Movies

Why?

Clapping in the theater at the end of a good movie is as effective as yelling at your television as you watch your team play poorly, yet if I had to pick one of the two that bothered me, it is the applause.

It does not happen frequently; at least not in my experience (and I attend my fair share of movies). But when it does, boy does it get under my skin. The last time it happened was when I saw The Aristocrats! and before then was The Polar Express.

Do people expect the director and/or lead to come out from behind a curtain for a bow? Is there a subculture of theater clappers? Is this something learned from parents? How does one develop into a theater clapper? Is there an elaborate recruitment process by which new generations of theater clappers are selected? I think answers to some of these questions might lead to a seedy underbelly of cinema. Maybe the path to the theater clapper elite would reveal organized crime and corruption that goes all the way to the top! Imagine the possibilities...

Leave well enough alone, you say? Not me.

Oh how I would love to pick the brain of one of them. Do you think it would be frowned upon if I began to go to the movies with a harpoon in hopes of capturing one? Imagine the studies that could be conducted. All in the name of science! I wonder if my prisoner would then be able to be reconditioned. Could we train them to NOT clap after movies? That certainly would be ideal.

Maybe it is not even for the movie itself, but rather the projector operator. This I can get on board with, I guess next time I will applaud you, too. You sure switch the reels well.

Did I really lay out parallels between clapping at the end of a good movie and La CosaNostra? Ok, maybe I am a little too hung up on this.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Director Terry Gilliam ("Brazil") and an all-star cast, including John Neville, Eric Idle, Oliver Reed and Uma Thurman, deliver this tale of the enchanting adventures of Baron von Munchausen on his journey in a hot air balloon to search for his old comrades-at-arms.

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A man walks into a talent agent's office to promote his family act. He describes for the agent what the act consists of and when asked what they call their act, the man says, "The Aristocrats!"

I know it doesn't look funny. It also has one of the weakest punch lines since the creation of humor, but that is not the point. The point is that for a story that lasts anywhere between 30 seconds and upwards of 15-20 minutes, it is not about the punch line.

That is a joke that has been passed through the close circles of stand up comedy for generations. Comedians tell this joke when they get together with other comedians. Every veteran comedian not only has heard it at some point in their career, but now even has their own adaptation which they tell frequently, though never on stage. They go on to say that stand up comedy is not about jokes, it is about telling funny occurrences. Jokes are for hack comedians. Few exceptions have been made, one of which was Gilbert Gottfried at the Hugh Hefner Roast.

Comedians Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette decided to make a documentary involving 100 of their friends; the biggest names in comedy. The idea was to have everyone talk about the aura surrounding this joke. Everyone knows it. Everyone has an opinion on it. Everyone has their own version. Some tell their version, some tell stories about the first time they've heard it. A few even offer variations on it.

It doesn't matter who was talking (or in one case, miming) this movie was hysterical. Oh, one small disclaimer is that you may not like the movie if you are in any way offended by jokes about incest, familial abuse, urination, defecation, vomiting, bestiality...well the list goes on. It is these things that are used as components of the "family act" in the joke. Aside from that, there is nothing offensive in this movie...

More shock value than in the joke itself comes in the delivery. The movie says it is the "singing, not the song." As the comedians are interviewed, some explain that the beauty of The Aristocrats is that you have complete creative license as joke teller to try and induce as much shock value as you can. It also tells a lot about who tells the joke as to how dirty their mind is.

Take actors you have seen on television for years. Now place them in front of a handheld camcorder and ask them to tell you the dirtiest joke ever told. I know I didn't expect to hear some things from certain people. In some cases you associate the actor with the character they play(ed) on TV; a character that would not tell a joke that involves a stage act of freaky circus sex between a man and garden variety barnyard animals.

A few specific moments stood out from the rest. As hinted above, The Aristocrats was told by many, but also performed by a mime. He was on the street at the time, his "telling" was perfect and my only have been rivaled by the looks on the faces of passers-by. Kevin Pollock probably did a better job of sounding like Christopher Walken than Christopher Walken would have when telling a version of the joke. And who could forget Bob Saget? He starts off admitting that he has a reputation in the industry as being a dirty comic, which you do not expect to hear from Danny Tanner. I will leave it at that.

ALL of the biggest names were present in this documentary. Robin Williams, George Carlin, Phyllis Diller, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Jeni, Richard Lewis, Gilbert Gottfried...well you get the idea. But if you are curious, the full cast listing is available here. I did think that there may be some hesitation on part of some of the comedians to participate in a publicizing of this unique staple to the laughter industry, but everyone seemed eager to participate. The Aristocrats brings people together. It was fascinating to see such big stars humbled by their own thoughts of something as simple as one joke. The sincerity with which they spoke about The Aristocrats was amazing.

For once I did not stick out nearly as much as usual in a theater for a funny movie. I have this bad habit of laughing out loud. Couple that with a decent set of lungs, I can get pretty obnoxious. I apologize to everyone who has ever been there for it and all of you whose experience(s) lie ahead. Last night was not so awkward, though. Everyone was laughing out loud. All inhibitions about being loud were left at the door. You could not help but belt out with laughter at this movie.

