Out In Africa

“While You Weren’t Looking”

This article originally appeared in Perdeby, and is reprinted here with the editor’s permission.

Petronella Tshuma and Thishiwe Ziqubu as lovers from the opposite sides of the tracks in Catherine Stewart's "While You Weren't Looking"

The thesis of Catherine Stewart’s new film While You Weren’t Looking, which opened on 2 October, is made explicit by the lovelorn gay lecturer Mack (Lionel Newton), who tells his students, “If you can ‘queer’ gender, you can ‘queer’ anything.” He means that the broad-mindedness of the openly homosexual, bisexual, and sexually explorative characters in the film – as well as those who approvingly accept them – is precisely what is required for South African society to move into the non-racial, non-sexist, progressive state to which it aspires.

Noble though the film’s position be, it fails to match this vision with artistry. With its clumsy dialogue and artificial performances, the film doesn’t take a sympathetic look at the lives of queer South Africans as much as it retreads jaded stereotypes – the gay art lovers, the gaudy feather boas – and tries (and fails) to kindle discussion on the problems they face. We have a gorgeously inclusive Constitution, as the characters assert, but in spite of this – or, perhaps, because of it – problems still arise.

Off the Rails

“Trainwreck”

Subway smooches

Having been newly appointed as a journalist for the Entertainment section of Perdeby (the campus newspaper for the University of Pretoria), when I watched Judd Apatow's new film Trainwreck, I was delighted to have finally found a mainstream movie with a main character to whose career I could relate, in more than an entirely broad and admittedly minimal sense. Though I have certainly seen movies before now that feature journalists - and loved some, such as All About Eve, which features a journalist doing pretty much the job I shall be doing (a little less sardonically than he, I hope) - I wasn’t a journalist when I watched them. Now, having started a blog and having been assigned the task of writing articles on certain topics by certain dates, I have a new appreciation for the work done by Amy Townsend (the protagonist of Trainwreck, played by Amy Schumer), and some sympathy for the difficulties she faces doing it.

I definitely must state, for the shorthand record, that my delight in Trainwreck is not mainly because of this coincidence in job titles, nor was it the main source of my excitement to see the film. That would be, firstly, that it is directed by Judd Apatow, one of my favourite and one of the finest filmmakers active in mainstream cinema today, and, secondly, because it stars - and was written by - Schumer, no doubt the funniest and most talented young lady currently working in American comedy. And the film delivers on the expectations of his and her breathlessly ardent fans: Trainwreck is crafted and polished throughout with Apatow’s remarkable good sense and flair for tone, placing the camera in an optimal position and keeping it there until the frame is filled with his ideas and his images; and the crisp, tremendously funny dialogue and one-liners is worthy of the best of Schumer’s routines and sketches on her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer.

Wise Guys

DVD Notes: “GoodFellas”

Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's gangster epic "GoodFellas"

On this day, the 19^th of September, in 1990, the first audiences were shown Martin Scorsese’s newest film, GoodFellas, based on a true story of a life in the mob, and rounding off a decade of a few commercial disappointments in the star director’s career, despite the continued support for him from most critics and his overwhelming beginning to the decade with Raging Bull. But GoodFellas proved a success – commercially and especially critically – and began a new decade with rays of hope (for his career, that is – no one doubted the quality of his output) for the man whom it was now something of a cliché to call “America’s finest filmmaker”.

Scorsese really was America’s finest filmmaker, and, I affirm, retains that title today, though not on his own – he shares it with Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, To the Wonder) and Wes Anderson (whom, incidentally, Scorsese named as “the next Scorsese” a few years after the release of GoodFellas). And GoodFellas remains one of his most popular films. (Perhaps the most popular, but it’s difficult to compare public opinion of works released over a range of more than 40 years.) It’s the movie people kept talking about for a decade and a half – with many naming it as the best movie of the 90s – until Scorsese finally won his single Oscar for The Departed, when the conversation changed to something like, “I rather like The Departed… He should have won for GoodFellas, though.” It was quite right, I should think, for moviegoers to hold his earlier hit in a little higher esteem than his Bostonian remake, but since his Academy Award victory he’s surpassed even the achievement of GoodFellas with the triad of Shutter Island, Hugo, and The Wolf of Wall Street. These are the films of post-LaMotta Scorsese that stain the moviegoer’s imagination, and haunt their consciousness.

