Where I've been.

I've always been reluctant to talk about my personal life in great detail here, as I don't think it's very interesting. However, my absence from the blog has been long enough, and enough people have politely checked in to see how I've been doing (thanks, guys) that I thought I'd explain a little bit. I'm not at the place yet where I can offer much perspective on everything, but I'll do my best to fill in the broad details.

He enters the stall. The red head is leaning against the wall smoking her cigarette. She shoots him one quick seductive smile. He moves towards her.

MAX
You are so-

She cuts him off by placing her cigarette into his mouth.

RED HEAD
Don’t you ever just shut the fuck up?

He pitches the cigarette in the toilet and goes for a kiss. She forcefully puts her hand over his mouth stopping him.

RED HEAD
Don’t kiss me. If you kiss me on the lips - we’re done. And if we stop before I’ve come, I’ll kick your fucking ass.

- Excerpt from "BANG" screenplay

In the spring my wife, Jessica, became close with a filmmaker whose work I'd been a fan of (it wouldn't be fair of me to be more specific, but search around the internet for a few minutes and you can figure it out) and who'd offered to help with the marketing for Black Light. They announced a plan to make a porn film called BANG, the plot of which concerned a young man who, upon breaking up with his girlfriend, sleeps with seven different women in one night before reuniting with his girlfriend the next morning and having sex with her in a motel. Having just made a movie that is both erotic and very sympathetic to the experiences of sex workers, I wasn't automatically opposed to the idea on moral grounds. Jessica is a very talented and intelligent writer who has always struggled to find her voice, and it was good to see her enthusiastic about something. But I did have some concerns about the script, both as a product of Moth Films and on a personal level - frankly, the idea of sleeping with multiple people as a way of fixing one's relationship brushed up against issues we'd dealt with in our relationship, and I wondered aloud if the script was pure fantasy or if it represented her real views about sex and relationships. I felt like my concerns were reasonable, but she increasingly felt like I was holding her back from becoming her true self. She also talked a great deal about her friend, how she'd finally met someone who truly understood her, and started shutting me out both figuratively and literally, spending six hours at a time chatting on Facebook with the bedroom door closed. I became jealous, and when I expressed this I was told that I was being crazy and paranoid. Communication continued to deteriorate until the end of June, when I offered a choice between counseling or separation; she chose separation.

I spent two weeks at a friend's house to give Jessica some space to work out her plans; when I reached a point where I felt like I was beginning to let go of the situation and would be able to coexist without constant tension, I called to tell her that I'd be coming back to the apartment so I could spend more time with the kids. She agreed to this; that night, I arrived to find her, the kids and their things gone. She'd told people that I'd threatened her and the children and she needed to make a quick escape. She's told people close to me a lot of things, and while there's no question I was far from perfect in the relationship - when backed into a corner I was sometimes sarcastic, passive-aggressive and verbally cutting - she'd basically made me out to be a drug-addled, promiscuous Chris Brown. Which I'm not. I don't know why she felt the need to leave the way she did, but I was left with a trashed apartment, my kids gone without being able to say goodbye. So yeah, I wasn't doing so great in July.

"I don't hate you. I do pity you. After all the lectures you gave me about ego not being able to see ego and being emotionally open and stuff.... You already have all the answers you need to be a better person (not moral, I mean happier, healthier, more confident, and more successful) you just need to put them together." - letter from a friend

Things got better when I started seeing my kids again the next weekend, but I was completely blindsided by the end of the relationship, not to mention the dramatic way it ended, and I didn't really know how to put things back together. Honestly, some of the most theraputic moments during those first weeks were the craziest, like the night my friend Bella Vendetta took me to a dive bar in Deerfield, put an enormous amount of tequila in my system (I don't drink often) and told me "I'm glad you're not with her. I like you more this way" before taking me on a Hunter S. Thompson-esque joyride that ended with us watching Waiting to Exhale in her apartment. Then there were the nights spent up all night in my new friend Amanda's loft, where we smoked and listened to T Rex on vinyl and drew pictures as I thought to myself, "This is exactly what I should be doing right now." I had always assumed that, if my marriage ended, people would see me as a failure; I never expected people would care about me enough to take care of me, and in the midst of the chaos I found a new appreciation for the small good things.

