Classic Movie Review Dazed and Confused

Dazed and Confused (1993) 

Directed by Richard Linklater 

Written by Richard Linklater 

Starring Wiley Wiggins, Jason London, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck 

Release Date September 24th, 1993 

Published September 25th, 2023 

Dazed and Confused captured a moment in time, a transition period for American culture. The last vestiges of the Baby Boom giving way to the start of Generation X. It's the end of the last great period of rock n'roll before it gave way to disco and eventually, pop music. The film is set just before AIDS arrived to rob the world of so many, many souls, both through the death of so many, and the many children who would never be born due to the fear of death by sexual activity. Dazed and Confused lives in this calm before the next storm. 

In 1976 we had a little distance from the turmoil of the 1960s and we hadn't yet seen the rise of the Evil Empire, a.k.a The Reagan administration. 1976 was a brief moment where we were allowed to breathe and relax and wait for the next trauma to visit the nation. Vietnam is a recent wound but one that we have a couple years distance from. Like I said, 1976 is a unique moment in time. Dazed and Confused reflects this moment by showing us a relatable but deeply disaffected group of young people, unmoored, exhausted, and just seeking a little break from the outside world via the various available intoxicants. 

The story, such as it is, of Dazed and Confused falls primarily on Randall 'Pink' Floyd (Jason London), the star Quarterback of his Texas High School. Pink is growing more and more disenchanted with the role of golden boy. When the Head Football Coach sends out a letter that is players must sign a drug and alcohol free pledge, Pink decides that he won't say it. This comes from two points of view, one, he just wants to see what the coaches reaction will be. The other point of view is that Randall doesn't want to play football anymore. Anyone with just a passing knowledge of High School Football in Texas knows that this is not decision that will go over well. 

The second track of story follows the incoming freshman of the school. Wiley Wiggins stars in Dazed and Confused as Mitch Kramer. Mitch becomes the prime target of the new senior class as part of an annual rite of passage in this small Texas town. Because Mitch has an older sister who is going to be a senior, the senior boys decide to punish Mitch extra hard. The tradition is such that new seniors, those going into the final year of High School in the fall, must spend the summer making sure to 'initiate' the incoming freshman. 

The initiation involves wooden paddles and spanking. It's a painful initiation into High School life and one the seniors relish as they've been through it themselves and are eager for the chance to become the aggressors. This is no more true for anyone as it is for now two time senior, O'Banion (Ben Affleck). The most loud and nasty of the senior bullies, classmates theorize that O'Banion failed his senior year just so he could come back and paddle freshman for one more year before he heads off to some dead end job. Ben Affleck invest O'Banion with a blank eyed stare that communicates both a depth of fear of the future and a deep sense of masculine insecurity that underlines the homo-erotic aspect of this bizarre rite of passage. 

Freshman girls don't get off easy either, though thankfully, they are free of spankings. For the incoming Freshman girls, the punishment appears to be voluntary. A group of girls who wish to be accepted as popular by the senior girls submit themselves to being forced to roll around on the ground and be covered in condiments before they are thrown into the back of a truck and driven thru a car wash. It's a different kind of ritual, for sure, one embodied by Sabrina (Christin Hinojosa), a freshman who was selected by one of the seniors and ends up being invited to travel with the Senior girls to various places and parties on this first night of summer. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Beau is Afraid

Beau is Afraid (2023) 

Directed by Ari Aster

Written by Ari Aster 

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Patti Lupone 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

What if what Beau sees as the world around is really his internal life, externalized? This is the kind of question that toys with you when you watch a film from the remarkable, ungodly talented writer-director Ari Aster. The director of the twin masterworks Hereditary and Midsommar, Aster is a masterfully detailed and thorough director with a tone for tone and atmosphere that may just be unmatched in modern cinema. The thesis statement for my claim is Beau is Afraid, a film where atmosphere and tone stand in for just about anything you might find familiar as a film narrative. 

Beau is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as Beau, a stunted, edgy, angst-riddled mess of a human being. Beau inhabits a universe where a criminal known as Stab-Man wanders the streets nude and stabbing people while building an astonishing body count. The streets are littered with filthy oddballs and just plain corpses strewn here and there by a society of haves and have nots we will only ever get a minor sense of. The point is not to make a direct comment about man's inhumanity to man, but to offer you the sight and let you make up your own mind about what is presented. 

Besides, the corpses in the street and Stab-Man aren't really things that Beau is interested, unless he's leaping over a corpse to escape the Stab-Man, and then, suddenly, these things really, really matter. The story kicks off when Beau's mother, played by the legendary Patti Lupone, is expecting Beau to get on a plane to come and see her. We've learned that Beau is not high on the prospect of seeing his mother. He tells his therapist, Dr. Jeremy, that though he loves his mother, the visit fills him with the kind of anxiety that must be treated by a high end drug that MUST be taken with water. 

