May 21st, 2012

All Kinds of Awesome

First and foremost, the word is now on the street that Mark’s second novel has been acquired by Dundurn Press and will be out in Spring 2014. It’s called *Sad Peninsula* and it’s pretty great, I have to say. Kvell!

In other awesomeness, I found this nice review of *The Big Dream* on Niranjana Iyer’s Brownpaper. I’ll eventually track down the hardcopy in *Herizons* if I can!

And finally, as promised, on Friday night I went to the cast-and-crew screening of the newly completed short film, *How to Keep Your Day Job* and it was absolutely incredible. I think at its core the film has a great deal in common with the story, but not everything–it is an inventive reimagining of the story, and that’s what makes it so exciting–I knew what would happen next but I didn’t know how. It’s also a visually beautiful film, something us writers are never going to create–the way the film looked in snippets on the playback screen onset is nothing like the way it looks woven together into a seamless final product.

As an experience for me, the *Day Job* film has already exceeded my wildest expectations, but I know the filmmakers have even bigger ones. I certainly endorse these, and think they deserve every accolade available out there. I hope to be able to tell you sometime in the fall when *How to Keep Your day Job* will be coming to a theatre near you.

February 22nd, 2012

On the “How to Keep Your Day Job” set

As promised, here is the post that describes my fabulous weekend on the set of “How to Keep Your Day Job,” a soon-to-be short film based on my story by the same title.

Short version: It was awesome.

Long version: The first part of the awesomeness is obvious:  it was my story and it was very very gratifying to see it take on a new shape in a new context, and to see so many brilliant people working so hard to make that happen. The second part is that I am obsessed with jobs and work, and to spend two days watching people do very specialized, very cool jobs I’d never seen before was really fun. I am sure I was a bit obnoxious–I couldn’t resist buttonholing people and asking, “What do you? How did you learn to do that? Is it fun?”–but people were very nice and I learned a tonne. I met a grip, an electrician, a makeup artist, a wardrobe manager, tonnes more. From a careers perspective, so interesting.

The neat thing about filmmaking, as opposed to writing, is that it happens in public, with lots of other people running around and actually participating in the creation. Whereas writing pretty much exclusively is done solo, often behind a closed door–you don’t ever really see someone’s process, despite the preponderane of how-I-write articles in the world. It was crazy awesome to see how many people were participating in making this movie!! Here are some of them:

Hanging out with the "background" actors in the "hold" room. Look at me, learning terminology. From right, that's Dion, Daryll, and Jilliana. (I think I spelled everyone's name wrong; apologies)

 

That's the director, Sean, in the centre. He was incredibly nice and low-key all weekend, especially for someone who had to make a movie in 36 hours.

 

I loved that all the movie equipment looked so...movie-y!

 

 

Setting up the shot. There in the centre is the star, Georgina. If you've read the story, I'm curious if this is how you pictured the protagonist? (I think she's perfect!)

I suddenly realize I can just watch the action on a monitor rather than craning around a corner!

That's Lea, the producer, and the person who kept me from being left behind when we moved from set to set.

Random movie-making shot.

Setting up the stairwell shot!

Riiiighttt before the fall.

So, there you have it. There are actually more pictures but I somehow saved them to the internal memory of my camera and now can’t get them off. Why? Why? Anyway, if we’re ever hanging out and I have my camera with me, ask and I’ll show you some pictures of how they shot the falling sequence, which was pretty mind-blowing. It was, of course, a carefully choreographed fake fall, but even just looking at some of the unedited footage, I winced.

Not on set, but elsewhere, when I tell people about this project I’ve been asked over and over if I got stressed or upset over the differences between the story and the film. And no, not actually. I had my crack at it–I wrote the best story I possibly could. The fact that I put the ball down and someone else wanted to pick it up and keep creating is just thrilling to me.

I suppose I would feel differently if I thought they weren’t going to do a good job, but from everything I’ve seen I think this little film will be tremendous. In a lot of ways I think it’s pretty faithful to the original, but there are so many ways in which a film is just *different* than text. I loved seeing how a simple sentence in the story evolved into a clever visual joke that could never have existed in prose–you need to have a completely different sort of imagination, and medium, for that to work.

I tried really hard to see things in the film that I don’t usually notice consciously (despite that Art of Film course): depth of focus, framing, lighting choices. It’s amazing that none of those things were in the story, yet the choices Sean and Lea and their team made seemed to compliment the story as if it had been an organic whole all along.

Of course there were some things that looked or were presented differently than I’d imagined, and I was surprised by a few things, but I think that’s good, healthy even. I need to realize that it isn’t my ball anymore, and let everyone else have their time to play how they wish. I hope there are having as good a time on the court as I had watching the game.

 

 

January 26th, 2012

Insane!!

