Tag Archives: Dryden

The King of Comedy at the Dryden

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Christina and I headed to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy. Jim Healy gave the introduction and said he had seen this film probably the most number of times of any film he's seen (and I fully believe he has seen a great number of films). The gist is that Rupert Pupkin played by Robert De Niro plays a stand-up comic who attempts to get the fame he thinks he deserves by kidnapping a TV host Jerry Langford played by Jerry Lewis.

The beauty of the film is in its portrayal of Pupkin as the fanboy inside me (and presumably most people) that just goes too far. For the sake of filmmaking and the story, Pupkin's fantasies intermingle with reality — disastrously. For instance, he has a fantasy of having dinner with Langford where the star begs him to take over the talk show — despite that Langford actually does not see any refined talent in Pupkin, and far from the degree that Pupkin's fantasy lays out.

When I set my mind adrift and daydream of an encounter with some famous person — be it a consistent legend like Randy Newman or a cute-girl-du-jour like Kate Micucci — some event happens where I get to meet them by chance, and for some reason they are interested in me or thankful for something … basically, what Pupkin does. Only in his world, this is the way things actually happen: these absurd, unlikely, coincidences are believed to play out because the fantasy person does not have a real existence. In other words, I realize that famous-person-in-fantasy has, in real life, their own existence that simply does not include me whereas Pupkin does not have such a realization. He fully believes that fame makes the real person disappear — that the celebrity is no longer real, or that celebrity can completely obscure that reality.

The movie asks, in part, how do you handle a person like Pupkin? How do you handle someone who has disposed of your value as a human being? I believe it is the same haunting psychology that leads to stalking, rape, genocide, and any human-on-human atrocity: if you can convince yourself that another person is not a human being (or that they are simply a thing) then your mind is freed to do anything to them without remorse. And if you are on the receiving end of such behavior, all you can do is either change your mind so they are no longer human and you can do what you want with them, or save your own humanity, do what you can to educate them, and wait for them to realize that you are a valuable person too.

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Seeing the Headless Woman at the Dryden

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I headed out to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman). I had carefully read the calendar summary and noted some dangerous phrases: "intriguing and surreal", "whose perfect life may be a dream", "droll, enigmatic fable about bourgeois discombobulation". What I mean is that I was braced for an inaccessible art film — one that I'd have to endure … or worse (and under rare circumstances) leave early.

I talked with Antonella Bonfanti beforehand and was reassured that the movie was interesting. In her introduction to the film, she pointed out that the film requires attention. By creating the scenario of a mystery — wherein the titular woman never knows whether she killed a child in a dramatic accident in her car — I found myself compelled to pay attention. I was constantly looking for clues, and in the process, noted the subtleties of the story. The film calls attention to Argentina's growing rift between rich and poor, forming a de facto caste system. It gets a bit blunt with things, as the lower class is frequently paired with the sound of dogs (although I can't recall many images of dogs), but overall it's an excellent movie.

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Watching Liverpool at the Dryden

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I went to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Liverpool and I was very impressed. Jim Healy introduced the film, emphasizing the lack of a complicated story but the beauty of light and humanity. I found the film to be at "human speed" rather than in "movie time". Most movies do away with unnecessary action: for instance, consider all the actions one takes when going from stopping a car in a driveway to sitting in the couch inside — in "movie time", it's done by showing the car stop, an shot of the exterior of the house with the car in the driveway, then the occupant is shown entering from the interior of the house. The ordinary actions of undoing a seatbelt, unlocking a door, or even buttoning up one's coat usually contribute only to making a film unnecessarily long. But at "human speed", we do these things whether we're conscious of it or not.

Liverpool celebrates human speed. At least far more-so than is typical — we are spared the 5 hour journey into port on a freighter, although the existence of that time is not ignored. The story, as Jim said, is remarkably simple: a man on a freighter visits his home, is not well liked, has been forgotten by his mother, and is really only acknowledged by his daughter. Then he leaves. That's the whole movie. But it's in the little moments that make it work. There's little dialog, but so much is offered in its place for the viewer to make their own story.

I had walked to the theater from Ali's house — about 30 minutes or so. I didn't contemplate the trip there, but on the way back, I was aware. I forgot how to understand lateness and hurry: I knew that I was at the right speed.

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Black Dynamite at the Dryden

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Christina and I went to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Black Dynamite. Although I feel like I've seen some "blaxploitation" films in the past, in retrospect, I guess I've only really seen Shaft. Well, maybe a few others.

