Thread: Viddy's Views

King Corn (2007, Aaron Woolf)



After watching this wonderful documentary about corn, I quickly went to my pantry to discover the thesis of the movie is entirely correct. We are what we eat, and largely we as Americans eat corn. It's right there on the nutritional facts. Most everything I had either contained corn fed meat, corn products, or corn syrup. Even my lovely children, my three cats, are largely made of corn as their Science Diet and Purina contains ground yellow corn. King Corn presents the thesis that one of the reasons Americans are so fat is because of the high sugar/sweet and caloree content in corn which is used in almost all of the food we eat.
The documentary begins as lifelong friends Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis of Boston visit the doctor and discover that traces of corn can be found even in the makeup of their hair. Very perplexed by this, they get an idea for a documentary where they will plant an acre of corn in an Iowa farm and trace the corn from the farm to their hair in Boston.
The principal behind the documentary is a fascinating one and certainly the two filmmakers did their homework well. It was interesting to watch the two Boston kids go from not even knowing what a grain elevator is, to full fledge subsidized farmers. A few things work: mainly the interviews with farmers, cattlemen, an upty corn syrup company rep, and even Nixon's secretary of Ag, Earl Butz. Something that didn't vibe for me is the side bit about the boston kids tracing their roots to Iowa, though I reckon it is in step with the theme of something originating in Iowa and being transplanted through the world.
The first fourty minutes or so of the documentary is joyous as the two proud filmmakers watch their acre of corn grow, but as they discover what happens to that corn the documentary takes a turn for the frightening side as corn is responsible for a large part of what is wrong with America: obseity.
For example corn fed beef is much fattier and less healthy than beef 50 years ago which was largely grass and hay fed. Now meat is actually fat disguised as meat. It was shocking to know that these corn fed cattle would die if not butchered and therefore must be put on antibiotics. The government paying large industrial farmers money to grow huge crops is also a bit scary, but it's all in the name of cheap food. In a way I thought of Wal-Mart while watching this film. Basically the Wal-Mart effect but on agriculture.
King corn is a polemic call to arms against the corn industry, but it never seems too preachy. I enjoyed watching the repatriere between the two friends as they investigated king corn. The documentary suceeds with its goal and though I've never been proud to be from Iowa, this documentary doesn't do anything to help me change my direction.

Grade: A-

That photo of Bukowski looks like a death's bed Darren McGavin to me.
Just add about 15-20 years to this pic.

Avatar (2009, James Cameron)



This movie sucked. It blew. I wanted to get a giant chainsaw and go nuts on Jame's Cameron's foliage and flowers around his estate... assuming he has them. After watching this film, I'd assume he lives in a botanical center. However if I did such a thing I would be a two-dimensional and knee-jerk reactionary as the characters that inhabit this film.
To sum up the plot, it takes place 150 years in the future when mankind is colonizing other worlds because we've destroyed our own and laid waste to our nature plant life or some such thing. Sounds very original. Seems like I saw a much more profound film called Silent Running with a similar tree-friendly concept.
Anywho, mankind wants this planet because of a natural mineral/metal that litters the landscape, but in their way is a race of 15 foot-tall humanoids called the Na'vi. The na'vi don't want humans there and who can blame them. Humans don't run around pray to the blessed spirit of the forest. I digress.
The title comes from the plan to capture a na'vi, and inhabit it with the mind of a human through a pod. Don't ask, but it's a cool concept and I was digging the first half hour of the movie. It goes to complete Hell however once it turns into Dances With Wolves in space, as our protagonist (Sam Worthington) rolls his way into being a secret agent of sorts to infiltrate the Na'vi (tribe) and inform about their secrets, lifestyles, etc. You pretty much know where the film heads from here. He learns the value of the Na'vi culture, falls in love, questions his motives, betrays humanity, saves the Na'vi, and becomes one of them.
How quaint. Not only does this film suck because the message is heavy handed, but it's very sentimental and the villains twirl mustaches and the heros are glorified to the strains of the most generic music of James Horner's career. And to think, this is the man who's music made me cry in the original Land Before Time. Oh well.
A million CGI shots and sweeping landscape views and vistas with our characters engulfed by the massive and lush planet Pandora, cannot save this movie. The story sucks, the characters were boring and lacked any kind of motivation to give their actions and storyline depth.
It just blew.
I will say the visuals were impressive during a couple of the night sequences, but this film was overkill. It's difficult to believe that this movie came from the man who directed the amazing low-budget Terminator and the amazing high budget Terminator 2. Again. Oh well.

Grade: D

But why is it that in our culture we typically see blacks as entertainers. If you watch a sporting event, most of the athletes are black, but who fills most of the stands? Whites?

I'm sure the film does portray it how it happened. I call it offensive because it continues the idea that a black man's greatest gift to society is through athletics.

Also I dislike the concept of "white guilt," lending the helping hand. I onced work with a teacher who was all about black culture as some kind of catharsis for the fact that she had a racist family and came from small town Iowa. The woman was a complete phoney and she used the whole anti-racism thing, not because she cared about the human being, but rather to ease her own guilt and to make herself feel more multicultural.

