James Franco is our Orson Welles: Indie Darlings Need Not Apply

When I first read about 127 I assumed it would be another stunt in the ever-growing performance piece that is James Franco’s life. The man’s creative output is mindboggling – working on multiple concurrent masters degrees in four subjects at three Universities in two states while pumping out (wait for it…) performances in Milk and Howl (twofer!). Imagine the surprise of Franco fans everywhere when Internet chatter indicated his next film would be about ‘a guy stuck under a rock for one hundred and twenty seven hours.’

How the hell do you pitch that? Just a classic dude-stuck-under-a-rock story. A modern reimagining of Atlas? Some metaphor for addiction without Gus Van Zandt? When I read the synopsis I thought of a few things this film would have to include, things I thought would deter me from wanting to see it. Strangely enough they’re the same reasons I never pledged a fraternity.

1) Lots of dude-crying
2) Urine drinking
3) Masturbating if not for the tears

127 wasn’t just good for a movie about a dude under a rock, it was good as the cinema, as an institution, is strange. There’s a formula here that I’ve yet to fully deduce, but it goes something like this. In his seminal work on screen writing, Bob McKee points out that going to the movies is frankly bizarre. Why would a bunch of strangers sit in intimate proximity to one another, in the dark, to feel a myriad of emotions they would otherwise go to great lengths to avoid in real life? My equation is that in order for a movie to be good the sum value of its entertainment must exceed the creepiness of being stuck in a closet with a total stranger for nearly two hours. 127 does this, but not in any obvious way.

127 doesn’t have a plot in that classic sense. Immediately you’d probably assume that because of this it’s some indie-free-form-revisionist plop of missing-the-point kind of movie adorned with trendy music people not in the know will then use to convince themselves they are so totes in the know. Alas Gardenstate and 127 share only one thing. In both films the leads scream at a giant hole in the ground. In one of these movies it made total sense, in the other it was a device used to display teenage angst and frustration but not related to the plot in anyway– and thus as replaceable as cutting oneself (Girl, Interrupted) or snorting cocaine in a dive bar bathroom (A Winter Passing, London). While the scenes of these other movies are swappable, 127 is totally unique in its subject matter and as such razor specific as to the devices employed. The result is thought provoking. Enough, maybe, to make me forget about the dude next to me wheezing in the dark.

So while the movie is not relatable to a typical Hollywood archplot it does have one of the most primitive forms of conflict: Man vs. Nature (dude vs. rock). MvN stories are so milked and predictable (one could say satisfied by contemplating our mammalian instinct) that they hardly mak their way to the big screen. Maybe this is because they avoid the typical archplot formula.Perhaps it’s because they strike a brutally honest chord about human nature since MvN always, eventually, comes down to man vs. himself and that tends to get a bit invasive.

127 is voyeurism at its most refined. It works for the same reason the E! Channel and Bravo exist but without making it clear there is a large demographic out there that should be shot into space.

Or in the head.

Calling All Reaganauts: The Solitary Case of Gordon Gekko (or, Why John Hughes Puts the 'Tremendous' in Pussy)

Now that we’re all living in shoe-boxes trading scrap metal as currency it’s easy to look at the last financial meltdown and blame _______. Whether you fill that blank with an abstract idea such as ‘greed,’ technical jargon like ‘over leveraged credit default swap’ or with the timeless classic ‘Jews’ I’d have to disagree. I think it was Gordon Gekko.

Oliver Stone’s 1987 Wall Street is a classic. The film worked for three reasons. First, Oliver Stone’s father worked wall street, giving little Olly a level of insight matched only by his Vietnam trilogy. Second, every character fit a stock – but was used in such a way our expectation helped flush out plot points in a relatively complicated, and before then unexplored (on film) niche of enterprise. And third, Michael Douglas played Satan in pinstripes and it was fuxing perfect. I don’t think any character from the 80s had such a lasting effect on the American culture. And to think John Hughes had nothing to do with him.