Big Dreams

DVD Notes: “Hairspray”

John Travolta and Nikki Blonsky, in one of the less naturalistic moments of "Hairspray"

Movie musicals go as far back in cinema history as recorded sound does: the very first feature film with a synchronised soundtrack, The Jazz Singer, was a musical, and opened a floodgate to a torrent of musicals, with literally dozens being released in the mainstream cinema every year for the next few decades. This spate abated a little in the 60s, but has never died down, and today we're still being treated to more than a mere trickle in mainstream fare. Just last year, movie musicals released included Annie, The Book of Life, Get On Up, Into the Woods, Jersey Boys, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, Muppets Most Wanted, Rio 2, and Sunshine on Leith.

Obviously the genre warrants, indeed requires, a fair degree of stylisation; it would strain most audiences' credulity if actors, playing completely natural characters in a respectably natural environment, were to interrupt their colloquialisms and street-corner philosophies with a pop ballad or tap dance. The exception, obviously, is the entirely naturalistic musical in the mode of Once and Begin Again, where the characters perform songs as part of the story, and the modest songs are not composed as an escape from unadorned reality.

Cutting Down to Size

“Ant-Man”

Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, embodying superhero grandeur

When we heard of Marvel Studios’ overarching plans for a film series adapted from a few of their comic books, and we heard the number of films to be made and released as part of the series, and we heard that this series would not be known as a franchise but, rather dauntingly, as a Universe, I’m sure there was more than a handful of us who blanched. As we all know, a Bond film every two or three years makes for the right blend of lasting interest and good taste, with just enough disdain shaken in, and no stirring up of desperation. At least one massive CGI-laden blockbuster every six months threatens, initially, a bombardment, and, afterwards, a stream of discrete non-events. For if every entry is a spectacle and a gratifying thrill, then soon enough none of them is all that spectacular nor all that thrilling. We had also learned, from the few superhero movies made before this mighty plan was announced, that the ignorant among us are not often provided for in a superhero movie’s exposition. Of course, by now, even the unschooled heathen such as myself have learned that the hoary, leathery pensioner who ubiquitously crops up in each entry is none other than Stan Lee, whose imagination we have to blame or to thank for the recent insurgence; and that no vat of toxic waste (a trusty MacGuffin if ever there was one) is ever far away enough from a Hollywood star to allow the incredulous among us to settle comfortably in our seats. But still I found, with equal measures of annoyance and disconcertment, that I was required to have seen Iron Man (preferably along with its sequel), some attempt at a film about The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America before watching The Avengers – or at least be familiar with the premises and outcomes of each of these films – unless I wished to be deprived of much of my sure footing for most of that amalgamate film’s setup.

And, now having completed Phase 2 of the overall scheme, the critical reaction to the results seems not to have been overly joyous, though box office success persists. Critics have repeatedly complained of replicated plots and storylines, of thin and uninteresting characters, of over-reliance on digital imagery, and of a general (and, if I may say so, vaguely demonstrated) breakdown in culture. I do not align myself with these consensus critical views: I have written that conventional and simplistic storylines are not inherently weak; I find that a character does not only consist of the text he or she speaks, but also of the actor’s performance, and these have not been found wanting nearly as often or as dismally as some critics would have you think; I think any filmmaker is entitled to use as much digital imagery as he deems necessary or suitable, and this also is not in itself a weakness; and I don’t see how this titanic influx of films to our theatres is in any way a depletion of culture. It’s absurd to think, as it seems some critics do, that if there weren’t Marvel blockbusters, or at least not so many, that those who flock to see them would instead be going to see black and white Polish films about nuns, or adaptations of Thomas Hardy novels. Rather, Marvel is keeping audiences gazing at screens instead of looking away.

The Psyche of Gotham

DVD Notes: “Batman Returns”

In Batman Returns, Tim Burton’s 1992 sequel to the initial instalment in the Warner Bros.’ Batman series, starring Michael Keaton as Gotham City’s chiropteran custodian, Burton and his writers give us three separate villains: the domineering and greedy tycoon Max Shreck (Christopher Walken); the trust-fund miscreant, penguinly-constituted to an indeterminate degree, Oswald Cobblepot (Danny DeVito); and the wily vixen, posing as the diffident secretary Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer). But this is not the unwieldy overcrowding of Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (with the unsavoury threesome of Electro, The Green Goblin, and Rhino); rather, when Batman is added to the mix, it’s the staging of an eerie fantasy, a ménage à quatre, complete with leather and psychosis. Imagine, if Emma Stone, as Gwen Stacy, had swathed herself in skin-tight red latex, contorting and unfolding in all imaginable directions, how much good it would have done for the morale of the endangered citizens of New York, not to mention the stamina of Peter Parker.

