Battleship Pretension

Think about the monsters in Spike Jonze’s last film, Where the Wild Things Are. Think about how even though they truly are monsters – violent, terrifying, brutish, selfish creatures who will absolutely eat you up – they are also capable of deep feeling. They may not be human but they long for understanding, acceptance, companionship and all the other simple, vital things people want. This description of those fantastical beasts would also cover most of the characters in Jonze’s other films. The opportunistic and manipulative puppeteer in Being John Malkovich; the weak and needy screenwriter in Adaptation; be they monster or just misfit, they all want to be loved. Jonze’s newest work, Her, bears the distinction of being the first of his own screenplays that he’s directed and it proves that these thematic similarities were not coincidental.

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On the surface, John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks appears to be fairly simplistic.  Characters often say what they mean and there are clear lines from motivation to action.  It always seem obvious as to what is going on, both through the use of declarative statements and on-the-nose flashbacks.  So why did I respond so positively towards the film?

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In this episode, Tyler and David discuss a number of different things, because it’s their show and they’ll do what they want!

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In the 18^th century, it was the German doctor Franz Mesmer who first theorized about animal magnetism. Personally, I don’t buy it, but we have all known someone who seems to have a certain “je ne sais quoi.” There are those people who draw others to them, who seem to get more out of life then the rest of us. Being around someone like that can be intoxicating, and a little addictive. In Trap For Cinderella, Micky is that drug to Do.

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In the tradition of “tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em” high school essay introductions, I will now provide a preview of what you’re about to read. The following is a list of reasons why Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is better than its predecessor, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, followed by a short acknowledgement that, despite the improvements, it’s still not that good a movie.

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In this episode, Mat and Thrasher kick off a new series, about Pixar’s Toy Story franchise.

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Neil LaBute doesn’t like me very much.  I’m not too torn up about it, though; he doesn’t like you, either.  And it’s entirely possible that he’s not a huge fan of himself.  When it comes right down to it, he really doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of humanity in general.  He has devoted his career to telling stories of terrible characters doing terrible things to one another.  Oh sure, every once in a while you’ll have a character that is purely a victim, but even that poor soul starts to give off a distinct “chump” vibe, as though he or (usually) she kind of deserves their abuse.

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There are certain films that – even without the dated clothes, music and aesthetics – you can tell when they were made just by the way women are treated. Ms. 45 was made in 1981 and you can absolutely tell. Women were both asserting their power but also still fighting engrained sexual stereotypes. Ms. 45 both highlights and condemns men’s behaviors and actions towards women in the early ‘80’s. There are many scenes of men catcalling women on the streets or being overly aggressive in public. You see how inappropriate it is and how uncomfortable it makes the women receiving the attention. You also see how this leads to the decision the main character makes to eventually to kill men who prey on women.

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In this episode, Kyle and guest host Rob Walker discuss the ’70s disaster flick The Hindenburg.

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Aggressively politicized fiction will always be somewhat controversial, I suppose, or, more often the case these days, ignored entirely. Much easier to write off a bit of vitriolic polemic as “too on-the-nose” than it is to actively engage with it, I suppose, but thankfully, The Criterion Collection is compelled to rub our noses in the inevitable ugliness of a civilized society. The role of the government in the lives of its citizens is, I suppose, an evergreen one, but it has certainly come to greater prominence over the past four years as entire political factions have formed out of the desire for the government, in my dad’s words, to just leave us the hell alone, and director Elio Petri certainly presents a damning portrait of the insular corruption, vis-à-vis the one branch that most agree is absolutely necessary in spite of our collective frustration with their methods – the police.

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