Guess what I did tonight–had coffee with the director, producer, and star of an upcoming short film based on one of my stories. I had met the director and producer before, and they are lovely–creative, enthusiastic, and generous with their time (not every film-maker spends time getting to know the author of the work the script is based on, I don’t think). But the star I hadn’t met before, and it was a shock to me to meet someone who is going to embody one of my characters; who will briefly but genuinely become someone who previously only had life inside my head and, I hope, inside my readers’ heads. It was a strangely emotional moment for me.

Obviously, I think this is all fantastic–fantastic that I wrote something that other people related to so much that they want to re-create it in their own way, in their own medium. And there was no dissonance for me in meeting and talking to the actress–she looks just right to me, and I was fascinated to hear how she thinks about her work. Though I don’t know exactly how it will feel to see and hear her living the role, I can’t wait to find out.

But you can see how this would all be deeply weird for me, can’t you? I hugged everyone goodbye at the end of the night–movie people are good huggers, it turns out. And when I put my arms around the woman who will become this character, I couldn’t help but think, “She’s a real person!”

Wild.

August 28th, 2011

I made a tiny movie!

I think everyone’s heard of Xtranormal now. Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen one of those very static movies with people bantering in robot voices–those are done on Xtranormal. It’s a very tempting site for those of us who think it would be a fun to make a movie but don’t know how, and don’t want to invest the many hours necessary to learn.

All you do on this site is choose a basic setting, some characters’ bodies (well, 1 or 2–they can’t do more than that [yet]) and feed in your dialogue. You can make pauses, and some small gestures/facial expressions, but basically, it’s people standing around talking to each other.

A major criticism of my work might be that there’s too much of people standing around talking to each other, so I thought this site would be perfect for me. Bonus, I realized when I started making my film, that stilted robot voices are perfect for rendering awkward office talk, which is a major component of the dialogue in my book. Still, it was trickier than anticipated–I am really not a playwright, and a lot of my dialogue doesn’t make sense without the surrounding narrative, or at least more detailed action than Xtranormal is really capable of (yet).

So I’m not sure how great my movie is–it’s sort of…stilted and static. I was conceiving of it as a little book trailer (23 days and counting until launch!) as you’ll be able to tell by the bits of cover bumpf I’ve put on the intertitles. But as I say, it came out oddly, so I don’t know if it’s a great marketing device.

And yet, I sort of like it–maybe you will too? It’s only 2 minutes long! Please take a look.

If you love it, hate it, are indifferent to it, or have some Xtranormal usage tips you wish to impart, please let me know. I have some leftover $$ on the site (you have to pay for things in points, which you buy in bundles of more than you need–annoying) so I could maybe make another, better video later on. In case this one isn’t already awesome, I mean.

July 27th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews Some Summer Comedies

A lot of the problems with Bad Teacher could have been eliminated if Cameron Diaz hadn’t been the star. The deepest problem, that this film is dead at its core, obviously could not have been helped by anyone but the scriptwriters, but getting a pretty young unknown to star would’ve alleviated some of the surface nonsense.

This is not to say Diaz does a bad job–she’s even fairly funny as a sexy cynical snob who has evaluated her beauty as her best feature and wants to sell it to the highest bidder, ie., richest husband. When her fiance divines her golddigging ways and cancels the wedding, Elizabeth Halsey has no choice to return to what she had thought was an extremely temporary job, teaching junior high. There, she bides her time, trolling for men, saving money for a breast-enhancement to up her market value even more, and doing as little work as humanly possible teaching, or even speaking to, seventh graders.

One reason I wish that a young unknown had gotten this roles is that Diaz is 39 years old, and while she is far more stunning than most other humans who have ever lived, in my opinion she looks like a stunning 39 year old. Or maybe it’s just because I know how old she is that it always occurs to me when I look at her. Elizabeth’s age is not alluded to–ever–in the film, but it was on my mind, because, yeah, if she were 22 she’d kind of be shallow loser, but with time ahead of her to get it together and find something more useful to do than shoving her boobs at boys. But if you’re 39 and all that’s occurred to you career-wise is to sleep around until you get your hooks into a rich dude… I think this made the movie far more depressing than was intended.

If the filmmakers had given Elizabeth a clear past, and insisted that she was very young, I could’ve believed that she was 22–it’s not inconceivable. But Elizabeth has no past–no friends, no parents, no memories of things that happened before the director said, “Action!” on the first scene. Always the mark of a bad movie, in my book–the script just doesn’t bother with a whole character–a few characteristics will do.

The flip side–a fully imagined character– works wonders on the admittedly simple but enjoyable film Bridesmaids. Star Kristen Wiig is 38 and, again, looks an attractive 38. Here, it works, though, because the character has a history that coincides with her looks. Pretty Annie is a sweet loser, with a failed bakery behind her and only annoying roommates, a dead-end job in a jewellery store, and business-like sex with her unfriendly friend-with-benefits. She also has a mom, a hometown, memories of her ex, and she wears her life on her face. As played by Wiig, whom I’ve never encountered before but will be seeking out in the future, Annie’s hilarious resignation at say, being forced to climb over a gate when she can’t work the controls to open it, and then at the gate starting to move when she’s halfway over, is based on an imagined long history of similar issues.

