Lip Service: Across the Universe

[Apropos of nothing, except that I caught this on TV and found myself familiarly puzzled, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

To look at the complete collection of songs by The Beatles is to appreciate especially two things: the music’s excellence and its diversity. In this respect, the lads from Liverpool remain in a class all their own. The Beatles made hits out of both poppy cute material and thoughtful somber fare, out of tunes just over 2 minutes long and others than span more than 7, out of songs straightforward and unflinchingly literal and others so psychedelically strange that they seem to make sense only to those trying to prove their psychedelic strangeness. That’s why if you’re Julie Taymor, creating a musical drama featuring only Beatles hits, you’ve got a lot of material to work with. And that’s why it’s strange that Across the Universe feels as if its backed into a creative corner.

With real-world sets and several fantastical effects sequences, the movie is visually ambitious, but it’s pedestrian at the core. It plucks hits from all over the Beatles’ anthology, and yet here the ingredients dictate the main course rather than the other way around. Across the Universe has a plot, yes, but the movie doesn’t really have a story it wants to tell. Instead it has music it wants to play and it goes in search of video to support it. As a result, Across the Universe’s music works differently than most soundtracks in that the tunes don’t provide a deeper meaning to the visuals but instead provide the entire meaning. Whereas other movies could interchange numerous songs to fit the mood of a scene, here it’s the scene that changes. The songs stay.

And so it is that Across the Universe succeeds in numerous moments but not as a cohesive whole. In theory, Taymor’s film, created with screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, is about the 1960s, but that’s too easy – only slightly more refined than saying the movie is about life. The plot is none too original and in fact very Hair-y. And beyond that, one could say that the Beatles’ music was already about the 60s, leaving nothing to be gained from a cinematic adaptation. Still, Taymor tries, spinning a story about an English chap named Jude (Jim Sturgess) who falls for a good American girl named Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) amid times of trouble. There are other characters, too, with names equally inspired by Beatles lyrics (Prudence, JoJo, Mr. Kite), but they matter not. They exist solely to help Taymor incorporate some Beatles hits that would otherwise fit awkwardly in her love tale. (Because could any of us have taken this love story seriously if it included Jude coming on to Lucy by saying that he was the Walrus, goo goo g’joob? Nuff said.)

But in a movie already off-kilter with either too much dialogue between songs or not enough (I’m honestly not sure which), these fringe characters disrupt any semblance of momentum. Near the beginning, Prudence (T.V. Carpio), a teenage lesbian, provides a fresh rendition of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” that suggests Across the Universe will be brave and daring, but then the character, not to mention the edgy approach, is practically abandoned. A while later, Prudence resurfaces long enough to lock herself in a closet so that her friends can plead with her to come out to play, to greet the brand new day, and, well, you know the rest. But so what? The character is a nothing. She might as well exist as a dream sequence.

Even more problematic are Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy), a pair of bandmates turned lovers turned angry ex-lovers. At one point, JoJo provides a soulful playing of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” but that’s the only scene for either member of the duo that works. Plainly put, there’s no lazier way to work songs into a musical than to assign them to a band. So when Sadie launches into “Oh! Darling” or “Helter Skelter,” time drags as we’re left with no choice but to remember how much better the Beatles performed those tunes while also imagining the countless artists other than Fuchs that we’d rather hear covering the material.

Which brings us, actually, to Bono, who doesn’t sing “Helter Skelter” (even though his band, U2, recorded it) and to Joe Cocker, who doesn’t sing “A Little Help From My Friends” (even though too many kids brought up on The Wonder Years probably think it was his song in the first place). Both make cameos as, respectively, Dr. Robert and, according to IMDb, “Bum, Pimp, Hippie.” Bono even gets to act a bit, in addition to singing “I Am the Walrus,” and is darn good (I think). Cocker, though, merely changes costumes for his singing of “Come Together,” and it’s questionable which is more frightening: how at home Cocker appears as a bum, or how off-putting it his to hear Cocker’s voice coming from a dark-skinned pimp (Cocker in makeup). But these are just diversions, pleasant and not.

