"M" - Film Review

There’s a brilliant scene early on in M that perfectly establishes the entire film and its premise. A little girl bounces a ball off a lamppost; posted on this is a poster warning townsfolk of a murderer on the loose and out to get children. Cue a shadow drifting in from the right of the frame. It’s a deeply unsettling, expertly crafted shot.

The tension continues to mount as we witness the girl’s mother begin to get nervous that she’s not home from school and frantically start to call out for her. But from the crosscutting (which is used excellently throughout the film) frequently back to her daughter, we know her fate is sealed.

The town is in an uproar in the wake of the child’s death and looks to be on the verge of tearing apart and turning on one another at a moment’s notice. The police and underworld criminal bosses (whose business have been disrupted in the wake of the scandal) simultaneously try to track down the killer first and bring them to their form of justice. 

This was writer-director Fritz Lang’s first sound film. Previously he had made dozens of silent films, most notably Metropolis. Here Fritz makes complex use of the soundtrack, including narration, sounds offscreen, and a very effective and cool use of total silence broken by bursts of sound. It doesn’t sound all that impressive by filmmaking standards today. But in 1931, only four years after the first truly successful “talkie” (The Jazz Singer), it was an amazing feat. 

The lighting is also a thing of beauty. The film contrasts shadows and light to create a dark, sinister and foreboding tone. German Expressionism was one of the biggest influence on film noir of the 1940’s and 50’s, and it’s hard not to see a direct link between M and many of those films (i.e. Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon). When Lang was forced to flee Germany due to the Nazis, he ended up making films in the United States that would continue to pave the way for the film noir movement of the following years (including Fury and You Only Live Once).

Perhaps most memorable of all is Peter Lorre’s performance as pedophile serial killer Hans Beckert who has an abiding affection for whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (similar to the way A Clockwork Orange changes how you hear “Singin’ in the Rain”, you’ll never quite see the song the same way again). He’s not just this one-sided maniac out for blood; he’s deeply disturbed and haunted by the terrible things he’s done. There’s an unspeakable sadness, exuding out from those big dark eyes, to Bekert in Lorre's hands.

The film is dated and awkward in places, and too slow going in the middle. It’s hindered by historical and cultural differences, and uneven pacing, that make the setup halfway through feel overlong even though it leads to a fantastic ending. And perhaps M works better as individual segments that don’t necessarily add up to a completely satisfying whole, but those individual segments are pretty damn electrifying and evocatively shot, even 80 plus years after its initial release.  

Grade: A

How I Met Your Mother - "P.S. I Love You" - Review

There’s a moment in “P.S. I Love You” where the episode loses all sense of plot that came before it and delves into a lengthy joke. Normally this might be a problem, but it’s such a tried and true gag, and the writers put all the stops out for (what appears to be the last appearance of) Robin Sparkles that it doesn’t really matter all that much.

Even Ted’s story about meeting and falling for stalker Jeanette is somehow far funnier than it has any right to be. Starting with the legal pad gag and ending with the call back to the so-called destined first meeting of Marshall and Lily, it’s a nice set of callbacks and great in character jokes (this is some of the best use of “Douchey Ted” all season). However, putting this story on the backburner to emphasize the Robin Sparkle VH1-like special actually does wonders for this storyline. If they had carried on the jokes any longer, it would have gotten real old, real quick. It’s just the right amount of time on screen for it to be amusing without getting stale.

Now, instead, for most of the episode, we get a slew of cameos from famous Canadian personalities. And whether it was them all stating the place they were and the donut they were eating when the “P.S. I Love You” incident went down or Bob Saget’s future Ted making a meta-Full House reference when Dave Coulier is on screen, it’s one of the funnier gags the series has managed in a long while. The extended segment probably goes on longer than it has any right to. But though the rest of the plot suffers significantly in way of development due to it, I could care less for how much I was laughing.    

I don’t expect works of wonders from HIMYM at this point in its run; but if it can at least still orchestrate some memorable segments such as still finding humor to be mined from Robin Sparkles, it may not be so painful to go down with the ship. 

Stray Observations:

-Ted has a backup yellow legal pad.  

-Was it just me or was the laugh track particularly bad at points during the episode?