I hate to say it, but a big part of the reason that *Bridesmaids* suceeds where *Bad Teacher* fails is that Annie is likeable, and Elizabeth is the worst person in the world. I am *not* saying that female protagonists all have to be likeable, but maybe they do in light-hearted romps about falling in love. Or at least have some redeeming qualities. The best we ever get from Elizabeth is that when finally gives a test to her class, she herself knows the right answers–apparently, she’s not dumb. But that’s all she’s got–she’s viciously mean to almost everyone, throws a basketball at kids heads, steals answers for a test to cheat for her students, and humiliates and eventually destroys a fellow teacher whose only crime is being really annoying and self-righteous. (That would be someone named Lucy Punch, doing some of the only genuine comic acting in the movie, as the manic Lucy Squirrel.)

Annie, on the other hand, tries her best, but life–job problems, man problems, and a bitchy fellow-bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding party–push her towards the edge. When Annie does bad things–like screaming at everything at her friend’s bridal shower, then attaching a chocolate fountain and wrestling with a giant cookie–you kinda sorta get where she’s coming from. And it’s also way funnier than sleeping with a rival’s boyfriend, then planting drugs on her and seeing her dragged off to jail!

Reviews have been mixed about the gross-out moments in *Bridesmaids*–everyone knows the big puke-n-diarrhea scene was a late-stage addition by studio powers. It’s not all that funny–it’s *really* gross–but it’s a little funny, and it also has a great moment where Annie, grey-faced and sweating with the effort not to vomit, is forced to consume a Jordan almond by the evil bridesmaid.

This is the other reason it would’ve been great had Diaz’s role gone to someone else–she’s less funny than she could be because she’s a big stahhhhr, and she has to look good in every damn scene. She would *never* have done grey-faced and sweating–she doesn’t even do pasty or pale when Elizabeth is allegedly hitting rock bottom. I don’t know if the director’s decision or Ms. Diaz’s to insist that she always be perfectly lit and made-up, that Elizabeth’s day-to-day clothing be pinup worthy, and that she do a big sexy carwash scene that’s basically looks like a prelude to soft porn. Who doesn’t know that Cameron Diaz is pretty, seriously? Did we need a whole movie to prove that point?

It’s what we get–Elizabeth never really does anything undignified, certainly no real physical comedy. It bugs me that she gave away her big gross-out moment to Justin Timberlake. Remember *There’s Something about Mary*, semen in her hair? This time Mr. Timberlake gets all the semen, all the “Oh, no, really? In a *movie*?” So much for equality of the sexes–the implication here is that Timberlake has so much dignity he can spare some, whereas Diaz can’t (Justin is pretty funny in this movie, btw. But I wish he’d quit movies and get *NSYNC back together. There, I said it.)

The big crazy moment in *Bridesmaids* is also given to a co-star, but the star is a woman too–Maya Rudolph is hilarious giving the news (in a whisper) about what she’s doing inside her wedding dress. (Why Rudolph is not in every movie ever is a strange problem–she’s so great, and so *weird*!) So I love humour that resides in semen and shit? No, not really–but if you’re going to do it, but your heart into it.

In the end, I loved *Bridesmaids* but felt it could’ve done lots more–it’s supposed to be a movie about female friendship, but the whole central conceit is about catty rivalry between women. The friendship between Wiig’s and Rudolph’s characters starts out wonderfully, with an improvised-looking chat about how a lady might indicate she was not eager to offer fellatio right at that moment. But it peters out, until it’s all Wilson Philips gags, and Annie is saved by the love of a good (but not particularly funny) man in the end.

*Bad Teacher* too, is based on the idea that women hate each other more than they like each other, and in the end all problems are solved with a kiss and promise of romance (that would be Jason Segel, playing the pleasant schlub he always plays). These two films were promised as daring, original movies about women messing up, but the plot lines are pure romantic comedy, with a little poop and semen on the side.

It’s kind of devastating to me that one of the low-key, low-marketing, goof-off movies of the summer, a buddy-caper picture you might not even have heard of called Horrible Bosses, is so much better than both these movies put together. What is this movie about? Friendship, male friendship, and how dudes pull together in the face of adversity. The specific adversity in this film is the title–three friends from high-school having their lives ruined by their vicious and insane bosses. So they decide to kill them, as you do–the hire a murder consultant (weirdly good, played by Jamie Foxx) and go on a series of hijinx-y reconnaissance and later murderous adventures.