You don't want to know what might happen if you take these pills without water. Regardless, as Beau is getting ready to leave his apartment, his bags and keys are stolen. Being a spineless simp for his mother's withheld affections, Beau tells Mom that he will still try and make his plane, even as he no longer has a bag or keys to his apartment, or his boarding pass, and she feigns telling him that its fine if he doesn't come, with the strong subtext being that he doesn't love her because he's not coming. 

Beau is a character to whom life happens. Beau doesn't have experiences, he has experiences inflicted upon him by an uncompromising world bent on making him do things he doesn't want to do. It's all related to his strange upbringing, the weird and uncompromising relationship with his mother, the absence of his father, and a bizarre relationship to women with deep oedipal roots and a self-loathing based fear that is not expressed but that Beau wears like a second skin. 

The trip to see his mother is the beginning of a journey for Beau that will somehow combine elements of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Homer's Odyssey. If that combination elements, shot through the incredibly prismatic mind of Ari Aster, appeals to you, Beau is Afraid is a must see movie. If however, you are not completely on board for some of the weirdest, most shocking, and distressing moments ever brought to the big screen, then, perhaps, this not the movie for you. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The Eye

The Eye (2003) 

Directed by David Moreau, Xavier Palud

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey

Release Date February 1st, 2008

Published February 3rd, 2008 

Growing slowly into her star power, Jessica Alba steps up to the solo lead role in the Japanese horror remake The Eye. Alba is hoping to find the same kind of mainstream success that Naomi Watts and Sarah Michele Geller found after each topped the box office in their respective remakes, The Ring and The Grudge. Alba has the advantage of having the best source material of the three, the original The Eye was a creeptastic freakout. The dumbed down American version, clipped for mass PG 13 consumption, fails to do justice to the source material but doesn't stink nearly as bad as The Ring or The Grudge, financial success never an indicator of artistic success.

Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) has been blind since a childhood accident at the age of five. Now, more than 20 years later, her sight is going to be restored. A donar retina has been found and the surgery perfected to apply it and give her sight for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, with her new sight comes the visions and memories of the former owner of the eyes. According to scientific studies, there are documented cases of transplant patients who take on the personal habits of the people who donated to them. The case most cited is of a marathoner who received a donated liver from a smoker. After the surgery she started smoking.

Nevertheless, her sister Helen (Parker Posey) and her new doctor Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) both believe she is cracking up. Maybe she is but we believe her because we see everything she sees.

David Moreaux and Xavier Palud co-directed The Eye from Sebastian Gutierrez' watered down, PG 13 script. In typically sub-genre fashion Moreaux and Palud are pigs at the Hollywood trough, willingly dumbing down their work for the benefit of their bank accounts. Gee guys, why not just make another The Ring movie, or another The Grudge. We don't confuse audiences by challenging them too much. The Eye is close enough that the audience you think is rather pea brained anyway will get the close association with those other The.... horror flicks, but you don't want to confuse the children.

Kids 13 to 17 I understand that you are desperate for entertainment but the more you are willing to watch movies like The Grudge, The Ring and The Eye, the more Hollywood will make them. These producers really think you are stupid. And you aren't helping change that. You've seen the same movie, counting the Ring and Grudge sequels, 6 times now. Hollywood has given you PG-13 photocopies 6 times and you keep going back. It's the same with those awful spoof movies. When you throw away money on Meet The Epic Date Scary Movie, you give Hollywood the idea to make more of them.

Kids, you must stop this yourselves! Demand something different or they will continue to think you are stupid.

The Eye is not the worst of this genre, merely the latest. Jessica Alba continues to be an engaging presence but she needs to fire her agent for putting her in a series of bad movies meant solely to pad her bank account. Then again, that may be the only reason she got into the biz. Maybe she's just after the fat cash. She took that role in Fantastic Four despite obvious issues with those two awful scripts. She took the lead in Awake, a unique but flawed thriller from late last year. Now she stars in a Japanese horror remake and picks up a fat paycheck and little else.

If it's just about the money it makes sense. If however Ms. Alba is serious about her craft or about entertaining people, I hope she begins finding better roles. It's not that she lacks the talent to play better roles. Rather, she has simply chosen badly thus far in her career.