I’d be remiss to finish this review without mentioning Sturgess and Wood, as both leads turn in talented performances that give the movie its best moments. Sturgess has a silly mop-like hairstyle that appears to be wearing him, but his voice is pleasant and pure, and he aces “Girl,” “All My Loving” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” Wood, on the other hand, gets off to a rocky start lip-synching to a voice that doesn’t seem to match in the awkwardly edited “Hold Me Tight,” but later she erases any doubts about the quality of her pipes with a poignant “If I Fell.” (Just to be clear, that is Wood singing throughout; and a reported 90 percent of the film’s songs were recorded live during filming, only to be dubbed later anyway, I presume.)

Across the Universe is a movie I wanted to love, but I couldn’t make the leap. In ways, it’s a rudimentary Moulin Rouge. Yet while the Beatles’ offerings here are varied enough that borrowing exclusively from the one band never grows tedious, the literal interpretation leaves much to be desired. Rather than highlighting the boundless magic of its music, Across the Universe makes Beatles tunes seem paint-by-number. Moulin Rouge uses some of the same songs to greater effect because it’s a movie about people so in love that they can’t help but sing. Across the Universe proves yet again that the Beatles identified with that feeling, yet Taymor seems to be learning. This is a musical spun of the head that needed to come from the heart.

Weekly Rant: Major League Managing

Weather permitting (and as I write this, it appears the weather will permit), today I will make my last trip to the ballpark of the 2009 season. On tap today, the hometown Washington Nationals, losers of eight of their last 10, will attempt to avoid loss No. 103 while going against the Atlanta Braves. The baseball doesn’t figure to be pretty, but I’m certain to have a good time anyway, if only because I’ll be enjoying the company of a buddy who has the misfortune of being not only a partial season ticket holder for the Nats but also a diehard fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates (57-96 this year, and without a winning season since 1992, in case you were wondering). Anyone who can keep going to the yard despite supporting a pair of teams that will combine for 200 losses is a true baseball fan worth spending time with. Not to mention that the last time we went to a game together, my buddy dumped a full box of popcorn on the guy in front of him. So there’s always that.

But this isn’t a post about Major League Baseball. It’s a post about Major League and baseball. This year’s MLB season is lacking the kind of down-to-the-wire race that’s at the heart of the sports action in David S. Ward’s 1989 comedy, yet whenever a season comes to a close I find myself remembering Major League’s climactic contest pitting the villainous New York Yankees against the loveable Cleveland Indians, the latter team featuring a roster of outcasts, has-beens and never-weres. It’s a win-or-go-home game that’s packed with both drama and spirit (thank you, Bob Uecker). It’s also a game that highlights some absolutely inexplicable managing by Indians skipper Lou Brown (James Gammon).

If you’ve seen the film (and you shouldn’t read further if you haven’t), you know that it all comes down to a tie game, 2-2, in the bottom of the ninth. The fleet-footed leadoff batter, Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes), legs out an infield hit to get on base. Then Hayes, the flamboyant speedster who nails a pair of black gloves to his bedroom wall each time he gets a stolen base, successfully swipes second. This is good, smart baseball. What isn’t so smart is this: The guy at the plate? That would be Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger). You know, the plodding catcher with good power and bad knees.

What the fuck is he doing batting in the 2 hole? What business does he have batting right behind the best base-stealing threat in the league? It doesn’t make sense. Nor does it seem to make sense that the Indians don’t appear to send their No. 3 hitter to the on-deck circle after Taylor strides to the plate, apparently clairvoyant enough to realize that the game will end with Taylor’s at-bat one way or the other. And, of course, it does. But not without more curiosity.

See, what you remember is that Taylor strides to the plate, has an ah-ha moment and decides that rather than swing away against “The Duke,” a hard-throwing relief pitcher against whom Taylor is 0-12, he should surprise the Yankees by laying down a bunt. Believe it or not, this isn’t an entirely indefensible move. The Indians are the home team, so if they fail to score the game will go to extra innings. Thus you don’t want to pinch hit for your catcher in that situation if you can avoid it. On top of that, if Taylor can leg out the bunt, taking advantage of the unsuspecting defense, he’ll move Hayes up to third base, creating the possibility to win the game on a wild pitch or squeeze play. One-time San Francisco Giants all-star shortstop Rich Aurilia had an incredibly good track record of reaching first on surprise drag bunts. I’ve seen it work in person. So if that’s the best way to get Taylor on base and move Hayes to third, sure, go for it.

