Seven Psychopaths, Argo and The Life of Pi: Three Reviews
I was reading the critic’s picks for 2012 in New York Magazine last night, and realized that despite being an art critic myself (fledgling), the only choices I identified with were in movies and television. Go figure. By identified with I mean, “knew what they were referencing,” but it’s been a very long week, and I am very fatigued.
You can read the list here. But before you listen to the real critics, here’s some little blurbs from me about movies I’ve seen in the past few weeks, but haven’t had a chance to write about on this blog.
Life Of Pi
A lot of people are saying this is the best movie of the year. It brings up some interesting—and not very revolutionary—philosophical ideas. Do animals have souls? What do humans do to trick themselves into emotionally surviving in the aftermath of horrible tragedies without stabbing themselves in the eye with a pencil? (This topic was extensively covered by theorists post-Holocaust, many of which I read for graduate school. Send me a note, and I’ll send you a list of happy-go-lucky essays to read about bearing witness and erasing memory.) Are Indians the best at magic realism? If the answer is yes, then can I blame magic realism for my own eye-opening—and challenging—experience confronting reality in India?
In case you didn’t read the book, the story is about a young boy whose family owns a zoo in India. As you can imagine, it is a place of great wonders, with many beautiful creatures. But times, they are a’ changing, and his family has to leave in order to avoid political and religious strife in their region. So they board a Japanese freight ship with all of the animals, and head out to Canada, where they are to settle.
Along the way, they encounter a horrible storm, and the ship crashes. The boy ends up on a boat with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and a tiger. If you know anything about motherfucking hyenas, you’ll know what happens next. But I’ll just say it’s not pretty.
I can’t really discuss more without ruining the entire plot. But I will say that the film is surprisingly disturbing. For some reason, I have no problem watching Jax Teller mow down a motorcycle gang of Mayans with a machine gun on “Sons of Anarchy”; but watching an orangutan get hurt, even a digitally rendered one, brought me to tears. Wracking sobs, in fact.
To kind of go off topic, I absolutely believe that animals have “souls,” whatever that means. At the very least, they are more than just creatures with stomachs and survival instincts. Most people who own a dog know this, so I’m not sure why it was such a big question in the movie. Not to mention that orangutans are genetically so close to human beings, that sometimes I’m afraid I’m related to one. For instance, orangutans are solitary beings who don’t like coming down from trees; so totally me. In any case, orangutans are being annihilated in Southeast Asia. To learn more about how you can help them, visit Leap Spiral, an organization run by gorgeous women in Borneo.
The film is quite magical; but not as magical as, say, “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Or my favorite “mystical things happen on the ocean” flick, “The White Meadows.” You’ll probably enjoy it, but it’s not a thing of greatness, in my humble opinion.
Argo
There’s not a ton to be said about Argo. It’s a very good movie until the very end, when it gets completely ridiculous. Basically, it’s about six (?) embassy workers in Iran who escape during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, and are rescued by a CIA operative, Ben Affleck, who extradites them by pretending that he is a movie producer, and they are his crew. It sounds totally outlandish, but it’s a true story.
The movie was pretty entertaining. It will probably win some awards. I’d hit it with Ben Affleck. Etc.
What I’m more interested in right now is why so many movies are being made in Hollywood about making movies in Hollywood. Argo spends a lot of time in Tehran with the idiotic—and frankly, unlikeable—American workers, but an equal amount of time in Los Angeles with the two movie producers—John Goodman and Alan Arkin—who set up the whole fake operation. I can only imagine that they weren’t that large a part of the operation, but the movie loves to tell their story. It’s irritatingly masturbatory. Which brings me to my next review…
Seven Psychopaths
So, Seven Psychopaths stars Christopher Walken, among other actors, which immediately qualifies it as the best movie of the year. Not only is Christopher Walken hilarious and weird, he also looks exactly like my grandfather, which means that I have an intense emotional attachment to him. My grandfather, it is said, was schizophrenic.
The movie is written by Martin McDonagh, a playwright whom I first heard about in 2006, when I read a profile on him in The New Yorker. (On a side note, I’m shocked that I remember anything from 2006.) Basically, he’s this Irish guy who was living on the dole, watching a lot of television, when he realized he could express his sick mind in the TEA-AT-ER. He then went on to write a number of brilliant—but very violent—plays including “Pillowman” and “The Lieutenant.” Then, he began writing and directing movies, the most well-known of which is “In Bruges,” which stars Colin Farrell. Most recently, he was the man behind “Seven Psychopaths.” I personally think he’s pretty awesome.
“Seven Psychopaths” ties in to Argo because it’s also a movie about making a movie; or more specifically, about writing a screenplay, which is clearly a Herculean effort of such great bravery and toil that it needs to be immortalized. Right guys?
The lead character is Marty, played by Colin Farrell. He is a screenwriter no doubt based on Martin McDonagh, who is stuck on what his next movie should be about. His best friend is Billy, played by Sam Rockwell, who serves as something of a wingman and cheerleader. He is constantly bringing Marty stories to write about, as well as monitoring his drinking, which is problematic. Surprisingly, considering he’s Irish.
In the end, it turns out that Billy is the biggest psychopath of all, which makes for a nice aside about how people who tell other people not to drink are usually more morally reprehensible than the alcoholics themselves. Ding ding. Alcoholism.
Along the way, they pick up Hans, played by Christopher Walken. I’m not even going to try to explain the plot, because it gets very convoluted, but let’s just say that it involves the Amish, peyote, Woody Harrelson, Joshua Tree, Harry Dean Stanton, a lot of rabbits, and a tiny white dog. In other words, it’s pure brilliance.
The female characters in the movie, played by Abbie Cornish and Olga Kurylenko, are so flatly rendered they might as well be cardboard cutouts. It’s problematic.
But the film is actually entertaining, and quite clever. Basically, Hans and Billy go on an adventure to help Marty finish his screenplay about “Seven Psychopaths.” Along the way, the screenplay comes to life. As things are written; they happen. Until the final scene, when Marty, all of his friends dead, hands in the first draft of the script.
I think it’s probably the best movie to be made about making movies in recent years—and there have been a number of them, including “Hitchcock,” what will no doubt be a piece of crap, and “My Week With Marilyn.”
But if the film industry really can’t think of better stories to tell than ones about the making of stories in the past, then the Internet really has destroyed creativity. More likely, however, it’s just the masturbatory reflex of a system reigned over by male egos.
To conclude, I think I liked Seven Psychopaths best of all the three movies, maybe because I have a thing for Martin McDonagh, but ultimately, I enjoyed watching all of them.