Movie Review Superman Returns

Superman Returns (2006) 

Directed by Bryan Singer 

Written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris 

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey, Frank Langella 

Release Date June 28th, 2006 

Published June 27th, 2006 

The title Superman Returns has more than a single meaning. The title in the literal sense refers to the fact that the man of steel is returning to the big screen for the first time in nearly 20 years. In the movie universe the title refers to Superman having disappeared from earth for five years in search of the remains of his home planet of Krypton.

This search for home is at the heart of the new Superman flick which recasts the legendary superhero, now played by newcomer Brandon Routh, as a lonely hearted romantic with unrequited passion for Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) and an earnest will to protect mankind from all hurt and pain.

Superman Returns is a pseudo sequel to the first two films in the Superman series starring Christopher Reeve. Ignoring the last two installments, a pair of embarrassing failures, Superman Returns takes on the task of reinventing Superman while remaining beholden to the original films.

Five years after leaving without a trace, mild mannered reporter Clark Kent returns to his job at the Daily Planet. Not surprisingly, soon after Clark's return, Superman arrives and is immediately put to the test rescuing a space shuttle mission that nearly causes an airline crash. Intrepid reporter Lois Lane happens to have been on the rescued plane but her reunion with Superman is short-lived.

Back at the newsroom Clark/Superman finds that since he left, Lois has given birth to a son and is engaged to Robert (James Marsden) an editor at the paper and the nephew of the Planet's managing editor Perry White (Frank Langella). Assigned to the return of Superman story Lois is far more interested in investigating how her plane and the space shuttle came to lose power in mid-air just as the power went out across the entire eastern seaboard.

Lois has a hunch that the power outage is linked to the legendary bad guy Lex Luthor who, out on parole because Superman failed to testify against him at trial, has stolen his way to wealth and used it to discover Superman's fortress of solitude. In finding the fortress he plans to harness its power crystals to create a whole new continent for himself even if it means sinking the east coast.

The film takes on an episodic feel early on as director Singer attempts to draw together his varying plot elements.

Episode one, explains how Lex Luthor got out of jail.

Episode two, Superman returns to the Kent family farm and his mother, played by Eva Marie Saint. This episode also attempts a quick recap of young Superman discovering his powers.

Episode three, the plane crash rescue. This is by far the best episode in the film as Singer harnesses a special effects masterpiece in Superman's return to his super good deeds.

And the film continues this stop and start of episodic melodrama and action at the expense of establishing a solid dramatic rhythm over its long runtime of two hours and thirty minutes.

Superman Returns is the height of CGI special effects rendering a believably powerful and compelling Superman. His feats of strength and speed are exciting and eye-catching. Check out the space shuttle and plane crash scenes and also a scene where Superman rescues downtown Metropolis from the falling globe from the top of the daily planet building. Routh's poise in this scene is classically and iconically Superman.

However, when Clark Kent slips out of the Super suit the film comes to a screeching halt. Here Bryan Singer's slavish devotion to the original films becomes burdensome. Richard Donner's version portrayed the Daily Planet as a throwback to the My Gal Friday, fast talking, down and dirty days when female journalists were dames and everyone was out for the big scoop. Singer's vague attempts to recapture that are disastrous.

Singer also tries to evoke those unique qualities of Clark and Lois that Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder made memorable. Thus you have the charismatic but humor challenged Routh attempting Reeve's swift witted nerdy Clark Kent minus the wink and a nod. Then you have Bosworth trying out Margot Kidder's flighty but quick on her feet comprehension, something Bosworth fails miserably at.

Brandon Routh makes a great Superman. He has the physicality, good luck and soulfulness that evokes the best qualities of his predecessor Christopher Reeve. What Routh lacks is the wit that allowed Reeve to play the duality of Superman and Clark Kent. Routh lacks that knowing glint in the eye, that subtle wink and nod that Reeve brought to Clark Kent that helped audiences accept Superman and his nerdy alter ego.

The bigger problem for Routh however is his co-star and love interest Kate Bosworth. Though lovely, Ms. Bosworth is a lightweight dramatic presence. When compared to Margot Kidder's tough and unconventionally sexy Lois Lane, Bosworth is blown away. Where Kidder and Reeve burned up the screen with romance and wit, Routh and Bosworth could barely strike a match. Bosworth is an emotional cypher.

Brandon Routh also gets little help from co-star and arch-nemesis Kevin Spacey. Evincing more petulance than menace, Spacey chews scenery nearly as well as Gene Hackman did back in 1978 but where Hackman brought charm and wit to Lex Luthor, Spacey brings sneering, mustache twirling, buffoonish-ness to the role.