But that’s not the plan. Taylor has something grander in mind. He signals to Brown, who signals to the third base coach, who signals to Hayes at second base, who signals back that he understands the play call and then grins at the audacity of it. What Taylor has in mind is a bunt-and-run with the intent to score Hayes from second. Hayes will leave second base early as if to straight steal, Taylor will lay down the bunt and, if it all works, Taylor will draw the throw to first and Hayes will keep chugging around third to score on the play if Taylor reaches safely. Brilliant, right? Daring, right? Sure. Except...

After Taylor calls his shot, The Duke responds by throwing at Taylor’s head. Hayes? He goes nowhere. Doesn’t flinch. According to the play call, remember, Hayes is supposed to be chugging for third. Instead, as if predicting that Taylor will get some chin music, he stays right there. Huh?

From this we must conclude that Hayes read the catcher’s signs or The Duke’s mind. Because it’s that or believe that when Taylor signaled the play he called for the bunt-and-run on the second pitch of the at-bat, and I don’t think teams have a sign for that. What I do think is that the Indians don’t have a prosperous future with Lou Brown as manager. Batting the slow-footed catcher second? Deciding games based on the mind-reading ability of your leadoff man? That’s the kind of decision making that made Brown the manager of Tire World. If the Indians are smart, they’ll retain the core of their young team, find a new catcher and fire Lou Brown. Otherwise they’re destined to look like the Washington Nationals. And trust me, that ain't pretty.

Soul Mates: It Might Get Loud and The September Issue

The bright red T-shirt-and-pants ensemble that Jack White frequently sported on stage to serve the signature look of his "brother-and-sister" band The White Stripes bore more resemblance to a glossy Target ad than to something you’d see featured on the cover of a fashion magazine. Likewise, beyond her ubiquitous celebrity sunglasses, the only reason you’d look at Vogue editor Anna Wintour and think about rock and roll music would be because her slender neck resembles that of an electric guitar. White and Wintour, fashion conscious though they are, belong to entirely different worlds, which is why you wouldn’t expect a pair of documentaries featuring these icons to feel deeply similar. And yet they do.

Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud and R.J. Cutler’s The September Issue are movies about dissimilar subjects that (quite accidentally) manage to serve as tremendous companion pieces to one another by sharing the same spirit. Both documentaries are about artists. It Might Get Loud brings together White (of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather), Led Zepplin’s Jimmy Page and U2’s The Edge for a powwow in which the legendary electric guitarists from different generations discuss the origins of their trademark sounds. The September Issue, meanwhile, observes Wintour and, just as often, creative director Grace Coddington as they (and others) work tirelessly to create a phonebook-sized edition of Vogue so artful that it doesn’t just influence the fashion industry but makes a fashion statement all by itself. But the true symmetry of these films comes from a deeper place. At their most compelling, these documentaries aren’t just profiles of artists but examinations of the relationship between the artists and their art. With a light touch, these films demonstrate that whatever a song or a photo spread might mean to us, they mean even more to their authors. If you’ve ever created something according to your passions, these films have an intoxicating allure.

The more straightforward of the two docs is It Might Get Loud. Using a staged three-man summit and jam session as its unifying core, Guggenheim’s film spends equal time diverging into the back stories of Page, The Edge and White in an effort to trace the roots of their musical artistry. Uncovered are surprisingly alike tales of improvised instruments, influential albums and dumb luck. What becomes clear is that these men weren’t enticed by fame but by musical obsession – the quest for a sound. It consumed them, and thus that obsession receives Guggenheim’s equally undivided attention. Tempting as it might have been to get Page to dish on Robert Plant or have The Edge describe touring with Bono, Guggenheim passes on the typical rock star plotlines involving the discovery of fame or commercial success; instead he follows the music. This isn’t a film about how White “made it” as a musician but about why a rather obscure Son House song made White want to make music in the first place.