My relationship to movies was strange during this period, which is what made it difficult to write. As I've gotten better I've realized just how serious my depression, which I've downplayed in my own mind as "me being dramatic" for years, had become. Looking back on some of my reviews over the past few years, like this one and this one and definitely this one, I realize that I was struggling to articulate what was going on inside my head as much as I was describing the movies. As Jessica and I left Synecdoche, New York I told her the film was frighteningly close to how I experience things; she replied, "Wow, you're really sad." I could have told you at the time, of course, that I related to the film on a conceptual level, but I could not have told you that Caden Cotard's deteriorating marriage to Adele Lack was frighteningly close to my own. So yeah, I personalize the movies I see - I think it's self-soothing, my own unconscious form of cognitive therapy.

"It's these greeting cards, Sir, these cards, these movies, these pop songs. They're responsible for all the lies, the heartache, everything! We're responsible!" - from 500 Days of Summer

But when Jessica left and I found myself going to the movies alone, I became dependent on them, to the point where I had nothing interesting to say about them. When I saw Public Enemies I was preoccupied with Dillinger's relationship with a beautiful brunette who is always out of reach (because I obviously have so much in common with John Dillinger). I couldn't focus on Harry Potter because of my complete contempt for the stupid little romances of the Hogwarts kids - don't they know that these young romances never last? And I checked out of Away We Go, which I worked on, after about ten minutes, because those insufferably happy hipsters were making me want to vomit (though I did see, at the real change, that I made it into the movie). And of course, there was my movie - which happens to be a heartfelt romance that ends on a defiant affirmation of the redemptive possibilities of love against all odds - to finish and premiere. I felt like I was being made to tap dance while gunslingers fired at my heels. The movie was well-receieved, and finishing it helped me get back in touch with my own feelings about love independent of my marriage. However, more than one person did point out that happy endings like the one at the end of Black Light don't happen in real life very often. Yeah, thanks for that.

"I'm getting in touch with my inner perv. If I came across a pair of moist granny panties in the laundry room, I would likely take a whiff. If when taking out the trash I noticed a couple fucking in their brightly lit apartment, I would likely creep up to the window & watch with lustful eyes. Definitely with a hand in my pants." - from Jessica's new blog

In August, Jessica and I had lunch, and we apologized to each other and things seemed to be getting better. It was around this point that I saw Inglorious Basterds, which was a perfect movie that I needed in so many ways, and which I had nothing more intelligent to say than "Movie awesome. Nazi scary." I'd started to think things were getting back on an even keel, that I was starting to adjust to this new life, until last week, when she called to announce that she was giving me the kids and did not want to see them again. She said that she was a bad person that nobody could care about and refused to elaborate, except to say that she was getting help. A few days later I got a call from her mother; nobody had heard from her in a few days, she wasn't at her apartment or answering her phone. She's staying with her filmmaker friend now, and there's no real way to preface this part - they're making foot porn together (again, search around and you'll find it). I'm still processing this part, but writing it all out like this helps. After the initial shock passed, I looked at her new blog again. I didn't feel jealous or insecure or any of the things I expected to feel; I felt sad, and concerned for her, and hoping this is just a step towards getting her to the place she needs to go to feel like herself, which she's struggled with for so long. I left a comment poking fun at her, not in a mean way but in the way we used to be when things were good, when we could gently call out each other's bullshit and remind each other how well each of us knew the other. And it finally felt like I was truly saying goodbye.

Now I'm focusing on the good changes which have come about as a result of these past few months and which, honestly, might not have happened if I was still married. The kids are with my parents now, and once I've sorted out daycare and other details, they'll be with me; I'm intimidated by the thought of being a single dad and a little afraid my life will become a bad Steve Martin comedy, but I've missed them terribly and I'm happy they're coming back. I'm moving my camera and notebook into Amanda's studio tonight - it's my first office space and I'm taking my first small steps towards making movies for a living. I've made new friends, and my relationships with the friends who've been there all along are stronger than ever. One of the best decisions I've made stemmed from the desire to turn my negative feelings about the situation into something positive; in September I wrote the filmmaker's ex-wife (they split shortly after Jess and I) a short note explaining that I was going through the same thing and that it had helped me a great deal at the beginning of being alone to have people to talk to. We became friends and, in pleasant and unexpected way, we hit it off. Her name is Annabelle, and she's a beautiful, sensitive, smart woman with a good heart; I couldn't have found a better person to share the very intimidating experience of taking the first tentative steps back towards romance. Whatever happens, I know I've made a lifelong friend; I think we both need that security right now. And no, our motive was not revenge, and yes, it is weird to be seeing your ex's lover's ex. I'm learning that a little weirdness can be a good thing.