Superman is a god like character, seemingly all knowing, thanks to his super hearing and ability to see through any substance, he is also benevolent and compassionate. The script does not play up Superman's god like qualities, they are inherent in the characters backstory. The problem is the film does not attempt to deconstruct this image. Superman begins the movie as god and though he faces temporary physical setbacks, his character is never challenged thus he does not have a great arc.

In Batman Begins and Spider Man 2, arguably the two greatest superhero films ever made, the main characters had their morality and their personalities challenged and played big dramatic arcs. Superman however is so sure of his place in the world and is so earnestly engaged that he seems bland. He is challenged romantically but because the love interest is so passionless the challenge is not all that dramatic.

Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder brought a goofy sort of charm to the romance of the first two Superman films that managed to flame into a pretty good love story. In Superman Returns the romance is a non-starter because star Kate Bosworth is a limp noodle of muddled romantic interest. We can see love in the eyes of Routh's Superman but Bosworth's Lois Lane is a blank slate.

The film asks us to believe that when Superman left without saying goodbye Lois wrote a Pulitzer prize winning story about why the world does not need Superman. We are to believe that she poured all of her sadness and pain into this essay and that, despite being unable to spell the word catastrophic -a joking nod to the first Superman movie- she was honored with journalism's highest prize. But we are only told these things. Bosworth never demonstrates her heartbreak beyond a simpering anger in her voice.

The real dramatic arc of Superman Returns is only brushed over. It's the search for a home. Superman left earth without a word to the people he loved. He went to find his true home and found only ruins. Back on earth his beloved Lois Lane has moved on with another man and though he has his mother and his purpose, Superman lacks a private place in the world. This character arc is sniffed around and hinted at but, sadly, never fully explored.

A series of intermittently entertaining episodes Superman Returns is at its best when director Bryan Singer presents his big action set pieces. When the film slows down and Brandon Routh is out of his super suit the film bogs down. The movie needed to modernize the newsroom setting, smarten up Lois Lane so we don't find her so dithering, and cut a good 20 minutes out of the non-action scenes. Unfortunately it's far too late for these changes.

As it is Superman Returns is a modestly entertaining, visually impressive action picture that lacks the wit and romance that made the original iconic.

Movie Review: A Mighty Wind

A Mighty Wind (2003) 

Directed by Christopher Guest 

Written by Christopher Guest 

Starring Bob Balaban, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey 

Release Date April 16th, 2003 

Published April 23rd, 2003 

The genius of Christopher Guest, as exhibited in the brilliant Waiting For Guffman and the even better Best In Show, is once again on display in the folk music sendup A Mighty Wind. That genius is tempered though by a pervasive attitude of insincerity in the film’s closing moments. Nevertheless, a flawed Christopher Guest comedy is better than most Hollywood comedies. Using the same faux documentary style that has become his trademark, Guest and his usual company of actors deliver a satirical take on the 60’s folk music scene. 

As the story goes, legendary folk music promoter Irving Steinbloom has passed away. Irving’s son Jonathon (Bob Balaban) is memorializing his father by reuniting his three favorite groups for a concert to be broadcast live on public television. We then meet each of the groups, including the Folksmen (Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean), who’s one big hit was inspired by the burned out neon of a restaurant sign “E At O’s”. The New Main Street Singers are the result of a pair of folk groups who joined forces back in the sixties. Now most of the original members are gone, replaced by frighteningly cheery cultists Terry and Jane Bohner (John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch). Paul Dooley plays the only remaining original member, while Fred Willard plays the group’s manager, a clueless self-absorbed former child star who can’t let go of the spotlight and especially his annoying catchphrase “Wha Happened”.

The centerpiece of the show and the film is the duo Mitch (Eugene Levy) and Mickey (Catherine O’Hara). The biggest stars on the roster, Mitch and Mickey haven’t worked together since a legendary onstage kiss during a televised performance of their biggest hit “A Kiss At The End of the Rainbow.” Nowadays Mitch is a mess. just out of a mental institute and Mickey is happily married to a medical supply salesman. Ed Begley Jr. rounds out the cast as Lars Olfen, the head of the public TV network and a Swede in origin who nevertheless loves to speak Yiddish. Begley is priceless as he criticizes the small-scale production of the show, insisting he can get a big crane at a moment’s notice.

The great thing about Christopher Guest’s films are the actors and Guest’s insistence on unscripted dialogue, which though it can be hit and miss, it hits far more than it misses. Watch John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch as they recount how they met with increasing looniness. Guest let’s them go on and on until it’s clear they have run out of ad-libs. Then of course there is Guest, Shearer and McKean, clearly enjoying the Spinal Tap reunion with even worse hairstyles. The ease of rapport between the three is astonishing and hilarious, what a great team.