It’s so so so funny, because the screenwriters put their money where it matters–the plot barely makes any sense, I haven’t heard of two of the three lead guys, but the chemistry between them is perfect. Most of the movie, and all of the best parts, is just them bickering in a car or a bar or in front of the tv, sounding exactly like dudes that have been friends from high school, who love each other and are sick of each other in equal measures.

There are no love interests. Of course not: it’s a buddy caper, not a rom-com, so there’s no room for that. One of the main 3 is engaged, to a woman who has about 7 lines, all of them idiotic. But the guy she’s engaged to is an idiot too, so that’s supposed to be ok. You can’t help but notice that his idiocy gets laughs and hers doesn’t, though.

The only other female speaking role in this film is Jennifer Aniston, playing one of the horrible bosses. And, shock of a lifetime, she’s really really funny. I always thought she and Ross were tied for most boring characters on *Friends* and in *Marley and Me* her main characteristics were a) nice and b) tanned (that’s a surprisingly ok movie, actually, if you are into watching movies where a dog gets all the good lines). But in *Horrible Bosses,* playing a completely deranged psycho maneater, Aniston is balls-out funny. Prowling around in her panties pretending to be fully dressed, proposing to have sex on top of unconscious dental patients, grabbing and snatching fistfuls of flesh whenever she can–she’s a terror, and one who’s not worried about her “image.”

Jennifer Aniston is 42, and I admit that the cougar-type is a poor substitute for good roles for women. But Aniston makes the most of it, and some good gags come from the fact that some guys think she’s too hot to sexually harass anyone–why doesn’t the guy just sleep with her?

I chortled through most of *Horrible Bosses*–our boys accidentally sound racist, accidentally take cocaine, shove things up their bums, and whack each other on the head thousands of times. The actors aren’t afraid to goof around–the characters *are* goofs, so they’re just acting. I think there are no risks at all in this movie–it’s safe, because it’s about dudes being morons. It’s only risky when girls do it.

I wish *Bridesmaids* creators had been able to take more risks, and that *Bad Teacher*’s had been willing to take *any,* but I’m not entirely sure whom to blame. Maybe it’s the dudes who want the ladies laughing at the jokes and not making them, but maybe it’s the ladies who are afraid to look like idiots. Real empowerment, I would think, would be realizing we have dignity to spare.

June 6th, 2011

What I’ve Been Doing Lately

Re-reading Big Two-Hearted River (parts I and II) A lot of things I loved when I was 14 don’t stand up so well these days, but the two stories that make up Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River” piece are solid gold and always will be. I love the gentleness of the force behind them–unhurried, unprentensious but so involving, so *intense*. And I have to say, I don’t think a lot of 14-year-old girls read much Hemingway, because if they did there’d be way more of us with giant crushes on Nick Adams. *swoon*

Watching the movie Bridesmaids. I am pretty sure I am the ideal target market for this film. I love comedy of all kinds–situational, standup, sketch, improv, whatever you’ve got. I used to be a huge SNL fan (back when I had a tv that worked) and I’ve been on board the Judd Apatow for a few years now. I am also a feminist who gets depressed when there’s a great comic film with all the ladies sitting quietly on the sidelines. And I’m slated to be a maid of honour this summer, and just last week got engaged myself. I saw the movie with the friend I’m mutual maids-of-honour with and a fistful of candy. No one could have been more primed to see this movie. So you have to take it with a grain of salt when I say I laughed. A lot! I didn’t actually know anything about Kristen Wiig, writer and star, before I saw this, but now I think she’s brilliant. The best part is when she wrestled with the giant cookie. The worst part is the protracted diarrhea joke–but even there, I sorta chuckled when I peeked out from behind my hands.

Playing Wii Sports Resort. Did I mention I got a Wii for my birthday? I am officially the luckiest person in the world! I love it all, but especially the sporty games for some reason. I am unexpectedly good at wakeboarding–if I tried to do that in real life I would be killed immediately–and swordplay. Total goofball fun–ie., exactly my thing.

Making spinach dip. There is no way to subdivide a package of frozen spinach, so you can only make this dip for a large party or gathering, so I spend most of life pining for it. Had a party this weekend and got the chance–hooray! For those who asked for the recipe, here you go:
1 package of frozen spinach
2 cups plain yoghurt or sour cream (I prefer yoghurt)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I skimp a little because I hate mayonnaise, but it actually blends in just fine)
1 can of water chestnuts, chopped
2 scallions or green onions, chopped
Thaw the spinach completely, then take it in your (clean) fists and wring all the water out of it. This is important and I’ve never been able to think of a better way–let me know if you do. Once it’s wrung out, mix all the ingredients together, seal it in a Tupperware and leave in the fridge overnight…or as long as you can stand without going and eating it with a spoon. You can serve it with vegetables or crackers or sturdy chips–whatever it is will just be a dip-delivery system.