Each of these unambiguously nasty pieces of work shares with Batman/Bruce Wayne the trait of a dual personality. Shreck’s case is simple and miserably common: he has the businessman's smiling and charming public persona for the people of Gotham, but ruthlessly plots capitalist thievery from them in his board room meetings. Meanwhile, in the less genteel parlours of Gotham City, Cobblepot prefers to travel under a mononym: Penguin. Where Cobblepot (a scam) is an unfortunately misshapen, yet tender and benevolent man, Penguin is a coarse, lecherous, avaricious crime boss, more fiendish fowl than foul human. And Selina Kyle, when she finds herself hors de combat due to a forceful act of Shreck’s (not the usual one you’d expect a CEO to foist upon his secretary), instead of taking a sick day, assumes a feline alter ego, endowed with eight lives to spare. She calls her doppelgänger Catwoman, fixes sharp nails on to the gloves of her new, shimmering black leather suit, and prowls the night in brilliant red lipstick, condescending with equal disdain upon greasy male criminals and their helpless female victims.

The Lack of Christianity in “God’s Not Dead”

“God’s Not Dead”

A problem faced by Christian artists – not only filmmakers, but also poets, painters, and rappers – arises from the idea that a believer’s faith encompasses their entire identity, and so their work: where faith is fixed, is there room for invention? Does a Christian filmmaker have a peculiar and personal worldview to imbue his films with, distinct from that of other Christians? Can he create, embellish, or discover a self by way of cinema, where Christianity has not already provided for this? The very best devotional art would argue in the affirmative, and the music of Bach, the poems of John Donne, and films such as Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder prove some of the most daring and original, while also profound and heartfelt works existing. To contradict Dr Samuel Johnson, great minds and great wit do not sink under the heft of the good and evil of eternity, not merely content with calm belief and humble adoration.

Unfortunately, Harold Cronk, the director of the overtly Christian film God’s Not Dead, seems no great wit at all. I’m not aware if Cronk is Christian himself, but the film’s subject and story allow for no other stance. The main plot, a sort of update of the David and Goliath tale, is simple enough, both immediately obvious in purpose and ludicrous in conception. A first year university student, Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper), aspiring lawyer and devout evangelical, enrols in a philosophy course taught by the zealously atheistic Professor Radisson (Kevin Sorbo). Intent on not disappointing astute forecasters in the audience (and those of us who saw the trailer), the two partisans collide, in the first class no less. Radisson – obnoxious, high-handed, and fanatically protective of his reputation – requires each student in the class to hand in a signed statement of just three words: “God is dead.” He insists that anyone who disagrees will have no luck in arguing to the contrary, and a failing grade surely awaits anyone who tries. This consensus affirmation, he claims, is in the interest of efficiency, so that a section of the syllabus, with a conclusion agreed upon by millennia of respected philosophers, may be gotten through with minimum fuss. Josh refuses to hand it in, citing his faith, and Radisson commands that Josh must then contend his case over three lectures, with the class deciding the winner.

What I See in “House of Cards”

“House of Cards”

Kevin Spacey as the deliciously corrupt Frank Underwood, first a leader in Congress, then a leader in the White House

The problem with television, expressed briefly in an op-ed piece by film critic Armond White for the New York Times, is that, being made for screens meant to fit into the average living room or bedroom, the creators of a show are not as driven to artfully reflect their ideas and their vision in the images of the show as filmmakers are with a movie. The view is that there is literally too little space to fill the screen with the representation of a director's consciousness, and rather than focusing too intently on composition of shots, on peculiar performances, on mise en scène, the show runner concentrates effort on a continuous and compelling story, because that is what can be sustained, and where a viewer's interest can hope to be held, for a three-episode, or twelve-week, or seven-year run. Story is the triumph of television, and a show's chief creative force is not the director, but the writer. White refers to what many commentators are calling the current state of affairs being broadcast on our home appliances: “the golden age of television”.

Nothing beats the big screen. Simply put: Film is a visual art form and television is merely a visual medium. It’s generally accepted that television is a producer’s, or show runner’s, format, where content is developed to support advertising, but all this talk about “television’s golden age” overlooks the fact that television has never proven to be a medium for artists – or auteurs – who express themselves personally and, primarily, visually.