-Dobbler/Dahmer Effect is one of the less interesting terms the gang has come up with.

-“50 Meters … that’s like 4 years!”

-Great callback: Barney’s power drill has a label on it that says “Property of Ted Mosby”

-“I’m coming to think you didn’t come here to see my lectern”

-Robin’s single went “Maple” and then “Double Maple” in Canada.

-“Even when Canadians are mean, they’re nice”

-The happy music cutting out when Ted said, “Just like Jeanette” was great.

-“That’s now considered the day grunge was created” 

Grade: B+

Girls - "It's a Shame About Ray" - Review

Girls pulls out all the stops for “It's a Shame About Ray”, confronting a number of the major story arcs up to this point in surprising and hilarious fashion. It’s an incredibly satisfying episode not only for how many great, well-written character moments it gives us, but for the amount of jokes  told in the episode (especially from Hannah, who takes a backseat in this episode, but gets in some of the episode’s most memorable lines). 

After being dreadfully underutilized in the past three episodes, Shoshanna, and, better still, Jessa are given center stage. Jessa receives a subplot where we finally confront just how much of a sham her marriage to Thomas Johns is. Forced to attend dinner with Tom’s parents, Jessa appears keen to go out of her way to make the occasion implode (mentioning, quite hysterically, her time spent addicted to heroin in college). Not that Tom’s mother is helping; she’s so judgmental that she doesn’t even give Jessa a chance in the first place. By episode’s end, Tom and Jessa have given up all pretenses that their marriage was anything more than a bad life decision. “You have another story for your fucked up collection,” Tom yells at Jessa; ironically the sentiment holds a kernel of truth hard to deny. Why does Jessa keep gallivanting from one excursion to another with no consideration for consequences? (remember, we first met her needing to get an abortion) She’s ignoring deeper problems, problems that extorting $11,500 isn’t going to even begin to alleviate.

Shosh (sporting an adorable hairstyle) is starting realize just how deeply she’s gotten involved with Ray. Ray is a welcome addition to the main cast and he gets in some memorable lines (his explanation of Marnie’s fascination with Charlie’s butthole is a wonderful monologue delivery), but it’s not all fun and games. Shosh has apparently been oblivious to the fact that Ray has essentially been living with her for nearly a month. Ray is technically homeless and felt too uncomfortable to admit it to her. This leads to a great scene where, while waiting for the subway, Ray asks Shosh why she’d want to be with someone like him: “I’m a loser!” “Because I’m falling in love with you,” she says, and he tells her that he loves her too (D’awwww. The feels; there are so many feels happening). Ray and Shoshanna remain rather adorable, and Zosia Mamet and Alex Karpovsky’s very different comedic styles bounce off eachother well (a great example of this is Shosh making up an elaborate excuse for being late, and Ray simply admitting they’re late because they had sex).

Marnie shows up at Hannah’s party because she wasn’t really processing the fact that she and Hannah just had a major fallout (Does nobody read my reviews?! Come on people: get your shit together). If that weren’t enough, Charlie and his girlfriend Audrey are there, and things become even more terribly awkward (which is funny for us at home, but dreadfully uncomfortable for everyone else. Except Ray who is above this nonsense). Audrey and Marnie keep sniping at eachother (played well by both Allison Williams and Audrey Gelman), and it becomes such a nuisance (Audrey claims that Marnie is stalking Charlie and tells her to commit suicide: “She’s too self-involved to kill herself,” Hannah says with her usual lack of tact) that Marnie asks Hannah to choose for one of them to leave. Hannah however has never been good at defusing situations and leaves the choice up to Charlie. Marnie storms out, and an ungodly idiotic Charlie chases after her. Marnie tells him that she feels insecure around Audrey, but Charlie lets her know that no one can compare to her. He tries to get some make out action (with an excessive amount of fondling), but Marnie quickly stops him. I’m seeing someone she tells him (creepy Booth Jonathan who is an awful human being; somebody needs to sort out their priorities). 