Going to the Clark Blaise/Bharati Mukherjee launch Ok, I technically haven’t done that yet because it’s tonight, but then I *will* be doing it, and who knows when I’ll get around to writing another blog post? It should be a great night, two great writers at a lovely pub. You coming?

Not freaking out over reviewing my proofs for The Big Dream Nosireebob, absolutely not. I’m completely calm about it, as usual.

April 19th, 2011

Cats help

Today is not a good day. I sort of hate everything (not you) right now and just want to lie on the floor and think of all who have done me wrong. But I can’t, because I have stuff to do and making an enemies list will not help with that agenda, so I won’t. Instead, I will power through, with only brief bursts of cats for support. If you need some cat help, too, try:

February 17th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews a nice day (and the movie *Somewhere*)

After finishing a stressful project at work, I’m taking a few days off to rest, read, write, and bum around. It’s magically warm in the city right now, and I have a busy weekend ahead, so it’s been really nice to float around in my own happy cloud. I get sick of my own company though–I’m much less of a solitaire than writers are supposed to be. So midafternoon today I headed out to a Starbucks, hoping to write there and also eavesdrop on a few angst-ridden teens (yes, I timed my excursion to coincide with school getting out).

I was totally not in luck, winding up in a cafe filled with sullen old people (“You’re sitting in my seat. I left my things there!” pointing to a stir stick) and shrieking toddlers. I wound up between two fellow laptop jockeys, so had no choice but to work for a while. Then I lucked out when an old woman passing in the street glanced in the window, spotted the fellow beside me and came in (Toronto is far more like a small town than most people give it credit for). I think she was his mother, and they proceeded to get into an argument about whether he was doing enough to help his brother find an apartment. Then they looked at some places on Craigslist, but nothing was really resolved. Then she left, and we all got back to work.

Starbucks bonus–on my way out, I finally found a table of young teens and as I passed, one who was *maybe* 14 dropped her head into her hands and exclaimed, “Worst life *ever*!”

Then I did a little gift shopping for a friend, and went to have dinner in a food court. While I was eating my ginger chicken, a man and a woman approached me to ask if I would take their picture. There was nothing scenic about this underground food court (why, yes, I *am* happy with how I’m spending my vacation, thank you), so I guess they just wanted to be captured together. They both spoke imperfect English, but she was Asian and he maybe Middle Eastern. They were unhappy with the first shot, and really also the second though they were too embarrassed to ask me to take a third (I wouldn’t have minded). I thought they were a couple, but as they were walking a way, I heard her ask him for his email address. What was their story, I wonder.

Then I went to the bathroom, and as I entered a woman brushed past me on her way out. The woman behind her announced, “You have toilet paper on your shoe” in an Irish accent (ok, honestly, she could’ve been Australian or Maritime Canadian–I’m terrible with accents). The first woman did not stop and, slightly put out, the possibly Irish woman chased her into the hallway yelled, “YOU HAVE TOILET PAPER ON YOUR SHOE!” before coming back in to wash her hands. In this very same bathroom, I also witnessed a woman scrubbing her hands as if preparing to perform surgery, whilst singing a merry tune.

Then I grabbed some mango frozen yoghurt and went to the movies to see Somewhere. I’d read a review that said the film revisits director Sophia Coppola’s obsession with celebrity, but I always thought she was obsessed with people. Sure, Lost in Translation was about people touched by fame, but it was also about being stuck in your own stupid skin, which is what The Virgin Suicides was about (VS is also one of the few movies that comes close to being as enrapturing as the book on which it is based. Close.)

Anyway, stupid reviews aside, I knew I would like a quiet movie about a dad and his kid set in sunny LA, and I was right. This movie is a gentle confection, sweet not like sacchrine but like cherries. It’s about the theme mentioned above, but also about the simple solace of *doing things*–characters in this movie drive cars, ice skate, dance, play piano, play Wii and Guitar Hero, play ping-pong, cook, make masks, play guitar, and do a host of other things that require attention, often for minutes-long takes. It’s lovely to watch the characters shake off their misery (no one’s particularly happy here) and immerse themselves in the task at hand. This is also the first time I’ve ever seen video games portrayed in the movies as not the refuge of sullen dolts, but lots of fun. A milestone, I think.

The movie has no soundtrack until the 80-minute mark (I happened to glance at my watch), so we hear what the characters hear. They listen to music sometimes, whole songs even, but incidental noise looms really large, especially since there’s little dialogue. In the pole-dancing scenes, you hear the rub of flesh on pole, and in the Guitar Hero one, the click of keys.