There are still days where I don't want to get out of bed, where I feel like everything is basically meaningless and not worth the effort. But most days, I feel like everything is possible, that this has all happened for a reason. It's been a fucked-up year, but it's getting better. And I think I'm ready to start writing about movies again; I certainly have a lot to say about the amazing, beautiful Where the Wild Things Are, especially now that I'm Catherine Keener (not Synecdoche Keener - oh, synchronicities!). So if you're still around, thanks for checking in. I've missed you.

"Thank you for being the best friend I've ever had. No matter what turmoils we've experienced and conflict, we always find our way back into each other's arms. Thank you with every shred and ounce of my body. We are truly blessed. My heart is good and better than ever. I think I might be(don't get your hopes up) finally growing up. I love you with all of my heart and thank you for really being a great friend." - an e-mail from Jess, some years ago

Kubrick, Hargenson, Goulet

I realized today that, while in the middle of completing my movie, I completely forgot about the most recent quiz at SLIFR. I'm hoping the esteemed Professor Snape will accept the movie as extra credit to make up for my tardiness; unfortunately, he's not known for his leniency.

1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.

2001

2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.

The most interesting to me is the trend of movies that mix romance and sci-fi to explore love from a metaphysical point of view. These include A.I., Solaris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Birth and The Fountain.

3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?

Buffalo Bill

4) Best Film of 1949.

The Third Man

5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?

Joseph Tura

6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?

Seeing as most of my film is hand-held, I sure hope not! Actually, it has become a visual cliche, though I still think it's a valid way to shoot a film. They key, I think, is not to purposefully shake the camera but to try to hold it as still as possible, which better recreates the sensation of seeing through our own eyes.

7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?

Dubbed Godzilla and Pippi Longstalking movies aside, I think it was Ran.

8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)?

Mr. Moto, but I'm not a big fan of either.

9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970).

The Bridge on the River Kwai

10) Favorite animal movie star.

Philip Marlowe's nitpicky cat in The Long Goodbye.

11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a lovely film that I can't bring myself to buy because of Mr. Yunioshi.

12) Best Film of 1969.

Satyricon

13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray.

In theatres, Halloween II - some interesting ideas sandwiched between a whole lot of ridiculousness, but I won't count Rob Zombie out yet. On DVD, Woyzeck.

14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller

15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print?

Glenn Kenny's blog is indispensible, and becoming an independent outlet has made his writing far more eclectic and entertaining.

16) Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji? (Thanks, Peter!)

I must admit that I'm not familiar with Meiko Kaji - looking at her IMDb page, it's time to get familiar.

17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)?

Olive Neal. Rarrr.

18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence.

The Elephant Man

19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date.

I loved the inky blacks and sharp contrasts of Public Enemies (though it's worth noting that even Michael Mann and David Fincher, easily the best directors working in HD right now, still rely on celluloid for some scenes).

20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre.

Kill Bill

21) Best Film of 1979.

Apocalypse Now. Great year.

22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies.

The opening scenes of A History of Violence did a great job of evoking average, peaceful small-town days to the point where I could almost smell the autumn leaves, making the rest of the movie much more disturbing.

23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division).

The chestburster.

24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film.

The Godfather Part II

25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see.

Still waiting for Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League.

26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film.

The buildup to the bloody baptism in Carrie. I love how De Palma prolongs the inevitable to the point of frustration, the slow motion coupled with Pino Donaggio's score toying with both our empathy for Carrie and our desire to see the prank played out. I love how Sue's attempt to stop it is thwarted by the gym teacher who assumes Sue is there to hurt Carrie - one of many examples in De Palma of terrible things happening as the result of miscommunication. And the close-up of Chris Hargensen licking her cherry-red lips, turned on by her sadistic plan, is probably my favorite shot in the De Palma canon.

