Psychoanalysis and Bachelorettes

“Bridesmaids” Review

By Bill Caton

                Do I really dislike all “buddy” movies about girls? Do I have some problem with comedies in which girls “behave badly”? I certainly hope not. Unlike Dr. Freud I am unable to psychoanalyze myself, so I can never be sure of my motivation. But I really believe that I am capable of watching a movie and making a rational decision concerning its badness.
                And so, we come to this: “Bridesmaids” is not good. It simply does not work. The jokes are dull and strained and the actors seem caught in some jittery dream from which they wake unfulfilled and uneasy. After watching this and “The Hangover II” I have come to realize how difficult and special is a good comedy.

                “Bridesmaids” is co-written and starred in by Kristen Wiig (Annie the best friend of the bride). It has elements of an excellent comedy: jealousy among friends old and new (Helen, Rose Byrne, is a rival to Annie’s long-time friendship with the bride, Lillian, Maya Rudolph), some dead-on observations (a house full of adolescent boys is “full of semen”), and some interesting physical comedy (Lillian, wearing an expensive wedding gown, sinks to the street as if in despair, but in fact suffers from uncontrollable diarrhea). Trust me, the diarrhea/fitting scene, while it does not work well overall, makes for a memorable image as the bride falls short of the bathroom that is just across the street.

                The story is this: Lillian is going to get married, her life-long best friend Annie is down on her luck and tries to buck up to do the right thing as the maid of honor. Enter the wealthy new friend Helen and you have a (silly) rivalry for friendship that sets the entire comedy in motion from an endless speech scene at the engagement party to a sabotaged trip to Vegas. Annie even finds a love interest along the way. The story includes three other friends as well, but they hardly seem worth mentioning. Except perhaps Megan (Melissa McCarthy) who is large, bizarre and yet somehow an excellent judge of character. There are also Annie’s British roommates who could pass for tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee.

                “Bridesmaids” is frustrating because it could have been good. The concept is excellent and the elements are there. They just seem cobbled together incomplete and the entire effort appears on screen as a disjointed idea for a film. This movie appears to have never left the stage where writers riff drunkenly on a subject, laughing at truths uncovered extemporaneously while the bar crowd hums in the background.

                Ann and I saw this movie with Beth and Joe O’Donnell (publisher of “b Metro”). Beth did not like the move because she found it too bawdy.  I did not like it because it was ill conceived and poorly executed. In fact, remembering Dr. Freud, I am convinced that anyone who really liked this movie should have their head examined.

Gilligan in Bangkok

The Hangover II

By Bill Caton

                I did not think “The Hangover II” was good. In fact, I thought it was bad. There are several reasons – I found it too raunchy and gratuitously offensive (check out the remake of the iconic photograph of the Vietnamese general executing the Viet Cong), and, while it purports to be a sequel to the original, it really is not. Instead, it is a flawed remake of an excellent movie.

                This is the second remake I have seen in recent months, “Arthur” being the first. I did not like the remake of “Arthur” either, but I could not tell if I disliked it because it was bad or because I could not give it a fair shake considering the original holds a special place for me. That question did not plague me with “The Hangover II.”

                Nowhere in this remake where we find the boys staggering through the streets of Bangkok is anything as funny as Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) leaping nude from a car trunk to attack the hangover victims with a tire iron. Or, for that matter watching Alan (Zach Galifianakis) stagger toward the child who tazed him in the face. By the way, I thought the tire iron scene perfectly captured the surprise and misery of a bad hangover.

                The setting in “The Hangover II” is meaner and dirtier and the characters appear to remain tired from their adventure in Las Vegas. The actors seem hung over as they stagger through this remake. Alan is more of a petulant child, much less sympathetic and interesting, and Stu’s (Ed Helms) trist with a shemale prostitute holds none of the sweetness of his encounter with a prostitute in the first movie that seemed to awaken him to the fact he was responsible for the misery of his marriage.

                I suppose if you saw “The Hangover” you will be unable to fight the urge to see this remake. And I must say that I laughed out loud in spots during “II.” But when you get home you will probably have to watch the original again just to cleanse your mind.

