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I enjoy being a girl: Stick It

Here's something the cinetrix is willing to bet you never thought she'd say: I wish I saw Stick It in the theatre. Oh, it's pap, but so candy colored that the 'Fesser was moved to say "It's like girl power meets The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." [He's good that way.] Yeah, Stick It's essentially a Disneyfied parable of teen girl rebellion set to a Du Jour soundtrack, but then there are these excellent weird fillips that make it well worth a rental or a dollar matinee.

The story is appropriately slight. Haley, played by the winning if limited Missy Peregrym [imagine a not-so-horsey Hilary Swank, if you can], is a girl in trouble, which is a serious thing. Neglected by her d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d parents, she spends her days with the sk8r bois, spinning her wheels in abandoned Plano pools like some Dogtown manquee. Until she gets busted for trespassing and property damage, that is, and lands, not in juvie, but at Vickerman Gymnastic Academy.

What's a Vickerman? Oh, just an actor I like to call Jeff Bridges. The role's beneath him, sure, but that doesn't mean you can't thrill to the Dude's whining drawl commanding a bunch of leotards through tumbling runs anyway. [And to his credit, he's blowdried and based in Houston but resists going all Bela on us.]

Turns out our Hot Topic-teed rebel girl is a former gymnast who famously walked out of the Worlds a few years back. Now, with Vickerman's help, she's gotta straighten up, fly right, and stick her landings. Not necessarily in that order. Yawn.

[Note: the cinetrix is old enough to remember Nadia, but rest assured, she's not in recherche of any temps perdu. Far from it. The closest she ever got to the pommel horse was elementary school gym class and junior high group obstacle courses.]

But then there's the mise-en-scene. Some critics dismissed it as too ad-like. Eh, maybe. It struck me as Busby Berkeley mixed with maybe Down with Love--plus backflips. What's not to love? There are great geometric overhead shots and flat compositions against a red-and-white background that'd make Jack White jealous.

Ultimately, though, the real fun comes in the casting.  In addition to do-no-wrong Bridges and plucky Peregrym, the filmmakers recruited thirty-odd real former Olympians and NCAA superstars for stunts and secondary roles. So these women are women, not stunted performing monkey girls. They have secondary sex characteristics and maybe even menstruate. And shot at 150 frames/minute they're phenomenal to watch.

Backwards and in heels

Mike Swale: I'm trying to figure out whether you're a total fucking bitch or not.
Bridget Gregory: I am a total fucking bitch.

This week's neo-noir selection was John Dahl's nasty little thriller The Last Seduction, and it holds up well enough that you're even willing to overlook the ludicrously large cordless phones. Boy howdy, the cinetrix had forgotten what a delightful badass Ms. Bridget Gregory/Wendy Kroy is. Linda Fiorentino was never better. Sigh.

When I slunk in, a little late, there were only four students in the dark, all of them male. (Unlike the cinetrix, the noir prof makes screenings optional.) I can't wait to hear their reactions to the movie. Especially because in my mind the only thing I'm likely to hear as they speak is Fiorentino purring in a bad Eastern-Bloc accent, "Are you a weirgin?"

It's cute, but can you really breathe through that thing?

So, how was your Thanksgiving?

Used to be that the 'Fesser and the cinetrix would find ourselves, on winter holidays, piloting a car through a blinding snowstorm, considering holing up behind the New Hampshire state liquor store and warming ourselves with bourbon as we vainly attempted, yet again, to MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY[TM] by trying to be in multiple places at once. Of course, with the 'Fesser's dad now part of the celestial imperium, the cinetrix wouldn't trade a fuckin' moment, snow be damned, but there were times when it was pretty grim.

Or so I thought, until I had to relinquish myself to the airlines. Oh, airlines. Seriously--what the fuck? I've seen better run bar fights. The 'Fesser and I started off our travels faced with a cancelled flight, which pooched our subsequent flight and, well, I don't have to tell you. An hour late, we were booked on an entirely different airline to a different city. Boston, to be precise. Which meant we took the jitney [not that one] on our final leg to home and hearth.

I've extolled the virtues of this particular outfit elsewhere on Pullquote, with its civilized no-cell phone policy [that's right. No inane "I'm on the bus" overheard calls], free bottled waters and bagged pretzels, and even electrical outlets for ye olde laptop. This operation also offers a movie, so you can imagine the cinetrix's bemused delight when she learned the evening's prescient entertainment would be A Prairie Home Companion, a scant two days after Altman left us.

I hadn't seen it, and I doubt I ever would have under other circumstances. See, I hate that toad-faced, smug scourge of the public airwaves [you may know him as Garrison Keillor] so much that the 'Fesser and I often find ourselves leaping through space and time, Matrix bullet-stizz, to shut off the radio the moment the simpy American Public Media music begins. But, I was on a bus [cue Replacements, if we must work the Twin Cities vibe. Mmmmm.... 'Mats].