Anyway, Black Dynamite does a virtually perfect job of honoring that genre (as best as I can tell, anyway). The movie is hilarious (I'm much more certain about that). Every time I recognized when they were setting up a stereotypical blaxploitation moment, I was braced for a mediocre punch-line. But every time, I was impressed that the filmmakers went in a direction I didn't expect — and every time, one that was funnier than I could have expected. I'll definitely keep an eye out for it to see it one more time.

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Ghostbusters and Gremlins at the Dryden

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Ali, Christina, and I headed to Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave. to see the double-feature. Well, Christina and I committed to the long-haul while Ali only wanted to see Ghostbusters.  The first feature, as such, was just as good as I remember from the last time I saw it as well as times past.  The movie tends to hold together as a comedy and as a thriller … for instance, the apperarance of the final enemy was as disturbing and humorous as it was when I saw it in 1984.  Of course, the film is also pretty seriously flawed with continuity and special-effects problems (not so much the datedness of optical effects, but more the problem of concrete bouncing gently off wooden police barriers).

Ali smartly left because Gremlins was awful.  "Awful" like "one of the worst movies I've ever seen".  I remember seeing bits and pieces of the film in the past, and I apparently always turned away from it as it got boring.  I never did see it when I was young, and, admittedly, I probably would have been extremely entertained as a teenager.  But as an adult, it's just excruciating.  Christina noted that it was like an episode of Amazing Stories — something that could have been a clever tale at 20 minutes.  Unfortunately, the film was padded an additional 86 minutes (of which, the only redeeming moment was Phoebe Cates hilariously deadpan delivery explaining why her character hates Christmas).  The lesson is to have extremely low expectations if you're going to make an attempt — or better yet, if you liked it as a kid, don't even bother revisiting it.

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For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism with Gerald Peary at the Dryden

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Ali and I headed to the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) for the discussion with Gerald Peary. It turned out he was screening a documentary he directed: For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. The documentary was okay — it touched on the major "eras" of public film criticism, primarily in America. Motion picture making itself is barely 100 years old, and critical analysis necessarily followed. As documentaries of a history go, it was an imperfect, but generally pretty good essay on the topic.

As we stayed through the question-and-answer afterward, I kept revisiting a negative opinion: that the whole evening was packed with ignorance. It wasn't until later that I pinned it down: critics that made an impact were good writers who happened to critique motion pictures, but critics seem to co-opt the respect of being a good critic while ignoring the necessity of being a good writer first. This resonated with me strongest in the last segment that covered the Internet age. It seems that paid critics disliked the presence of Internet critics because they felt that the fact they were paid automatically made them superior. Rather, I think that the best critics — Internet or otherwise — are able to examine a film from a unique perspective that gives insight into that film.

Peary also insisted that a critic's role is to analyze a film within the context of film-as-art, not to identify whether you, as a reader, should see it. I think this is misguided. First, I agree that there is a majority of people who just want a movie review that tells them "good" or "bad" — they literally want to be told they will like a film (and further, I think their opinion is heavily swayed by what critics tell them). However, there is another group of people who read film criticism beforehand for its context in film-as-art so they can determine whether they want to see it. In some cases, it is to explain, "how can I enjoy this film?", or "why is this film important?" I've written in the past about how I use film criticism and synopses, noting that a review should bracket my experience and help me understand what to expect. For instance, I don't think a film like Vals Im Bashir (Waltz With Bashir) could be considered a movie that "people would like", but I'm glad I saw it and I think it was a great film. It was because I knew something of the film that I decided to see it — partly trailers, and partly through critical review. But I used those tools specifically to determine whether I should see it.

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House and Living Organics at the Dryden

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I headed over to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to catch the films screened there. Starting out was a short film called Living Organics which was a series of animated, abstract vignettes depicting how modern culture works to remove humanity from the living world it is part of. It was fitting introductory piece to Hausu (House).

There really is no way to explain what happens in the movie. It's rooted in a nightmare horror scenario where members of a party disappear one at a time. Its execution … well, that's another story. My friend Albert commented afterward that it was very dreamlike — so perfectly so, in some ways, that we were having a hard time remembering the events that transpired. It's supremely bizarre narrative. I guess it makes a little more sense from a Japanese perspective, as there are some cultural references — but even then, it's dominated so much by this dreamy nightmare motif that it's really hard to explain.