Since the stars, Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning play it *way* understated, the cinemetography is the real star here, and the film is glorious to watch. All kinds of weird shot of models watching down the hall silhouette by the sun behind them, or the stars goofing about underwater. There was also a mysterious theme about plaster that I didn’t really get. Early in the movie, Dorff’s character Johnny breaks his wrist and spend most of the rest of the film with it in a cast, which he rips off towards the end–symbolism of butterfly emerging from chrysalis?? God, I hope not. Johnny also has a plaster cast made of his face for some movie special effects thing (never explained) and a cast of his hand made when he is welcomed to Milan (again, not really sure why). If anyone knows what the plaster theme meant, please let me know.

But really, who cares? This was such a quiet, gorgeous, incredibly sad film–this was the sort of film I would make if I could. I didn’t care too much for the epiphany at the end, but I suppose they had to give us something.

And then I trotted home, typed this up, and will write a few other little things, before cheerfully to bed. Tomorrow I’m trying a new ballet class!

November 22nd, 2010

Rose-coloured reviews *He’s Just Not That into You* (book and film)

The premise behind the self-help book and romantic comedy film, He’s Just Not That Into You is that women are socialized to look frenetically for any shred of male affection, and to believe in it where none exists, and this is a formula for vulnerability, sadness, and occasional humiliation. It’s funnier than it sounds.

The first time I saw the movie, I thought it an above-average romantic comedy. It’s in the same vein (but not as charming/more realistic) as Love Actually, with a half-dozen loosely connected couples struggling to find happiness. Chronic romantic loser Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is willing to do anything for love, but her desperate attempts at flirting always go awry. The only thing man-related thing she’s really good at is analyzing them with her office mates, Janine and Beth, both of whom have their own problems. Janine’s problems are with her home renovations and her husband, Ben; Beth’s are with her engaged sister and her unwilling-to-marry boyfriend. Then Ben strikes up a fliration with a girl named Anna, who was already involved in a weird sexless romance with real-estate agent Conor. Anna’s friend Mary works at a gay newspaper and the film’s only major point about her is that the homosexual guys in Anna’s office offer the same kind of very p0sitive but useless romantic advice that Gigi, Janine, and Beth offer each other.

It’s all very confusing, but you don’t have to know who is related to whom to understand that all the women are lying to themselves and each other when they pursue men: “He’s totally into you” “I know he’s going to call” “You just have to give him a little encouragement” “You just have to be patient” “You should give him a little space” etc., etc. Women–so sweet, so giving, so kind–so eager to believe in love that they’ll believe almost anything. My gender does not come off very well in this film, but most of the performances are surprisingly nuanced.

Gigi suffers a series of standups and humiliations, and during one she meets Alex, a male bartender with no interest in sugarcoating the truth–he tells her that if a guy likes her, he’ll show it; everything else is just delusion. This starts Gigi on the road to some dignity, but it’s a tough road, because she eventually develops the theory that it’s *Alex* that’s into her. It’s complicated, but she’s sweet, he’s sweet, they hook it up by the final frames. Hope I’m not spoiling too much for you–it is a romantic comedy after all.

The central Gigi-Alex relationships hews to that rom-com formula, but the others are more various, and a bit truer to the core of the very depressing book–which is that women put up with too much and ask for too little in the quest for love. I read the book after enjoying the film, hoping it’d be funny in the same vein, and it is…but it made me really sad too. The titular comment is followed by “if” statements–if he doesn’t call, doesn’t compromise, doesn’t care… The first few chapters were empathizable and at the same time wince-worthy: who hasn’t assumed she wrote her email address down wrong, or checked the phone for a dial tone? (for a great, cringey depiction of such behaviour, try Amy Jones’s new story, Atikokan Is for Lovers. But the book points out all kinds of other stuff women excuse in men: from calling her fat to flirting with others, it gets pretty painful in the text version JKMTiY, and I was sort of a wreck when I finished it. My poor sisters!

Ironically, I felt the movie did a better job than the book of showing why ladies feel the need to put up with anything to land a man. The social pressures that women feel to be in a relationship before they can have the home they want, or be accepted by their families, or just to get that big lavish wedding are experienced by various main and secondary characters, in ways that you sympathize with–or at least, I did. I am neither smart nor patient enough to get into all the various story tendrils, but to just cover one more, I thought Jennifer Connelly’s portrayl of Janine–the only married woman in the bunch–was the most touching in the film. Janine is basically a tight-assed home-renovation nut, who eggs poor Gigi to get herself married off though Janine is not particularly enjoying marriage herself–and her husband certainly isn’t. When Ben admits to Janine–in a big box home supply store–“I slept with someone,” Janine clenches with rage. However, she only gets to wield her anger for about 30 seconds, because when Ben announces that he’ll move out, the woman is back in the position of supplicant, pleading, “Don’t you want to…work it out?” Because he cares less than she does, Ben’s admission of guilt poses less threat to him than to her.

The best moment in the movie–or any rom-com I’ve seen in a while, come to that–is when Janine discovers another layer to Ben’s deception and finally loses it. She’s at home alone, and smashes a mirror in her perfect bedroom. Then she seems to go limp for a moment, walks out of the room, then returns with a broom and dustpan, to clean up the mess while she continues to weep.