                As I look back on “The Hangover II” I am reminded of a novelty song I once heard where some smartass sang the lyrics to “Gilligan’s Island” to the tune of “Stairway to Heaven.” The idea of the song sounded funny to me but immediately after I heard it I wished had not listened. That three hour tour remains stuck in my head years later. Of course, someone posted a video of this abomination on Youtube if you want to subject yourself to it Gilligan in hell.               

Slow Motion Suicide

By Bill Caton

My eyes opened and in that eternity before complete consciousness I became aware of the warm light in the room. Dust swirled in sunbeams, and shadows of tree leaves moved over the covers .

As I rose from bed, I heard the squeaking, creaking, hissing of my mother ironing. I walked down the hall, she saw me, put the iron down and spoke.

This is no mere memory. That summer childhood moment has texture, the physical nature of a dream. It is an elemental experience that is beyond simple explanation. I belonged there in that early morning.

I mention this experience because for me it represents comfort and peace – and the innocence that makes such moments possible. Seeing that innocence in our little ones is bitter-sweet because we know that while their lives will become rich and full as they mature, they will lose much of the joyous abandon of youth.

Last year, Ann and I visited Sandestin in June with the grandchildren and of course we took them to the beach to play. McKenzie was out in the surf, Brodie sat building in the sand and Caroline took my hand to slip out into the waves. The Gulf of Mexico spread out blue and limitless before us, its waves rushing onto the white sand.

Caroline soon learned that the waves sneak from the distance and present themselves in a burst. She hurled her little body up and out and squealed when the water pushed against her. I laughed with her and only my tight grip kept her from plunging into the sea.

We left the water and as we made our way back to the umbrella I realized we were climbing over a burm that had been built to catch the oil that was out there killing the ocean and would inevitably wash ashore like rot oozing from a sore.

So, we punched a hole in the Earth and poison gushed from it. The fine folks at BP droned on about caps, junk shots and relief wells. They told us they were responsible and they would fix this problem. They bought full page advertisements in newspapers throughout the Southeast. They treated that abomination like a public relations problem. And, of course, it worked. Dead dolphins wash up and there is no evidence the oil caused that. And all that oil? Gone. Miraculously. And the money to pay for the clean-up and suffering? Only a fraction has been spent.

But this was no public relations problem. And BP was not solely responsible for it. This was the result of a horrendous crime we perpetrated on nature in our zeal to gorge ourselves on money, on the trinkets we collect.

This slow-motion suicide attempt leads me to doubts and questions I have never before contemplated. For instance I always took for granted an oft-quoted verse from Ecclesiastes: “A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the Earth remains forever.” Really?

In retrospect, that time spent watching the children saddens me because I know that they did not listen to the dull news reports, they did not see the internet video of the filth blasting from the bowels of the earth. They still trusted that their Mommy and Daddy and Granny and Poppy were doing things right, were providing them with a place to live, a place where they belong.

Now it is Memorial Day a year later, the summer season has begun, the beach looks clean and the bars are packed. And we have resumed our ignorant march.

Knowing What's Real

By Bill Caton

Slightly more than a year ago I sat with my wife, Ann, in a surgery recovery room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. As she smiled and talked I became aware that this wonderful woman was giving me the rarest of gifts: she was simply glad to be with me in that moment.

It didn’t matter to her that she was in recovery after major surgery, that pain surged and retreated from her tired body like ocean waves and that her swollen hands thwarted her repeated attempts to slide her wedding rings onto her finger.

It didn’t matter to me that I had spent nearly 12 fearful hours in the hospital waiting room after a nearly sleepless night.

We talked and told our story to the nurse: how we met, movies we had seen, the travails of picking a restaurant for supper, what our children were doing, and, of course, the grandchildren.

The nurse smiled and asked polite questions. But this conversation – although conducted in the third person -- was not for the nurse. Ann and I were letting each other know we were in the world, we were together and we were in love. In love after all the years, all the illness, all the fear, all the pain. After all the suffering that comes with inhabiting this creation.

