Adam's Insane Itinerary

Tuesday, April 20

MRI - Two hours inside a coffin-like space with a cage over my head. Noises so loud that I can barely hear my own thoughts. "My Heart Will Go On" played through headphones as relaxation music gets a bonus techno beat from the buzzing and clicking of the machine.

Screening: The Back-up Plan. Not so different from my experience described above. Occasionally outrageous, but mostly inappropriate and lame. Read my full review at The Dagger!

Wednesday, April 21

MRI, Part 2 - Ninety minutes inside this time, and no cage over my head to intensify claustrophobia. I swear to the nurse that I'm not cold, but she doesn't trust me and throws a blanket over me. I emerge with throbbing eardrums and a thin layer of sweat on my skin.

Screening: The Losers. What is the deal lately with Hollywood putting children in the middle of violence for our amusement? A helicopter full of refugee kids becomes a giant ball of flames, and our five heroes go into hiding to escape the shame and the blame. Their leader is Clay, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan who looks and acts like Javier Bardem after a week's worth of binge drinking and sleepless nights. Idris Elba is on point as wing-man Roque, but he's still playing too close to Stringer Bell from The Wire. The three remaining Losers yield an overload of goofball sidekicks (one is usually plenty), but Chris Evans as Jensen converting a falsetto rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'" into background chase music is absolutely golden. While they all trip over themselves trying to sure up their respective masculinities, Zoe Saldana outpaces them all as the sexy, slender, and dangerous Aisha.

Action scenes are convincing enough to keep us interested and exciting enough to keep us entertained, while director Sylvain White and DP Scott Kevan trade in improbably well-constructed frames. Aisha dives through shattered glass while evading a barrage of bullets, and we see her maneuvers reflected in the fragments. While Max, the smug central villain, is speaking, we see only his pristinely pressed pinstripe suit jacket donning a metallic American flag pin. The story delivers a final-act twist for the sake of a delivering a twist, disposing of narrative logic and character consistency in the process. Then comes the conclusion, which is more a sequel-grubbing than a believable plot construct, and will likely compel you to demand a refund.

Thursday, April 22

Doctor's Appointment - My future is likely to include yet another needle into my spine, as well as an overnight hospital stay to monitor changes in my spinal fluid pressure over the course of multiple days. The cranky secretary makes sure that I don't get to finish my morning coffee before demanding I dispose of it.

Physical Therapy - Let's get those neck muscles working again, shall we?

Screening: City Island - A tepid tale of a brash Bronx family with a clinically disastrous failure to communicate. Expectations, from each other and from City Island society, lead to secrets, which lead to more secrets, which lead to misunderstandings, which lead to resentful dinnertime conversations. Featuring strong performances by The Good Wife herself Julianna Margulies, who is equally at fault here, and especially Andy Garcia as the gruff, taciturn patriarch Vince: a prison guard with furtive acting aspirations. He auditions for a bit part in an unnamed upcoming Martin Scorsese/Robert Deniro project, and Garcia masterfully strides through the steps of the acting process when it's his turn to read. Through him, we see a performer born from a human; it's a tiny slice of movie magic. Ezra Miller provides many a chuckle as Vince's son, a cheeky teen with an inexplicably bizarre sexual fetish, but Emily Mortimer is, for the first time perhaps, quite intolerable as Vince's acting partner Molly, an obnoxiously spirited nymph lacking any proper self-reservation. As hidden agendas collide, the importance of truth becomes essential and palpable, and City Island promotes that ever-important moral credo: be who you are, and live for those you love.

Friday, April 23

Screening: Mother and Child - I am unable to disclose any critical commentary at this time, but I will say this is an involving, multidimensional human story with complex, layered emotions and extremely impressive leading turns by Naomi Watts and Annette Bening. This is the first film I've seen this year that I would consider "Oscar-worthy," and Bening especially seems like a good bet between this film and The Kids Are All Right. I will be interviewing writer and director Rodrigo Garcia when he is in town for the Maryland Film Festival next weekend. So stay tuned!

Another Doctor's Appointment. Sick of waiting rooms with stale magazines. I flip over the issue of Entertainment Weekly that features a brunette Katherine Heigl asking us and whatever God it is she worships (there's probably a mirror up there) for forgiveness. I can't even look at that face anymore.

Blechhkkkhhh!

But this place gets The New Yorker. Huzzah! I love me some David Denby!

