Saturday, October 08, 2005
Agent Smith, Agent Kubrick, and Agent Homework
I've been enjoying my fall break. Yesterday, I slept until 4:30 in the afternoon. Oh yeah.
I'm spending my break doing what I usually do: work on homework and watch movies. I interviewed two married couples for a Sociology paper I just finished up. Now I've got to work on some Spanish and finish up the second draft of my script. Fun fun fun.
As for movies: tonight I'm planning on watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Other than that, I've basically just been watching Kevin Smith and Stanley Kubrick films. My thoughts:
Clerks: Kevin Smith's first movie, made for a budget of $20,000. Lots of people consider this a great Kevin Smith "classic." Personally, I wasn't a big fan. It's a fair movie, but definitely not much compared to his other work. I couldn't really see what the point was. Whereas with Dogma and Chasing Amy, Smith would often be vulgar or profane as a way of making a point, with this movie it's like he just said, "I'm going to write a movie with tons of profanity and raunchy sex talk just for the heck of it." Indeed, this movie contains some of the most vulgar dialogue in all of his films, but not for a larger purpose. I was disappointed. However, this movie did have some pretty funny parts to it (the scene at the beginning with the cigarettes was great), and serves as a pretty decent base for the View Askew universe Smith has created.
Mallrats: Smith's second film. I liked this one a lot more than Clerks, though I would probably consider it inferior to Dogma and Chasing Amy. This one felt a whole lot more like "a Kevin Smith movie," with Jay and Silent Bob having plenty of screen time, and there actually being some sort of plot. Although there wasn't much of a "point" that I could see, at least it told a story and was entertaining.
One thing I noticed after seeing these two movies is that Kevin Smith has created his own little universe that all of his "View Askew" movies are set in. Once you see all of his movies, you're able to appreciate a lot of the dialogue more. For example, in Chasing Amy, one of the characters makes a reference to an event that happened in Clerks. Characters' names are mentioned that you'll recognize if you'll recognize only if you've seen Smith's other movies. There are probably a ton of inside jokes I missed, but hopefully I'll pick up on after a few more viewings. It's really fun to sit down and watch a movie knowing that all of the events and characters involved actually were influenced by and will influence other characters in other movies.
Also: Silent Bob is quite possibly the coolest movie character ever created.
I also saw two Kubrick films, each dealing with sexual issues in interesting ways. First up, Lolita. This movie was Not Rated, and I have no idea why. Even for a 1962, black-and-white movie, it seemed pretty harmless to me. The whole subject matter (a man sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl) must just have been too risque to deal with back then. Either that, or people freaked out because the word "sex" was actually spoken out loud on one occassion.
This was a pretty good movie. For some reason though, it didn't feel very "Kubrickian" to me at all. There just seemed to be something missing, maybe a bit of weirdness, or just an overall Kubrick atmosphere. All of Kubrick's other movies seem to have something slightly otherwordly about them, but that was missing here. The shot choices were pretty standard stuff. Nothing really eye-popping. I don't know. For some reason I just didn't get into this as much as I thought I would, and the ending felt a bit flat. Considering it's one of Kubrick's older movies, though, I suppose that's understandable. It's still a decent movie overall.
I also saw Eyes Wide Shut. Wow. Fan. Tastic. Movie. Definitely one of my favorite Kubrick films. It's basically a sexual horror film about adultery that follows a man (Tom Cruise) on a night-long journey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife (Nicole Kidman) admits she nearly had an affair. I loved it. The directing is superb, though that's to be expected since Kubrick spent years (nine, I believe) working on the film and it holds the record for the longest time spent shooting (more than 400 days). The whole atmosphere of this film is very eerie, and somewhat dream-like. I'm sure that's the effect Kubrick was going for, given the emphasis he places on dreams within the film. He doesn't flinch when dealing with the darker side of sex, and the movie is all the better for it. There's actually only one real sex scene in the entire film, but it's so bizarre and graphic that computer-generated people were digitally put in the foreground in order to cover up some of the more graphic material in order that the film would receive an R rating in the US. Oddly enough, I think that censorship probably helped the film, though I have nothing to compare it to, simply because it makes the shots even more fascinating and dream-like. Frankly, I'm surprised that's all it took to get the movie an R rating - there's very little actual sex, but nudity abounds. What really separates the nudity in this film from the nudity in other movies is the fact that it's not eye candy at all. This movie isn't a turn on. In each instance Kubrick is trying to achieve a certain effect regarding the mood of the audience, and it works.
When this movie cut to black and the credits began to roll, it was if I had suddenly awoken from a dream, and was now back in reality. This film feels like it was an extremely personal movie for Kubrick. His characters seem much more realistic and believable than those in most of his other films that I've seen. He delves deep into the crevices of the human sexual psyche so effectively that it's almost as if the film is semi-autobiographical. It's a bizarre and perhaps horrifying look at sexual temptation and how it can affect a marriage. As I watched it I was constantly reminded of when Christ said, "He who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The fact that Cruise and Kidman were married at the time this movie was made makes it even more effective. It's a pity Kubrick died only four days after presenting the final cut of the film to the studio, but I can't imagine a more magnificent final film to leave us with. It's a stunning end to a stunning film career.
Oh, and it's also an IB student's paradise. There are so many symbols and allusions that it will most likely take several viewings to understand everything that's going on and everything Kubrick is trying to say. No doubt it will take days for me to get this movie off my mind.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Don't you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties?"
