Making Movies on Location

In response to my request for movie suggestions, I got 5 comments! From 2 people! This either makes or ties my record for internet popularity. (As opposed to internet unpopularity, which peaked back in June.)

Here are some responses to my responders:

Joel. You promised five bad movies and listed three titles. This suggests either (I) your state-endorsed education was a bust; (b) each of those movies is so bad that they average 1.66 times the worth of other movies; or (3) both.

The Capture of Bigfoot: I could save up the $8 + shipping to get a copy of this that I could watch, or I could just watch the copy you surely must have hidden somewhere. I'll bring the beer. By the way, the Weekly World News is no longer available on newstands -- where will Northern Wisconsin get their news now? Fox?

The Cabin Boy: I saw this in a movie theatre and remember parts of it. As I recall, it co-starred a then unknown Andy Richter. I never totally got that Chris Elliott's humor -- seemed to be a lot of mugging. (You should buy the latest CDs from this Chris Elliott, by the way. The site features archaic web design by yours truly.)

Howard the Du... You can't be serious. I refuse to watch any quote-live action-unquote movies featuring anthropomorphized and/or talking animals (or infants). Some height-deficient actor in a creepy part-robotic duck suit? I think I'll save that ninety minutes. I say, leave talking ducks to the cartoons.

But then you liked that Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet, too: "With God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again!" Which brings me to...

Cheryl. We never once saw a good movie together, as I remember, but I won't apportion blame... We tried.

Francois Ozon: I've seen Swimming Pool and Sitcom, and wasn't crazy about either, so I'm siding with Tom here. Re: Swimming Pool -- the attempt to film the act of writing or the gathering of the inspiration for writing never works for me. There's an unwritten essay in this, but I think there's a good reason why successful biopics about writers (Capote, Henry & June, Mrs. Parker...) barely touch writing and focus more on circumstance and personality. The attempt to capture the process of writing, as Swiming Pool does and as the desveredly cancelled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip did, always strikes me as a variation on how the Billy Crystal character "writes" in Throw Mama From the Train (i.e., pacing, taking to oneself, anguishing over inconsequence). The act of writing is almost entirely internal, and film is too visual to capture it. Writing is also -- as some of us know too well -- agonizingly difficult, and the filmic trope wherein a blocked or unsuccessful writer witnesses something that allows them to write something supposedly brilliant or interesting can imply that writing is mere transcription of one's lived life. Which is so "write what you know" wrong as to infuriate. Yeah, so generally, as the more the act of writing is shown or rumniated upon in film, the less interesting the character and the movie become.

Sitcom was fun -- giant rats and incest and bondage gear -- but I couldn't really suss out what it was meant to achieve. I suspect it was trying to say something about society and/or sitcoms, but ultimately it just seemed rather French.

Capturing the Friedmans: Man, do I love that movie. I could talk about this one for an afternoon and a half. This is what's exciting me about investigative documentaries, really, is that they contain so much, and by eschewing the format of drama, they approach what good (written) fictive drama can do. As a friend once said, Hamlet contains the universe -- it is so wide ranging as to comment on politics, the supernatural, modern psychology, etc., and remains problematic and difficult to entirely understand. Which is why we continue to try to resolve and understand it. Since I first saw the movie over two years ago, I continue to try to resolve and understand Capturing the Friedmans (and it's mini documentary on clowns).

Another example: Errol Morris' documentary Vernon, Florida, which one could view as a Laughing-At-Them lampoon of rural Floridians or as a investigation of how plainspoke Americans struggle to find and make meaning in their lives. Or possibily both. (American Movie has the same dichotomy.) If I was to revert totally to my graduate school self, I might point out how these movies "problematize" understanding, knowing, and perception. You're watching a movie about how to watch a movie! Squee!

(I mentioned above that film is too visual as to be interior -- this is not the case in documentaries, which opperate on the same principle as the talking cure. But don't get me started on Freud.)

Mad Hot Ballroom: Kirsten saw this in the theatre, and from her description, it sounded kind of girly. But then I bawled my bleeding little heart out at the end of The Yellow Brick Road.

Scorsese's Blues documentary is one that I've added to my Netflix queue -- and isn't it cool that we Americans can use "queue" now? The Bob Dylan documentary that aired on PBS a while back was quite good, and I'm a Scoresese fan, but I somehow missed this one.

(By the way, in April of 2006 I got about as close to a fist fight as I've come in my adult life. The topic at hand was the film Capote, the location was Sedona AZ, and the combatant a welterweight Daniel Baig. When he heard about this fight, the abovementioned other Chris Elliott gave me this book. Who says we're a culture in decline? )