I Heart Huckabees (7/10)

David O. Russel walks a dangerous line between the quirky and the ridiculous in his latest film, I Heart Huckabees. Oddly enough, this is not where the flaws of the film lie -- I Heart Huckabees is bizarre, surprising and challenging without losing all senses. I do have a high tolerance for absurdity -- being a fan of Mulholland Drive -- but I never found this film to be as disconnected and unpenetrable as critics have.

No, the problem actually lies in the struggle between the quirky and the banal. Quirkiness is usually used by directors to disguise true feelings and philosophical musings that would otherwise be sentimental. And though Huckabees has its share of brilliant quirkiness -- a dinner scene comes immediately to mind -- it also deeps into convenient banality, as in a career-killing meeting scene. It is frustrating to see a film with as awesome a concept as "existential detectives" to move into these easy, sentimental scenes, and I just had to shake my head and dock a few points.

Still, it is a fun and funny film. Highly recommended.

Best of 2004:
=============

1. The Incredibles -- 10
   
2. Eternal Sunshine -- 9
   
3. Dogville -- 9
   
4. Kill Bill: Volume 2 -- 8
   
5. Spiderman 2 -- 8
   
6. Harry Potter 3 -- 7
   
7. I Heart Huckabees -- 7
   
8. Collateral -- 7
   
9. Fahrenheit 9/11 -- 7
   
10. Shrek 2 -- 7
    

the incredibles (10/10)

I was lucky enough to attend a preview of Pixar's Next Big Thing, "The Incredibles". And boy, it's going to be hard going through this blog without using the word "incredible" and looking smug, but I'll try. In fact, I already failed.

In any case, WOW. This is, BY FAR, the MOST adult Pixar film to date. It is rated PG for cartoon violence, and sure, there's that, but that's not the adult part. Characters spew lines that I never thought would appear in a Pixar film. For example, Bob the father (ala Mr. Incredible), on a 4th grade graduation ceremony: "It's not a graduation! He's just passing from 4th grade to 5th grade! Why do we look for every possible chance to celebrate mediocrity?"

My jaw really dropped at this. This is so amazingly cynical, biting and incisive that you expect it from the mouth of, say, Woody Allen, but not a Pixar-animated father figure! Immediately, I knew this was going to be a very different film from the standard Pixar fare.

And it is. The Incredibles, as Monsters Inc., is bursting at the seams with imagination. There are breathtaking scenes that rival the sheer joy of creativity in the door-hanger scene in Monsters Inc. And the action scenes look absolutely stunning. But what really sets it apart is the amount of darkness in the material, from the truly dysfunctional family (instead of the standard I'm-an-orphan fare) to the issues of arrogance, neglect and death.

The director is Brad Bird, the mastermind behind "The Iron Giant", one of the finest animated films to come out of America. That movie, as The Incredibles, is funny, but in a different way from other Pixar films. The Incredibles has fewer zingers that almost entirely carried Finding Nemo, but it does have more situational comedy. Recall the robot-hand-in-the-house scene from The Iron Giant, and you get the idea.

Better still -- like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles is touching without being mushy. It is poignant, and it deals with the big issues, but without the usual preachiness. In fact, The Incredibles is probably the most morally-ambiguous Pixar film to date. Most of the characters have real flaws -- I don't mean just laziness or insecurity. There's a genuinely dark side to many of the characters, and good and evil is no longer so clear-cut. I really loved that as well.

Graphically, it looks amazing. The Incredibles features the best-looking computer-generated water effects to date. Sure, Finding Nemo has some of that, but it is mostly underwater, and as we know, the hard part is in modeling the water surface. The Incredibles has multiple scenes of characters in water -- and, even more amazing -- things splashing into water with stunning realism. The human characters are still not perfect -- Dash, in particular, looks very plastic for some reason -- but they're not expected to be.

I can go on and on about the complicated story, the sharp dialogue or the creative action sequences, but work is calling me. Suffice it to say that The Incredibles is the best Pixar film to date, and, as it stands right now, the best film of the year.

