LIGHT ROOM: Breaking Bad (AMC)

Breaking Bad, a new series airing on AMC, holds promise. Bryan Cranston is the star and thus far he’s outstanding — he has the look of quiet desperation mixed with inner rage down pat. Cranston plays a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a meth dealer when he’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer (See, it pays to pay attention in school!). Yes, the set up is an awful lot like Weeds, but the show is an hourly drama instead of a half hour comedy. Anyway, it’s worth adding to the TiVo.

REVIEW: Funny Games (Haneke, 1997)

Over the last few decades the amount of screen violence that is tolerated and reveled in has increased. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. When the line is pushed at the extremes invariably the rest is dragged along with it. Violence that was once grotesque slides into the realm of the unexceptional and suddenly there’s a genre catering to those seeking the thrill of experiencing the new grotesque. Although it’s not really a new genre per say; it’s more that the genre is constituted by a new type of film. The Blob is replaced by Halloween is replaced by Nightmare on Elm Street is replaced by Hellraiser is replaced by Saw is replaced by Hostel, each ratcheting up the violence in the quest to satisfy that visceral impact of “gross!” that’s constantly being dulled by the previous generation of films.

Enter Funny Games.

A well-to-do family of three — father, mother, little boy — goes to their vacation house for a few weeks of sailing and golf. Upon their arrival two young gentlemen stop their house innocently enough, but when the wife grows perturbed by their unwillingness to leave and her husband intervenes, one of the boys, having admired a Callaway driver in the hallway, smashes the father’s kneecap with the golf club, thus setting into motion a horrific night during which the family is held hostage by these two sociopaths.

So far Funny Games probably sounds like your typical horror movie fare. But here’s the thing: Funny Games is a rousing intellectual treatise, a remarkably brutal provocation, and a viscerally exhilarating film.

Such a combination traits makes Funny Games a deft work of art and social criticism, which is exceedingly rare not in intention but in achievement. There are a lot of films out there that try to make A Point About Our Culture. Most of them suck. They’re either maudlin or overwrought or polemical or completely lacking in nuance — sometimes all four! Or they hit you over the head, again and again and again, bludgeoning to death their idea they think is profound until the idea is trite, thus undermining their entire operation in one fell swoop. A good example is Boondock Saints, a film so eager to make sure you get The Message that its closing credits is nothing but a constant recitation of said message by anonymous people from the world of the film. Barf.

Moving away from self righteous violence and destruction to just plain violence and destruction, there are better examples of what I’m talking about: 8mm and Thesis. The former is the terrible American answer to the later. You’ve probably seen 8mm on HBO. You’ll have to Netflix Thesis. If you’ve seen neither: Both deal with snuff films and our culture’s obsession with violence, the first with Nicholas Cage and the second at the hands of a young Alejandro Amenábar, so you can guess which is better. But even Thesis — which has a wonderfully disturbing final scene that’s marred by the coda, a sledge hammer that hits just a bit more softly than the closing credits sequence of Boondock Saints — can’t touch Funny Games. Not even with a 10 foot pole.

Funny Games is a Brechtian meditation on our complacency towards and complicity in violent films. The movie is a taut thriller, but amazingly enough none of the violence is ever shown on screen. In this regards it’s almost the antithesis to the torture films that are all the rage these days. Funny Games is manipulative towards the audience in the same way that the two killers are manipulative towards their victims, but that’s precisely the point. A number of times one of the killers looks into the camera to address the audience, even rewinding the film when one of the victims doesn’t act according to plan. It’s a moment when the audience thinks the family will get away — a moment of hope — that quickly turns into a moment where the audience is punished for being so willing to submit to the film. Such manipulation takes panache and the director, Michael Haneke, certainly has that in spades. But a debt is owed to the actors, each of whom is outstanding.

Coincidently, Michael Haneke has remade Funny Games for an American release (the original, from 1997, is in German). The new version comes out in March and has an impressive cast — Naomi Watts, Micheal Pitts, Tim Roth. I guess with a talented cast and the original director at the helm there’s reason to be optimistic that the film will be good. But why even remake it? The original is great. See the original.

Rating: 88

REVIEW: This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Dick, 2006)

Directed by Kirby Dick, This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a documentary about the secretive, moralistic, and altogether perverse process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films. The film whimsically exposes and explains troubling rationale behind the ratings and how they are determined. Among the troubling features:1) The people who rate the films do so in secret. Their names are never disclosed and they sign confidentiality agreements that are purposefully so vague that they effectively gag the raters both during and after their employment with the MPAA.

2) There is no known set of guidelines the raters are supposed to follow. They are able to dictate ratings based on nothing more than their taste (more on this below).

3) The raters are intended to represent the interests of the typical American parent.

4) They professional film raters. They are paid by the MPAA. The potential for a conflict of interest will be apparent soon.

5) While there is a limit on how long the raters can serve (up to seven years) it’s a policy that’s not strictly administered.