So I watched. And, I'll admit it, I cried. See, in the middle of the final broadcast of this hokey midwestern radio show, someone dies. Someone who's had a good long run of it, but still. The cinetrix remembers reading in all of the Altman eulogizing that this one was about death, you know, so she wasn't totally unprepared. But when Chuck Akers shuffles off whilst awaiting his lady love, I lost it. It'd been a long day, and we were on our way to the first Thanksgiving without the 'Fesser's dad. So I wept, quietly, wearing headphones on a northbound bus.

I often tell my students that the how of watching a movie is in many ways as important as the what and the why. Most of the time I mean to emphasize to slackers that the screenings are not optional. But I really do believe it. And it was all brought home to me on that goddamned bus.

So, thanks, Mister Altman. I thought the bits with Virginia Madsen were mostly awful, but you got me with Chuck's passing. And I needed it right then, Garrison Keillor be damned.

My father-in-law was a big NPR supporter and a fan of selected bad jokes, so it seems kinda fitting to leave you back where we began:

Dusty: Hey, uh... hey, Lefty. What did the elephant say to the naked man?
Lefty: What'd he say?
Dusty: It's cute, but can you really breathe through that thing?

Me, I always step on the punchline.

True confessions

Sheridan Whiteside: Banjo, my lad, you're wonderful. I may write a book about you.
Banjo: Don't bother, I can't read!

Neither, apparently, can the cinetrix. She was seven sorts of delighted to kick back with Sheridan Whiteside after dinner last night, only to discover that the film in the little red envelope starred not Monty Woolley but Nathan Fuckin' Lane. [Shudder.] How could the gods be so cruel?

Needless to say, I sealed that sucker up unwatched and pitched it back in the post. I mean, really.

The long goodbye

A friend just emailed me the news: Robert Altman has died. Like I said, I've had it with 2006.

[I found the photograph on my friend Gerry's site. He took me to a rare screening of 3 Women at the HFA about eight years ago. Read his 2001 interview with Altman here.]

Power of 10

The cinetrix can't wait for this year's* Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The fest recently announced the 10th anniversary thematic program, and it's a doozy:

Ten years ago, we created an organization to celebrate the power and artistry of this cinematic form. We believe we have done that, and this year we take great pleasure in inviting back to Full Frame many of the artists who have played an important role in the growth of the Festival and the evolution of non-fiction film. In celebration of Full Frame's tenth anniversary we hope to bring an even greater understanding to the art and influence of documentary.

Ten years, ten curators, ten films. Artists who have contributed to Full Frame these last ten years return to reflect on the decade and show the films that have influenced their understanding of it in our curated series called the The Power of Ten.

Curators:
St. Clair Bourne
Charles Burnett
Ariel Dorfman
Mira Nair
Cara Mertes
Michael Moore
Walter Mosley
D.A. Pennebaker
Julia Reichert
Martin Scorsese

Inspired by the Charles and Ray Eames film Powers of Ten, Full Frame created this program to emphasize the magnitude of impact that documentary films have had on our culture in the past decade. The challenge given to the curators was to choose a film, not necessarily made in the past decade nor even shown at the festival, that in some way illuminates the last ten years. The films will be the centerpiece of the festival and each curator will write an original essay on why that film matters now. Our curators' choices offer a surprising diversity. We look forward to the conversations sparked by the screenings, as each curator, when possible, will introduce the film and conduct a Q&A with the director.

Hot damn! It's a show with everything but Yul Brynner. [The cinetrix is even willing to forgive them for spelling out "ten."] See you kids in Durham this April.

*For a variety of reasons, the cinetrix decided in early November she'd had it with 2006. She dyed her hair red and has been living life 2007-stizz ever since.        

Disconnected dreamers

The cinetrix has been battling a cold for the better part of a week, so it is with some confidence that she can assert that Citizen Kane is not the flick you want to teach when you're logy and congested. [Especially not the fucking Salammbo sequences.] Welles's boy wonder magic tricks failed to thrill, and it was hard to sell Bazan's politique des auteurs or the Sarris vs. Kael American iteration of the auteur theory through a phenylephrine haze. Don't try this at home, indeed.

Is it any wonder I skipped out on the noir class screening of Point Blank? Enough already with the flashback-happy narratives, you know? But the cinetrix has managed to see some films "for fun" recently. Two on her visit to Boston and one curled up on the couch at home.

Borat. Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. Enough already, Mr. Baron Cohen! Call off your invasion, withdraw your Kazakh shock troops. We surrender.

We did, that is, when on a truly auspicious night, my mother came into the city to see Borat on opening weekend. She never does that, people. The woman watches more movies than anyone I know, but usually they're on DVDs, acquired free through the kind auspices of her interlibrary loan system. Definitely not as part of a jacked-up Saturday night throng in Harvard Square.