Have you seen the film?

And whether or not the film is true to life is a mute point to me. That's not where my criticism is coming from.

Targets (1968, Peter Bogdanovich)



Very interesting film about a seemingly normal young man (Tim O'Kelly) who goes on a sniper rage and kills dozens of people. There is a secondary, though less involving plot of a retiring horror actor (Boris Karloff) in a seemingly semi-autobiographical role who also gets fed up, but instead of killing people, he kills his engagements. The two main characters have a far-fetch climatic run-in at the end of the film.
Certainly a shocking movie, because the shooter is an upstanding young man on the surface. He works for an insurance company, is married, and even calls his father "sir." Maybe that's why the film is shocking because we lack motive for the killing spree. I don't want to say the film is anti-gun because I don't quite read it like that. One could make that argument seeing as how the culprit here is your by-the-book responsible gun owner... well up until the point of the killings. He goes hunting and target practicing with his father, like any good red blooded American would! One of the film's most horrific scenes shows him target shooting with his father and then while his father sets the targets back up he sights him and comes close to pulling the trigger.
I enjoyed the film very much. I think it does expose the truth behind the facade of happy middle America. The family seems happy, but ultimately their relationships with each other are empty and full of by-the-book motions. The film is as equally disturbing on that note as well.
My only complaint with the film is how the Karloff moments and sideplot is connected to the main plot. I thought this could have been handled or written more effectively. Otherwise, it's a gem of an unsettling film.

Grade: A-

I Am A Sex Addict (2005, Caveh Zahedi)



I get the feeling that Caveh Zahedi is a man who is pissed off that he was only nine years old during Woodstock and watched the whole hippie movement come and go before his first boner. I've never heard of Caveh Zahedi before, probably because he's only made small films and minor works. I am perplexed by the film because I admire it to a certain degree, while I'm also disgusted by it and the impish bugged-eyed director/subject.
I Am A Sex Addict is about the most narcissistic subject I've probably ever seen. Caveh Zahedi directs this autobiographical documentary about his relationships and their failures due to his addiction to sex, more specifically sex with prostitutes. Normally this would not be a glamorous thing for someone to admit, but that's where Caveh's craft and love for himself come in. The film plays like a comedy through minimal archival footage, but largely through reinactments. It's somehow fitting that his main actress is porn star Rebecca Lord who plays his first wife. Caveh constantly breaks the fourth wall as the narrator and speaks to his audience in an intelligent manner. He must speak to us in an intelligent manner because he feels himself a worthy subject.
The documentary starts with Caveh stating his purpose, talking into the camera only minutes before his third wedding. It's ironic that he's in church about to be wed, while disgusing blows jobs, masturbation in confessionals, using drugs with his drunken girlfriend and so forth.
Caveh begins his story in the early 1980's and works his way up until present day, only going back momentarily to show what a sleeze ball father he had. The apple doesn't fall very far. Caveh is articulate and very thorough in his dialogue and explanations, but we get the sense that the reason he had an addiction to prostitutes was because he was addicted to himself. I really felt for anyone who had the misfortune to meet this man in their life, and while he's a physical skeleton he does have a sleezebag charm about him. And as they say women usually will fall for the assholes. Caveh is all trump in that department.
While his life and insights into to himself are interesting, they aren't ground breaking and he seems naive to the idea that he's addicted to himself. Constantly he's telling his significant others that he wants to be honest with them. This kind of honest originates not from a need to be kind to another human being, but rather to make himself feel like a good person. A selfish "good deed" if you will.
I enjoyed the film but as it goes on it gets old as he does the same routines, the same music plays in the same way, and ... it becomes a broken record. Caveh is just an ordinary film school pseudo intellectual who has average talent, but will never be great because it's doubtful he will be able to film any subject besides himself with a grain of passion or insightfulness.
Watching this film was like watching someone masturbate, it might be a curiosity at first and even minorly entertaining in a perverted kind of way, but who wants to see that sort of thing for very long?

Grade: C-

9-1/2 Weeks (1986, Adrian Lyne)