The movie is of course limited by it’s genre–even if the rhetoric around finding love is broken, romantic love is still the one and only answer. No one seems to be at all interested in their jobs, let alone to have any interests outside of work, and though friends and family are supportive, what they are supportive of is the quest for love. When Gigi decides not to concentrate on hooking up on Saturday night, she spends it alone watching brat-pack movies. In rom-com world, no one but single men want anything to do with a single woman on Saturday night–and there aren’t even any decent movies at the rental place.

I would definitely say watch the movie if you like this genre–it’s lots of fun (and Ben Affleck has a boat!) I’m not sure I recommend the book unless you are a woman prone to getting jerked around by men and don’t know why. Even then, I’m not sure it would help–I’m not sure many women are as deluded as the ones depicted therein. But I worry I’m wrong, and I was basically reduced to a puddle of woe by the book, albeit with a sad little feminist fist in the air. But then I got to call my beloved to relate said woe, so I’m not in ideal position to judge.

October 30th, 2010

Rose-coloured reviews *It’s Kind of a Funny Story* and *Frownland*

I saw It’s Kind of a Funny Story because it looked like the kind of zany, not-very-bright Hollywood comedy that I usually like in spite of myself, and it is–but this one uses as it’s backdrop not high-school back-stabbing or the single-girl blues, but a psychiatric ward at a big-city hospital. Despite some fun gags and the presence of the genuinely talented Zach Galifianakis, I just couldn’t stop thinking that this movie is so blithely politically incorrect, so completely irresponsible in it’s treatment of real problems, that I could not feel good about laughing (and I did totally laugh).

But maybe I’m a bit too PC (it’s been suggested) because this movie’s been getting fairly good reviews, many of which seem unconcerned with this depiction of a smart, priviledged white teenager feeling stressed about school and girls, checking himself to Brooklyn hospital because no one seems properly impressed with his problems. I exaggerate–Craig the protagonist is genuinely worried about his suicidal dreams, but I don’t know why the admitting physician in a Brooklyn emergency room would credit this. And I’m sorry, I know I’m lame about these logistical details, but hospital admission for an entire week in the US costs a fortune–where was this boy’s health insurance paperwork?? Did he just happen to have it on him?

The details that bug me about his life inside the hospital are more serious–there is a clearly two-tiered system of mental illness in the screenwriters’ minds. There are attractive, fun, nice people like Craig and the girl he falls in love with, Noelle, who maybe have a few problems and feel blue once in a while. Noelle self-harms, to the point of having long claw-marks down her her face, but we never learn anything about her background or problems and her performance is typical pretty-girl high school, and could be taking place at a beach instead of psychiatric hospital. By the end of the film she’s “better” and being released, apparently on charm alone.

On the other hand, the rest of the patients in the ward are the lower tier–not attractive and almost impossible to interact with, tagged by amusing tales of drug overdose and paranoid delusions, unlikely to get any better. So what is the point of them? Well, the attractive people can *learn* from them, you see–and realize they are lucky. So useful, those unattractive crazy people!

Zach Galifianakis does the only interesting acting in the film, poised as his character is between the two categories–he’s funny and likeable and loves to interact with Craig (bonus points for loving the protagonist) but he has real problems and has made genuine (we hear) attempts at suicide. We don’t really learn too much about his actual life, but Galifianakis is enough of an actor to let a history of hardship show in his face and voice. He is the only character in the entire hospital ward who appears to actually be suffering.

I probably wouldn’t have judged this film quite so harshly if I hadn’t seen it in such close proximity to a vastly different work that deals with the same themes, Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland. I tried to watch this meandering nightmare of a film the night before the other one. Having read various reviews that compared the movie to an unceasing panic attack, I had fortified myself with a supportive viewing companion and delicious snacks to get through it.

This was exactly the wrong way to go about it–in a warm happy environment, protagonist Keith’s struggle to exist is so insane and depressing and alien that the film was utterly unwatchable. In the first 20 minutes, he is disturbed from watching a monster movie by the sound of the door buzzer. When he answers, the only sound on the speaker is hysterical sobbing. He says “I’ll be right down.” Downstairs, he sits in a car, watching this woman sob more. Then they drive around for a while, her at the wheel, tears mainly under control. Meanwhile, Keith is twitching and squirming violently, trying to work up to saying something. It emerges he has a bad stammer–it takes him perhaps 120 seconds to make it clear that when he was a child, he never cried much. When he finally gets it out, she parks the car and goes into a store.

Waiting for her, Keith holds his eyes open and emits a groaning noise–eventually, it’s clear he’s trying to imitate tears. When the woman returns to the car, he shows her his wet, red eyes and she, incredulous, begins to sob all over again. There have only been two lines of dialogue so far.