Saturday, April 24

Some much needed R&R. You know... Resting and Rrrwriting. And an unhealthy binge of South Park episodes. The more I watch it, the more I'm convinced that it's the sharpest cultural commentary in existence. And if I find the little guys of South Park to be really cute (I mean baby cute, not hot damn cute), do I qualify for some mental illness?

Butters!

Sunday, April 25

Driving to New York City to see more doctors. Traffic is despicable. The streets are bright and noisy. I sleep not.

A hotel in Bayside, Queens, also considered Flushing, depending on whom you ask.

Monday, April 26

Nothing like an early-morning CAT scan. Then more waiting rooms, more appointments, and another doctor. He pretty much agrees with what the doctor last week concluded and seems unable to offer any more guidance, other than to say that there's pretty much no solution.

Bye, bye, New York! The sky was so muggy the whole time that I didn't even get a peek of the Manhattan skyline. Boo!

Tuesday, April 27

A day of nothing. Thankfully, I can get some more R&R: Resting and Rrrrtrying not to burst into tears every three minutes. Stuck in the suck am I.

Wednesday, April 28

More appointments and all that entails.

Screening: A Nightmare on Elm Street - Stay tuned! For now, the word "queasy" comes to mind...

Can I sleep now? If Freddy comes to kill me in my dreams, I'll likely be indifferent.

Kick-Ass Tests the Limits of “Exploitainment”

ex·ploi·tain·ment ('ek-ˌsplȯitˈtān-mənt) n. an act or instance of using something unfairly or improperly for one's amusement or diversion

Or, if you hadn't guessed, the careful balance between entertainment and exploitation.

This is a tricky proposition: too great a push in either direction nullifies the term, risking generic distraction one way and tasteless exhibitionism the other.

Kick-Ass places front and center an 11-year-old murdering machine who plows through the bad guys with a deliriously bloody resolve, cursing like a delinquent sailor and brimming with self-assuredness along the way.

Her name is "Hit-Girl," and she signifies the apex of exploitainment in the film.

But does Kick-Ass cross the line? Is Hit-Girl a crude and ludicrous flight of fancy, or an offensive, irresponsible perversion?

Does Hit-Girl venture beyond mere exploitainment?

My thoughts, and my review of Kick-Ass, at THE DAGGER!

Gleep of the Week

It's an "eep" from someone on Glee, once a week.

"Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?"

Courtesy this week of Heather Morris as "Brittany."

No, Brittany! I did not know that! So what exactly do you call this, then?

Oh haaaiiii!!! :P

At the Movies Meh-vies

Aight. I got something that I just have to say: movies haven't been so great lately. They haven't all been terrible, but most have landed somewhere close to mediocrity.

Let's start with the good news and continue on down...

How to Train Your Dragon (Dreamworks/Paramount)

How to Train Your Dragon is a surprisingly heartwarming and good-humored treat, with stunning use of 3D effects and spot-on voice work from Jay Baruchel as "Hiccup," the young Viking outcast who recognizes a potential for peace amid a culture of war. Hiccup befriends a rare and mysterious "Night Fury" dragon that he names "Toothless," and watching their relationship develop proves beautiful and touching. Toothless looks like an overgrown salamander and acts like a overly curious kitten. When he perks up his ears and displays a wide grin, he is instantly endearing. Still, I missed the fantastical elements of dragon lore-- the shiny scales and touches of magic-- in this land of flying reptiles. The story could be smoother, too. And it's particularly disappointing that after all is said and done, the cycle of fear and ignorance that propelled a centuries-long Viking-dragon conflict is placed in blame upon an external entity-- a "big bad"-- in the typical Hollywood storytelling fashion. I know this movie is about dragons, but come on people, let's get real.

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Shutter Island (Paramount)

Shutter Island opened nearly two months ago, but I didn't get a chance to write anything about it. Martin Scorsese is a master manipulator, employing stylish genre tactics toward artistic and emotional crescendos. His film is a spellbinding haunted house carnival ride, and its tracks run through long corridors, across jagged cliffs, and up spinning spiral staircases. Leonardo DiCaprio offers his typical devotion, but no one in the cast seems properly committed to the film's flashy theatrics-- except, perhaps, for Michelle Williams, but her character exists solely in memories anyway. But as more than fireworks and thrills, Shutter Island's message gets a bit jumbled. There's a pointed commentary on the disturbingly fine line between sanity and insanity, between our world and a world of madmen, somewhere in the film, but Scorsese allows misdirection and thriller movie conventions to overwhelm his narrative.

