The Housemaid blindsided me in the final two minutes. Until that point it was a solid movie, but a bizarre ending has all but wiped out the rest of the film. A running theme on No Spoiler Tags is that one shot, one scene can completely alter the entire perception of a movie. The Housemaid is another example of that theme.
This Korean film follows the story of a maid impregnated by her master. The mother of the master's wife finds out about the pregnancy and poisons the maid to cause a miscarriage. The maid swears revenge on the entire family.
Her revenge? She hangs herself. Now as revenge goes, suicide is not quite as useful as murder or kidnapping, but doing it right in front of them, that's bound to leave some psychological scars. Especially on the innocent girl that she actually likes. Still had the movie ended here, it would have been a very good film, but then things start getting weird.
While she is hanging, she yells "Fire" and immediately bursts into flames. First of all, it's kind of hard to speak while dying of asphyxiation. Secondly, how does she ignite? Her hands are on the noose. She couldn't have lit herself on fire. Is she adept in the art of psychokinesis? If she is indeed the firestarter, twisted firestarter, I think roasting her enemies alive might be a more effective form of revenge. Moments after she bursts into flame, gushing torrents of water begin to pour down from above. What private home has a fire sprinkler system? And even if this one did, it wouldn't have activated that quickly. So instead of being moved by the ritualistic suicide scene, I'm thinking she's three-fourths the way to becoming the Avatar. Again, had the movie ended here, I could have basically ignored the logical inconsistencies and it would have been a good film, but this is when things get really weird.
The final scene appears to be guest directed by David Lynch. We are taken outdoors, but there is fancy indoor furniture. All the characters are speaking this strange language called "English." The maid sings a Marylin Monroe-style Happy Birthday to the little girl and then the master pours a champagne toast.
This scene bothers me for several reasons. First, I'm not much of a fan of surrealism for dramatic effect. The essence of drama is realistic expressions of real events and emotions. The exact opposite of surrealism. Surrealism is great for comedy. I'm a big fan of Monty Python and The Kids in the Hall. Surrealism also works for characters with an altered mental state due to drugs or illness. But dramatic surrealism for surrealism's sake leaves me wondering what is happening in the real world.
Second, I have no clue what the final scene is supposed to mean. I can't even venture a guess. My best guess as to how it fits into the film is as the maid's dying visions or her being welcomed to the afterlife, but as for what it is supposed to symbolize, I have no clue.
Third, I have stated before that a movie should establish a style early on and stick to it. Drastically changing styles is alienating to the audience. Until this point, reality had been quite firm in the film. This scene simply did not belong in this movie.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Muppets Take Manhattan- Puppet Psychics
I'm looking forward to the new muppets movie more than any other this year. Jim Henson's creations have unmatched comedic timing and deliver deadpan lines with the skill of Bob Newhart. So to get ready, let's have a look back to The Muppets Take Manhattan.
I love musicals for one simple reason. I love the idea that at any point in time if someone plays the right chord on the piano, we will all turn into a hive-minded, psychic singing and dancing mob. Musicals are essentially zombie films with less flesh eating and more kick-turn heals. Think about it. Every song starts with one guy humming and then some one else joins in and soon there's a swarm of hundreds all thinking and acting the same way. And if we can all improvise the same lyrics and choreography with no prior training or rehearsal, can world peace be that far off? All we need to do is get Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the same room, start singing a line about how their problems are intractable, and three and a half minutes later the problem is solved.
The final sequence of the movie is interesting in this regard because it takes place in a musical within the musical. Seconds before they go on for the opening night of a musical that they have been rehearsing for months, Kermit introduces dozens of additional cast members which know nothing about the show. This effectively renders all of their previous work moot and yet everyone hits their marks and knows all their lines.
You might be thinking that characters in a musical are copying one another, but in this scene, the muppets prove that the psychic musical connection has a range of hundreds of miles.
Despite being physically separated, the muppets are able to stay in perfect time, construct a rhyme scheme, and compose a common theme. They also apparently have the ability to astroproject. So, let's make the world a better place through the use of catchy show tunes.
Other notes: The wedding scene is takes place on stage during the musical within the musical, but the church has all four walls which means the Broadway audience has payed hundreds of dollars each for a view of the back of a set piece.
Miss Piggy replaces the actor-priest with an actual priest implying that Kermit is unaware that they are really getting married. While this would not be a legally binding ceremony without a signed marriage license, it is extremely creepy. Pair this with her history of stalking and abuse and Kermit is destined to appear in a Lifetime movie. Kermit, get a restraining order, this will not end well.