The affability of these men when talking about their love affair with music is a huge part of the film’s charm. The magical moments include Page playing air guitar to Link Wray’s “Rumble,” his face glowing like a 12-year-old boy just back from coaxing a kiss out of the pretty girl in school, the personal significance of the song unmistakable. Equally enchanting is a moment during the jam session when Page rips into the Zepplin classic “Whole Lotta Love” and The Edge and White let the façade of cool rock-star detachment crack, unable suppress a pair of gleeful Christmas morning smiles. Or how about the moment when The Edge plays long forgotten demo tapes for U2 hits like “Where the Streets Have No Name” and listens to the band trying to find itself, shaking his head with the amusement of someone who looks at a high school yearbook photo and marvels at all that was still to be defined. If on stage these guitarists exude a sense of divine inspiration, It Might Get Loud reveals how much effort – blissful, gritty effort – went into finding those perfect notes.

The same goes for The September Issue, which turns the annual mega edition of Vogue inside out to show us its seams. If the average consumer pages through Vogue and sees a declaration of what Wintour thinks is “in,” Cutler’s film suggests that perhaps even more than that it’s a brave declaration of Wintour’s self-worth. Each September is a chance for Wintour to reassert her dominance both in the fashion and publishing worlds. The September edition of Vogue must be both the definitive statement on style and the utmost in fashion magazine publishing or else Wintour won’t have lived up to her enormous, self-made expectations. That’s a respectful observation, to be clear, not a criticism. Satirized by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, Wintour’s icy demeanor is the stuff of legend, but Cutler gives her personality the context it deserves. Just like Jack White plays the guitar until his fingers bleed, Wintour has no capacity for surrender.

She is not made of stone, however. In various talking-head interviews and in shots of Wintour interacting with her daughter, Cutler finds a softer side. There are no tearful confessions worthy of Barbara Walters or Oprah Winfrey, mind you. Wintour’s aura of impenetrability doesn’t crack like Anton Ego’s at the end of Ratatouille. But there’s no denying how much Vogue means to Wintour, and her few glimpses of vulnerability are as touching as her unblinking bluntness can be awkward. Wintour is impenetrable, yes, but she’s also naked; what we see is what we get. That’s probably why Coddington, a former model turned fashion photography visionary who is arguably the star of this documentary, continues to work with her. To earn Wintour’s stamp of approval is to earn her respect. And if the compliment comes from Wintour, it can’t be bullshit.

Cutler’s documentary is a curious thing because as much as he seems to want to take a fly-on-the-wall approach within Vogue headquarters, folks are always talking to the camera like it’s Jiminy Cricket. (Maybe it’s a fashion thing – people drawn to camera lenses like moths to the flame, to stick with the developing insect theme.) Those hoping Cutler’s inside-access camera would capture some of the oft-lampooned diva-esque drama of the fashion world will be largely disappointed. The documentary has moments of modest drama, and there’s one diva so lost in the fashion fantasy that he plays tennis in a scarf, but for the most part The September Issue is a documentation of old-fashioned hard work. Even in the fashion industry, it turns out, the business side of the magic factory is covered in elbow grease.

Thus, it’s a bit ironic that both It Might Get Loud and The September Issue feel effortless almost to a fault. By today’s trends, they are underproduced, short on the sort of “look at me” flamboyance that announces a documentary as a profound piece of art. Guggenheim and Cutler have created movies that are loose, casual and entirely without malice, and, actually, that’s a good thing. Regardless of misconceptions to the contrary, documentaries needn’t be as rigid as science projects or as eviscerating as criminal investigations. These Guggenheim and Cutler docs are modest, and proudly so. These are films more determined to showcase artists than to draw attention to their own artistry.

Weekly Rant: Memo to Front Desk Guy at Nakatomi Plaza

[Still on the comeback trail, The Cooler will soon be back to reviewing movies. In the meantime, I'm introducing a new feature, the Weekly Rant, which might or might not turn out to be weekly but will always be a rant. Readers should expect rants to vary significantly in length, style and seriousness. Rant No. 1 takes issue with a mostly irrelevant scene in 1988’s Die Hard.]

IMPORTANT MEMO
To: Front Desk Guy
From: Nakatomi Plaza Facilities Management
Date: December 31, 1988

Dear Sir,

In reviewing the vast footage of last week’s hostage takeover at Nakatomi Plaza, which was captured by the numerous security cameras at our state-of-the-art facility, we have become aware of several infractions committed by our staff. The first involves you.