27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor.

From Vertigo: Judy emerging from the hotel bathroom, bathed in green light and reborn as Madeliene, as Bernard Herrmann's score swells on the soundtrack.

28) Favorite Alan Smithee film. (Thanks, Peter!)

Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes (Smithee was co-director)

29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)?

Buttermaker, no contest. I always thought Crash Davis was a douchebag.

30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film.

I have a soft spot for Sweet and Lowdown.

31) Best Film of 1999.

In a year almost as competetive as 1979, Eyes Wide Shut

32) Favorite movie tag line.

"Man is the warmest place to hide."

33) Favorite B-movie western.

I used to love watching B-westerns with my grandfather, but I have to admit that the titles and movies are blurred together. For some reason, the only one I can distinctly remember right now is The Shakiest Gun in the West.

34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work.

Both Mario Puzo and Peter Benchley were lucky to have their biggest hits immensely improved on film.

35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)?

Susan Vance

36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie.

Robert Goulet serenading a distraught Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City.

37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping?

I don't know if I'd go with subversive, but anything that creates gay panic in super-straight dudes is okay by me.

38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet. (Thanks, Rick!)

I could name five hundred, of course, but if I had power over life and death to arrange a meeting, I'd love to have dinner with five wildly different directors and let the sparks fly. Let's go with Martin Scorsese, John Waters, Sam Peckinpah, Jean Cocteau and Dario Argento.

I write doodads because it's a doodad kind of town.

After Dorothy Parker's death in 1967, her ashes remained unclaimed, passing from one cabinet to another, for 17 years; how fitting an afterlife for a woman who once suggested "Excuse my dust" as her epitaph. A common criticism of Parker's poems is that they persistently return to the same themes: despair, insecurity, unrequited desire, failed romances and, almost always, death. Yet the appeal of Parker's work lies in the razor-sharp wit she brings to morbid self-interest - deceptively "light," her poems often cut to the bone. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle opens, in black and white, on a close-up of Parker's lips as she recites a poem; as Parker - played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, perfectly interpreting Parker's smokey, half-muttered speech patterns - speaks, the camera drifting from her lips to her eyes, the camera finds a tactile sensuality in the mordant humor of Parker's words. It's director Alan Rudolph's invitation to the blues; with a film set against the backdrop of the Algonquin Round Table and its revolving cast of artists and intellectuals, it would be more obvious to adapt a blithe, wisecracking tone. But Rudolph's decision to focus his film on the member of the Algonquin who would be most likely to disavow any club that would have her as a member gives his film surprising emotional heft.

Using Parker's own poetry and scenes from her later years as a framing device, Mrs. Parker takes place during the heyday of her reputation as the most savage wit among the Algonquins. The title's "vicious circle" could just as easily refer to Parker's own life, marked by a series of failed or stalled relationships to men like her abusive first husband Edward (Andrew McCarthy) and the charming but unfaithful playwright Charles MacArthur (Matthew Broderick). The breakup of this relationship, and the subsequent termination of their pregnancy, leads to Parker's first suicide attempt; it's remarkable to watch Leigh make an almost imperceptible shift from self-depricating jokes to the very real despair just beneath the surface. Leigh is just as astonishing in every scene, going beyond impersonation to embody Parker's tough, defiant spirit. As with many of Leigh's strongest performances, she seems completely unconcerned with whether the audience is on her side; this makes her a perfect match for Parker, who was her own harshest critic (we spy her, at one point, writing "Please God, let me write like a man") yet remained true to herself.

Rather than providing the endless exposition that would have been needed to introduce the members of the Algonquin Round Table to modern audiences (other than an awkward scene where the founders of the New Yorker fumble over the name for their new venture), Rudolph smartly allows the supporting cast - a who's who of up-and-coming '90s stars - to populate the film like familiar acquaintances. Rudolph, a protege of Robert Altman (who produced the film), has frequently adopted Altman's trademark use of overlapping dialogue. Sometimes, as with the disastrous adaptation of Breakfast of Champions, the result is a mess; here, however, it's a perfect fit. As the camera drifts through countless lunches and parties, characters verbally spar and one-up each other as they barely conceal their desperate desire to impress one another. The words themselves become a major character in the film, which at times plays like a eulogy for the lost art of conversation.