I love musicals for one simple reason. I love the idea that at any point in time if someone plays the right chord on the piano, we will all turn into a hive-minded, psychic singing and dancing mob. Musicals are essentially zombie films with less flesh eating and more kick-turn heals. Think about it. Every song starts with one guy humming and then some one else joins in and soon there's a swarm of hundreds all thinking and acting the same way. And if we can all improvise the same lyrics and choreography with no prior training or rehearsal, can world peace be that far off? All we need to do is get Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the same room, start singing a line about how their problems are intractable, and three and a half minutes later the problem is solved.
The final sequence of the movie is interesting in this regard because it takes place in a musical within the musical. Seconds before they go on for the opening night of a musical that they have been rehearsing for months, Kermit introduces dozens of additional cast members which know nothing about the show. This effectively renders all of their previous work moot and yet everyone hits their marks and knows all their lines.
You might be thinking that characters in a musical are copying one another, but in this scene, the muppets prove that the psychic musical connection has a range of hundreds of miles.
Other notes: The wedding scene is takes place on stage during the musical within the musical, but the church has all four walls which means the Broadway audience has payed hundreds of dollars each for a view of the back of a set piece.
Miss Piggy replaces the actor-priest with an actual priest implying that Kermit is unaware that they are really getting married. While this would not be a legally binding ceremony without a signed marriage license, it is extremely creepy. Pair this with her history of stalking and abuse and Kermit is destined to appear in a Lifetime movie. Kermit, get a restraining order, this will not end well.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The Final Countdown- Stops At One
In Galaxy Quest, there is a sequence where the self-destruct has been activated and Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver have to jump through a series of ridiculous hoops to get to the button to turn off the device. When they finally get there, the button doesn't work. That's it. They're all going to die. There's no hope left. And then with one second left...the timer stops on it's own. That's what watching The Final Countdown is like.
The premise of the movie is that a modern-day (that day happens to be 30 years ago) aircraft carrier has been transported back in time to December 6, 1941. December 7, 1941 is a day which will live in infamy.
The Final Countdown starts with some aircraft porn. Then they are transported back in time. More aircraft porn. The evidence slowly mounts that they have been transported back in time. More aircraft porn. They are now convinced that they are in 1941. A little more aircraft porn. Mandatory discussion about the ethics of time travel and the grandfather paradox. A brief aircraft porn interlude. Intrigue involving rescuing a senator who will be president and a Japanese pilot. You guessed it, more aircraft porn. They agree to stop the Japanese fleet. A slight hint of aircraft porn.
So here they are, the planes are launched and approaching the Japanese fleet, they have a 40 year technological advantage, they have the element of surprise and they know every move the Japanese will make, but the Japanese have a significant numerical advantage. Here comes the match-up we've been building to the whole movie. The aircraft porn money-shot if you will. (If you won't, it's too late, the thought is out there, now deal with it.) They are going to completely change history. And...Musical interlude. Hit it, Europe.
They go back to the present. The End.
The premise of the movie is that a modern-day (that day happens to be 30 years ago) aircraft carrier has been transported back in time to December 6, 1941. December 7, 1941 is a day which will live in infamy.
The Final Countdown starts with some aircraft porn. Then they are transported back in time. More aircraft porn. The evidence slowly mounts that they have been transported back in time. More aircraft porn. They are now convinced that they are in 1941. A little more aircraft porn. Mandatory discussion about the ethics of time travel and the grandfather paradox. A brief aircraft porn interlude. Intrigue involving rescuing a senator who will be president and a Japanese pilot. You guessed it, more aircraft porn. They agree to stop the Japanese fleet. A slight hint of aircraft porn.
So here they are, the planes are launched and approaching the Japanese fleet, they have a 40 year technological advantage, they have the element of surprise and they know every move the Japanese will make, but the Japanese have a significant numerical advantage. Here comes the match-up we've been building to the whole movie. The aircraft porn money-shot if you will. (If you won't, it's too late, the thought is out there, now deal with it.) They are going to completely change history. And...Musical interlude. Hit it, Europe.
They go back to the present. The End.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Red State- Stand Still So I Can Laugh At You
I don't know if Kevin Smith was smoking too much or not enough pot when he wrote Red State, but it was clearly not the right amount. Red State is a movie which can't decide on a plot. The truly amazing thing about Red State is how entertaining and coherent it manages to stay while completely changing plots every ten minutes.