6) The raters are selected by a single individual, meaning one person effectively has control over who is determining the ratings, which is the sort of outrageous singular influence having a ratings board (rather than single rater) is supposed to mitigate.

7) The final vote of the ratings board need not be the final word on the rating of a film. It is possible for the head of the MPAA to overrule the board, once again defeating the purpose of having a ratings board.

8) Filmmakers can appeal their MPAA rating, but they aren’t allowed to know the names of the people on the appeal board even though the appeals board is not by rule a secret group.

9) Two spots on the appeals board are reserved for representatives from the Catholic and Methodist churches.

10) During an appeal one cannot appeal to precedent set by the board. Any past ratings decision is inadmissible during an appeal.

So those are ten problems with the MPAA ratings process. Of course, no film is required to be submitted for review by the MPAA. (The porn industry obviously doesn’t submit films for review.) So why does the MPAA matter? Why even submit films for review? Couldn’t rebellious filmmakers circumvent the MPAA and release their films without ratings?

Well…not really, or at least not effectively. The MPAA is the baby of the six major film studios in Hollywood, the same film studios who release and distribute over 95% of the films in the United States (excluding pornography, obviously). To secure theatrical distribution without the backing of a major studio is so expensive as to be prohibitive, meaning that truly independent films often remain largely unseen and, therefore, cannot turn a profit. In order to make a profit films almost have to be backed by a studio with the resources to distribute the film.

In order for a film to be backed by a major studio the studio will expect a positive return on the investment. Films rated NC-17 do no make profits. The public doesn’t turn out en masse to see NC-17 films. NC-17 is the deathblow to a film.

Since studios won’t distribute NC-17 films filmmakers are under extraordinary pressure to secure an R rating. And this is where the repugnant issue of censorship comes into play.

The MPAA ratings system grew out of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association. Prior to the MPAA and its ratings system there was the MPPDA and its Hays Code. Adopted in 1930 out of fear that films would corrupt society if they depicted morally questionable actions, the Hays Code was used to censor films during the early years of the studio system. The Hays Code is why there are no lingering (or open mouth) kisses in early Hollywood films and why people exclaim “Dang gosh!” when they’re shot. It’s also why the good guys always defeat the bad guys — depicting the evil element of society in anything but the worst possible light was in direct violation of the Hays Code.

But it’s not just the history of the MPAA ratings that make censorship a valid concern. It’s that the actual practices of the MPAA resemble those of a (secretive) morality police.

As noted, no one really knows what guidelines the MPAA raters are supposed to follow. But any cursory survey of the US film market leads to implicit guidelines. For instance, PG-13 movies don’t include extensive use the word fuck. Rated R movies can include extreme amounts of violence and torture, but more than a few thrusts during intercourse can be enough to push a film to an NC-17. Violence and language are permissible, sex and nudity is not.

But it’s not just sex and nudity that can push a film to a higher rating. It’s also the type of sex and nudity that matters. Breasts can be exposed extensively in R rated movies, but name me the last R rated movie that had more than a brief shot of a penis. Asses can be in PG-13 movies, but a shot that includes a woman’s pubic hair is enough to warrant an NC-17 rating. The range and extent of nudity is extremely limited — and baffling — in R rated movies.

Much like the range and extent of sexuality. Ratings are often determined along strict sexuality lines. Homosexuality really isn’t tolerated, as are images that linger on women experiencing sexual pleasure, which makes depicting lesbian sex an extremely tricky proposition for any filmmaker.

(In fact, the whole range of female experience in popular cinema is perverse. Female masturbation — even clothed masturbation — will get a movie slapped with an NC-17 if the object of the masturbation fantasy is another woman, as was the case in But I’m A Cheerleader. Meanwhile Jason Biggs bangs a pie in American Pie and Ben Stiller ejaculates onto his earlobe in There’s Something About Marry that those films are rated R.)

OK. So when you get right down to it the MPAA sucks. What about the film?

The good: This Film Is Not Yet Rated does an admirable job exposing the flaws and inconsistencies of the bizarre and troubling practices of the MPAA. The documentary levels its criticism well and in its quieter moments provides space for thoughtful reflection. Some of the filmmakers and critics interviewed make very salient points about the issues of the MPAA ratings systems, buoyed by personal experiences fighting with the MPAA over a wide range of so-called offenses.

The best point is made by Darren Aronofsky (Require For A Dream), who points out that PG-13 movies allow for limitless killing provided there is no blood (think of any James Bond film), which sterilizes violence is a way that makes it much more likely to provoke children to adopt a desensitized stance towards violence. Only intellectually mature audiences, ones capable of entering into the fantasy of the film without losing a critical distance from the action, should be exposed to bloodless killing.