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The Yes Men Fix the World at the Dryden

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I left the show a little early to get to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) for a screening of The Yes Men Fix the World. I had been aware of some of the … umm … pranks? stunts? performance-art pieces? … created by The Yes Men for some time. I had recorded a segment on Democracy Now! back when I had satellite where they had convinced BBC News that they represented Dow Chemical and wanted to help fix the ongoing disaster created by their then-recently-purchased subsidiary, Union Carbide in Bhopal, India in 1984. The movie goes behind the scenes of how they got on the air and announced that in honor of the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Dow was committing billions of dollars (US$12 billion, if I remember correctly [and indeed, upon reviewing my copy of the interview on Democracy Now!, it was]) to help the people and clean up the site. By the end of the day, the hoax was revealed, and the largest complaint was not that Dow didn't step forward and do what was right and just (i.e. commit resources and fix things) but that the hoax cost Dow shareholders US$2 billion.

And that's essentially what The Yes Men are continually asking: why can't we make a world where corporations do the right thing? Their method of asking that question is to enter situations where they present themselves as members of corporations and announce that they are going to do the right thing.

I spent most of the movie saddened that these pranks never seem to have any effect: corporations continue to do the wrong thing, claiming that the increased profits are worth more than any real benefit.

But then I realized that no one person (or even large a group) can instantly make change. Rather, it is through the constant pressure of good that makes the world better. So when I left, I got on my tall bike (which, believe it or not, I made just over 5 years ago) and realized that we all need to make the world a better place. Even little things matter because all there is is little things.

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To Live at the Dryden

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I went to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) with my friend Christina to see Huozhe (To Live). She had seen it before (at least the latter 75%) and liked a lot.

It was one of the most beautiful, serene movies I've ever seen. It's about a family that stays together through record-setting turmoil. Or it's about redemption. Or it's about life being change. Or it's a critique of communism. Or it's about luck. Or it's about beauty all the time. Or any combination or all of those things.

But if you're willing to be receptive to it, you'll feel some of those ideas.

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JCVD at the Dryden with a New Pair of Eyes

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Today I went to The Rochester Optical Factory Outlet (400 Jefferson Rd., in Hen-Jeff Plaza) and picked up my new glasses (with the lowest price in town — and honestly priced to boot). Last month I went to The Ocu Sight Eye Care Center (1580 Elmwood Ave.) for an eye appointment: partly for issues with near-sightedness, and partly to get those eye disease checks that I don't get without owning glasses. Everyone who has glasses sneers when I say I have better than 20/20 vision, but damn it: I can't read street signs at night! Accordingly , my prescription was pretty weak, but now I can see far-away things. It may not be perfect (I'm still working on figuring out if it's honestly wrong or if it's just confined by the granularity of a weak prescription) but hundreds of yards better than what it was.

So one of the first things I got to do was to go with Ali to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) where we saw JCVD — Jean-Claude Van Damme's Tree's Lounge … er … sort-of. Ali didn't intend on seeing it, but I suggested we walk from her house to double-up a little physical activity, but she didn't feel at all like walking back home alone afterward so begrudgingly stayed (and actually thought the film was okay).

I thought the film was very good overall. I remember from film class in college something about film genres taking a turn at some point — when the formula used is somehow tweaked so the film is still recognizable by its pedigree, but is significantly unique as well. In this case, it's the action genre: where the bad guys establish a sophisticated upper-hand, the good guys are embarrassingly disorganized save for the few heroes, and good wins in the end. Plus there's a showcase for special effects and a reinforced apathy for the loss of lives of the unknown.

In JCVD, Van Damme plays himself — an action star tired of constantly being personally associated with the attributes of the characters he plays and the films they are in, and pretty much the only guy who could possibly fit the role. He returns to his hometown of Brussels and quickly becomes the central figure in a heist gone awry. From there it's action-movie anarchy: mobs of people surround the bank to cheer on the most famous Belgian outside Belgium, Van Damme's role in the heist is not as it first appears, and, of course, he's not some ass-kicking, bulletproof hero.

In a jarring foil to the climax, Van Damme steps out of his film-self to deliver a monologue directly to the audience. He ends up coming across closer to Jesus Christ than to his own JC moniker (Jean-Claude, that is — far more closely associated with bad acting and terrible movies). Practically a classic Catholic confession, he reveals that he's conflicted: for after having traveled the world and experienced all the different kinds of people he's met, he cannot see how each and every one of them shouldn't be adored for who they are. Yet his films — the entire action genre — broadly categorizes everyone in the world to one-of-two, black-or-white categories.

So in its own way, JCVD is incredibly powerful. For it has forever tainted any future viewing of an action movie for me. It's really where my own philosophy led anyway, but JCVD accelerated my progression to a fully new mind-space.

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