The movie starts out by introducing us to three adolescent males who want to go have consequence-free sex with a female stranger and because no movie can have consequence-free consequence-free sex they are drugged at taken captive by the Westboro-like anti-gay assholes of the Five Points Church. It turns out that the church has been doing a To Catch A Predator-style sting operation, but instead of pedophiles they are catching homosexuals and instead of a gentle televised chat with Chris Hanson they are being ritualistically murdered. Now, if you are an anti-gay religious zealot who believes all homosexuals should burn in hell, this is actually a pretty good plan. (Also, I hate you more than you can possibly imagine and I'm pretty sure God isn't too fond of you either.) However, in the movie, this scene plays out as a ten minute speech about the evils of homosexuality immediately proceeding the attempted murder of three boys who wanted to have heterosexual sex. I mean, stay focused religious assholes. There are a lot of different people you can hate. If you can't keep your rage focused on a single group, you're bound to be overwhelmed. If you hate gay people, you should be encouraging heterosexuality, not (literally) condemning it.
So about this time, one of the boys use the broken bones of the ritualistically murdered gay guy to escape and we are set up for a Hostel-style violent escape movie. The first escapee leaves his friend behind and makes a run for it before being gunned down in the armory. Then, the second boy manages to magically undo his own bindings and get to the armory undetected. Having gone unnoticed thus far he proceeded to the chapel where all the religious assholes have gathered as to make sure that they know he is escaping. Still undetected and carrying an automatic weapon in a room filled with his unarmed captors (who apparently have a hard time counting to two otherwise they would be armed and looking for him) as well as his surviving friend, he chooses to abandon his huge tactical advantage and run directly through the congregation making no attempt to rescue his friend or kill his captors. He is promptly shot in the back for his stupidity.
This is when the ATF is given orders to kill everyone in the compound setting up an anti-government message. Every one of the ATF agents is initially reluctant to murder a bunch of kids in cold blood, but they get over that in time. Time in this case being approximately ten seconds as a potential rebellion against authority subplot is abandoned as soon as it is brought up.
Now, the woman in the compound who takes care of the kids is set up to be the hero. She frees the remaining boy and tells him her plan. They're going to easily slip past the murdering band of heavily armed ATF agents surrounding the compound, gather the attention of the world's media, and get them to the compound which is at least 100 miles away to shine a light on this injustice and garner public condemnation of the government's actions, all in time to prevent the ATF from breaking in and killing everyone. They are promptly shot in the face for their stupidity.
Now, the ATF is on the verge of finishing their murderous rampage, but what's that noise, which is debilitatingly loud despite being quieter than the non-stop gunfire of the past half hour? It's the Rapture! The religious nuts were right! Is that Alanis Morrisette! No, it's the neighborhood kids with a giant air horn who are that magic distance away where they can't hear the constant noise of automatic rifles, but their air horn can still be clearly and loudly heard. They are trying to fake the first sign of the Rapture because insulting the beliefs of a fundamentalist religious sect with violent tendencies is a great strategy for dispute resolution.
So around this time, the ATF changes their mind on the whole killing unarmed suspects thing and decides that their just going to hold them forever without charges because they can totally do that. No one is ever going to miss those suburban white kids or notice that the news-making religious cult has dropped off the face of the Earth because...because...nope can't think of anything. Somebody's going to ask a question or two.
This is where Kevin Smith leaves us, questioning what we just watched. Several potentially interesting plots dropped before they are allowed to flourish and a potentially brilliant the-nuts-were-right twist ending comes to naught. Kevin Smith has officially announced his retirement from film making following his next project, but I can't help but feel he should have hung it up after Dogma, which remains one of my favorite comedies of all-time. I guess it is impossible to know when a career has crashed and when it's just a temporary slump, but Kevin Smith knows he's lost it and he's getting out before he has completely ruined his reputation like certain other formally great filmmakers **cough**M. Night**cough** and he should at least be commended for that.
