movie Post, part 1

[ivyfic]

So I've watched a bunch of movies lately. Decided to give my Netflix a break from TV series and watch some of those films I'd been meaning to watch but never got around to.

Ladyhawke
I've mentioned this before, but I did enjoy it. It's campy and completely dated but fun. The best part by far is Matthew Broderick as Mouse—Navarre and Isabeau are really quite uninteresting cookie-cutter heroes. I don't have the attachment to this film I probably would have had if I'd watched it in the eighties, but I liked it fine. Don't think I'll rewatch it, though.

A note on the slash, for those who think I'm reading too much into it. First, you have the whole set-up where Mouse is an intermediary between the two lovers. In the movie he's passing messages and a certain amount of physical comfort between the two (hugging Navarre, dancing with Isabeau). They can't touch each other, but they can both touch him—this is not a big leap. You even have Mouse as a witness for the moment when Isabeau and Navarre briefly see each other as they transform, implicitly making him part of this romance. And then you have one of the slashiest scenes I've ever seen. The morning after Mouse rescues the wolf from the frozen lake, he and Navarre get into an argument, Navarre pushes him down and then learns that he had unintentionally injured him the previous night and Mouse had been hiding it. This is classic classic hurt/comfort. Everything from the stoic suffering in silence, the unintentional injury, the guilt, the remorse, then they embrace… It's hard not to read that as slash. And let's not forget the end of the film where both Isabeau and Navarre kiss Mouse…

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I was not blown away by this. Aside from the before mentioned fact that it's mother-fucking sci fi, I felt it was too self-conciously artsy for its own good. There are many moments in the film where it's trying to be avant-garde and art to the point where I'm sitting there thinking "this is avant-garde" rather than thinking about the story and that's never a good thing. Also, for all that it's a more "realistic" look at relationships and love, the scenes they show of when they were in love are just as kitschy and contrived as the "falling in love" montage sequences in conventional romantic comedies. Rough-housing in snow on the beach, laughing and watching elephants, staring up at the stars…all of these ring like hollow cliches to me. There's been one time in my life I've had a playful moment like you see in TV commercials all the time, and at that exact moment, what I was thinking was "I am living the moment that TV tells me I should," which kind of defeats the purpose. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I can't give this film the credibility of showing authentic relationships when I just don't believe people spontaneously act like that.

I also think they wimped out a little on the end. I think the point of the film is "tis better to have loved and lost": even knowing how it will fall apart in the end, it's worth it to pursue this love for the moments in between. But the end left it ambiguous, like maybe it will be happily ever after for these two, and I think it does a disservice to the film to imply that it's going to work out.

So the best I can say about this is that "wow, it's so out there," which has never been enough for me to like a movie. I did genuinely love the character of Clementine, though. She was incredibly appealing because of all her flaws.

Ratatouille
Ah, Ratatouille. I enjoyed this a lot, but it, to me, is still a kid's film, unlike other Pixar entries. I wouldn't put this in the ranks of Toy Story. Structurally it was a bit problematic—you had the rat's story, then the chef's story, then their story together, then you think it ends but it hasn't… Plus they sort of leave the Remy-losing-his-family thing dangling until he, through no effort on his part, reconnects with them. I was never quite sure this movie knew where it was going. It was all over the place.

That being said, the moment when Ego tastes the ratatouille and remembers his childhood made me choke up. That message—that art (since I think this movie is treating food as art) can evoke such a strong reaction, take you out of yourself, change you—that is a great message. Ego's review at the end, I loved that too (possibly since I'm also a critic). I don't agree with his assessment of critics as worthless, or that they're all petty and vicious, though that character was, but I do think it is the duty of the critics to champion the new. And his point that anyone can cook does not mean that anyone can cook, but instead that a good cook can come from anywhere—beautifully put. I'll have to remember that at the next "How to Get Published" panel I'm on.

Comments

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Well, I love Ladyhawke but that's because I saw it back when it first came out and it was one of the first movies of its genre. I haven't rewatched it in a while, but last time I did I remember still enjoying it (Broderick and McKern make the movie) though the music was awful.

I agree about Eternal Sunshine. It was okay but not amazing. She was adorable, though.

I liked Ratatouille, though yes, it's a bit all over the place. Still fun, though, and visually stunning.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I loved the animation in Ratatouille--it was very rat-like, for lack of a better term. They way the rats scrambled, the very fast rodent breathing, the fur--I mean wet fur! How far we've come! I liked it a lot, but it didn't quite reach that level of genius.