On the night of December 24, 1988, you were working the front desk at Nakatomi Plaza when Mr. John McClane entered the building after being dropped off by a black limousine. Careful review of the footage shows that Mr. McClane didn’t introduce himself, so you had no way of knowing that he was a New York detective or that he possessed the kind of savvy and grit that would allow him to single-handedly thwart a terrorist plot and become a national hero in less than 24 hours. Nonetheless we are deeply disappointed with the lack of respect provided to Mr. McClane.

The video records show that after Mr. McClane greeted you with a “Hi,” you responded with an appropriate “Good evening.” You even leaned forward slightly as if to demonstrate to Mr. McClane that you were interested and invested in whatever business brought him to Nakatomi Plaza. This was all very good and according to the Nakatomi manual. However, when Mr. McClane informed you that he was “here to see Holly McClane,” you didn’t attempt to personally help him but instead extended your pencil toward our high-tech computer directory, giving no thought to the scratches you might leave on the screen, and said “Just type it in there.” Frame-by-frame review of the tape suggests that this was your plan all along, and that you leaned toward Mr. McClane not to seem welcoming but to put the computer at arm’s length so you wouldn’t have to experience the inconvenience of personally dealing with a guest, even though that’s your job.

Sir, I shouldn’t have to remind you that this is Nakatomi Plaza, not the DMV. We do not direct our guests to “just type it in.” This does not hold up with our proud tradition of outstanding customer service. We might have been able to look the other way in this case given that Mr. McClane told you he was looking for Holly McClane, when our computer system had the businesswoman in question identified as Holly Gennaro. But after Mr. McClane punched his way through our computer directory, with you pretending to be too busy to assist him, all it took was for Mr. McClane to say “30th floor” in order for you to announce that the person he was looking for must be at the party of our dearly departed Nakatomi president Joseph Takagi, noting that “they’re the only ones left in the building.”

Let’s ignore for the moment that you informed a stranger that only one of the 40 floors of Nakatomi Plaza was currently occupied. We will give you the benefit of the doubt that you sensed that Mr. McClane was not a petty thief hoping to roam the unoccupied floors to steal office supplies (though it must be noted that later events would demonstrate your threat-recognition abilities to be less than perfect). What upsets us most is that you wouldn’t inform Mr. McClane from the beginning that he should proceed to the 30th floor to rendezvous with Mrs. McClane, instead forcing him to through some pointless interaction with the computer directory in what we can only assume was a pathetic demonstration of authority.

This, sir, is not the Nakatomi way. We understand that you were probably bitter to be working on Christmas Eve, and it has come to our attention that fellow Nakatomi workers were teasing you with Night Court jokes earlier in the evening because of your resemblance to John Larroquette. (Disciplinary action will be taken against them as well.) But these factors do not excuse your behavior. However proud you might be of our top-of-the-line computer system, which is now shot to shit, by the way, no thanks to Hans Gruber, we cannot accept your behavior, which failed in terms of both customer service and building security.

We therefore move to terminate you from your position at Nakatomi Plaza. Of course, our security footage also shows that Gruber’s henchmen saw fit to terminate you completely. To this we say, good riddance, you smug, useless prick.

Moviegoing Memories: You Had to Be There

They say of umpires, referees and offensive linemen that success is found in going unnoticed. The same goes for movie audiences. As any regular moviegoer knows, it only takes one asshole – with a cellphone, a grunting tic or a need to emote to everyone within 30 feet – to spoil an otherwise enjoyable cinematic experience or to make a tedious movie completely insufferable. Sins range from texting (Hey, iPhone Dude, how about turning off your highbeams!) to showing off one’s comprehension of the plot (Actually, buddy, you’re not as smart as you think, because I figured out he was Keyser Soze 15 minutes ago.) to acting as if the theater is a high school cafeteria (So, kids, you paid $10 to sit in a dark theater and entirely ignore the movie, why?). Yet every now and then a movie audience can enhance the theatrical experience. Usually it’s by being completely quiet – creating an exhilarating, palpable stillness – but not always.