The movie starts out by introducing us to three adolescent males who want to go have consequence-free sex with a female stranger and because no movie can have consequence-free consequence-free sex they are drugged at taken captive by the Westboro-like anti-gay assholes of the Five Points Church. It turns out that the church has been doing a To Catch A Predator-style sting operation, but instead of pedophiles they are catching homosexuals and instead of a gentle televised chat with Chris Hanson they are being ritualistically murdered. Now, if you are an anti-gay religious zealot who believes all homosexuals should burn in hell, this is actually a pretty good plan. (Also, I hate you more than you can possibly imagine and I'm pretty sure God isn't too fond of you either.) However, in the movie, this scene plays out as a ten minute speech about the evils of homosexuality immediately proceeding the attempted murder of three boys who wanted to have heterosexual sex. I mean, stay focused religious assholes. There are a lot of different people you can hate. If you can't keep your rage focused on a single group, you're bound to be overwhelmed. If you hate gay people, you should be encouraging heterosexuality, not (literally) condemning it.
So about this time, one of the boys use the broken bones of the ritualistically murdered gay guy to escape and we are set up for a Hostel-style violent escape movie. The first escapee leaves his friend behind and makes a run for it before being gunned down in the armory. Then, the second boy manages to magically undo his own bindings and get to the armory undetected. Having gone unnoticed thus far he proceeded to the chapel where all the religious assholes have gathered as to make sure that they know he is escaping. Still undetected and carrying an automatic weapon in a room filled with his unarmed captors (who apparently have a hard time counting to two otherwise they would be armed and looking for him) as well as his surviving friend, he chooses to abandon his huge tactical advantage and run directly through the congregation making no attempt to rescue his friend or kill his captors. He is promptly shot in the back for his stupidity.
This is when the ATF is given orders to kill everyone in the compound setting up an anti-government message. Every one of the ATF agents is initially reluctant to murder a bunch of kids in cold blood, but they get over that in time. Time in this case being approximately ten seconds as a potential rebellion against authority subplot is abandoned as soon as it is brought up.
Now, the woman in the compound who takes care of the kids is set up to be the hero. She frees the remaining boy and tells him her plan. They're going to easily slip past the murdering band of heavily armed ATF agents surrounding the compound, gather the attention of the world's media, and get them to the compound which is at least 100 miles away to shine a light on this injustice and garner public condemnation of the government's actions, all in time to prevent the ATF from breaking in and killing everyone. They are promptly shot in the face for their stupidity.
Now, the ATF is on the verge of finishing their murderous rampage, but what's that noise, which is debilitatingly loud despite being quieter than the non-stop gunfire of the past half hour? It's the Rapture! The religious nuts were right! Is that Alanis Morrisette! No, it's the neighborhood kids with a giant air horn who are that magic distance away where they can't hear the constant noise of automatic rifles, but their air horn can still be clearly and loudly heard. They are trying to fake the first sign of the Rapture because insulting the beliefs of a fundamentalist religious sect with violent tendencies is a great strategy for dispute resolution.
So around this time, the ATF changes their mind on the whole killing unarmed suspects thing and decides that their just going to hold them forever without charges because they can totally do that. No one is ever going to miss those suburban white kids or notice that the news-making religious cult has dropped off the face of the Earth because...because...nope can't think of anything. Somebody's going to ask a question or two.
This is where Kevin Smith leaves us, questioning what we just watched. Several potentially interesting plots dropped before they are allowed to flourish and a potentially brilliant the-nuts-were-right twist ending comes to naught. Kevin Smith has officially announced his retirement from film making following his next project, but I can't help but feel he should have hung it up after Dogma, which remains one of my favorite comedies of all-time. I guess it is impossible to know when a career has crashed and when it's just a temporary slump, but Kevin Smith knows he's lost it and he's getting out before he has completely ruined his reputation like certain other formally great filmmakers **cough**M. Night**cough** and he should at least be commended for that.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Mother of Invention- Give Up on Your Dreams
Some people are incredibly talented. Some people are incredibly lucky. Some people succeed through hard work. Some people try, fail and move on. And then there are others, they try, fail, try again and fail again and keep trying long after any reasonable person would have quit. These people are called morons. Vincent Dooly is a moron.
My sister's favorite saying is, "Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." This saying could not possibly be more inaccurate. The Moon is 0.0000000427 light-years from Earth. Proxima Centauri is 4.24 light-years away. That's 100,000,000 times farther away. Even, Sol is 0.0000159 light-years away. That's almost 400 times the distance. There is no way a vessel bound for the Moon would be carrying enough fuel and supplies to accidentally make it to any star. Furthermore, any space mission as poorly planned enough that missing a planetoid entirely is a distinct possibility is far more likely to explode on the launchpad than make it out of the atmosphere. A more accurate expression would be, "Shoot for the Moon, if you miss, you will die."