Gordon Gekko is a villain in a hero story. He represents corruption and is himself the test of the protagonist, Budd Fox. But there is something twisted about his following, something I cannot say about any villain from any era. People don’t want to be Darth Vader, but people want to be Gordon Gekko. Nobody wants to be Budd Fox. By his own admittance Stone feels guilty for making Gekko so f*cking cool. During research for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps he ran into more than one cutthroat trader who cited Gekko as their personal hero. Imagine how utterly fucked our world would be if villain worship was universal. It spits in the face of how anthropology assumes story and myth play into the history of human psyche. Joseph Cambell will have to posthumously revise A Hero With a Thousand Faces to say we are drawn to story because, as benevolent creatures, we desire to see good triumph over evil, asterisks, except for the solitary case of Gordon Gekko. What does this say about us? You can have total mastery of The Force at your disposal but it still wouldn't corrupt you like hundreds of millions of dollars. Is GG the exception that proves the rule?

So Gekko’s back in Wall Street: Money Never Peeps. The plot follows young trader Jake Moore (Shia LeBeouf) as he tries to maintain a relationship with Gekko’s daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) while keeping he and his mother (Susan Sarandon) solvent during the recent economic collapse. Gekko wants to reconnect with Winnie despite her hatred of him and uses Jake to get close. All the while another Gekkoesque tycoon, Bretton James (Josh Brolin) runs around stuffing his thumb in everyone’s asshole. And all of this is revealed in the first few minutes, so I haven’t ruined anything.

The plot is predictable, but the execution is very good. It’s not perfect, and there are some moments when I felt we were skating on thin ice (Ollllllly!) but this is mostly due to cheap tricks used to fill Gekko’s backstory in for those who didn’t see first film. There are some cameos I could have gone without. These are made more inappropriate by their proximity to really excellent scenes. I feel Josh Brolin really stood out as Bretton James. He doesn’t feel as grand as Gekko did in Wall Street. But given the first film’s legacy among traders it’s easy to see how James is trying to be Gekko, and though he surpasses Gekko's sleaziness, one can assume the climate has grown to eclipse the man who made 'greed is good' fashionable in the first place. Brolin brings in just enough Bond-villain to draw a distinction between greedy and downright criminal. That’s important because every character, with the exception of Gekko’s daughter (who is already flush with cash) is from the Enron 'I must poop in gold toilets' school of greedy.

Jake and Winnie’s relationship feels real (probably because they fux in real life). It’s refreshing to see Shia act with someone who can actually act. I know it’s trendy for dudes my age to call Shia LeBeouf a pussy for having a cajun name, but I am pretty sure that’s jealousy because he’s our age and utterly slaying Hollywood. Whenever I bring this up people ask ‘but did you every see Even Stevens?’ No. I understand this was something on the Disney channel. At 14 I’d outgrown the taste of corporate mouse-cock and thinly veiled Christian bullshit peddled to middle America like mayonnaise sandwiches and health benefits of salt, so I didn’t watch the Disney Channel. I smoked weed and had my dad drive me to Cyprus Hill concerts. Seriously.

LeBeouf is basically a more ‘acty’ Harrison Ford, so if you hate him you’re going to have a REALLY hard time seeing movies for the next twenty-five years. All he’s got to do is not kill someone while high and he’s pretty much golden.

But Wall Street: Money Needs it Deep is good. It’s good because acting and decent writing overcome the gimmick of sequel. Walking out of the theater I found it to be OK, but after three days I find myself entertained just thinking about scenes, lines, and choices I liked. It all seems very scattered at first, especially the animations that transition a few of the trading sequences, but these are easily forgiven. If anything, I wanted to see more Wall Street action, more greedy people shouting into phones, more lingo, more ties getting undone, more cursing about how ‘fucked the Nikkei is,’ and more Long Island excess, but the movie was already pushing two hours and Stone’s primary responsibility is ironically, poetically, always, to make the studio some fucking money.