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The Runaways (Apparition)

The Runaways, the much ballyhooed rock-and-roll biopic starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart, has a strong sense of style and solid leading performances, but the film get lost along the over-trodden path of a conventional biographical narrative.

Read my full review of The Runaways at THE DAGGER!

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Alice in Wonderland (Disney)

Alice in Wonderland is a richly-imagined Gothic visual fantasy, as is typical of any Tim Burton production, but the decaying alternate universe depicted in the film lacks much of the humor and whimsy that made Lewis Carroll's story so appealing. A mostly inconsequential, dully haphazard narrative only adds to a dearth of excitement, and conflicts climax in Wonderland on a chessboard battlefield-- far from the most imaginative plot construct in a fantasy-adventure film. A deliriously toothy CGI Cheshire Cat and Helena Bonham Carter as the gloriously fussy Queen of Hearts offer delectable escapist absurdity, while Anne Hathaway is frozen and light years from home as the flighty White Queen. Johnny Depp, meanwhile, is top-billed as the Mad Hatter, but it seems that Depp himself is the one with screws loose-- his performance entirely lacking focus or purpose. Integration of Carroll's "Jabberwocky" poetic fable into the story is an inventive homage, but Alice emerges from Wonderland armed with a new-found confidence and moral finesse that even Carroll himself would deem a stretch. With respectable post-production 3D effects, and a theme song against the end credits, sung by Avril Lavigne, as aurally destructive as the screech of an approaching Jabberwocky.

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Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.)

Clash of the Titans fillets a bountiful concept-- a world of men at war with their omnipotent overlords-- into a generic, well-dressed Hollywood action-adventure epic wannabe. Borrowing heavily in perspective from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and in aesthetic from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Clash of the Titans most resembles the third Pirates entry: heavy on flash, light on story, and nearly humorless. Potentially interesting Greek mythology gets pushed aside for battles with giant Scorpions and a storyline wearing blinders-- a single, narrow path toward defeating the "Kraken"-- that shifts and swerves at will. Not that the story makes much sense even in its slim construction. Sam Worthington plays the brawny Perseus, a demigod-- a child of Zeus himself-- abandoned as a baby, who swears off the gods after his adopted father is killed during an attack by Hades. He joins a growing Greek resistance against the forces of Olympus, as Zeus and Hades conspire to destroy the mortal world. But then Zeus decides to aid his son instead-- except that the destruction of man is apparently a fate etched in stone. Or not-- just as Zeus detaches himself from the plot entirely. Awfully flaky for the ruler of the universe, I'd say. Not to mention that he or any one of the gods could have easily ended the entire ordeal with a wave of their hand: casting a lightning bolt, summoning a hoard of locusts, raising the seas to flood the Earth. No matter: logic need not apply to mythology-- even though Clash of the Titans hardly acknowledges its legendary roots (and no, I don't mean the 1981 original film). Costumes and lensing are admirable, but CGI effects are regrettable-- be it Hades vomiting lava into the mouth of an underling, a glittery-torsoed Zeus, or a Play-Doh sculpted Medusa. Warner Bros. hurriedly added 3D effects to capitalize on premium ticket prices, and the "hurriedly" aspect is unduly apparent. If you decide to see Clash of the Titans, which does somehow maintain a modest momentum and peak with cautious excitement, I implore that you stick with the two-dimensional version-- for the sake of your retinal health, and for the sake of demanding excellence in 3D filmmaking.

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Date Night (20th Century Fox)

Despite a narrative of inanity and a swath of lame jokes, Tina Fey and Steve Carell use their comedic charms to keep Date Night afloat. The film eventually abandons reality for improbable hilarity, but not nearly soon enough. With surprisingly strong turns by Mila Kunis and James Franco as a brashy-trashy pair of lovers, and Mark Wahlberg's dependably cut abdominals.

Read my full review of Date Night at THE DAGGER!

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Greenberg (Focus Features)

Greenberg presumes prolificity, but within its extremely limited world view, the film has little to offer that is relatable or comprehensible. Characters assume quirks to feign authenticity, and writer-director Noah Baumbach carefully deconstructs each of them in a hapless quest for significance. Ben Stiller is serviceable, while newcomer Greta Gerwig almost escapes Baumbach's jaws-of-life manipulative grip. But miserabilism over petty matters can only be so tolerable.