As a jumpstart to The Cooler’s return to blogging action (after a real-world job induced quiet period), here are my three most prized “you had to be there” audience experiences:


Four Rooms
If you read Part I of The Conversations: Quentin Tarantino, you know this story. It was Christmas Break of my freshman year of college, December 1995. I was home for the holidays, which just meant leaving one college town (Pullman, Washington) for another (Eugene, Oregon). It was a Friday night and the local theater was packed with teens and twentysomethings who, not quite a year removed from the debut of Pulp Fiction, were so hungry for a fresh bite of Tarantino that we were more than happy to sit through vignettes by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell and Robert Rodriguez in order to get our fix. Happy until the movie started, that is.

If you’ve seen Four Rooms, featuring four stories unfolding at a Los Angeles hotel on New Year’s Eve, starring Tim Roth as a Wile E. Coyote-esque bellhop named Ted, you know it’s one of the most uneven films of the past 25 years. The opening vignette by Anders, The Missing Ingredient, involves a coven of witches, a quest for semen and an extended topless performance by Ione Sky, and yet somehow it’s incredibly boring. The second chapter, Rockwell’s The Wrong Man, about some unusual sexual role play between a husband and wife, isn’t much better. Roth’s bellhop spends much of the Rockwell episode at gunpoint, and about midway through I could sense the audience was hoping that someone would pull the trigger and kill Ted the bellhop, thereby ending our Four Rooms misery two rooms in. Instead, it went on.

To describe the audience as restless at the movie’s midpoint would be to undersell it. I don’t recall anyone yelling at the screen in frustration, but I also don’t recall anyone being silent. People were mumbling, groaning, huffing and puffing. People were shifting in their chairs, shuffling their feet. I don’t remember anyone leaving early, but I also can’t imagine that anyone failed to consider it. You could almost hear people thinking of all the other things they could be doing on a Friday night. Stuffed with fidgety hormonal bodies, the theater was warm and the heat from our frustration was making the temperature rise even more.

Then the unthinkable happened. Along came Rodriguez’s The Misbehavers, starring a flamboyant Antonio Banderas as the father of two mischievous kids left alone in their hotel room but under the responsibility of the well-paid Ted the bellhop. Hijinks ensue. There’s a hypodermic needle, a dead body, a lit cigarette and then a floor-to-ceiling inferno. It goes from cute to clever to chuckle-worthy to crazy-funny in about 10 minutes. The audience, which had pretty much given up, was slapped back into consciousness. Suddenly were weren’t just watching, we were invested. People laughed. People cheered. (I know, I know: that’s a cliché. But people really did laugh and cheer. What do you want me to do?) People celebrated. We celebrated that we were enjoying ourselves, that Friday night wasn’t ruined, that there might be hope for this movie after all. And Tarantino was yet to come!

Thus you can imagine our surprise when Tarantino arrived with a whimper, or, more accurately, a whine. As Ted enters the penthouse suite, he is greeted by Tarantino’s Chester who – this shouldn’t have been a surprise – talks, talks and talks, and tries to play cool. It was entertaining enough as compared to The Missing Ingredient, but QT was losing his audience. We’d come to see Tarantino filmmaking not Tarantino himself. A rambunctious crowd fell silent and the energy was cooled by the air conditioning. The bubble of excitement created by The Misbehavers had burst. The fun was over. Or was it?

As Tarantino’s The Man From Hollywood shifted into a story about a bet involving a car, a Zippo lighter, a cleaver, a pinky finger and $1000 in cash, the audience perked up again. We were invested again. We leaned forward in our seats again. Tarantino hadn’t lost his audience, after all. QT knew that after going over the edge on Rodriguez’s adrenaline rush, we were bound to crash. Tarantino cushioned the fall. We were in his grasp. We just didn’t know it until Tarantino began to tighten his grip.

When The Man From Hollywood climaxed with a sudden burst of cleaver-powered frenzy, the theater erupted. Truly, the crowd applauded as if at a live sporting event, as if we were part of the action – because that night we were. I’ve seen Four Rooms since on VHS and DVD and it’s hard to believe this is the movie responsible for one of my most priceless theatergoing experiences. But then maybe that’s part of the beauty.



Scream 2
Yep, you read that right. Not Scream. Scream 2. Once again, it was December and I was in college, but winter break hadn’t yet arrived. That’s crucial. The savvy Hollywood marketers were offering free screenings for Scream 2 on various college campuses, and one of them landed in Pullman. I’d seen Scream with friends when it came out, and we all had a good time with it, but I had no intention of seeing Scream 2. Not ever, and certainly not on the night of the free screening. See, it was finals week at Washington State, and, well, let’s just say I was a little behind on studying.

