SMSM ‘09 No. 22: Whatever Works

The knee jerk reaction to any of the marketing for Woody Allen’s Whatever Works is to assume that Allen cast Larry David in the lead role as a mildly updated proxy for Allen himself. But putting aside the obvious bald, neurotic Jewy-ness of both men, the connection proves tenuous. Allen’s lead characters tend to be neurotic, self deprecating wiseacres. In Whatever Works, David is a neurotic, self-aggrandizing wiseacre. Huge difference.

There’s an inherent contradiction in David’s character. Boris (yep, that’s really his name) is an award winning academic who fancies himself above all of the so-called “microbes” who inhabit his daily life. Yet he’s obsessive compulsive, suicidal, and uncomfortable in his own skin. His mantra, culled from life experience, is “whatever works.” As in, any way you can be happy in this life, make it happen. It’s a completely trite sentiment from the mouth of a character who’s otherwise incredibly pessimistic and self removed from society. Shockingly, in the hands of David, a non-actor, Boris almost works. It makes sense that Allen himself wouldn’t be right for the part, but Boris is still very much a product of Allen’s brain. He knows how to make a character like this tick, and it’s enough to make Whatever Works totally bearable.

But Allen is perfectly adept at writing overeducated New Yorkers of a certain age. That’s not a problem. Allen just doesn’t understand anyone else.

The rest of the principal characters in Whatever Works are southerners, each introduced to big scary New York at different points in the film. First, Evan Rachel Wood, a 21-year-old runaway, who clings to David as some kind of intellectual god, put on earth to correct her weirdly wholesome red state upbringing. David and Wood eventually marry, though Allen mercifully presents their relationship as only mildly affectionate and practically sexless. Later, we meet Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr., Wood’s separated parents, who each find some kind of ridiculous redemption through the magic of Manhattan and David’s perversely strong sphere of influence.

Wood, Begley, and Clarkson all come off as disingenuous Southern gothic pastiche. Wood’s character is further burdened with the curse of being young, an object for Allen’s fetishization and mockery, but without any depth, her motivations whimsical but wholly unnatural.

If not for the fact that the old man still has a knack for glib one liners, Whatever Works wouldn’t work at all. There’s still a little bit of humor let in the tank, and it’s enough to make you long for the Allen of old. But that guy won’t be back. You see, Boris’s motto is double sided. Allen used to be a great comedic mind, and now he just settles for whatever works. (Told you fuckers I went to headline writing school; I also took a seminar on hack closing lines.)

Film: Whatever Works
Director: Woody Allen
Stars: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley, Jr.

Viewing situation: Weekday matinee, small crowd; standard projection
My grade (out of 10): 5
Rotten Tomatoes average: 45%

Next up: Bruno

Summer Movie Suicide Mission ’09: Seeing them all, all summer long. Follow Summer Movie Suicide Mission on Twitter: @SMSM09. Check out the full list to date here.

SMSM ‘09 No. 21: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

As you’ll note below, I’ve given Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the latest prestige picture from visionary auteur Michael Bay, a generous grade. Yes, this movie is fucking stupid. If movies had IQs, Revenge of the Fallen would rate somewhere in what experts have called the “I Am Sam range.”

You see, Revenge of the Fallen is not as much an entertainment product as it is a bludgeoning, with big blunt instruments that go by the name of Autobots and Decepticons. Bay’s movie is stupid, but (being that he’s a genius at being stupid) he knows that. It works in his movie’s favor.

I won’t even really get into any particulars because there are no particulars to speak of. Basically, earth is the victim of another uprising by the Decepticon army, seeking to reanimate (or something) an old fallen leader of theirs, whose name, appropriately, is Fallen. Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox, along with the Autobots, the American military (because really, what other military is there?), and a completely out of place John Turturro, band together to fight the fuckers. At some point Optimus Prime “dies” (this despite being a robot, and thus completely capable of repair), and is brought back to life by some kind of fucking pixie dust that LeBeouf found in an old robot gravesite. Great pyramids are destroyed, big metal things clang together, and Fox wanders for days in the desert without a shower, yet remains remarkably well made-up.

I’ve been joking that when I left my screening of Revenge of the Fallen, I lost 20 percent of my long-term memory and had been rendered illiterate. This is beyond hyperbolic, of course, but if any director could make that happen, it’s Bay. I think this is part of his mission statement.

Which is, perversely, why I feel the need to defend his movie to a certain degree. There’s a certain art in this kind of stupidity. I think of a movie like The Proposal (which, along with Wolverine and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, is part of a trifecta of unparalleled awfulness I’ve been privy to this summer). While I concede that this is kind of like comparing arsenic and cyanide, The Proposal is as awful as it is due to lack of ambition, and a willingness to slip right in to an existing paradigm without making any effort to advance the form. Bay’s film has no sense of comfort; it’s ambitious to a fault. Not intellectually, certainly, or aesthetically. But when Bay challenged fellow shitty auteur McG to a dick measuring contest, he’d given us the most appropriate metaphor for his filmmaking I can think of. Bay wants you to see everything that he’s packing, and he lets it all hang out; sometimes, though, its in the form of a pair of wrecking balls that hang off of a giant robot like Truck Nuts. The sheer BIG-ness of Revenge of the Fallen is its lone saving grace. It’s quite appropriate that it’s the most popular movie of the year.

Of course, it is important to remember that Bay’s film is fucking putrid. There is absolutely no depth of plot or character. There is no motivation for any action. It features two robots who are borderline racist characters (and “borderline” is being generous). Sometimes the perspective spins 360 degrees for an uncomfortable period of time. Shia LeBeouf is in it.

But is it the worst movie of the year, or even, the worst movie ever? Not even close. It’s the sequel to a movie based on a cartoon based on a line of action figures. What else would you expect?

Film: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Director: Michael Bay
Stars: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson

Viewing situation: Weekday matinee, small crowd (the showing was delayed due to a break in at the theater the night before; though, to make it up to us, only one trailer screened before it: the preview for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen); digital projection
My grade (out of 10): 2
Rotten Tomatoes average: 19%

Next up: Whatever Works

Summer Movie Suicide Mission ’09: Seeing them all, all summer long. Follow Summer Movie Suicide Mission on Twitter: @SMSM09. Check out the full list to date here.