--Eyes Wide Shut
I'm spending my break doing what I usually do: work on homework and watch movies. I interviewed two married couples for a Sociology paper I just finished up. Now I've got to work on some Spanish and finish up the second draft of my script. Fun fun fun.
As for movies: tonight I'm planning on watching The Last Temptation of Christ. Other than that, I've basically just been watching Kevin Smith and Stanley Kubrick films. My thoughts:
Clerks: Kevin Smith's first movie, made for a budget of $20,000. Lots of people consider this a great Kevin Smith "classic." Personally, I wasn't a big fan. It's a fair movie, but definitely not much compared to his other work. I couldn't really see what the point was. Whereas with Dogma and Chasing Amy, Smith would often be vulgar or profane as a way of making a point, with this movie it's like he just said, "I'm going to write a movie with tons of profanity and raunchy sex talk just for the heck of it." Indeed, this movie contains some of the most vulgar dialogue in all of his films, but not for a larger purpose. I was disappointed. However, this movie did have some pretty funny parts to it (the scene at the beginning with the cigarettes was great), and serves as a pretty decent base for the View Askew universe Smith has created.
Mallrats: Smith's second film. I liked this one a lot more than Clerks, though I would probably consider it inferior to Dogma and Chasing Amy. This one felt a whole lot more like "a Kevin Smith movie," with Jay and Silent Bob having plenty of screen time, and there actually being some sort of plot. Although there wasn't much of a "point" that I could see, at least it told a story and was entertaining.
One thing I noticed after seeing these two movies is that Kevin Smith has created his own little universe that all of his "View Askew" movies are set in. Once you see all of his movies, you're able to appreciate a lot of the dialogue more. For example, in Chasing Amy, one of the characters makes a reference to an event that happened in Clerks. Characters' names are mentioned that you'll recognize if you'll recognize only if you've seen Smith's other movies. There are probably a ton of inside jokes I missed, but hopefully I'll pick up on after a few more viewings. It's really fun to sit down and watch a movie knowing that all of the events and characters involved actually were influenced by and will influence other characters in other movies.
Also: Silent Bob is quite possibly the coolest movie character ever created.
I also saw two Kubrick films, each dealing with sexual issues in interesting ways. First up, Lolita. This movie was Not Rated, and I have no idea why. Even for a 1962, black-and-white movie, it seemed pretty harmless to me. The whole subject matter (a man sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl) must just have been too risque to deal with back then. Either that, or people freaked out because the word "sex" was actually spoken out loud on one occassion.
This was a pretty good movie. For some reason though, it didn't feel very "Kubrickian" to me at all. There just seemed to be something missing, maybe a bit of weirdness, or just an overall Kubrick atmosphere. All of Kubrick's other movies seem to have something slightly otherwordly about them, but that was missing here. The shot choices were pretty standard stuff. Nothing really eye-popping. I don't know. For some reason I just didn't get into this as much as I thought I would, and the ending felt a bit flat. Considering it's one of Kubrick's older movies, though, I suppose that's understandable. It's still a decent movie overall.
I also saw Eyes Wide Shut. Wow. Fan. Tastic. Movie. Definitely one of my favorite Kubrick films. It's basically a sexual horror film about adultery that follows a man (Tom Cruise) on a night-long journey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife (Nicole Kidman) admits she nearly had an affair. I loved it. The directing is superb, though that's to be expected since Kubrick spent years (nine, I believe) working on the film and it holds the record for the longest time spent shooting (more than 400 days). The whole atmosphere of this film is very eerie, and somewhat dream-like. I'm sure that's the effect Kubrick was going for, given the emphasis he places on dreams within the film. He doesn't flinch when dealing with the darker side of sex, and the movie is all the better for it. There's actually only one real sex scene in the entire film, but it's so bizarre and graphic that computer-generated people were digitally put in the foreground in order to cover up some of the more graphic material in order that the film would receive an R rating in the US. Oddly enough, I think that censorship probably helped the film, though I have nothing to compare it to, simply because it makes the shots even more fascinating and dream-like. Frankly, I'm surprised that's all it took to get the movie an R rating - there's very little actual sex, but nudity abounds. What really separates the nudity in this film from the nudity in other movies is the fact that it's not eye candy at all. This movie isn't a turn on. In each instance Kubrick is trying to achieve a certain effect regarding the mood of the audience, and it works.
When this movie cut to black and the credits began to roll, it was if I had suddenly awoken from a dream, and was now back in reality. This film feels like it was an extremely personal movie for Kubrick. His characters seem much more realistic and believable than those in most of his other films that I've seen. He delves deep into the crevices of the human sexual psyche so effectively that it's almost as if the film is semi-autobiographical. It's a bizarre and perhaps horrifying look at sexual temptation and how it can affect a marriage. As I watched it I was constantly reminded of when Christ said, "He who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The fact that Cruise and Kidman were married at the time this movie was made makes it even more effective. It's a pity Kubrick died only four days after presenting the final cut of the film to the studio, but I can't imagine a more magnificent final film to leave us with. It's a stunning end to a stunning film career.
Oh, and it's also an IB student's paradise. There are so many symbols and allusions that it will most likely take several viewings to understand everything that's going on and everything Kubrick is trying to say. No doubt it will take days for me to get this movie off my mind.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Don't you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties?"
--Eyes Wide Shut
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 10/08/2005 11:38:00 AM 