These are all storylines that needed to be dealt with (although in the case of Marnie’s, they could have gotten away with not doing it, but its ends up providing such good material that I can’t really complain), and the series handles them quite well. Gathering together the majority of the characters, and fairly quickly, allows for this to be one of the punchier episodes of the season yet. And Jessa has been so unjustly underutilized and her story provides so many necessary answers (while also being quite funny) that it didn’t matter that she’s primarily very disconnected from the rest of the story.   

A solid exploration of characters, a boatload of great, well-delivered lines, and some much needed plot development, and you have arguably this season’s best episode. 

Stray Observations:

-“I made a mistake trying to repurpose you” – Elijah’s appearance is brief but the script still manages to slip in some great lines, including the initial set up of the “butt plug joke” (“And I paid for your butt plug” “Well, you’re probably still using it”), one of the episode’s funnier gags that gets great payoff later.

-Audrey is starting a mustard seed company. Which isn’t all that interesting, but the jokes about it sure are: “Nothing that great. Nothing like condiments”

-“I mean I hate this restaurant, but I don’t even care cause I’m so excited” – Jessa’s dinner ending disastrously should have been seen coming from the get go.

-“It’s like a clit in your butt”

-Of course Marnie doesn’t like the word “butthole”.

-What’s the winner for most self-involved statement from Hannah?: “I am grown up that’s why I cooked all this food” or “I think I feel how everyone feels like I have 3 or 4 folk albums in me” (the latter all the better because we walk in on the tail end of the conversation).

-Other great lines from the dinner: “…Except Spain because I’m avoiding someone”; “…Practically cumming out of your eyes”; “I never shot it. I only snorted it”; Tom Johns describing the marriage as a “Union of souls”; “And this is why we didn’t invite you to the wedding”

-“Sometimes I wish people would just tell me what to do the next day” – Someone wants to psychoanalyze Marnie’s troubling need to be told by guys what to do/behave, etc.? It’s kind of disturbing.  

-“That little ewok in the capris?”

-“What was I supposed to do? Lie?” – Another very telling line about Jessa.

-“I’m a miracle! I’m a unicorn!”

-Jessa apparently has described Tom Johns’ apartment as “the set of gay Entourage”.

-“You just snot rocketed in the tub!”

Grade: A

"4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" - Film Review

One of the great delights of films of the 2000’s was watching several foreign countries enter excellent periods of film output. One of the most surprising instances of this was in the former Eastern European Soviet bloc, which proved to be a wellspring for great movies, and nowhere was this perhaps more apparent than Romania. Argued by many to be a “Romanian New Wave”, 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is one of the best examples of why the 2000’s were such a treasure trove for Romanian films.

Some of the best films have such simple concepts. A man whose job requires a bicycle discovers his bike has been stolen (Bicycle Thieves). A man tries to convince his fellow jurors that the defendant is innocent (12 Angry Men). Toys are alive when you’re not looking (Toy Story). These concepts are so deceptively simple that their completely brilliant, as if you wonder why no one ever thought of such an idea before. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days has an incredibly simple, but incredibly stark and painful, premise: a woman helps her friend get an illegal abortion.  

In 1987 Soviet Romania getting abortions are not only illegal, but incredibly dangerous. But when Otilia Mihartescu’s (Anamaria Marinca) roommate Gabriela “Găbiţa” Dragut (Laura Vasiliu) asks for her help to get the operation done, she’s too kindhearted to refuse. Much of the film focuses on Otilla as she prepares for and makes sure that everything happens according to plan. But, of course, it doesn’t go as planned, as small everyday things occur (the hotel clerk forgot to write their reservation down so they’re forced to go to a different hotel) and careless decisions (Dragut doesn’t feel comfortable doing the initial meeting with Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) so she sends Otilla instead) lead to tragic, unnerving consequences. 

If it weren’t so thoroughly humanistic and so competently (even inspiringly) crafted, this idea in of itself could be a terrible slog to watch. It’s a dark, dark film; the cinematography is marred with a bleak, dull, dreary, downcast appearance that fits the film’s tone of realism. But amongst all this sadness and sense of despair is Otilia, such a fully realized and likable character, and so convincingly and strongly played by Marinca, that she carries the film through some of its more unsettling moments. 

