“Review: Cars 2, A Tale of Two Screenings”

I’m going to start with the very first thing that went through my mind after the lights went up at the Cars 2 midnight premier last weekend: “the streak,” whatever it was, is officially over. That magical aura of invincibility that seemed to shield Pixar from the soulless vacuum that is the big budget film industry was, if not destroyed entirely, temporarily damaged. After one of the most impressive sprees in 20th century entertainment, the studio responsible for Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and Up has finally shown weakness, proving even they couldn’t make a good movie starring Larry the Cable Guy. And worst of all, the moldy corners of Cars 2 seem located on what is usually Pixar’s bread and butter: the story. Perhaps the posterboys for artistic integrity finally cracked under the increasing pressures of merchandising; developing a film to sell more action figures, setting it overseas to appeal to foreign markets, dumbing it down to make it easier to sell to the kids, and forgoing story and passion for an easy buck. Maybe the studio that built itself from the ground up for the last twenty-five years on the principle of quality above all else finally did something completely counter-directive to their nature, and if so, what hope do any of the rest of us have?

And with that in mind, I absolutely had to see the movie again the next day, this time at a 4:00 matinee with my four and six year old siblings in tow. And maybe it was merely my lowered expectations, but I enjoyed the film a lot more. Once “the streak” was no longer an issue, I could accept Carts 2 for what it was. It wasn’t a masterpiece. It was deeply flawed, and I didn’t feel obligated to like it. But you know what? I kind of did. And suddenly I didn’t feel like John Lasseter and co. had to necessarily sell out to make such a film. It’s amazing how answers present themselves when you’re of sound mind and it’s not 3 in the morning. Maybe the film’s international angle had more to do with defining this film apart from its predecessor, and the simpler plot simply worked better with that premise. And maybe the placement of Mater as the film’s lead was a genuine, if a bit miscalculated, attempt to broaden a universe most adults could care less about seeing more of. I could live with that.

Cars 2 is the story of Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), that supporting character from the original Cars who we all thought could grow wearisome (if he already wasn’t) if given any more screen time. Mater is unlikely best friends with famous racing car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), and like every social outcast befriended by a kindly, unsuspecting cool kid, he is milking this relationship for everything it’s worth. When McQueen returns from the Piston Cup Circuit, Mater expects that they will spend all their time together (he’s even disappointed when McQueen abandons him to have dinner with his girlfriend Sally, voiced by Bonnie Hunt). When McQueen gets roped into an international race to determine the fastest car in the world, he feels obligated to bring Mater with him, and like every good middle American touring Europe, Mater makes an absolute fool of himself. Lighting is frustrated by Mater’s antics, particularly when they cost him the first race in Tokyo. What Lightning doesn’t realize is that Mater has been pulled into an international spy plot ala The Man Who Knew Too Much (or The Man Who Knew Too Little), and when odd things start happening, Lightning assumes that his dense, ignorant, arrested friend is being dense, ignorant, and arrested. They argue. Mater leaves. And so Mater is pulled further into a dangerous spy plot away from all his friends and Lightning continues racing while wallowing in guilt over their confrontation, until their separate stories begin to converge.

I’ll admit that I like the spy angle. There was no way Cars 2 was going to reach the same heights Pixar has achieved in recent years, and a Hitchockian fish-out-of-water romp is definitely a fun, if not quite as edifying, way to kill a couple of hours. On top of that, I thought perhaps the movie would venture into the touchy territory of the American reputation and ideals in a modernized Europe; kind of a Ruggles of Red Gap in reverse. Instead, the film focuses on Mater and his idiosyncrasies, drawing sympathy from the way people get frustrated (or laugh condescendingly) when he does really stupid things. The results often feel mawkish, cloying, saccharine, and several other thesauruses full of semi-synonyms for what Pixar usually does, except not good. Lasseter’s typical affectionate, unironic approach to character might have backfired on him this time. I really think he cares that much about Mater, as he does about all his characters. Just like Cars seemed a lot like Doc Hollywood but was probably organically drawn from Lasseter’s love of middle America and NASCAR racing (which confused a lot of people, because how many great artists love middle America and NASCAR?), Mater seems like a compilation of stereotypes and contrivances, when I think Lasseter views him as a character. That’s fine when he’s in a supporting role, but in order for him to anchor a film, the audience has to care as much as Lasseter does. This will be divisive, because any idiotic character who accidentally succeeds over and over again, separate of any intentional effort on their own part, is going to become grating to a lot of people (although thankfully that happens a lot less than you might expect). So I don’t think Mater’s arc is so much pandering as it is unearned pathos, not helped at all by the fact that the film’s goals are the least ambitious in the studio’s history.