For fun, I'm listing my ranking of Pixar films:

Top Pixar Films:
================

1. The Incredibles -- 10; as I said
   
2. Toy Story 2 -- 10; everything you could want in a film
   
3. Monsters, Inc. -- 9; funny and intelligent except for the slightly lame ending
   
4. Finding Nemo -- 9; very well-done but exhausting; road trip movies (like Lord of the Ring) are not my thing
   
5. Toy Story -- 8; I liked it, but was never overly impressed
   
6. A Bug's Life -- 7; Antz was better
   

cute

I: Did you know, E190 kills babies
He: what's the hardest part about running through a field of dead babies
I: umm
I: what
He: hiding your erection

don't you dare threaten me

He: did u fix all ur problems?
I: I don't have problems
I: what you talkin' bout
He: fine
He: i will kill you.
I: where are you
He: i am outside your window
He: i have a chainsaw
He: and a laptop
He: with which i'm chatting to you
He: they're actually attached
He: it's pretty cool
He: i can control the chainsaw with my touchpad
He: too bad you won't live to see it
He: how dare you become idle
He: don't u realize i'm about to cut you into tiny pieces
He: using my touchpad
I: I WILL LICK YOU TO DEATH
He: how are you gonna give me a licking...
I: THE SAME WAY I GAVE YOUR MOM ONE
He: ...once i've CHAINSAWED YOU INTO THIN SLICES
I: ONE OF THOSE SLICES WILL BE MY TONGUE

why existential?

Okay, so yes, I've been naming everything "The Existential * of Overwhelming Beauty". Why? Well, I was supposed to write a candidate essay for Tau Beta Pi on the officers I've interviewed. Instead, I turned in the following:

THE EXISTENTIAL COMEDY OF OVERWHELMING BEAUTY

(Bare stage with three chairs facing the audience. BRIAN, JENNIFER and ISAAC come on stage, and sit on the chairs. Stillness. THEY exchange looks. More stillness.)

BRIAN: So.

JENNIFER: So?

ISAAC: So what?

BRIAN: What?

JENNIFER: You said “so”.

BRIAN: So?

ISAAC: So what?

BRIAN: Exactly.

ISAAC: No, that’s what I’m asking you.

BRIAN: Me?

ISAAC: Who else? Who else said “so”?

BRIAN: Everyone said “so”!

JENNIFER: But that doesn’t mean you have to do it.

BRIAN: What?

JENNIFER: If everyone runs around naked, would you?

BRIAN: What?

ISAAC: She’s got a point there.

BRIAN: (After a pause,) I wish I were naked.

JENNIFER: We all wish that. But... But we can’t be. They’re... They’re...

ISAAC: (Frightened,) They’re watching, you know. They’re all watching.

BRIAN: I’ve slowly come to the realization of that. Do you ever wonder? Do you ever wonder -- wonder why, why these people, they come and they... They watch us? Does it give them some satisfaction? Why do they come and watch? Like we’re... Like we’re some kind of... Like it’s some kind of...

JENNIFER: A freak show?

BRIAN: No.

ISAAC: A freak show?

BRIAN: Exactly!

ISAAC: (Proudly, his speech:) I know exactly what you mean. I mean, what, what are we all doing here? On this bare stage, on these three chairs, when reruns of Xena is on? What are we here for? What are we looking for? A little spark in one end of time, and here we are, forever striving for the other end, running, praying, getting lost, being found, hiding in corners, laughing, crying, walking through the misty blue, rolling through acacacademy, waiting, waiting, waiting. What are we waiting for? Whom are we waiting for? Whom -- who -- whom are we waiting for?

JENNIFER: (With a groan,) Let’s not turn this into Waiting For Godot, okay?

BRIAN: It’s way too early in the day. I’m not even drunk yet.

JENNIFER: Really?

BRIAN: Of course.

ISAAC: Hmm. I wouldn’t be able to tell.

JENNIFER: When will you get drunk?

BRIAN: In a few minutes.

ISAAC: Hmm.