The film is not only emotionally involving, but technically impressive as well. There’s a large number of wonderfully executed long takes that inform the film’s sense of gritty, unswerving realism and make for a highly engrossing experience (even as you often want to look away with claustrophobic unease and discomfort). The sound design is also great; unique stylistic choices for shooting scenes are combined with interesting forms of how aural information is provided to us (purposefully obscured in the background, unexpectedly delivered offscreen, etc.).

The film finds a powerful, small scale human drama to tell amongst the midst of more pressing historical issues, and tells it with conviction, honesty, and humanity. It works as both a nuanced meditation on the Nicolae Ceauşescu era’s repression in Romania, as well as the difficulties both physically and psychologically of abortions. It’s not a film for everyone, but it’s an artistically potent, deeply visceral narrative that shows what filmmaking can be capable of when artistically and creatively done right.

Grade: A

Happy Endings - "The Merry Prankster/ Our Best Friend's Wedding" - Review

These two episodes of Happy Endings very well could have been one long, extended episode; there was enough connective tissue between them revolving around Penny’s engagement to extremely normal guy Pete. Whether Penny should be getting married to Pete is another question, but this is a big enough moment and a meaningful enough one that it gives weight to these two episodes in a way the show hasn’t exactly been propitious at.  

The thing I’ve learned writing about this series for the past few episodes is that I really don’t like reviewing it. All the things that make Happy Endings a joy to watch also make it a pain to write about. The show is so flippantly against doing neat, clean things with its structure and characters that from a critical perspective it can be a headache. The series is good because it’s really funny and it’s funny in a particular way where it doesn’t choose to play nice and be even keeled.

So what makes a good Happy Ending episode? One in which it uses all of its characters effectively, doesn’t waste time establishing premises, and having done both of the former goes on to tell as many dirty, bizarre, pop culture ladened jokes as possible. “The Merry Prankster” does this a bit more nicely than “Our Best Friend’s Wedding”, setting up its premise with the cold open and then sparing no expense to indulge in its prank fight concept. “Our Best Friend’s Wedding” is also very funny but less focused and has to manage three storylines rather than two, although it does give amusing things for all the characters to do.

These are both episodes representative of what the series is capable of when it's firing on all cylinders. I like these characters and I like the actors playing them. I also like the type and quantity of jokes. And I like it even more so when the episodes feigns enough of a decent pretext for using these characters as delivery systems for jokes. These two episodes demonstrate that potential and for series trying to pull off such a thing, these are solid examples of how to go about doing that.

Stray Observations:

-“Max is winning the lottery next week. Pass it on”

-“Guns for Sandwiches” - This would have been funny as a throwaway line but it's even funnier for the visual of people laying guns down on the counter of Dave's food truck.

-“Or when he decimated our 401K”

-"Ah! Max don’t hurt me!”

-“Affirmative … action”

-“I picked up and quit smoking four times”

-Of course Alex would be obsessed with Muffin Month.

-“We’re just prawns in his game”

-“My revenge will be like a seventh grade tennis players serve. Slow and out of bounds”

-“I guess I could use an adorable idiot like you”

-The whole couch launching gag had me laughing so hard.

-The proposal scene was everything a proposal from this series should be. Strange and funny, and somehow kind of touching, with explosions going on in the background.

-I approve of that Kaiser Soze ending. Very funny, well-earned spoof.

-“What’s with the lower case b’s”

-“And no you can’t smoke it … I never asked how was rehab?”

-“And who will burn the wedding to the ground if she doesn’t get to plan it?”

-“Why do I have to be coupled with Dave?”

-“Harvey Chocolate Milk” is a brilliant nickname for Brad's fake persona.

-Pete apparently likes reggae. Okay then, why the heck not?

-“It’s a classic Max kneejerk reaction. Followed by a classic Max fake apology.”

-“Manny Petty’s Manny Pedi’s”

-That Trojan Horse fakeout was a great piece of editing.

-“Well, you know what they say ‘It’s not a gang hang unless someone gets close lined’”

Grade: A-

Archer - "Legs" - Review

I had been wondering for a while what the show planned to do with wheelchair bound Ray. There was no feasible way the series could keep having Ray being physically handicapped. Ray in a wheelchair means Ray can’t be a field agent and that in turn means the show is highly limited on the kind of stories it can tell. So it wasn’t all that surprising when the show jumped on the opportunity to get him walking again.