We turned it off after not too much longer, but the night after *It’s Kind of a Funny Story,* I was ready to try again. This time, I did it right–alone, in the dark, in the fetal position on my couch, with nothing to distract or comfort me. The DVD has no chapters, so I had to essentially start back at the beginning (my fast forward doesn’t seem to work too well) and live through the whole 106 minutes of Keith’s tragic madness–mad tragedy?

At least there is more narrative and dialogue after that first sequence–we learn that Keith sells coupon booklets door-to-door in ritzy suburbs where homeowners’ associations are always trying to chase him and his colleagues away. For a while it seems that Keith simply lives alone in a kitchen (the oven door opens to make a bedside table) but it emerges that there is another actual room in the apartment, inhabited by his viciously mean roommate, who humiliates him at every opportunity.

But the roommate’s anti-Keith diatribes are a little funny, or at least resonant, because Keith is utterly repellant. The struggle for speech is so intense that he is constantly grimacing and grunting and repeating himself. But he demands attention–he feels entitled to it, and he won’t shut up even when he can’t really speak. His boss–who drives the coupon team around in an industrial van–is about as mean as the roommate, but Keith persists in trying to apologize to him for some unknown offense, despite the boss’s complete lack of interest and then aggressive contempt. Over and over, Keith says, “I’m sorry, you’re totally right,” to no particular end. When a woman refuses to buy his coupons, he tells her how his father died. I lost a lot of the content in the garblings of Keith’s speech, but the content was not the point anyway–he just wanted to be heard.

To me, the saddest scenes are with Sandy, Keith’s one “friend.” It’s not really clear how true a term that is for their relationship, but before the movie starts, they had spend an evening at Sandy’s pleasant quiet apartment, talking. Keith leaves a dozen messages thanking him for that, which Sandy does not answer until Keith calls at 3 am, insisting he left his work badge there. Sandy says he would have seen it, but Keith asks him to look in a series of unlikely places, until Sandy finds it under a book–clearly Keith has hidden it there for the excuse to return, like a woman dropping an earring in a man’s apartment.

Keith’s interest in Sandy is not sexual; he just wants to be near another human being who doesn’t hate him (he falls asleep soon after he arrives). But Keith is so far out from social norms, so weird and needy and constantly desperate, that he is extremely hate-able. The only calm, coherent conversation in the entire film is with his psychiatrist, and even that only barely. What’s interesting about that dialogue is that it’s completely irrelevant to Keith’s problems–earning a living, keeping his apartment, protecting himself from violence. To ignore all this and talk about a strange (and funny) incident from his childhood seems a strong joke against modern psychiatry, especially in the warm’n’fuzzy cure-all version of films like *Funny Story.* But then again, take note: Keith is having the time of his life on that couch. He has an unencumbered audience, and that’s all he really wants.

In the end, the job, the apartment, and the relationship with the woman from the beginning of the film–who turns out to be a high school student–all fall apart, and even the borderline functionality Keith had been maintaining crumbles. He turns to Sandy, but so great is Keith’s hysteria and his grief that it feels he has turned *on* Sandy–shrieking into the apartment intercom that if Sandy doesn’t let him in he will kick and scream at his door doesn’t feel much like friendship, but Keith is beyond all reason. As it must, this search for comfort eventually turns stupidly violent.

I never did figure out what was wrong with Keith–another reason the scene on the psychiatrist couch was farcical. Aside from the crippling speech impediment, it seemed almost as though he suffered from a disease of metaphor–he kept trying to explain his problems using a code of images no one could crack. His last interaction with Sandy featured a repeated shouted story–fractured beyond my comprehension–about an old woman with black teeth. Having watched the earlier scenes, I knew this must have something to do with Keith’s violent evil roommate, but Sandy hadn’t been watching the movie and didn’t know even that–it just sounded like mad ranting.

Films like *Funny Story* want to draw a firm thick line in the sand between the real crazies and the film-ticket-buying public. *Frownland*, though it’s protagonist is terrifyingly weird, never draws that line. I loathed Keith, but sometimes, when I could understand him, I knew exactly what he meant. That is *Frownland*’s genius and it’s horror–that it gets the viewer (well, this viewer) to empathize with Keith’s loneliness and his desire to explain himself in complicated metaphors, to somehow get the details of his soul known by another human. The scary thing about Keith is not that he is so alien, but that he is so relateable. It made me feel that that line between sane and insane wasn’t thick or clear at all.

After watching *Funny Story*, I went out for dinner and joked around with my brother; after watching *Frownland*, I lay in bed sweating and stiff as a board and thought about how lucky I am to have people in my life who care about me, as well as (most of the time) a reasonable articulateness. Watching *Frownland* was a ghastly experience that I can’t really recommend to anyone, but it is a work of emotional art and I will never forget it.