At this point, you may be wondering if this piece is satirical. It is not. I am being completely straightforward. Not everyone gets to live their dreams. Sorry, it's the truth. As one of the lucky, one's I can tell you it's pretty sweet, but if you don't share my good fortune, your much better off accepting that you won't be the next American Idol and getting on with something else you are good at.
The Mother of Invention is a portrait of a man that should have quit. Vincent Dooly can't make a working invention. For example, one of his self-defense inventions, the Knife-helmet, is actually less useful for self-defense than the knife-no-helmet. (Ok, so someone who looks like Vincent shows up in the history book at the end. That doesn't mean it's actually him. And, even if he did make a working time machine, he is now trapped in the past with no way back, no money, none of the necessary survival skills to survive in another time and no one will ever know that the time machine worked.) He doesn't know what consumers want. If you can't figure out what people need, you can't fill that need. He's fixated on a girl who is way out of his league and it's making him miserable. Each failure leads inevitably to misery and back to another failure and ultimately his death. This is what happens to a man who cannot recognize his own limitations.
Vincent Dooly is a man who would be very happy as a cable repairman or a plumber or a mechanic. He would be great at a job that requires a desire to fix things and understand how they work, but that doesn't depend on an abundance of creativity. Yes, Vincent has a plethora of imagination, but imagination is not the same as creativity. Imagination is the ability to picture something novel. Creativity is the ability to actually make it happen. Vincent's transporter is an example of this difference. He sticks various bits and bobs together and imagines that it's a transporter, but what he actually created was a bunch of bits and bobs stuck together. Imagination writes the script, creativity makes the movie.
We live in an America where far to many people go to college and try to make it rich. Then, they wind up unemployed or shuffled into some desk job that they resent for the rest of their working lives. Meanwhile, there is a dearth of anyone willing to actually get their hands dirty. How many of those miserable account specialists out there would be much happier as construction workers? Sometimes when you shoot for the Moon, you wind up trapped in the perpetual blackness of the interplanetary void while you slowly starve to death.
Now, I'm not asking everyone to give up on their dreams. If you play guitar like Eddie Van Halen, you should be playing guitar. But well, you don't. You're not Roy Hobbs, nor are you Gordon Gekko. Despite what your kindergarten teacher told you, not everyone is special. If you call everyone special, you divorce the word from its meaning and divorce can be very painful on kids. Realism can be tough to deal with in the short-term, but lying causes long-term harm. If you know someone toiling under the torment of an unrealistic dream, it's time to tell them they suck. Hey, send them this post, I'll do it.
Dear [your name here],
Your [friend/family member/enemy/casual acquaintance/romantic partner] wants you to know something very important for you to hear and it's not easy for them to say. That thing you've been devoting your life to, no not that that thing, the other that thing, you just aren't very good at it, you're not getting any better and you never will. It's time to quit. You can keep doing it as a hobby, but no one will ever pay you to do it professionally. I hear there are openings at the local [factory/vocational school/pet store]. You'll like it there.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Jerk
Many people say "Do what you love." My advice is different. "Do what you're good at, chances are you'll love it."
My sister's favorite saying is, "Shoot for the Moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." This saying could not possibly be more inaccurate. The Moon is 0.0000000427 light-years from Earth. Proxima Centauri is 4.24 light-years away. That's 100,000,000 times farther away. Even, Sol is 0.0000159 light-years away. That's almost 400 times the distance. There is no way a vessel bound for the Moon would be carrying enough fuel and supplies to accidentally make it to any star. Furthermore, any space mission as poorly planned enough that missing a planetoid entirely is a distinct possibility is far more likely to explode on the launchpad than make it out of the atmosphere. A more accurate expression would be, "Shoot for the Moon, if you miss, you will die."
At this point, you may be wondering if this piece is satirical. It is not. I am being completely straightforward. Not everyone gets to live their dreams. Sorry, it's the truth. As one of the lucky, one's I can tell you it's pretty sweet, but if you don't share my good fortune, your much better off accepting that you won't be the next American Idol and getting on with something else you are good at.