Read my full review of Greenberg at THE DAGGER!

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Dear John (Screen Gems/Sony)

Dear John opened more than two months ago, but even then I felt so unmoved to write anything about it. This is a simple story full of simple people talking simply and doing simple things. The obligatory dynamic spin involves a subplot about autism, but I could have been fooled into thinking that any or all of the characters in the film were mentally challenged. In Dear John's clumsy grasp, attempts to convey complicated issues-- lovers divided by war, emotional derangement between a father and son, and the aforementioned autism bit-- become tactless, insulting blunders. Thankfully, Amanda Seyfried displays enough resolve, and Channing Tatum enough sensitivity, to provide a charming pair of leading lovers. When the narrative spirals downward into unfounded emotional wreckage-- as per any Nicholas Sparks adaption-- one scene escapes saccharine destruction: Tatum's character finding redemption and new understanding in a tumultuous relationship with his father (played honorably though non-spectacularly by Richard Jenkins). This moment is both the film's salvation and ultimate undoing: an unexpected emotional highlight, but also a means to reconsider the focal love story-- the entire film, even-- as especially frivolous.

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The Wolfman (Universal)

At some point, I do believe that The Wolfman was a strong cinematic proposition: with a talented cast, a tried-and-true story, and the promise of mythology, forbidden romance, and classic horror thrills against a moonlit Gothic landscape. But the film was clearly reworked, re-shot, and re-edited so many times that it's missing any semblance of basic narrative consistency. Instead, scenes are spliced together-- unremarkable on their own accord-- without regard for natural storytelling rhythms. A few moments provide tempered excitement, climaxing on a cliff's edge with the Wolfman bearing down upon a frightened Emily Blunt. Blunt has the self-assuredness to transcend her patchwork surroundings, but on the whole, I worry for her career: Since bursting onto the scene as the last man woman standing next to the powerhouse Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Ms. Blunt has been continually stalled by her projects: one underwhelming film after the next. The film community is dying to honor her-- she somehow managed accolades and award recognition for the stodgy Young Victoria and the over-quirked, underdeveloped Sunshine Cleaning-- but patience is sure to wear thin. As for her costars in The Wolfman, Benicio Del Toro is in over his head, working feverishly but uselessly to hold the film together, while Anthony Hopkins overestimates the power of his presence as he haughtily imparts wisdom without so much as altering his expression. Art direction and costume design would be commendable were they not obscured by flat framing, frenetic edits, and lifeless lighting and lensing, with probable post-production processing to further darken the image. What continues to astound me, however, is that Hollywood has seemingly yet to design a werewolf that is actually scary and not just a sickly hybrid between man and beast or a growling bundle of fuzz. As the star of this alleged horror film, the Wolfman-- as with the entirety of The Wolfman-- isn't so horrifying after all.

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The Last Song (Disney)

The Last Song is nearly unwatchable and even less coherent, before imploding in soppy-sappy emotional fraud during its final act. Miley Cyrus is tragically inept as an angsty teenager reconnecting with her estranged father. As a marketable entity, Ms. Cyrus should stick with comedy, or maybe forgo the acting thing entirely, lest she should fully depreciate in value of the tween subculture-- or any culture, for that matter.

Read my full review of The Last Song at THE DAGGER!

Thoughts While Watching...

The Runaways

Kristen Stewart looks remarkably like a young Jodie Foster. From certain angles, Dakota Fanning displays physical shades of Meryl Streep. Will either fledgling actress achieve the level of success and acclaim of their venerable counterparts? (This is a good start!)

Date Night

Could NBC conceivably stage a 30 Rock/Office crossover episode? Maybe NBC decides to cut costs by doing business with a cheaper paper company? One from Scranton, PA, perhaps? Imagine Michael Scott trying to out-manage Jack Donaghy. And then trying to seduce Liz Lemon? And Liz finding herself oddly attracted to Andy, over whom she and Erin have an all-out, claws-out girl fight? Or Angela crossing paths with Jenna? Or Dwight exchanging wisdom with Tracy? Or Meredith exposing her cooch on live television? Come on, Santa. It's all I want this year.

Kick-Ass

There's nothing quite like a well-placed c-word!

Adam Tackles the Classics: A Streetcar Named Desire

Round two! From Shawshank to...

A Streetcar Named Desire

Note: This turned out to be a lot longer than I was expecting. Cutting corners somehow just seemed criminal for this one. Expect future installments to be more brief.