Comparisons between this film and Last Tango in Paris are bound to occur. I've never watched 9-1/2 Weeks before, but I couldn't help but think of the old favorite of mine staring Marlon Brando. What Last Tango in Paris does right, this movie does wrong.
Where to start? There is a meeting in both films. In Last Tango in Paris Brando is in pain and that's evident. In 9-1/2 Weeks Mickey Rourke is just bored and has a need for excitement. Maybe down deep he doesn't like himself. If audiences could write in naunces that the filmmakers forgot about, then sure - that might work.
In Last Tango in Paris a 19-year-old Maria Schneider gives herself to a stranger because she is uncertain about her impending marriage to a man before she even knows who she is sexually. We understand her motivations for wanting Brando or rather wanting to be the object of his catharsis. In 9-1/2 Weeks we get a bored and divorced 25-year-old Kim Basinger who wants attention and who narcistically wants to be treated as one of the works of art where she works.
In Last Tango in Paris we get brutal and horrifying scenes of masochism and sexual irresponsibility and adventure by two people who engage each other as a means of self mutilation. In 9-1/2 Weeks we get two New York City yuppies who are bored and are looking for excitement to contrast with their unfulfilling careers. Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger are both very attractive, but no one is attractive enough to take seriously while the top hits of the 80's play on the soundtrack.
There are elements I enjoyed in 9-1/2 Weeks. The two leads did have an odd type of chemistry. I did enjoy seeing Basinger nip out in a wet shirt while Rourke gave it to her in an alley way as the rain pours down.
Then I think to myself. Why should I enjoy this? I didn't enjoy seeing Brando give it to Schneider (who has nicer breasts I might add) because I could understand and in part identify with their pain. I should have enjoyed it. I should have been aroused by very sexy scenes. I wasn't. I was disgusted and I was saddened. In 9-1/2 Weeks I wasn't disgusted. That's the problem with the film. That's also the problem with any possibility of me giving a damn as Basinger walks down the street when the credits role.
Last Tango in Paris is a film that brings me to tears. 9-1/2 Weeks also brought me to tears because I know those two yuppies aren't going to enjoy having all their food rott after leaving that damn refridgerator door open for so long.

Grade: C-

Note: Thank God Mickey Rourke went on to make two masterpieces in the year that followed this silliness (although titalating silliness) that is 9-1/2 Weeks.

Too Late For Tears (1949, Byron Haskin)



Sometimes people get themselves in deep and just keep getting in deeper. Lizabeth Scott is married to Arthur Kennedy who are a seemingly happy couple on their way home from a friend's house at night. The plot rises when a bag of money in thrown into their car. She wants the money, he doesn't. That's the premise at the beginning of the movie, but like all film noir it switches directions many, many times.
I suppose a lesser noir would have centered more on the husband dealing with the over zealous and confident wife, but this is not a lesser noir. A modern noir I was reminded of was the promising, but ultimately disappointing A Simple Plan. In Too Late For Tears, it's the femme fattale Lizabeth Scott that's on center stage and is the one character who occupies the film's entire running time. The others are more or less just fodder for her poison, bullets, sex, kisses, and double crosses. Nothing is going to stand between this woman and her money.
Like all noir there is some very smart dialogue. One of my favorite moments in the film has Liz Scott talking about lonely housewives. What power women can have when they wield sex effortlessly and emotionlessly. Too Late For Tears is a noir worth checking out, even if it does stumble at times with a forced relationship between two side characters.

Grade: A-

I'm not sure I grant the premise that "we typically see blacks as entertainers." I'd say most popular singers are still white, and the demographics of sporting events vary from sport to sport. There are almost no black men in the NHL, for example. But I'm really not sure what you're getting at here, anyway.


I have not seen the film, but I would be very surprised if it actually clearly implies that Ohr's "greatest gift to society is through athletics." If anything, one could now say that the sharing of his inspirational story is more significant, given the level of success it's had.

But more importantly, I don't see how something can be called offensive simply because it can be misconstrued to feed into an existing stereotype. How can we be offended that Ohr is, in fact, very good at football? It seems to me that something is offensive when someone assumes this sort of thing about someone without knowing it to be true, or assumes it about a character they have wholly constructed. How can it be offensive when it's true? Who is doing the offending?


I dislike the concept of white guilt, too, but a white person helping a black person isn't necessarily an example of it. If anything, it's more interesting that you would read that into it.

The Lonely Guy (1984, Arthur Hiller)



Steve Martin has made quite a few amazing under the radar movies in his career, just check out Pennies From Heaven or Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. The Lonely Guy is one of those movies, not many people have heard of or seen. This film must be one of the peppiest dark-humored films I've seen, and for lack of better phrasing, the morbid subject matter does not jive well at all with the upbeat presentation. Steve Martin plays a "lonely guy" who is not surprised at all when he walks in on his wife in bed with another man. He talks to her as if the house-wrecking Fabio was not even there and even jumps in bed with the two of them. Why not right? This early scene within the first 10 minutes of the film strikes the wrong note entirely and is largely the brand of humor the film is composed of.
I love the subject matter and I found myself chuckling quite a bit through the film, but I did not enjoy the film. The jokes are plentiful and often hilarious. The dubiousness of Steve Martin running along the Manhattan Bridge trying to find his suicidal friend (Charles Grodin), while dodging other people who are jumping, must have looked hysterical on paper and in the idea room. It does not work in the film however, especially not when set to the tone of dated and chipper 80's music and flighty-romantic-comedy-esque camera work.
The Lonely Guy may have worked better as a series of vignettes or Monty Python style comedy sketches, but there's not enough here for a feature film as the film boils down to one long running morbid joke. I enjoyed the joke, but I was bored of being told the same joke in different incarnations for 90-minutes. There simply is not enough material here for a story, or a film. The narrative is shaky at best and monotonous. This is quite a surprise with names like Arthur Hiller and Neil Simon attached to the project. Even cameo roles from Merv Griffin and Joyce Brothers are wasted. It's kind of a wonder this movie got made. I will say that Steve Martin's delivery as well as Charles Grodin's is quite hysterical, but it is something that should be left to a sketch or a standup routine.

Grade: D