The Mother of Invention is a portrait of a man that should have quit. Vincent Dooly can't make a working invention. For example, one of his self-defense inventions, the Knife-helmet, is actually less useful for self-defense than the knife-no-helmet. (Ok, so someone who looks like Vincent shows up in the history book at the end. That doesn't mean it's actually him. And, even if he did make a working time machine, he is now trapped in the past with no way back, no money, none of the necessary survival skills to survive in another time and no one will ever know that the time machine worked.) He doesn't know what consumers want. If you can't figure out what people need, you can't fill that need. He's fixated on a girl who is way out of his league and it's making him miserable. Each failure leads inevitably to misery and back to another failure and ultimately his death. This is what happens to a man who cannot recognize his own limitations.
Vincent Dooly is a man who would be very happy as a cable repairman or a plumber or a mechanic. He would be great at a job that requires a desire to fix things and understand how they work, but that doesn't depend on an abundance of creativity. Yes, Vincent has a plethora of imagination, but imagination is not the same as creativity. Imagination is the ability to picture something novel. Creativity is the ability to actually make it happen. Vincent's transporter is an example of this difference. He sticks various bits and bobs together and imagines that it's a transporter, but what he actually created was a bunch of bits and bobs stuck together. Imagination writes the script, creativity makes the movie.
We live in an America where far to many people go to college and try to make it rich. Then, they wind up unemployed or shuffled into some desk job that they resent for the rest of their working lives. Meanwhile, there is a dearth of anyone willing to actually get their hands dirty. How many of those miserable account specialists out there would be much happier as construction workers? Sometimes when you shoot for the Moon, you wind up trapped in the perpetual blackness of the interplanetary void while you slowly starve to death.
Now, I'm not asking everyone to give up on their dreams. If you play guitar like Eddie Van Halen, you should be playing guitar. But well, you don't. You're not Roy Hobbs, nor are you Gordon Gekko. Despite what your kindergarten teacher told you, not everyone is special. If you call everyone special, you divorce the word from its meaning and divorce can be very painful on kids. Realism can be tough to deal with in the short-term, but lying causes long-term harm. If you know someone toiling under the torment of an unrealistic dream, it's time to tell them they suck. Hey, send them this post, I'll do it.
Dear [your name here],
Your [friend/family member/enemy/casual acquaintance/romantic partner] wants you to know something very important for you to hear and it's not easy for them to say. That thing you've been devoting your life to, no not that that thing, the other that thing, you just aren't very good at it, you're not getting any better and you never will. It's time to quit. You can keep doing it as a hobby, but no one will ever pay you to do it professionally. I hear there are openings at the local [factory/vocational school/pet store]. You'll like it there.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Jerk
Many people say "Do what you love." My advice is different. "Do what you're good at, chances are you'll love it."
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Exorcist- A Cultural Memory
I knew about Luke Skywalker's paternity before the Empire struck back. I knew what Sophie chose before Stingo did. I didn't have to see The Crying Game to know what he was crying about. If I grew up where it actually snowed, my sled would have been named Rosebud. It took me several years to get around to seeing American Pie, but I was still well aware of what happened one time at band camp. I didn't need to watch Alien to know why John Hurt. Hannibal Lecter didn't have to tell me the proper wine and side dish pairing for human liver. I didn't need The Shinning to tell me what all work and no play make Jack.
Some movies are so embedded in the cultural memory. That you don't actually have to see them to know everything about them. You just pick them up by osmosis. The Exorcist is one of those movies. One of the reasons I put off seeing for this long is that I was sure I knew everything about it. The other is that I was born a coward and only recently realized that scary movies don't actually scare me. In fact, I tend to find them hilarious. The Shining is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I mean when the black guy received a physic signal to help, traveled all the way across the country through a terrible snowstorm, and then proceeded to get axed in the back before doing anything useful, I nearly busted a gut. Sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought...Anyway in this post, I present things I knew about The Exorcist before I ever saw it and how a few of those things weren't quite true.
I knew the exorcism team was an old priest, who had done this before, and a young priest, who had lost his faith. All true.
I knew it was about a little girl possessed by the Devil. Maybe true. It was definitely a demon of some type, but despite its claim it may not have been the Devil. There may have been as many as three demons in her. The name and quantity of possessors was never clear.
I knew there was projectile pea-soup vomiting. True. That happened and frequently.
I knew that there were psychokinetic powers and murders. Probably true. The demon frequently exhibited psychokinesis and committed several murders, but the murders were off-screen so it's not clear how they were actually committed.
I knew a scene involved crucifix masturbation and another living room urination. Yep, that happened.