Of course, we have done more than deal with illness. Our time together has been and continues to be a time of joy. So, I am hard pressed to think of a more joyful time than those moments when I was first able to see her face after such a long, difficult day

Three weeks after her surgery, Ann asked me if she was talking a lot when she was in recovery. She was worried about what she might have said because she did not remember anything about that time immediately after the surgery. I told her she was fine, she made sense, she responded appropriately to questions.

So, Ann does not remember those hours when she asked for me until the nurse finally relented and let me sit with her. Ann does not remember looking at me and smiling as I walked across that cruelly lit room.

I have often wondered what is real if our perception can be so readily altered by drugs. The drugs certainly hindered Ann’s memory of our post-surgical encounter, but they did not change her. We had that special time together. Ann does not remember it, but that does not matter. The love that has grown between us is elemental, so basic that it defines us. Drugs stopped her from remembering, but they did not stop her from being her.

I struggle to think of our relationship in terms of memories. Somehow this great life seems to have been lived entirely in the present.

And so we come to this Valentine’s Day, which will take its place in a lengthening single file line of such days. I know that this holiday will be the best one.

Because it is this one. And because I know what is real.

Murder and the Meaning of Life

"The American" Review

By Bill Caton

I wondered for a while, as I watched “The American,” for whom the George Clooney character worked. Some government agency? An international conglomerate willing to kill for power and money? Then I realized that this man’s employer – for that matter, his existence – should not be of great concern.

Yet “The American” is incredibly suspenseful. A jittery, gum-chewing Jack/Edward (the secretive multi-named Clooney character) remains in motion, always working at his job, always working at staying alive. And the question remains: Why?

The movie opens with Jack/Edward finding himself in a scrape with a couple of assassins while walking in the snow with a female “friend.” He is alert, paranoid, nervous, twitchy, sensing danger like a mouse in a room with a cat. An extremely dangerous mouse. Jack/Edward’s priorities are made clear early.

After a conversation with his boss/handler Pavel (Johan Leysen) Jack/Edward finds himself in a small Italian mountain town with Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), a knowing priest with a past, and Clara (Violante Placido), the sweetest whore-with-a-heart-of-gold you ever saw. The town seems to be decaying back into the beautiful countryside from which it was built.

As always, Pavlo has a job for Jack/Edward, this time to make a weapon for a beautiful assassin named Mathilda (Thelka Reutlan). People show up to kill Jack/Edward, and we begin to suspect that forces with long tentacles are arrayed against him. Clara is in a position to see a tattoo and calls Jack/Edward Mr. Butterfly. When another woman used that name I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

The suspense builds like a song in “The American.” The character’s skill, intensity and focus rise to the level of greatness. This man could be Mozart or De Vinci, but the use of his talent is so absolutely without merit, without reason that he seems unworthy to occupy space.

Father Benedetto -- being a man who has lived in this world, has made mistakes and who has earned the right to return gently to the Earth -- cares for Jack/Edward. He delivers a message in a garden about God’s love and his certainty that – after observing such a wretched life as the hero’s – there is a hell because Jack/Edward lives in it. Jack/Edward – who is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light because of inklings of change -- replies that he has had cause to do everything he has done. Cause?

“The American” is a great movie. And as great movies often do, its central mystery remains unsolved:  Why does a man so dead fight so hard to stay alive?

Me? I'm Nobody

This is, and will be, a blog about movies – and, occasionally other stuff. But first I must explain: I don’t know squat about movie history or the art of movie making. I have never viewed a movie frame-by-frame in a class, I have never attempted to write a screen play, nor have I taken acting lessons.

Movies are part of the fabric of my life. My grandmother loved movies; my father loved movies. My grandmother – who dyed her hair white at an early age – twice weekly took my father on the journey from their house deep in the woods of Elmore County into Montgomery to sit in the dark in the cavernous, air conditioned movie palaces to watch stories of great lives play out before them. She always wore heels and pearls – to match that movie star hair -- on these sojourns to a grander life.

