This Ticket limits our liability. Read It.

 By reading the enclosed, Reader (hereby referred to as Reader) agrees to imdemnify Batman (hereby referred to as Writer) from the following:

 Resolved: that these are not movie reviews, and therefore Writer reserves all rights to spoil every plot turn, line of dialog, and gratuitous Matthew McConaughey casting that he sees fit, not only with the movie in question, but with any movie he has seen, heard about it, or simply made up, even if Reader really, really was going to see that one, but couldn't figure out how the Netflix queue works.

 Resolved: that these are not reviews, Reader will not hold Writer responsible if Writer does not convey if a movie is Good (hereby defined as Good) or Bad (hereby also defined as Good). This is largely because Writer isn't sure either.

I think I mentioned how certain great films ruin cinema forever, and it occurs to me that Evil Dead 2 is one such example.  Not that people copied the frenetic style and non-stop gag after gag pace; not even Mr. Sam Raimi could do that.  No, they always copy the stupid parts, and in this case, it was Mr. Raimi’s willingness to admit that The Evil Dead, while pretty good, just needed a quick do-over.  And with the extra fifty bucks some idiot gave him, he may have called it a sequel, but in making it, he just strapped a camera to a 2X4 and remade 1 as the masterpiece we know as 2.   Thus the requel was born.  And no, I’m not sure if anyone has come up with that port-manteau before, and you know I’m not going to check, in case it was copyrighted by the people who are bringing you the remake of Citizen Kane, written, directed and starring Ms. Gwyneth Paltrow, told in chronological order, from one perspective.  And no that isn’t a real thing; I send it thusly into the zeitgeist so that it might become one.  Future you, you’re welcome.  Also, don’t cross the street on October 11, 2035.  Or you’ll get bitten by a zombie Gwenyth Paltrow.

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It is a strange phenomenon indeed that we pay our hard earned money to cinemas to make us tense for a few hours, only to relieve that tension.  The explanation for this is like buying a lottery ticket; there’s a chance, however slim that may be in this year of 2011, that the relief will stay with you for a while, that it will resonate in the form of mood, sort of like a drug that makes you feel like crap, but with a fantastic hangover.  When I walked out of Beginners, for example, I was cheerful, and the mood stayed with me.  Hello, inexplicable traffic jam!  Thank you for giving me time to consider how wonderful my life is!  And thank you for slowing me down: you can’t be too careful these days!  But it’s not entirely like a lottery either, because when you pick and scratch, the worst case scenario is nothing.  If you lose, no one reaches across the counter and hits you in the face.  Even so, such a scenario would be infinitely preferable to the psychic equivalent of having seen Cowboys and Aliens, the worst film so far in the worst year so far (and that includes Green Hornet, the parts I was awake for that is).  Walking out, I wanted to kill everyone.  All right, fine, more than usual.  Get out my way, crippled orphan!  I don’t actually need to be anywhere right now, but I need to be there right now.  Oh now you want to hold the door open for me?  How dare you?

Suddenly I was in that frame of mind where everything in the world is someone else’s fault.  Reflecting upon it, as I bum-rushed an old lady to catch the train, I thought about the combination of the deeply unsympathetic characters and a line that recurs twice: ‘It’s not your fault’.  This was anathema to me: it was your fault (the crazy one talking out loud at your cinema, that’s me, by the way).  You’re an asshole.  You acted like an asshole, and something bad happened.  And, having no idea if this applies to the characters, the filmmakers or both, I plunged forward.  You want to be psychoanalyzed?  Then we’re going to delve into that guilt, or more specifically, the idea that you don’t deserve it.  My diagnosis?  This is a film is made by,  and so about, and is somehow turning me into one of a growing number of sociopaths.  That may seem like a personal attack – to say that you lack the capacity to feel compassion for others, see yourself as the center of the universe and yet remain miraculously free of responsibility for your own actions – but my interest is purely therapeutic.   The label ‘sociopath’ is not meant to hurt your feelings; it’s meant to hurt your feelings the way a therapist would. (more…)

Recently, I was baffled, as were you, by the transmission of Mr. Todd Haynes’ terrifyingly inert Mildred Pierce. I can understand wanting to remake it after reading the book and realizing ‘it’s different from the movie’, though, this shock reminds me, as pretty much everything does, of driving.How often have I screamed out, after having been narrowly missed by a driver/car that doesn’t understand that roads are social: ‘Other people on planet!Yes, it was shocking.When I was five!’That Ida sleeps with Mildred’s paramour in the book and not in the movie was shocking.In the forties.And it is with great credit towards to the 1946 Michael Curtiz version that I actually remember the movie with this ending because it managed 1) to suggest it effectively, and 2) not bore and confuse me to death.

Halfway through, unable to stop watching because, well, of all the naked people (I have to give Mr. Haynes his due for that), and with the hope that, you know, something would happen, I looked up ‘Mildred Pie…’, and was quickly pleased to find Google filling in ‘rce hbo review’.If that’s not democracy…ah, right, that’s not actually democracy.Never mind.In any case, I no longer felt alone: others were reaching out as I was, yearning to know: Was this being tolerated?Why was this being tolerated?Who was tolerating it?How can they be stopped short of violence?How can they be stopped inclusive of violence?

One of the top hits was Mr. Stephen King’s feh review, which talked about ‘performance’ (bleech) as if it can be surgically removed from story, character, tone, and, most importantly, tedium.It can’t, by the way.But Mr. King’s toleration of this ennui-fest, possibly through his (admittedly justified) love of Ms. Winslet, betrayed his own ethos when he quoted  Mr. Elmore Leonard (and I’m embarrassed to say that this was the first time I had come across this dictum.Elmore Leonard should teach writing to everybody.We need someone to ignore when we’re making terrible movies).Mr. Leonard said, and Mr. King chose to ignore him when speaking of Mildred Pierce:’leave out the boring parts.’

Mr. Haynes, if you want to see how this is done, see Drive Angry.And see it in 3D.

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