Although White is not the most revered critic alive, he is a strongly idiosyncratic one, and a highly intellectual one, and he speaks with great honesty and, though many would pettily dispute it, reverence for cinema. From these comments on television (mine, and White's which I've shown here), you've no doubt sussed out where the title of this post is going - the merit I find in House of Cards which is absent in many other series (including a number which I do enjoy, and wolf up expeditiously, such as Game of Thrones, House, CSI, Parks and Recreation, Friends, and my favourite of all, 30 Rock) is the attention given to the images that appear on the screen. Not to put too fine a point on it, what I see in House of Cards is what I see on House of Cards.

No Ground Broken

"San Andreas"

A minor consequence of the shift along the eponymous fault line in "San Andreas"

In “San Andreas,” we are introduced to a Caltech seismologist named Lawrence Hayes (played by Paul Giamatti), who informs a documentary director (Archie Panjabi) – for the audience’s benefit – of a new method he and a colleague have developed, which predicts earthquakes along known fault lines. And, he grimly pronounces into her camera, a cataclysm is on its way to California that will crack the earth open, and be felt thousands of miles away.

Enter Dwayne Johnson, who plays Ray, an Air Rescue pilot, whom we meet at the opening, in a thrilling sequence where he tips his helicopter side to side, to fly into a crevasse where he must save the distressing damsel whose car has tumbled down. It’s a manoeuvre of great daring and jaw-dropping skill, as well as a stratospheric decibel-count, which nicely sets the tone and volume level for the next 100 minutes. Who would think, after witnessing Ray’s heroic deeds, that he is the one in need of rescue? In the wake of the loss of their one daughter, he and his wife, Emma (Carla Gugino), have become estranged, and he rarely sees the surviving daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario). Divorce papers are delivered to him, and he discovers that Emma is moving in with an architect, Daniel (Ioan Gruffud).

Mirth at a Funeral

DVD Notes: “Bernie”

Jack Black as the jolly assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede, pampering a widow before murdering her

Bernie is a cavalcade of small town charms. The director, Richard Linklater, along with his screenwriter, Skip Hollandsworth, not only colour in what was already a fine and detailed and, importantly, fascinating illustration with the amount of attention they give peripheral characters in this bizarrely true story, but they lay a glossy finish over it, and display it with the height of dignity and delight. Linklater is not the Coen brothers, who, in films like Fargo, paint ironic and deriding pictures of the middle-American people among whom they grew up, satirising their civility and sending up their idiosyncrasies. Linklater clearly has tender feelings for the people and places he films – important dramatic characters, and townspeople alike.

Bernie is based on a true story. I’ll try not to spoil much of it. In it, we are told of an assistant funeral director in the town of Carthage in East Texas (“the Number One small town in Texas,” we are authoritatively informed) named Bernie Tiede (Jack Black). Linklater spends a significant portion of the film’s running time sketching in this oddly charming man for us, essentially as a brilliant performer. He arrives from out of town, and soon becomes a pillar of the community, knowing exactly how to behave for the bereaved, knowing how to sell an act (and make a sale) to the residents he comes into contact with, and a dedicated and meticulous artist, painstakingly preparing corpses for burial with cosmetics, and pursuing the greatest luxuries he can get his hands on.

For the Fans

"Jurassic World"

The same logo as before

Think: a situation with a new malevolent dinosaur, even larger and more dangerous than the Tyrannosaurus Rex (like Jurassic Park III), but on the same island and with a similar - albeit much larger - commercial setup to the park in Jurassic Park, and with a feisty redhead female lead, just like Jurassic Park II. Also, Andy from Parks and Recreation takes on another dauntlessly heroic leading man role (so a type of Guardians of the Galaxy: Redux) and no character has learnt from the mistakes made by characters in any of the previous films (something like all of the Jaws sequels). The dialogue is mostly a signifier, and often redundant, sometimes even nonsensical (there're too many Michael Bay films to name here in comparison), but the action is often fun to watch - provided you remain emotionally detached from everyone and everything - and the vast and wanton destruction brought about seems a rather cynical move on the part of the filmmakers (Michael Bay again). Nick, of New Girl fame, tries to score with the female prison guard from Orange is the New Black, fails dismally, and is brutally emasculated by the bitchy Hilly from The Help. Stand by for sexless sexual frustration and cock-blocking (of a 16-year-old by his 12-year-old brother), and unromantic romance between the rugged dinosaur trainer and the cold and clinical corporate executive (basically all romantic comedies). There's nothing here you haven't seen, heard, or felt before, and nothing at all to stop you from partaking in the cultural (secular) sacrament of vaulting a vapid, stinted, and unimaginative commercial product to the cinematic event of the year.