Stick ‘Em Up (Any Hole On Blake Lively)

You know what made Heat so incredibly badass? Michael Mann spent years researching the world of high stakes heists. He employed technical advisors with outstanding FBI warrants. His revisionist-revisionist-neo-western thematic (ow, college) came full circle to the days of Shane, this time dragging the baggage of a psyche long desensitized by the very hyper-violence it created querying the American identity against unforgiving terrain.

The Town is a heist movie. What’s it have?
Well it has Ben Affleck, who proved himself an able director helming Gone Baby Gone. It has Jeremy Renner who earned an Oscar nod for The Hurt Locker. Jon Hamm is a nuance Jedi if need be. Rebecca Hall, daughter of Royal Shakespeare Company founder Sir Peter Hall is understandably great as Clare Keesey. Chris Cooper owns a scene in there. So does Pete Postlethwaite. I know Blake Lively had lines but they were impossible to hear over her shiny tits screaming for gravity to fuck off. (It did). So why does The Town feel like someone clipped its balls?

Taken out of context, Rebecca Hall could be the most redeeming part of this movie. Her performance is perfect considering all her character goes through. But therein lies a problem with The Town. Do you remember any of the women in Heat (BESIDES 13 year old Natalie Portman)? What about The Usual Suspects? The Bank Job? Heist? Thief? See what I’m getting at. I’m not saying there’s no place in heist film for loving snatch, rather there exists a certain sexism in the genre; love and theft act to the detriment of one another. Bear with me.

The audience of a heist movie desires two things. First, they want the characters to be so relatable they may perversely enjoy rooting for a criminal. Second, they want to see how much of the self a criminal is willing to risk for his score. To be criminal is to oppose ideologically the very boundaries keeping audience safe from pirates during their viewing experience. Despite this viewers will still judge the extent of one’s criminality as a measure of desired liberty and be drawn to appreciate it by virtue of their own Americaness. The 'criminal' fascinates audiences with a unique selfishness, one that is supremely confident while at the same time devoid of vanity. Heist movies are most hypnotic when a sympathetic criminal cares for nothing more than the exercise of his agency and we, the audience, want to see what lovely thing’s he’ll shit on to get it. Like the heroes of monument valley before them the filmic criminal's inability to settle, to raise families, to commune meaningfully with other people is not a mark of sociopathy or social rejection as may be the case in real life, but rather a measure of will – an all and all admirable quality. It is Hollywood's opinion, through lack of evidence to the contrary, that audiences will not accept this kind of behavior from a woman. Ergo our truly great bank robbers, safe crackers, cattle hustlers, and jewel thieves are men.

Ben Affleck plays Doug MacRay. Doug MacCray robs banks with automatic weapons. Surprisingly Doug MacRay is also a complete pussy. He’s moved to violence only when someone disrespects a girl he has a crush on. Everything we know from pure examples of American cinema would suggest that Doug MacRay is not a character that should be robbing banks. In the hyper-violent world these characters inhabit the only fitting punishment for such an affront is to get shot to shit. This way the audience is also punished for indulging in their own criminal fantasy. I found it disappointing that in The Town only the bad-bad guys die. The good-bad guy gets away, presumably scot-free. It’s bullshit.

Jon Hamm plays S.A. Adam Frawley. I think it’s a shame an actor of such nuance – one who can seemingly fill and deflate the small screen while maintaining a forgotten height of masculinity– is relegated to a G man screaming clichés. I have no idea why Adam Frawley gives a shit about any of this. He is always pissed off. Why? Does he not realize he deals exclusively in that kind of criminal? Even child crime detectives eventually get used to triplets in a freezer. Did he inherit this job from a beloved uncle? He moonlight in a jazz club? You hunt bank robbers, Adam, don’t look shocked when OH MY GOD A BANK GOT ROBBED. I did enjoy Hamm’s intensity even if the Bureau his character worked for felt dioramic. I hope to god Hamm is given more to chew his next time on the big screen.