Not only is the dialogue ad-libbed but also so are the songs in a way ad-libbed. In a risky and unique choice Guest and the cast wrote their own folk tunes which we hear in the film’s climactic concert scene. The songs are surprisingly good, and Levy and O’Hara truly amaze with their poignant rendition of their hit song. While the Folksman and The New Main Street Singers are plated to the height of satire, Mitch and Mickey have an edge of reality to them. The story behind the duo, how they met, and how they broke up, is a sweet story and very well played by these two amazing comic actors.

The first 75 to 80 minutes of A Mighty Wind, from the beginning through the concert is very funny and enjoyable. However, after the concert the film doesn’t end. The scenes that close the film wrap up what happened to the groups after the show and feel like a slap in the face to anyone who enjoyed the film through the concert. The cynical scenes that make these likable characters into buffoons are a betrayal to what came before them.

The ending is actually the most conventional element of the film. Like any Hollywood film that doesn’t end when you think it should, it fills the audience with a sense of dread that turns to sadness and near disgust because you wish it had ended when you expected. Still, for most of the film it’s a funny, sweet, entertaining satire filled with great performances. And of course when compared to most modern comedies, even with it’s flaws, A Mighty Wind is genius.

Movie Review Personal Velocity

Personal Velocity (2002) 

Directed by Rebecca Miller

Written by Rebecca Miller

Starring Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk 

Release Date November 27th, 2002 

Published December 25th, 2002

I have many times in the past lamented the lack of good roles for women in Hollywood. 2002 did a great deal to quiet my complaints offering a wide range of excellent female driven movies. One film with three sensational lead female performances won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film festival. It's called Personal Velocity and though I had to wait over half of a year to see it, the film was worth the wait.

Written and directed by first timer Rebecca Miller, Personal Velocity is a set of three half-hour vignettes about three diverse women whose lives we join in progress. The first story is about Delia (Kyra Sedgwick), whose voiceover explains how she grew up quickly, earning the reputation of town slut before finally settling down with one guy because he was the one who asked. Sometime into the marriage, the husband develops an affinity for rough sex that evolves into physical abuse. 

Once Delia realizes that the violence could go beyond her to her children she makes the choice to leave but has nowhere to go. In desperation she calls on a woman she knew just barely in high school whom she once saved from bullies, or at least that is how she remembers it. The woman is kind enough to let Delia and her kids live in her garage and Delia gets a job in a greasy diner. Therein, she endures the come-ons of the owner’s greasy son. The half hour segment ends with no real resolution but rather a continuing spiral that seems destined to continue as we move on to the next story.

The film’s middle segment starring Parker Posey is its strongest. Posey is Greta, a cookbook editor who has fallen into a relationship of convenience with a guy who is a fact checker for The New Yorker. The guy is exactly the guy her father, a high powered attorney who divorced Greta's mother, doesn't want her to be with. That may be exactly why she married him, though she is cheating on him. When Greta gets a break at work (she's asked to edit the book of a best selling author who requested her specifically), she must deal with success for the first time in her life as well as a challenging relationship with the author. Posey is fascinating, communicating classic slacker indifference until confronted with real emotion, which she never learned to deal with before. Something many of us children of the divorce culture can relate to.

The final story is about Paula, a formerly homeless girl who is running away from the man who pulled her off the streets. After an accident nearly took her life and instead killed a man she had just met, Paula got in her car and just began driving. For some unknown reason she has picked up a young hitchhiker and now finds herself on the road to her mother’s home. Paula hasn't seen her mother since she ran away. Her mother had been divorced and remarried to a man Paula didn't like. After contacting her boyfriend, Paula hits the road again with the hitchhiker and finds that his problems may be far worse than her own. He provides the cautionary tale that Paula and the movie needs to end with a little ray of hope.

Each of the stories is connected in a small way but the connection is insignificant when you know that the stories were culled from a collection of seven stories by Rebecca Miller. It's not surprising that the stories are well written as Miller is the daughter of Playwright Arthur Miller. Rebecca Miller has a strong familiarity with her characters which helps, given that each story only has about 30 minutes to tell its story. Miller and her amazing cast are never hampered by the runtime and the stories are likely better served without the padding it would take to make each feature length.

The film has its problems, the voiceover narration by John Ventimiglia is at times rather prosaic and Ventimiglia's voice a little too arrogant. Also, shot for a very small sum on digital video, the film has a look that’s grainy and unpolished. That might be what they were looking for but I found it distracting. Those minor problems aside, Personal Velocity is a well written and very well acted film that announces Rebecca Miller as a filmmaker to look for in the future.