Obviously it decided to do it in manic, absurd fashion as per usual. Krieger offers a surgical solution that would add some robotic parts to Ray to get him back on his feet. This is amusing idea in of itself, but the episode enters into an even more madcapped, entertaining direction when cyborg-phobic Archer learns of Krieger’s plan and in gung ho fashion attempts to shut the surgery down. In turn Lana and Cyril realize they need to prevent Archer from doing something incredibly stupid and destructive (a goal that never thoroughly comes into fruition, seeing as Archer bazookas a blast proof room). 

I would have liked to have seen Cheryl and Malory used less sparingly. But otherwise this is another very good episode from the show this season; a feat that feels all the more impressive for the fact that this is a series in its fourth season. 

Stray Observations:

-“Vehicular hermaphrodite” is a term that ought to be used more often.

-“I piss and shit in a bag” “Me too!”

-“Common enemy” “Hey, that’s how Lana and I started dating”

-“It kind of worries me that you don’t know the real names to these things”

-The newspapers name: “The Paper”

-“He’s making a gay terminator”

-“I think it’s super creepy that you get turned on by physical violence”

-“The thermostat is becoming sentient” – How H. John Benjamin pronounces “sentient” is a thing of beauty.

Grade: B+

The Office - "Junior Salesman/ Vandalism" - Review

I’m a stickler for consistency in a television series. Consistency in storytelling is symptomatic of good writing. When a series like The Office starts to do broader, more unbelievable things, it flies in the face of the very world the series has led us to believe we’re watching. Michael Scott’s antics were childish, and cringe inducing but they came from a believable place. A character like Robert California, on the other hand, could never have ever existed early on in the run. That was a character whose personality appeared to be whatever the writers damn well pleased it to be; you could never pin down who he is was or what he wanted. He was a walking, talking cartoon character, and not a fully realized human being. Similarly, none of Dwight’s friends are plausible human beings or realistically drawn characters. While there’s some amusement to be had here and there, it’s an incredibly bizarre storyline that just doesn’t add up with what earlier seasons have led us to think this world is inhabited with. Even a character like Creed works because his shtick is “I’m the unrealistic person who pops in and does something totally implausible”.  And he works because he was the one guy who was so clearly not realistic that the series was allowed a pass when he did weird stuff or said strange things. You might argue Dwight is like this as well, but the show has done enough groundwork to make it apparent that there’s a real human side to Dwight (remember Season 2’s “The Injury” where he gets a concussion and starts acting very nice to everyone).

The Jim and Pam side of things remains to be very interesting and very true to these characters though, and it almost makes up for when the series is desperately thinking of something for its characters to do. But the series doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do with these characters, who when well utilized are often some of television’s funniest, most memorable individuals.  Pam’s actions in the second of these two episodes in particular don’t have any real logical basis in what we know about her (Why would she go along with pretending that Nate’s mom died?).  Her revenge scheme just doesn’t come from place that’s true for this show, and it feels like a storyline created as an excuse for Brian to swoop in and save the day.

The references to the people behind the camera don’t feel like they’re a good thing. The series pulled out that moment too soon, and it’s now forced to deal with the ramifications of that reveal. The self-awareness of the fact that there is a documentary crew isn’t something the series necessarily wants draw attention to. It’s stretching credulity as is that they would stick at it for nine years.

Stray Observations:

-So, how soon until Brian and Pam kiss?

-“I need you to breathe in my face”

-Clark Duke is often much funnier than the material given to him. He’s so utterly enthusiastic about every piece of acting given to him, even when it’s incredibly pointless or stupid.

-“I was his babysitter. And then his girlfriend”

-“If there’s anything I hate worse than art, it’s crime”

-“I’ll just stay here. By myself. With the money.”

-“I’m saying we should go scorched earth on his face”

-“You’re a terrible person” - Brian Baumgartner is having a great season.
-How pointless did the Jim-Darryl storyline feel? I'd rather they just not show Jim at all, and in stead spend some time with some minor characters. 

Grade: C+