I don't care who you are or where you are-- you've heard of this movie. Streetcar lies in the canon of cinematic greats, with career-defining turns from Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. Adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams, Streetcar continues to dazzle audiences on the stage and garner awards and acclaim for its featured performers. Most recently, Rachel Weisz picked up an Olivier award (the British equivalent of a Tony) for playing leading lady Blanche Dubois, while her costar Ruth Wilson nabbed a supporting statue as Blanche's sister Stella.

So what did Adam think? Adam thought a lot of things. Streetcar gives you a lot to think about.

He-- err... I will say that I had a lot of problems with the film. In fact, I probably found more to criticize than to praise. That said, my overall impression of Streetcar is overwhelmingly positive. I have to believe that my hesitations are reflective of the thick and layered narrative out of which the film is constructed: in a less complex setting, I couldn't possibly find so much to think about. On the same token, Streetcar offers no fewer than two moments of pure cinematic bliss-- absolute filmmaking perfection-- in the deft hands of the astounding Vivien Leigh. So Streetcar is indeed a marvel in movie-making. It's just not, as many insist, a flawless one.

Let's get to it, shall we?

The Facts:

• Release date: September 15, 1981
• Directed by: Elia Kazan
• Written by: I'm not entirely sure. Tennesse Williams definitely wrote the original play and, in turn, the dialogue for the film. However, Oscar Saul is credited with the "adaptation." Perhaps he just tweaked things here and there for the screen version, while most of Williams' play remained intact?
• Starring: Vivien Leigh as "Blanche DuBois," Marlon Brando as "Stanley Kowalski," Kim Hunter as "Stella Kowalski," Karl Malden as "Harold 'Mitch' Mitchell"
• Below the line: Music by Alex North, Cinematography by Harry Stradling, Art Direction by Richard Day, Set Decoration by George James Hopkins
• Box Office: Heck if I knew! I found an $8 million figure at The Numbers, but no one seems to know for sure. Or maybe it's just that priceless!

Why is it a Classic?

• An astounding 12 Academy Awards nominations, including wins for Leigh, Malden, and Hunter, and Art Direction (Brando lost out to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen)
• It made Marlon Brando a star.
• Features Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando in career-defining roles. Their performances are considered among the best in cinema history.
• Everything I said in the intro: ubiquitous title, still winning awards, dense and layered narrative, etc.
• Quotables: "Stella!" and "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."
• Broke boundaries with its complicated themes and subtexts: abuse, rape, homosexuality, nymphomania, perversion, psychosis, and pedophilia are all in play. The MPAA had a conniption, forcing changes to the screenplay and even the final cut.

About that "conniption"...

TCM gives a great rundown. First, the MPAA found "three principal problems" in the script: (1) the "sex perversion" of Blanche's late husband (it is implied that he was gay); (2) Blanche's "nymphomania"; (3) the inference of rape. They even suggested alternative scenarios to remedy the perceived problems. (I wonder if they lobbied for a writing credit?) Williams was forced to rewrite parts of his script, including its pivotal ending. I'd say more, but I don't want to introduce too many spoilers. Head over to TCM for the full account. Fascinating stuff.

Let's talk about...

Layers. I'd say that Streetcar is like an onion, but I don't want to sully the film's intricacies with a tired cliche. How about a novel? A rich, involving novel-- where every turn of the page digs a little deeper. The stories in play are like snapshots: mere moments of longer histories carefully revealed throughout the film.

What we learn about the past enriches our understanding of the present: how Blanche and Stella were raised in the same environment but responded to their upbringings in polar opposite fashions; how both Stella and Stanley thrive on their tragic and abusive relationship; how Blanche's marriage was crafted with more deceit than that of her sister's, and how Blanche responded to her husband's death-- why she responded that way.

Blanche herself is a lady of layers: her complex personality as detailed and extravagant as the fancy clothes and adornments piled high in her suitcase. On the surface-- as she strives to appear-- she is a debutante, superstar: a woman of high class and higher society. Further down, we see how she is broken up over the loss of her husband and how she desperately seeks companionship. Further still, she is self-conscious, fearful, needy-- constantly requiring attention and affirmation. Below that, she is manipulative, a pathological liar, a fraud. Even further down, she lapses into complete delusion: unrestrained psychosis. And below that? Yes, there's even more: a suppressed identity-- a sexual deviant. A pedophile, perhaps?