There is nothing left to observe about this movie at this late date. I mean, Borat's the cover story on Film Comment, for pete's sake. But I can say something about the experience of watching it, for you reception-theory fans. Go with your [part-Eastern European] mother. Sit next to her during the nude wrestling scene and try not to expire from sheer embarrassment as she laughs until the tears come.

Tears--of frustration--about sums up my reaction to Michel Gondry's boyish bibelot The Science of Sleep. The principals are adorable and the mise-en-scene is the mise-iest, but the story?

Exactly. What story? Dreamy dreamer Stephane may think he's wooing sweet Stephanie with his gimcrack creations, but his lethargy and tantrums come off as anything but cute. With Sleep, Gondry proves that texture is not the same thing as depth and leaves the radiant Charlotte Gainsbourg, and us, stranded babysitting Bernal through his endless fever dreams.

Another flick that left me less wowed than I'd hoped was Rian Johnson's Brick, although as a purely technical exercise it did impress me more on my second viewing. When the cinetrix first learned the premise of the Sundance fave she thought it brilliant. What could be more noir--desperate, stylized, and life-or-death--than high school? Dewy ingenues and flinty femmes fatales abound, and the boys are sweet and tender hooligans.

Sadly, the premise is stronger than the payoff.

Sure, there's murder, and drugs, and slangy betrayal, but in the end Brick feels like David Lynch lite, a knowing cinematic parlor trick that, like tying a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue, seems a lot sexier if you haven't seen it done better elsewhere.

[The soundtrack is great, though.]

You want to be the sickest one here

Photographer Lauren Greenfield's debut documentary THIN is the most riveting film the cinetrix has seen all year. It premieres tonight on HBO.

Why should you watch it? Well, one in seven women under 25 have had an eating disorder. And I'd bet every one of you knows more than seven women.

Let me know what you think.

Good news for people who like bad news

A tiny item in today's Variety email made the cinetrix's cynical heart sing:

MAGNOLIA GETS 'OUT'
Plans to share debt docu with Netflix Unusual release for 'Maxed'
Magnolia is close to acquiring rights to "Maxed Out," the critically acclaimed docu about Americans and the debt industry, directed by James Scurlock.

The cinetrix was fortunate enough to see Maxed Out at Full Frame this past April, and she'll feel a lot more hopeful once every man, woman, and child gets a gander at its harrowing tales of Americans' love affair with consumer debt. It made me cry, people. Sling it on your queues, watch and learn, and cut those fucking cards.

Stars, they're just like us

Last week, for reasons too banal to explain, the cinetrix was unable to have a screening for her film class. Left facing a midweek discussion without a film to anchor it, I decided to expose the kiddies to a little star theory. Those of you already familiar with Richard Dyer's groundbreaking work on the subject probably also don't need to be told that it's less than a gripping read for students who have little to no firsthand knowledge of the classic Hollywood stars Dyer makes his subjects.

So I added a little more recent reading: Murray Pomerance on Johnny Depp and Sarah Vowell, from those halcyon days of 2000, on the ineluctable aloneness of Tom Cruise. But basically the discussion devolved into a focus on not just movie stars but the familiar faces gracing celebrity tabloids at the local supermarket. Are stars "just like us" and should they be? Why does it matter?

I'll be honest: I had a blast. Imagine standing in front of a classroom and writing Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise on the board, then throwing scare quotes around each of their names. After all, I asked, what do we know about "Johnny Depp" or Johnny Depp? Everything was fair game, so Tim Burton's name soon nestled next to "Wino Forever tattoo," "lives in France," and so on. Is Depp a character actor? Why do we know the names of Tom Cruise's children?

It used to be that after one's tween years, when august publications like Bop or 16 delivered breathless precis about how you and whatever unthreating tv heartthrob du jour were clearly meant for each other because you both love pepperoni pizza, this sort of trivia mostly melted away. OK, there'd be the occasional high-profile, headline-grabbing affair, and the gents might feel a certain thrill because Miss September likes Adam Sandler movies, too, but that was pretty much it.

Now, though, for a certain tier of celebrities, that information is available everywhere. For example, we are all so sad about Reese and Ryan. They seemed different; what about those poor kids, etc. That said, it's tough to totally quash that little buzz of connection when you find out, say, Jonathan Lethem is screening Scarecrow at the IFC Center [which he did last Thursday]. Even though I'm not enough of a fan, personally, to have gone given the chance, I'm fascinated because the entire event is predicated on the idea that if you like his books, and he likes this movie, then maybe you'll like this movie. Or you love the movie and have been meaning to pick up his books for years. He'll be there. You'll be there. We're talking BFF by the end of the evening!  Eeee!

Where am I going with this? Good question. Shared favorite movies can be almost a secret language. I guess I was just wondering whether you'd ever had the experience of learning that a "star" you admired--in whatever medium--loved a movie that you loved. Or, better still, that you hated. Is the bloom off the rose forever more, in the latter case, and did you feel that little frisson of "we would totally be best friends" in the former?