Haven't seen Ladyhawke in too long to comment, but...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My biggest bugaboos about Eternal Sunshine:

1) The fact that the system is used for some serious abuse is barely even addressed. Yes, Kirsten Dunst exposes it, but she was basically ripped apart from her memories (if I am remembering correctly, she didn't really wan to forget the affair she had with the boss). That's a not-so-subtle cerebral rape. And Kate Winslet was being taken advantage of by a creepy, stalker-y Elijah Wood. Who'd erased her memories, too. These are seriously f'ed up things and they aren't given the treatment they should as the story instead spends forever chasing after Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's True Love.

2) I am extremely annoyed by "free spirit" romantic leads. Because these people are completely impractical, frequently unhealthy to be around, and more often than not literally insane. I seem to remember Kate Winslet's character was all three. I just can't get excited about appreciating the heroine for how "free" or "spirited" she is when I look at her and go "She's nuts. I would never want anyone to be around her when she's off her meds."

As for Ratatouille, I feel like a failure for not loving this movie more. I liked it, certainly, but I don't feel it had the impact on me that other Pixar movies did because it couldn't find a story to make the message it was selling more palatable (no pun intended). With The Incredibles, there were uncomfortable notions front and center--some people really are special and some never will be no matter how hard they try--but the message was couched in a story about family coming first and problems being solved not by trying to be heroes but by doing what was right. With Finding Nemo, you had a neurotic fish learning to let go of the things that he couldn't control--everyone has to grow up some time (and my god, what a thing to put in a kids' movie!). Toy Story worked similar territory to different effect (perhaps even more tragic since Woody basically signed on to be left behind out of love).

While the message of "anyone can cook" is a great one, and a progressive one (it makes the case that greatness knows no prejudice), it was just hard put because Remy really wasn't rewarded for his skills in the end except that the critic (god bless Peter O'Toole) was kind enough not to freak out about a rat having been near his food. I like it, but I feel like the message wasn't brought across as well as it could have been. As opposed to Cars where I blatantly hated the message--people run around too much these days! no one appreciates the way it used to be done, when there was personal service and such! young whipper-snappers ain't got no respect 'less you beat it into them!

Re: Haven't seen Ladyhawke in too long to comment, but...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely on point one, especially since that's the part of the story that makes it science fiction. Man's relationship to technology, how he uses and abuses it, whether he should use it at all, that's classic sci fi. They also don't address the implication of the technology. The company seems to only use it to help people get over bad break-ups. There's no discussion of PTSD, the one case where I could believe that erasing one thing from someone's memory could "fix" them. (Brings to mind a Boston Legal episode about the drug that keeps memories from "setting." The girl who wants to take it says, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a victim of sexual assault." The response to that was, "But that's what you are." Anyway, I digress.)

I also agree with you on point 2, completely. The free spirit thing is a crock. Which is why I loved that they showed that Clementine knew that and they showed how destructive it was to her and the relationship. That's the takeaway for me: the "I apply my personality with a paste," Carrey's speech on the tape about how deceptively seductive that persona is. Which is why I was annoyed at the end of the film that they hinted at a happy ending.

I've heard some people say Ratatouille was the best film of the year. I haven't seen any of the nominees, so I couldn't say, but it really didn't have the cohesion that Toy Story or The Incredibles did. And your right, it didn't really deliver a satisfying ending. It delivered a realistic one, if you can apply such standards, but not a satisfying one. It also had a bunch of climactic moments rather than just one.

I also spent most of the film thinking about the cultural prejudices that get perpetuated in pop art (I just read this comic that accused Jabba the Hutt of being an anti-Arab stereotype, and you know, he did have kind of a point there). So I kept wondering why the king of the rats had a big honking Eastern European nose. What was that saying? Or why was our human hero straight-up American farmboy in looks with an American accent while the villains were very ethnic?

Re: Haven't seen Ladyhawke in too long to comment, but...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can't borrow sci-fi tropes and then not make anything of them. The reason they exist is to explore what man's one genetic advantage--his ability to cogitate--will lead him to, what impact that has on the rest of the species/universe, and what things are better left un-invented. Eternal Sunshine is all "La, la, la!" with its fingers in its ears.

As for the cultural prejudices, I wonder at the staying power the Eastern European evil has had in the animation industry. I mean, Bugs Bunny is older than the Cold War, so some Looney Tunes avoid that mistake, but not anything younger than that. Look at Boris and Natasha. We've pretty much eliminated the need for and ridiculed into the ground the Cold War mentality. Perhaps it's because the new, great enemy--terrorists--are still too amorphous to caricature in villainy? No clue.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Aw, I loved Eternal Sunshine. Not because I think it's realistic but precisely because it's a fantasy, and it's a movie about fantasy. Clementine irritated me, yeah, but nto enough to make me dislike the film.

I'm surprised you think there's supposed to be True Love at the end. The impression I got from it was that they knew the relationship would eventually fail; they knew it would be full of incredible pain and hardship; yet they chose to pursue it anyway both because they can't deny the attraction and because they know that the experience is always worth it regardless of the outcome.