To somewhat of a surprise, no one (that I noticed) got up and left the theater. I am glad that no one was so deeply offended by the content that they had to leave, even though there is something to be said for a movie that can be so funny and so offensive at the same time that maybe at least one husband and wife complete with teenage daughter walk out (Team America - World Police). The theater in which I saw the movie was mostly filled with older viewers though, there were no children. And yes, The Aristocrats is more offensive than Team America. Much more.

I already have plans to see it in the theater a second time.

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Director Jim Jarmusch, best known to me for his work in making Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai, first worked together with Bill Murray in Coffee and Cigarettes before getting back together two years later to make Broken Flowers.

Broken Flowers features Bill Murray acting in a role similarly caught up in the mundane passing of time as was his character in Lost in Translation. Murray plays Don Johnston...with a T...a "middle aged Don Juan" with a whose past relationships with women are to be admired. As he says, he was just living his life when one day he receives a mysterious letter which had neither a return address nor a signed name. The letter read that it was from a woman from 20 years into Don's past and that shortly after they went their separate ways she gave birth to a son. Don's son.

Winston, Don's sleuth-obsessed neighbor gets involved to discover the origin of the letter. His blueprint involves Don creating a list of possible women from which he will plan an itinerary. The choice, then, is Don's; whether or not to set out on this wild goose chase to find a woman who may or may not have given birth to his child.

The movie was good. It was not great, it was not incredible, it was not wonderful. It was good. I think it COULD HAVE BEEN great, incredible and/or wonderful. Something was missing.

Winston was the loveable character. It was his role that should have been developed further. He and his family with their relationship to Don could have been used more. Maybe a few less cut scenes to watch a plane take off.

I understand that the idea was to let Don embark on an outwardly manifested journey into himself, but so many solo shots of Murray sitting quietly as he learned more about himself made the movie progress too slowly.

I know I broke the cardinal rule of movie watching and entered the theater last night with expectation(s) for this film. Granted I had not heard much of the movie itself, only that Murray was great. I will concede this point, but with exceptions. To an extent I will draw a parallel between Bill Murray in Broken Flowers and Tom Hanks in The Terminal. Both men were great in their respective roles, the problem was that maybe the roles themselves needed work. The Terminal was a horrible film, so I will go no further in using the two movies in the same sentence. I said before, Broken Flowers is a good movie.

I laughed (maybe too) loudly at many points. That is part of what made the movie difficult for me as I would laugh so hard and then there would be such a long lull before the next laugh. This emphasized some parts of the movie as being slower than I believe they really were upon reflection; the contrast was too great.

There were two things that I definitely enjoyed about Jarmusch's direction. One, though it made me a bit nauseous, was his camera shot out Don's driver side window. The shot is right out the window, including the reflection in the side mirror. This shows Don on his journey through his past to maybe find a piece of his future. We watch the world pass by his window then vanish into the horizon. The second technique was the use of basketball hoops. Winston instructed Don to keep an eye out for clues that may indicate which of the women mothered a son. Each neighborhood he travels to shows a basketball hoop. The hoops are used as hope that maybe he is on the right path.

I was also fascinated by the newfound desire in a man who had never exhibited any signs of wanting a family of his own to find his son in the face of every 19 year old young man he passed on the street. ...So I guess that was three things I liked....

Either go in committed to "the long haul" or maybe get antsy in your uncomfortable theater seat, either way the movie is good. Maybe Jim Jarmusch will just let me see his next script ahead of time so we can work in a few more jokes to keep up the intensity. Until then, go see Broken Flowers. (Oh and I recommend Ghost Dog, too.)

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Charlie: I want you to have my children. And I want you to have your children...That sounds like an awful lot of children.

I was playing with my Blockbuster.com queue early this morning and a feeling came over me as I stared blankly at my 188 movies long list. One thing that is nice about the site is that they allow you to provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. Despite the wonderful suggestion I made before that is still ignored, I felt compelled to submit another idea. Here is what I wrote:

How about a button that will randomize your list. You spend an entire day going through lists and lists provided on blockbuster.com adding movie after movie. They are simply now in the order in which you browsed to them. You could sit there and spend just as long if not longer pretending that there is a specific order in which you would like to view them though we all understand how arbitrary that is. If there was a way to simply randomize the list it may save a lot of time and even spice up one's queue.
Think about it.

Let it be no secret that having such a list is daunting. Those nearly 200 movies are my Everest. Getting through them will take time, that is certain. The randomization feature would allow for more surprise in what movie would come next. Ok, ok, ok. I could just never look at my queue and I would have no idea in what order my movies will come to me, but this would be more fun.

New movies come out that you were anxious to see in the theater, though missed for whatever reason(s). You may prioritize them ahead of other movies in your queue, but the prioritization causes conflict for me. The beauty of the service is that you have access to so many movies. I am able to see movies I otherwise never would; the price is right. If I actually went in and played favorites with the movies I queued, some movies may well be taken right off the list. They will be bumped closer and closer to the vanishing point as new movies are added. Or you could let me hit a button and roll the dice. I think it is obvious which way I prefer.

Oh, and if you are curious, my other suggestion to them was to, through an admin interface, create links that I may add to the end of my movie reviews which allow you to queue the movie directly. I would push more for this original suggestion if I were forced to choose, but I think they are both valid and worth Blockbuster's time and consideration.