I knew the girl had the inexplicably creepy name Linda Blair. Kind of true. Linda Blair is the name of the actress. The character's name is Reagan, as in Ronald "Mr. Gorbachev, let me take credit for your socioeconomic collapse that I had little to nothing to do with while I raise taxes and give weapons to terrorists" Reagan. (Now that I think about it Reagan being possessed by the Devil would explain a lot.)
I knew that the girl does a 360 head spin. False. We see her go 180 at least once, but she never lands the 360 and that's going to cost her with the judges.
I knew it took the title character forever to appear before he is quickly dispatched. Mostly true. The Exorcist appears in a brief scene at the beginning which does nothing to move the plot forward or become important later. He them disappears until the movie is almost over and dies soon after returning to the film. But while he didn't get much screen time, he was certainly an important figure.
I knew that the power of Christ compels you. True. Rhythmic chanting: our greatest weapon against the Devil.
I knew that it was highly sacrilegious. False. When you think about, the crux of the story is about the young priest finding redemption through faith and the power of good over evil, hardly anti-religious messages. There are several comments about the Catholics being out of date and kooky for performing exorcisms, but as the entire medical and psychiatric community is unable to help the girl and the demon turns out to be real, the Catholic church is more than vindicated. There is desecration of religious icons, but as these acts are performed by the living embodiment of evil, it's hard to call the film sacrilegious for that. The Exorcist is the most ardently pro-Catholic film I have ever seen.
Never trust a cultural memory to get it right. They tend to get altered and corrupted until you are saying "Beam me up, Scotty" and thinking Reagan is the Republican ideal. You know nothing until you have done the research for yourself.
Some movies are so embedded in the cultural memory. That you don't actually have to see them to know everything about them. You just pick them up by osmosis. The Exorcist is one of those movies. One of the reasons I put off seeing for this long is that I was sure I knew everything about it. The other is that I was born a coward and only recently realized that scary movies don't actually scare me. In fact, I tend to find them hilarious. The Shining is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I mean when the black guy received a physic signal to help, traveled all the way across the country through a terrible snowstorm, and then proceeded to get axed in the back before doing anything useful, I nearly busted a gut. Sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought...Anyway in this post, I present things I knew about The Exorcist before I ever saw it and how a few of those things weren't quite true.
I knew the exorcism team was an old priest, who had done this before, and a young priest, who had lost his faith. All true.
I knew it was about a little girl possessed by the Devil. Maybe true. It was definitely a demon of some type, but despite its claim it may not have been the Devil. There may have been as many as three demons in her. The name and quantity of possessors was never clear.
I knew there was projectile pea-soup vomiting. True. That happened and frequently.
I knew that there were psychokinetic powers and murders. Probably true. The demon frequently exhibited psychokinesis and committed several murders, but the murders were off-screen so it's not clear how they were actually committed.
I knew a scene involved crucifix masturbation and another living room urination. Yep, that happened.
I knew the girl had the inexplicably creepy name Linda Blair. Kind of true. Linda Blair is the name of the actress. The character's name is Reagan, as in Ronald "Mr. Gorbachev, let me take credit for your socioeconomic collapse that I had little to nothing to do with while I raise taxes and give weapons to terrorists" Reagan. (Now that I think about it Reagan being possessed by the Devil would explain a lot.)
I knew that the girl does a 360 head spin. False. We see her go 180 at least once, but she never lands the 360 and that's going to cost her with the judges.
I knew it took the title character forever to appear before he is quickly dispatched. Mostly true. The Exorcist appears in a brief scene at the beginning which does nothing to move the plot forward or become important later. He them disappears until the movie is almost over and dies soon after returning to the film. But while he didn't get much screen time, he was certainly an important figure.
I knew that the power of Christ compels you. True. Rhythmic chanting: our greatest weapon against the Devil.
I knew that it was highly sacrilegious. False. When you think about, the crux of the story is about the young priest finding redemption through faith and the power of good over evil, hardly anti-religious messages. There are several comments about the Catholics being out of date and kooky for performing exorcisms, but as the entire medical and psychiatric community is unable to help the girl and the demon turns out to be real, the Catholic church is more than vindicated. There is desecration of religious icons, but as these acts are performed by the living embodiment of evil, it's hard to call the film sacrilegious for that. The Exorcist is the most ardently pro-Catholic film I have ever seen.
Never trust a cultural memory to get it right. They tend to get altered and corrupted until you are saying "Beam me up, Scotty" and thinking Reagan is the Republican ideal. You know nothing until you have done the research for yourself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)