Words also take on an erotic carge in Parker's bittersweet, decades-long friendship with writer and humorist Robert Benchley (Campbell Scott). It is the relationship between Mrs. Parker and Mr. Benchley, as they affectionately call each other, that is at the heart of the film. Longtime writing partners and best friends, Parker and Benchley never quite say what they feel, largely because of Benchley's loyalty to his wife (Jennifer Beals), who can only view her husband's friendship and creative success in terms of the time he spends away from home (Beals and Leigh would reverse these roles in The Anniversary Party, with more sympathy for the jealous wife). Words tie Parker and Benchley together, yet they also use words to keep each other at arms' length - as Parker tells Benchley, "I'd kiss you, but I'm afraid it wouldn't come out right." It's in the unspoken moments, as we observe each character when the other isn't looking, that we realize the depth of Parker's affection for Benchley and the strength of his loyalty to her, and we realize that, for all her failed attempts at happiness, this friendship may have been the great love of Parker's life.

The relationship also serves to anchor the film; Rudolph could have been content to blithely romanticize his '20s-set cast of characters (it'd be easy with such fabulous costumes), but while the film celebrates the Algonquins, it stops short of idealizing them. Parker herself would eventually dismiss her friends as "a bunch of loudmouths," and a remarkable New Years-set sequence late in the film suggests that, as the party began to wind down, what remained for the partygoers was the need to be noticed. Parker saw this in herself - was painfully aware of all her human frailties - and all the booze, sex and sarcasm in the world couldn't finally dull her painful self-awareness. But she remained fiercely herself, even at the expense of happiness, and I think she would agree that an unsentimental, stubbornly sad and largely overlooked biopic is one that suits her best.

Black Light trailer

This isn't Dallas, it's Nashville!

It's challenging, when writing about Nashville, to avoid simply listing the seemingly endless parade of great scenes, characters, performances and moments that make the film one of the greatest and most entertaining of all time. Director Robert Altman, tongue firmly in cheek, gives us an early invitation to regard his sprawling vision of the country music scene and America circa 1975 as a sort of cinematic greatest hits record. From the K-Tel-inspired opening credits that serve as a commercial for the movie we're about to see, trumpeting the film's cavalcade of stars presented "through the magic of stereophonic sound and living-color picture right before your very eyes without commercial interruption,"Nashville wears its multilayered narrative (the various threads bringing together 24 principal characters) like a badge of honor. If it was merely an extended cinematic stunt, it would still be very entertaining, but what lingers after the film and expands upon each viewing is not its scale but its intimacy - Altman doesn't build his film out of grandiose statements, but instead carefully, precisely exposes the emotional truth of every single moment we observe, never hitting a false note. While many have tried to attach an overriding thesis statement to the film, to do so inevitably reduces the film's achievement as a rich and eclectic survey of human experience; seeing it in 35mm for the first time at the Brattle a few weeks ago, I realized how few films are as joyously alive.

Wim Wenders once wrote that Nashville is "about noise," and noise - indeed, various forms of communication - is one of the connective threads of the film. Nashville's many dramas play out in overlapping conversations in nightclubs, overheard telephone calls, dialogue carried over the intercoms of recording studios, and communication recorded (albums, newscasts, political diatribes played over loudspeakers) and distributed for mass consumption. Performance, both musical and political, is the dominant form of communication - the movie builds to a campaign rally for Hal Phillip Walker, who is heard but never seen. Walker's platform, which is based less on specific policy than on a general distrust of institutions and a promise to returned to imagined good old days, is not far removed from the populist tunes of the unctuous Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson), who we meet as he's recording the Bicentennial-themed rabble-rouser "200 Years" (I always chuckle at the throwaway line "I saw action in Algiers"). Recent American history hangs heavy over Nashville (the scenes at the Grand Old Opry were filmed the day of Nixon's resignation), but aside from a a few carefully chosen references to Vietnam, the recession and the Kennedys, Altman avoids the kind of literal commentary he pokes fun at with Opal from the BBC (Geraldine Chaplin). A flaky reporter with dubious credentials, Opal wanders through the film pontificating about the symbolism of busyards, patronizingly telling a group of black musicians that "I know all about the problems in the south" and desperately trying to meet anyone famous. Opal, and many of the characters in the film - groupie L.A. Joan (Shelley Duvall), or limo driver Norman (David Arkin), or sweet, talentless aspiring singer Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles) - want to be somebody or at least be near somebody. It's this culture where everybody is a fan, Altman suggests, that has blurred the lines between celebrity and politics both on- and offstage.