That much is certainly up for interpretation. But what's so fascinating here is that in the creation of Blanche's character via Williams' script and Vivien Leigh's performance, all of these layers are in play at the same time. Be it with a quick line of dialogue or vocal inflection, Blanche's complexity is always apparent.

On the other hand, Stanley has virtually no layers at all. He is a pure and unapologetic simpleton, and a brilliant contrast to the multi-faceted Blanche.

Even the scenery feels constructed with layers. Stella and Stanley's hole-in-the-wall home melts into the street, and delusions intensify as you go deeper: every step inside is a step toward confinement, while salvation lies outside in the streets-- with fog and shadows splaying across every frame.

What's good?

VIVIEN FRICKIN' LEIGH. Not a second of screen time is wasted by this woman. She maximizes every expression and every line of speech to build and characterize Blanche DuBois. It is entirely because of her dedication that the film achieves two moments of pure genius.

During the first, Blanche lures a young door-to-door charity worker into the house. He, no older than 17, is completely enchanted by her. This is the only time that Blanche is unburdened by scrutiny or suspicion. She can behave as she pleases without hindrance or hesitation. What's so brilliant about this scene, and about Leigh's performance, is that every single layer of Blanche DuBois is visible at the exact same time: both her utmost charade as a high-class sophisticate and her ultimate truth as a love-starved partial-pedophile are in full bristling force.

The second moment of genius comes at the film's end. Just as Blanche existed without restraint in the previously described scene, here no layer of hers is able to thrive. Confronted now by Stanley, Stella, Mitch, and a medical team, Blanche has nowhere to turn. She implodes, convulsing as if being exorcised, as, cornered, she tries to escape herself. Flailing about is a common component of a dramatized nervous breakdown, but here, Leigh gives a startling purpose to her apex of insanity.

All of the leading players give solid performances, though only Kim Hunter as Stella comes close to Leigh's accomplishment. Though Stella is not nearly as complex as Blanche, Hunter gives a more consistent and humanized interpretation.

What else is good? Did I mention those layers?? Like a scrumptious, towering cake!

What's not so good?

A chronic problem with stage-to-screen adaptations, the film has several extended scenes of dialogue that feel overlong and tiresome. Considering the time period during which Streetcar was made, I don't hold this against the film as much, but as a motion picture, I wish we got to see a lot more of what we were being told. When it comes to film, it's always better to show rather than tell.

Otherwise, the narrative-- though built on rich and involving layers-- doesn't offer many surprises. I found myself anticipating nearly every event, even as the film's own characters acted in shock.

Though Vivien Leigh is complicated, profound, ingenious, she has a little trouble oscillating between mania and restraint. I found her unconvincing as she suddenly lashed out and then withdrew into timid gasps just as quickly. The same goes for Brando, whose wild tantrums and subsequent fits of pitiful wallowing felt too mechanical. Stanley himself didn't quite add up either: both a cavemannish brute and somehow astute enough to pick apart Blanche. Finally, Karl Malden is mostly generic as Blanche's potential beau Mitch. Malden doesn't give his character any dynamic twist. He's not gentle enough to be the ultimate nice guy, and he's not tough enough to stand out alongside Stanley. As such, Mitch lands somewhere close to vanilla.

Modern Match-Ups:

I could readily think of only one:

Rachel Getting Married. Sisterly bonds run deep. In both films, one sister responds and adjusts to the other's dysfunctions (and in each, the "stable" sister is the supporting player). Ultimately, no matter the injustice, family is family-- and family is more important than anything else. Streetcar adds an extra dynamic by giving the stable sister her own set of flaws, whereas Rachel in Rachel Getting Married is somewhat dubiously saintly.

Final Rating:

It's not perfect, but it's awfully profound. And, yes indeed, a deservable "classic."

Next Up: The magnum opus of that prolific pedophile Roman Polanski, Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

Neglecting the Blog

Please don't call Blogger Protection Services on me!

I promise I will be back to full blogging duties soon!

Coming Soon: More classics, including Streetcar, Citizen Kane, and Chinatown. Reviews for new movies like The Runaways and Date Night. Commercial culture: analyzing TV, web, and print advertisements. The Golden Apple Awards: my picks for the best of 2009 in film. And third-person coverage (i.e. I won't be there... boo/frown!) of the Cannes Film Festival!

So stay frickin' tuned!! Geesh.