My father often told of an embarrassing moment in the segregated South when he was sent into a “colored” movie theater to retrieve twins who had come to town to the movies with my grandmother and him. The movie my grandmother and father were watching ended early and my father simply walked into the “colored” theater, stood in front of the screen as the twins’ movie played, and yelled, “Tootie and Flootie come on, its time to go.” Tootie and Flootie got up and walked out with my father – a child himself – into the heat and sun of a Montgomery summer afternoon.

My parents are now gone as is my brother, who was killed in a car accident at the age of 28. But my sons and my nephew – who was four months old when my brother was killed – all share a bond through movies. We talk a particular language where bits of dialogue dropped in conversation mean more to us than we can readily explain. We have all seen Used Cars, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Magnificent Seven, Scrooged, Army of Darkness, Raiders of the Lost Ark and many others enough times to remember chunks of dialogue that easily add irony, humor – texture -- to any conversation for those in the know.

Movies are also serious business for me. I enjoy them on some level I cannot fully understand. Raging Bull and A Clockwork Orange disturbed me, made me mad. In Harm’s Way and Saving Private Ryan inspired me although they were equally as violent. The Magnificent Seven, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Silverado and The Unforgiven left me pondering life in ways that only westerns can. Nosferatu and Metropolis are beautiful to watch as are 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Last of The Mohicans and The Godfather. Out of Africa and Citizen Cane are simply magnificent; Being There is the greatest comedy I have ever seen (although Used Cars, The Hangover and Ruthless People are pretty damned good).

And I really, really, really like My Name Is Nobody, Enter The Dragon, Circle of Iron, Blade Runner, The Highlander and Pulp Fiction.

So why do we sit in the dark and care about the pictures? Are movies our shadows on the cave wall? We will leave that question for “reviewers.” What I do know is that I like movies … and so do you. The great thing for me is that I get to go for free.

But you must understand, you will not read reviews of all movies in release in Birmingham in this blog. I’ll see some movies, review them some, discuss them a lot. I may even mention whether the over-priced theater candy was stale. But there are some movies – mostly teen romances and horror flicks – that I will not see.

So, if you see one you like, tell us about it.

Turns Out Mermaids Are Tough

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Turns Out Mermaids Are Tough

By Bill Caton

Went to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” the other night and got a bit confused. Was I watching Johnny Depp (as pirate Jack Sparrow) and Penelope Cruz (as his female counterpart Angelica) or Harrison Ford (as Indiana Jones) and Karen Allen (as Marion)?

That confusion led to larger questions: Do chases on ghost ships and finding silver chalices to utilize the power of the mythical Fountain of Youth add up to digging in the desert for the Arc of the Covenant and taking a leap of faith to find Jesus’ grail? If one pirate captain disintegrates because of his dearth of character is that the same as watching a Nazi dissolve screaming after thinking Jesus cared to drink from a rich man’s cup?

I think so … I guess. And because of that, I also think “Pirates” is a fun movie to watch. A witty hero and heroine, an evil villain and a battered but energetic supporting cast with plenty of motivation makes for a good movie. At least it did in most of the Indiana Jones offerings. And like the Indiana Jones installments, “Pirates” takes the time to laugh at itself. Which is good, because any rational person has to laugh at this preposterous entertainment.

Ann and I certainly laughed a lot. But we also enjoyed watching the actors rush headlong through the story, apparently (and miraculously, I suppose) only mildly bored with this third reprisal of their roles in the franchise.

“Pirates” takes advantage of the time-honored formula that there are supernatural forces in the world – one of which might even be God – and men are tested in the crucible where everything but the content of one’s heart is melted away.  I think the overarching lesson here might be that we are to tend to our business and leave well enough alone when it comes to the power that turns the wheel of creation. After all, Oedipus should never have tempted fate and Arthur and his boys should have let sleeping grails lie.

                All that being said, we learned some important things in Pirates, I think, not the least of which is Blackbeard’s (Ian McShane) revelation that “mermaids are tough.”