This alone would be enough of a subject to carry a feature, but Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury (whose contributions to the film's form are underestimated) make room for relationships, sex, family, race, religion, love and death, subtly tying them together with the film's soundtrack, which articulates the beliefs the characters cling to and which drive them through the story. Altman's camera drifts from one story to another, seemingly omnipresent, but never, with few exceptions, taking the God's-eye perspective that Altman devotee P.T. Anderson employs in Magnolia. Our perspective remains squarely on the ground level, as Altman guides through the city, giving us room to make our own discoveries (it was only on this viewing, through a barely-audible line, that I realized Haven is a racist). Altman's approach is loose-limbed enough to make room for a character like Tricycle Man (Jeff Goldblum), who rides his three-wheeler, never talks, performs magic tricks and exists mostly as an absurdist punctuation mark. Gradually, however, as in the scene where Haven's brassy manager and (maybe) lover Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley) chokes back tears as she reminisces about working for JFK and RFK, we realize that Altman has been subtly leading us towards this moment all along.

When Altman does use more overt juxtapositions, the effect is earned and often startling. For instance, I found upon this viewing that I hated Tom (Keith Carradine), the pretty-boy folk singer who uses his good looks and feigned sensitivity to seduce and destroy countless women, and I was disappointed in gospel singer Linnea (Lily Tomlin) for going to bed with him. Then Altman cut to the painful scene of Sueleen, coerced into stripping at a fundraiser for Walker in exchange for the promise of a chance to perform; as Sueleen is humiliated by a roomful of leering men (including Linnea's husband Delbert (Ned Beatty)), I understood how a piece of shit like Tom could represent an escape from Linnea (Tomlin is brilliant in the near-wordless post-coital scene, showing us that, for once, a woman has taken more from Tom than he's taken from her). It can be difficult to determine, due to Altman's famous improvisatory methods, whether a contrast like this was in the script from the start or if it was discovered in editing. But there are moments throughout the film that suggest Altman is more purposeful than he cares to admit - in the heartbreakingly quiet moment when Joan's uncle Mr. Green finds out that his wife has died as a happier scene plays out in the background, in the way (as Pauline Kael pointed out in her famous rave) that Haven's "For the Sake of the Children" illustrates Linnea's unspoken feelings and, most deftly, when fragile singer Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakely) collapes on an airport tarmac in a chilling bit of foreshadowing.

If Nashville has no narrative center, than Barbara Jean is certainly its heart. Recently released from a burn ward (we don't learn the cause) and prone to fainting and hysteria, Barbara Jean is the biggest talent in the movie - with a voice that moves audiences to tears, she's the star that everyone in the movie wants to be. Sadly, Barbara Jean wants to be Barbara Jean too - emotionally stunted from years onstage, told what to do at every moment by her controlling, emotionally abusive husband Barnett (Allen Garfield), Barbara Jean could slip away at any moment. When she loses herself, during a concert, in a rambling monologue about her childhood as the audience starts to boo (and as portions of the Brattle audience, sadly, laughed derisively), we can see how her self-perception and self-mythologizing have become tragically blurred. Even Barbara Jean, perhaps more than anyone else in the film, is captive to her beautiful and impossible ideals she is meant to embody.