Then again, the lesser ambition isn’t exactly a flaw. In my humble opinion, the studio couldn’t very well keep upping the ante as they have been, or eventually their wonderfully contrasted opuses would become bipolar Oscar bait (or worse, Dreamworks films). Eventually Pixar was going to have to break free of the expectation that they could do all things for all people every single time out the gate. Such a sentiment could become just as limiting as the commercial whoring of other animation studios. Rather than a shift in the wrong direction, I see Cars 2 as an isolated attempt to take a break from the admittedly glorious but somewhat morose trends in the studio’s recent work (the last three films prominently featured the world ending, an old couple separated by death, and protagonists descending into the pit of hell). Sure, there are some scary elements to Cars 2 (including death, or whatever the car equivalent of death is), but it’s all in the name of a good time; the kind of time most kids have when playing with their cars. Talking cars blow up other talking cars on huge exploding buildings while racing while shooting guns while making toilet jokes while going across the world. For my inner five year old, Cars 2 is a miracle movie (also for my six year old brother, whose review I posted a couple days ago). I’m actually glad Pixar hasn’t become too full of themselves to make this movie. If the first film was Lasseter’s ode to car culture, this is his symphony to the sandbox. And like most films so personal and so free-spirited, it has a lot of holes and a lot of flaws, and a lot of people (myself included) are going to have some serious issues with it.

But let’s reel things back for a moment and take a look at all the things Cars 2 does exceptionally well. For instance, Pixar movies display some of the purest, simplest, most effective “camera” work in the business. Their elegant, unobtrusive shot selection is one of the most underrated weapons in their arsenal. Even when the story doesn’t service them well (it pretty much always does) the individual scenes are easy to get lost in. The Cars 2 spy action sequences, particularly the first one, shame most of today’s comparable big budget filmmaking. Compare these action scenes – which I emphasize have to work around the fact that guns are being wielded by cars – to the action in Quantum of Solace, Thor, Iron Man 2, or Inception (excepting Inception’s awesome hallway sequence. But imagine how hard it would be to shoot that with talking cars). Christopher Nolan could take a few pointers from Lasseter on how to maintain total coherence while still keeping up the frenetic pacing and breathtaking spectacle. How to Train Your Dragon has come the closest of any animated film I’ve seen to achieving the same complexity and effectiveness of Pixar’s direction, but forgetting for a moment the stories and characters in the two films, Cars 2 (by no means the best shot Pixar film) still has greater moments of aesthetic beauty and thrilling euphoria.

I hardly need to address the shot quality of Cars 2. From Finding Nemo to Wall-E, Pixar’s animation dominance has been well recorded. Here, various cities from Tokyo to London are breathtakingly rendered, reminding me of some of those incredible New York shots from Peter Jackson’s King Kong (Jackson claimed he had the entire city built digitally, accurate down to every individual door handle, and I believe him). Even more impressive is the way cars are made to express emotion and distinctive facial traits while remaining essentially car-like. Watch the facial performances of spies Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) closely. They’re incredible. Of course, these are the types of things we come to take for granted from a studio like Pixar, but I see them done in generic or even boring ways in enough animated films that I try to allow them to impress me, even after all these years.

That’s what I find amazing about Pixar. Everyone involved in the making of the film is talented enough and dedicated enough that if one department falls behind, the others pick up the slack (presumably. This is the first time any department has really fallen behind). Cars 2 might limp along occasionally, but I think it still has enough juice to putter past the finish line (and thus ends the car puns for the remainder of this review. I promise). The voice acting is superb for the most part. I especially loved Bruce Campbell’s brief cameo as the rough American spy car who is forced to deliver his plans to Mater in a Tokyo restroom. One villainous tow truck’s face and voice combine to deliver just the right sense of menace in a key moment of the film that escalates the action (where I think the script probably left much to be desired). Michael Giacchino’s score is the most forgettable of all his Pixar arrangements, but it services the film well. Truth be told, there’s not one scene in the movie that doesn’t at least somewhat work for me. While the pacing and development may not reach the heights of Pixar,  they would work for just about anyone else.

So yes, for all intents and purposes, “the streak” is over. Cars 2 is the worst Pixar film. I love the original Cars (the only other entry in their filmography to ever draw any flack) and so in my opinion, this is their first slip up. Nonetheless, you could do a lot worse for summer entertainment than Cars 2. It is still an incredibly crafted film, maybe a little messy and disorganized but enjoyable throughout. Its messages of being yourself and sticking up for your friends are trivial but harmless, and applicable to younger members of the audience (kids, having no filters, act like Mater a lot more than adults do). The social messages might be a little more pronounced than typical in a Pixar movie, but after this last summer, who doesn’t want to see Big Oil villainized a little bit? I just know this is the type of movie I would have gone crazy for when I was younger, and given the right expectations, it can be enjoyable for adults as well. I wouldn’t want Pixar to release Cars 2 every time, mind you, but once every sixteen years… I can deal with that.