Jeremy Renner plays Jem, the resident hot head in MacRay’s crew. My main problem with his character is that his hot-headedness has zero consequence. Remember in Heat when Waingrow shot the guard solely to satisfy bloodlust? That kind of sets up the rest of the movie. Sure, Jem decides to take a hostage, launching the love plot with MacRay and Clare, but this isn’t a direct result of his temperament. This temperament (his most defining character trait) is used only to intensify arguments he has with MacRay. This is hot air considering they’re ride or die butt buddies and we know it won’t come to gat-pullin’. What little play Jem has in the story Renner fills admirably. All in all the relationships are well dramatized if you’re willing to accept some self conscious writing.


There is an element of humor in The Town I feel was entirely misplaced. Without explaining them all in detail, I counted four ‘jokes’ and found only one to be appropriate. These jokes reminded the audience they were seeing a movie, and not experiencing a story. While they would have been perfect in Oceans…Nineteen? These moments detract from a grittiness the film tries very hard to earn.

I understand Affleck was under a great deal of pressure to deliver a cash cow (and he did). His previous film Gone Baby Gone was surprisingly tight and psychological for a freshmen effort. Parts of The Town feel like his direction is on par – but ultimately the characters and narrative owe allegiance towards setting up spectacular robberies and violent gunplay, and not to delivering any lasting insight into the what or why of ‘the criminal.’ Truth be told, the action is great, though at times the car chase got a bit confusing. The gunplay was properly visceral and I’m glad this style came into vogue over that bullshit you see in Jason Statham movies. I guess we have Michael Mann to thank for that.

And finally…

Blake Lively is so fuxing hot I’d eat Cold Stone Cake Batter from her ass and not even bother with sprinkles. I’m not talking about from the cheek like a plate, I’m talking go-gurt style astronaut cuisine. That is all. Oh, and there is a certain awareness present in her scenes that – again – reminds us we’re watching a starlet act for the sake of her career. It’s like when golden era Hollywood stars would play ‘courtesans’ or ‘poor girls’ and you were like ‘that’s still Rhonda Flemming and I still lack sufficient suiting to talk to her.’ Just replace the glamour and class of the era with a rape inspiring whorishness.

Michael Clayton is a Disenchanted Slut

Here’s The American in 9 words:

Michael Clayton bores himself to death eating hooker pussy.

Don’t get me wrong, there is some nuanced shit going on here in terms of film-making. The Italian countryside is shot beautifully. The cinematography captures the adroit struggle of the terrain against itself. Is our hero conflicted? Me thinks! Me thinks! Most of the hills are barren, dry, while the only scenes with vegetative life are near the river, which coincidentally is where Mr. Clayton has his most meaningful interactions with women. Maybe the director is trying to say something about how women and water both have the power to give life (rumor has it they have vaginas). I don’t know. I didn’t go to school for five years to get a B.A. in English to jump to those kind of drastic conclusions about metaphor. Especially from a director whose previous experience has been Rockumentaries.

Heavy handed symbolism aside, and despite the fact the trailer made this movie look like a literati’s Bourne, this is in fact a character study. But character study requires intimacy that makes one uncomfortable for relating to a character’s eventual perversion. I never related to Michael Clayton in The American except when he told the fat whore she would not satisfy his need for a jizm cave. The sense this made was undone within a few scenes when Clayton actually goes down on his H.O.C (hooker of choice). She is a love interest, true, but she’s also a prostitute that fucks strangers for money. Call me old fashioned but I believe such unclean women should be purified by fire. And that a serf’s place is in the field loving his toil. What the fuck was I talking about?

Wait. Sweeping vistas of the Italian countryside? George Clooney’s working out shirtless? Same notorious bachelor falling head over heels with a hooker for her heart of gold? No shaky-cam. Only fifteen gunshots? Six fired at plants? No super hot young women? Did I mention he has a butterfly tramp stamp? Is this…is this…a chick flick?