To this point I’d add that there is a similar lack of reality with sex. Let’s be honest here. Teenagers see sex and sexual imagery everywhere. But they are exposed two the two extremes of sexual experience: either the sexless sex of Hollywood films (without the pubic hair and penises, the sweat, the thrusts, the positions, all shot from the waist up) or the over-the-top fare of pornography, replete with its strong undertones (or overtones) of female subjugation. Hollywood isn’t preserving the innocence of our children by keeping sexually explicit material locked behind the doors of the NC-17 rating. They’re locking children out from the images of sex that actually resemble (healthy) sex and might positively influence their relationship to and understanding of sexual experience.

The point being: There’s a reasonable argument to be made that the MPAA has done serious harm to our society, harm at odds with its intended mission.

The Bad: The main shtick of the film is the director hiring a private investigator to expose the members of the ratings board. Ultimately they succeed and maybe their success has some larger meaning completely missed by me, but whole investigation angle served to criminalize the individuals of the board, which is like missing the forest for the trees. The people composing the ratings board aren’t the main issue. It’s the existence of the ratings board — complete with its secrecy and unknown ratings guidelines and frustrating appeals process — that’s the main problem. Kirby Dick does nothing more than reveal the identities of the board members at the end of the film. There is no apparent consequence. It’s just a plot device (and a fairly good one, to be fair).

Depending on your perspective this is either a terrible fault in the film or a minor annoyance. I’m on the side of minor annoyance.

Rating: 70

QUICK HIT: Eastern Promises (Cronenberg, 2007)

No lengthy review here. Eastern Promises is a masterful work. David Cronenberg is at his best, and the Cronenberg-Mortensen tandem is quickly turning into a favorite. A History of Violence is the better film, but Eastern Promises is a great way to spend 100 minutes on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Rating: 89

REVIEW: Shortbus (Mitchell, 2006)

Shortbus proudly occupies that empty space where sexual frankness exists in real life but not in cinema. The first four minutes makes as much clear. The opening montage includes: multiple shots of a nude man trying to perform autofellatio before ejaculating into his mouth; a dominatrix whipping a spoiled rich boy to orgasm in an apartment overlooking Ground Zero; and an adventurous heterosexual couple basically acting out the Kama Sutra. The female doesn’t orgasm during her romp — has never had an orgasm, in fact — and thus sets in motion the plot of the film as the lives of these disparate couples intersect in the New York sex club whose name is the title of the film. She’s in search of the illusive orgasm; the dominatrix in search of normalcy; the nude man in search of his long lost emotional core.

If it isn’t already clear Shortbus is unusual. There’s a great line early on that, when recast, provides a good cap to my thoughts about the film. While receiving a tour of the Shortbus club the female lead is shown a room in which a bunch of people are sitting watching an experimental film. Her tour guide remarks in a telling moment, “The more boring [the movie is] the more intelligent they think they are for watching it.” This great line captures so much of what makes this artsy/alternative lifestyle completely foreign and utterly baffling to many people. It’s a wonderful moment of honesty and reflection in Shortbus, a film that is essentially the ultimate manifestation of the pretension fueling the attitude of the people watching the experimental film in the club. Shortbus dares you to blink, the implicit conceit being that in-your-face honesty should always be approached (and appreciated) on its own terms. The more graphic and unequivocal the more honest and therefore the more real and more intelligent/unassailable/artistic/worthy.

Shortbus takes itself too seriously for its own good. The frankness and explicitness of the sex, at once wildly over the top while remaining undeniably grounded in the reality of the sexual acts themselves — that’s actual ejaculate, that’s actual penetration — grows tiresome. The same is true of the characters, many of whom come off as either manifestly exaggerated or emotionally one-dimensional. Working in tandem these two elements provide an unrelenting onslaught of performed honesty. Shortbus is too interested in this over the top candor and frankness to notice that it’s choking any shred of genuineness it contains.

And there is genuineness. The tired trope of suicide, so often used as a simplistic means for infusing a character with something resembling depth and substance, is rescued from such a fate by Paul Dawson’s admirable performance as James, half of the struggling gay couple at the heart of the film. For a while Dawson teeters on that brink, but there are remarkably confident and poignant moments in the second half of the film that owe much of their emotional thrust to Dawson salvaging his character from the fate of cliché-dom.

The sexual explicitness of the film is also admirable, if occasionally unnecessary and eventually monotonous. Part of what makes sex on the screen uncomfortable for audiences is that the act of sex is something that cannot easily be faked, particularly for men. It’s as close to a pure moment as there is in cinema. However contrived pornography is — and the majority of it is quite contrived — each male orgasm is a real physical response to an undeniable and easily identifiable stimulus. A man can’t “act” an orgasm and it’s that blurred border between the acted and the sincere that can provide a potent dose of reality. When done well or with good intentions this is a good thing. Shortbus, while not exactly flawless, at least operates with good intentions and ultimately serves as an example of how we might begin to integrate real(istic) sex into non-pornographic cinema.

Rating: 53