The film's famous ending unites Barbara Jean with two characters who are just as lost - flighty aspiring singer Albequerque (Barbara Harris) and quiet drifter Kenny (David Hayward). The reasons for Kenny's actions are ambiguous (it occured to me this time that Kenny may not have planned to go to the Parthenon at all); what Altman is concerned with is the aftermath. What a surprise to discover that the seemingly insecure Haven has the courage of his convictions, or that Tom is one of the first to offer help. And when Albequerque takes the stage, revealing unexpected talent, we can see how the spotlight has been passed as she pacifies the confused masses. The implications of Nashville's ending, which finds a crowd immediately disregarding the violence they've just witnessed as they're distracted by a song, are extremely disturbing. But even as Altman has no illusions about human weaknesses, he's also humane and even sympathetic to our flaws. The film's final shot, which tilts up towards the God's-eye view Altman has avoided and finds only a gray sky, concedes that, while there's nothing to see about there, maybe we do all have to believe in something, and a song is just as good as anything else.

Play the game (7/2/09)

I don't want your cat, you dirty pork queen!

Star Trek opens in bold, attention-grabbing fashion, as we join the USS Kelvin in the middle of a deep-space attack by a Romulan ship. With the Kelvin's captain offed by a teral'n at the hands of revenge-seeking Romulan Nero (Eric Bana), first officer George Kirk (Chris Hernsworth) orders the evacuation of everyone on board, including his very pregnant wife Winona (Jennifer Morrison). As I realized I was about to witness the birth, mid-space battle, of one James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), I chuckled at what might be the most literal-minded moment in the recent trend of prequels that fill in our most iconic characters' backstories. I'd been suspicious of Star Trek since its first trailer for precisely this reason, but as the opening continued, a strange thing happened - cheesy as the idea of Kirk's interstellar delivery might seem, director J.J. Abrams isn't afraid to swing for the fences, mining more suspense and emotion out of such an unabashedly broad scene that I soon found myself on the edge of my seat. As the elder Kirk, on a collision course with the Romulans, hears his son's first cries trasmitted from another escape pod, I actually found myself getting misty-eyed (becoming a parent does that to you). For all the talk of Star Trek as a drastic reboot of the franchise, it (like almost all summer movies) is purely status quo. But it doesn't need to reinvent the wheel; in fact, it works as well as it does because it understands Star Trek's origins in Horatio Hornblower and a centuries-old tradition of ripping yarns, and it delivers on the promise of a rip-roaring adventure better than any incarnation of Star Trek since The Wrath of Kahn.

After too much time spent slogging through painfully dry Next Generation movies, it's a pleasure to be reunited with Kirk(Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), here a Starfleet cadet and a Commander, at the start of a lifelong conflict between the mind and the dick that is, at this point, still adversarial. Pine and Quinto are both surprisingly believable as younger incarnations of their iconic characters, and the entire cast fits just as well (except Anton Yelchin - there's just something insufferably self-conscious about that kid). The script by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (way better than average for these two) employs black holes and red matter to allow for changes in the Star Trek canon while still accomodating purists, as well as giving Nero a reason for his villainy and affording Leonard Nimoy, returning as Spock, a more active role in the story than a shoehorned-in cameo (if the rest of the movie sucked, the sight of Nimoy in another Star Trek would justify the entire thing). The hard science of the story is ridiculous, of course, if one knows anything about black holes and red matter, and since I like Star Trek most when it veers into pure speculative fiction, I sort of missed the nerdiness (I'm the guy that likes V'ger and parts of Star Trek V, so feel free to disregard my opinion). But this Star Trek succeeds where it counts - in the vision of a military operating as much on reason as force, the Hornblower-inspired focus on what is truly the measure of a man (possible answer: Bruce Greenwood), the childlike sense of wonder at the mysteries of space exploration, and the gratuitous scene of Kirk banging a sexy, green-skinned alien. Gene Roddenberry would be proud.