My friends, on the other hand, were not. They thought seeing Scream 2 sounded like the ideal study break. And so two of my roommates from the previous year pestered me until I broke down and agreed to escort them to the movie. We bundled up and walked to the theater, me complaining the whole way about how I really shouldn’t be doing this, that I had too much to do, that my friends owed me one. Soon we were filing into the packed theater, lucky to find three seats together at a one-screen movie-lovers’ hell that had once been a post office. Not only did this place lack stadium seating (still a luxury in 1997), it was the kind of place where people in the back of the theater had to hunch over if crawling out of their row during the movie in order to avoid being silhouetted on the screen. Meanwhile, there were no cup holders on the armrests because the seats were so close together that there were hardly any armrests.

But we weren’t there for luxury. We were there to blow off a little steam, though I sensed I wasn’t the only one in the theater who was a little preoccupied with everything else he should be doing for the next two hours. And then the movie started: It began with a scene in which a group of college kids walk to see a scary movie, one of the kids complaining that it’s finals week and he should be home studying. The symmetry wasn’t a mistake, nor was it lost on the audience. The room let out a warm knowing laugh, and from there Scream 2 had us.

Over the years I’ve attended various (midnight) screenings of classic or cult films in which folks in the theater try to get into the participatory spirit, shouting out their favorite lines or applauding the arrival of the hero, but this Scream 2 viewing marks the only time I’ve been in an authentically participatory audience. People screamed. People laughed. People clapped. But mostly people yelled at the screen, mocking the stupidity of the characters who were always walking toward certain death. True, we were supposed to do this; this was the intended response. But we weren’t satisfying an expectation. We weren’t rats stepping on a lever and hoping for more food. We got into the spirit of the movie because the movie got into us. It was organic. Unforced. Totally genuine. Even I got into it, shouting at the screen with everyone else in a room so loud I could hardly hear myself, never mind the dialogue.

If you want to know what this experience was like, watch Jarhead and take note of the scene in which a theater full of Marines goes ape-shit watching Apocalypse Now. It was like that.



Schindler’s List
I presume I don’t need to tell you: there was no cheering at this screening. On this December night, back in 1993, no one was restless. No one laughed. Save for the kid in my row who got up midway through, presumably to use the bathroom, I don’t remember anyone getting up from their seat during the 195-minute film. But here’s what I do remember, what I’ll never forget: The movie ended. The credits rolled. The lights came back on. Slowly, so slowly, people gathered their things to leave. Two rows in front of me, I watched a woman dabbing the tears off her face as she tried to put on her coat and shuffle down her row at the same time. Without meaning to, her husband had left her about 30 feet behind, and there she was standing mostly alone, lightly crying.

Then it happened. From the other end of the row, another woman walked up, reached out her hand and touched the woman’s shoulder. They shared a nod first. Then a smile. And then they hugged.

Two strangers. Two people who had done nothing more than share a movie in the general vicinity of one another comforted one another. And I thought: This is why I love movies.


So, Cooler readers, what are some of your most cherished “you had to be there” experiences at the movies, moments when the audience left as much of an impression as the film itself?

The Conversations: Quentin Tarantino (Part II)

Curious what I thought of Inglourious Basterds? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, well, the wait is over. After the Kill Bill-esque cliffhanger of Part I, Part II of The Conversations: Quentin Tarantino is now live at The House Next Door. As promised, in this chapter Ed Howard and I go into detail about Tarantino’s latest film. In the days since Ed and I stopped collaborating on the piece it’s occurred to me how many details we never explored. Love it or loath it, you must agree that Inglourious Basterds provides much to discuss.

So please read Part II add to the conversation over at The House Next Door!

Previous Editions of The Conversations:

David Fincher (January 2009)
Mulholland Dr. (February 2009)
Overlooked - Part I: Undertow (March 2009)
Overlooked - Part II: Solaris (March 2009)
Star Trek (May 2009)
Werner Herzog (May 2009)
Errol Morris (July 2009)
Michael Mann (August 2009)
Quentin Tarantino - Part I (August 2009)