JENNIFER: Sounds like a good time.

(Long pause between the three. THEY are bored and have nothing to say.)

ISAAC: (Suddenly,) I was a fat baby, you know. I won the fat baby contest. You wouldn’t be able to tell because I’m not fat anymore, and because of my lack of fatness, you wouldn’t be able to deduce that I was fat as a baby, and so you probably would’ve never guessed that I won a fat baby contest. (Pause.) But I did.

JENNIFER: Oh I get it. Now we’re supposed to talk about what’s interesting about ourselves.

ISAAC: (Puzzled,) I think so. Why else would he interview us?

JENNIFER: Ah, well then! I have a great story to tell. When I was three...

BRIAN: (Drunkenly interrupting,) None of you knows what yous be talking about you foolish foolish fools you you don’t know where it ends and where you begins and so you are walking around looking for loopholes in logic and reasoning and the fabric the fabric the soft sweet fabric of the universe and you are digging and digging into the loopholes deeper and deeper and you don’t remember which end you came in and it’s just a hole and you’re in there not remember where you came in and where you go out and so you stay there and you cook and you clean your room and do your homework and sleep at designated hours but you’re really just hoping that someone somewhere at some time will come and come and take you and take you to the door show you to the hole and take you out to the absolute breathtaking beauty outside the serene unbearable beauty the divine intercepting beauty... Of my mother.

JENNIFER: (Pause,) He’s right, you know. I’ve met his mother.

ISAAC: Is it that time already? Is he drunk?

JENNIFER: I don’t think so. This is normal.

ISAAC: We should stay away.

JENNIFER: Don’t say that. He might hear. They’ll all hear. They have all heard.

ISAAC: What if they hear? What if they hear?

JENNIFER: I... They’ll... They. Might. Know.

ISAAC: Mmm.

(THEY take another long pause.)

JENNIFER: (Suddenly,) I wonder why no one interviews me?

(ISSAC looks at her, and laughs. BRIAN punches ISSAC. BLACKOUT.)

we'll be rich in no time

Brilliant business proposition from my friend:

Him: i thought of an idea
Him: that will make me a hojillionaire
Him: i'm gonna write a blog commenter
Him: it will scour the web and leave comments on people's blogs
Me: how does that make you have a lot of hos?
Him: silence
Him: you haven't even heard the key part yet
Him: these comments will be along the lines of "you suck"
Him: but in many more words
Him: they will be so numerous that blog authors would have no hope of deleting them all
Him: naturally, some ppl will not want such comments left on their blogs
Him: to exempt themselves, they'll hafta pay me "protection money"
Me: hahaha
Me: IT'S BRILLIANT!

the great debates

Wow, the first presidential debate was awesome. What a reversal of roles! It's really exciting to see Kerry back in the game and looking impressive, and even more to see Bush floundering, his words no longer as pitch-perfect as his campaign. We all know the Republicans are much better at running these elections, and it's immensely satisfying to see Bush caught in the headlights without that cushion of protection.

Congratulations to Kerry to throwing some great punches -- like calling on Bush's "the enemy attacked us" explaination for Iraq War with an all-too-literal interpretation: "Sadam didn't attack us! Bin Laden did!" Bush's reply was equally precious -- "Of course I know bin Laden attacked us!"

Bush was funny in general. He called the terrorists "a group of folks". He was hilariously incredulous when Kerry listed nations in the coalition and responded with "He forgot Poland!". And then he made some obscure reference to a "tax gap" -- together with hand gestures! -- and then moved on as if it were self-explanatory.

Easily Kerry won the debate, and polls show that the race is in a dead heat again.

Which, of course, makes things a lot more interesting this week, especially for the Cheney-Edwards debate on thursday. Cheney clearly has the experience edge, and threatens to push Edwards back into his obscurity in this campaign. Can Edwards shine -- and make himself known to the voters? This will be an interesting match -- Cheney the experienced, vicious pessimist, versus Edwards the political newbie, always smiling and optimistic.

In any case, this has been great fun for all.