A similar set of traditional values (minus the busty Orions) are at the heart of Up, the newest feature from Pixar (at this point, the most reliable name in Hollywood). The already-famous dialogue-free montage at the beginning of the film, which takes us through the entire lives of aspiring explorers Carl Frederickson (Ed Asner) and his wife Ellie - from youthful expectations through the disappointments reality brings, fond memories and, finally, Ellie's death - is one of Pixar's greatest achievements and, most likely, the most moving 10 minutes of any film this year. With only Michael Giacchino's lilting score as accompaniment, director Pete Docter and his team of animators create a definitive filmic portrait of what it is to find, go through life with and ultimately lose one's soulmate (two consecutive years that I've cried at a cartoon - thanks, Pixar!). The elderly Carl, adrift in a rapidly changing world, decides to honor his wife's unfulfilled wish - a retired balloon vendor, he uses his resources to fly their house to Paradise Falls, a (fictional) remote spot in South America. The sight of Carl's house taking off, sunlight suddenly refracting through thousands of balloons into a seemingly endless ocean of color, has a visual poetry worthy of Hayao Miyazaki - yet another example of Pixar's seemingly effortless ability to create definitive representations of our collective wonder.

I must admit that, once Carl and his stowaway - chubby and overeager 8-year-old Russell (Jordan Nagai) - get to South America, Up registers as an ever-so-slight disappointment. This is entirely due to Pixar's extremely high standards, as Up is still by far the best option for moviegoing families right now. But after the visionary Wall-E, I expected Carl and Russell to find more wondrous sights at Paradise Falls than a talking dog and a funny-looking bird. Don't get me wrong, the talking dog is hilarious; it's just that the film's second half feels sort of squarely domestic, something I also felt about Docter's mostly great Monsters Inc. (my daughter's favorite movie, so I could be very wrong about this). And when Carl meets his childhood hero, explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), only to find a villian, Up sort of drops the ball on the weightier implications of this kind of disillusionment. What does work beautifully is the relationship between Carl and the quietly lonely Russell, and what this slowly teaches Carl about his own life without Ellie. For a movie about an octegenarian, Up is a wonderful paean to the virtues of holding on to one's youth.

Released, in a delicious bit of fearful symmetry, the same weekend as Up, Drag Me to Hell is a gleefully sadistic compliment to Pixar's heavenly fantasy. The much-touted return to horror by director Sam Raimi was rejected by audiences who didn't realize that, like Raimi's Evil Dead movies, Drag Me to Hell is supposed to be funny. Alison Lohman occupies the role previously occupied by Bruce Campbell in Raimi's films, that of the perpetual ass of every supernatural joke. As Christine Brown, a sweet, mousy bank teller cursed by vengeful Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) after denying the old woman an extension on her mortgage, Lohman is subjected to a nonstop stream of shocks, nasty bodily fluids and the indignity of having many, many gross substances forced into her mouth as she finds a way to break the curse that will end with the Lamia, a vengeful satyr-like demon dragging her to you guessed it after three days. It's a pleasure to see Raimi, after only occassionally indulging his brattier directorial impulses in the Spider-Man movies, going truly old-school here: the insane camerawork, the Stooges-inspired humor (there's even an anvil gag!) and, most all, the willingness to rise below bad taste in the name of a scare or a laugh make Drag Me to Hell feel like the work of a young, eager-to-please filmmaker fresh off Evil Dead 2.

That's not to say that Drag Me to Hell is a time capsule from 1987, as it's a bit too CGI-heavy, alas, to feel completely analog. What is charmingly old-school is Raimi's morality - he gives us a seemingly decent protagonist who, at first, seems unfairly punished for a tough choice, then spends the rest of the movie subtly insinuating that Christine fully deserves to be dragged to Hell. I realize this is done in a tongue-in-cheek way (kitten!), but it's something of a revalation to find that Raimi (a conservative churchgoer who supported Bush in 2004) actually seems to believe in the black-and-white morality that other horror directors can only approach with ironic detachment. According to Raimi, we're all going to Hell if we don't shape up and learn to treat each other with some decency, and now it's clear that Raimi's best films work as well as they do because, no matter how wild they get, they're rooted in a very basic set of convictions. Strange to think of the guy who directed the tree rape scene in The Evil Dead as a right-wing auteur; stranger still that this actually makes me like him more. It helps, of course, that Drag Me to Hell is a blast from beginning to end, a gleefully sadistic spook show (aided by a kickass Christopher Young score) that arrives at an ending that left me in disbelief that Raimi actually got away with it. How exciting to think that, in the confines of the summer movie machine, there are filmmakers who manage to make the conventional feel radical.