Joshua’s and Lydia’s Review of Cars 2

I’m just finishing my review of Cars 2, and so while I finish up, here are the thoughts of my younger siblings who saw it.

Joshua Sanderson’s (age 6) Review

“I think it rocks. There were spies, and the spies can do anything with their guns. When that girl, she flew up in the air with her wings and she was a car, but a spy too. Mater had the bomb in his trunk or whatever it’s called. It was so cool because there was spies and all kinds of fun stuff. Some parts were boring like the parts where they were just talking and that kind of stuff. Most of the time I don’t think Pixar movies are boring in the talking parts, but that one kind of had some in it. I think my favorite character was Mater. He’s hilarious. Tow trucks are just funny. At least, when they can talk they are, because they can say funny jokes. When Mater was talking around and being funny, going ooohhhhh, that was the best part. When is Cars 3 gonna come out?”

4.5/5… that’s just a little worse than 5, right?

Lydia Sanderson’s (age 4) Review

“I hated it. It was loud. Stop talking to me.”

I didn’t like it/5 “

Star Wars vs. The Lord of the Rings: Episode I

Introduction

People on the internet like to fight over things. Anything really. Scientists cannot discover aspects of the universe as fast as people can quickly decide which side they are on and that the other side is an affront to human decency. Go on a web site discussing beach towels, and there’s a good chance somewhere in user comments Tanbaby1138 and Sunofthebeach69 are going back and forth about the design, color arrangement, or general comfort of any given towel. They probably update their browser hourly to see if their fellow combatant has posted anything new in their battle of wits. There’s always going to be really cynical, really angry people on the internet. They need to be that way because it’s their domain, and without strict, sometimes despotic rule, what’s the fun of having a domain? The thing that’s wonderful about the internet is that it’s just one more opportunity for people to claim metaphorical knighthood and fight their dragons, whether they want to do it literally on WoW (is that what people do on WoW?) or figuratively by pretending to be intellectuals (there’s also the crowd who does it by getting ignorant 60 year old grandmothers to download viruses). Businessmen get to abuse the marketplace. Politicians get to abuse the government. Why can’t these people have a place where they can exercise their God-given right to be powerful and abusive?

Regardless, long after our culture has gone and our paper books have decayed, comments on the internet may still remain. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. Why? Because none of these arguments are long enough. Anything, when elaborated upon long enough, becomes intelligent. The issue with our discourse isn’t a messed up set of priorities or a clear inability to empathize with fellow man. It’s that nobody has taken this flame war thing as far as it obviously needs to go in order to work. OBVIOUSLY if you elaborate clearly and succinctly every detail of your belief, taking only small pot shots at the opposition along the way, the other side will have to see the error in their logic and bow down to your objectivity. Just look at that crazy essay response to the Red Letter Media guy who makes those hilarious video reviews of the Star Wars prequels. RLM’s reviews were like 90 minutes long. And so the other guy’s essay was like 108 pages long. Obviously the essay guy won, if for no other reason than I’m sure most people would rather admit defeat than actually have to read that. The real mistake Red Letter Media guy made was that his reviews were entertaining, thus compelling us to actually pay attention. It’s like how Roosevelt spent a lot of money to get America out of the depression, but it took a greater commitment to spending motivated by a unified movement against a tyrannical monster threatening the world as we know it to really get things moving again. The moral of the story? We need to spend more. More of our time, energy, and resources. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing well, and it’s worth doing in the exact same way we would do it if we were fighting Hitler.

And clearly it is worth doing. Why would millions upon millions of people waste so much of their short, precious lives glued to their screens, transfixed in debates over Justin Bieber, Twilight, religious semantics, etc. unless it actually meant something? That would be so depressing. Why by that very evidence, this cannot possibly be just a war over pop culture fads. At the core here is the very battle of good vs. evil. And if there’s one thing we’ve been told, be us people of faith or science, our side is always very clearly right, hence good. You know who you are. You’ve fought the good fight. Those heathens have worked so hard to subvert the common people and uproot rational, critical, or moral thought as we very well know it. But you’ve toed a hard line, refusing to be fooled by their lies. Heck, you’ve refused to even listen any more than you need to shoot back a brilliant retort or respond point by point with the exact same things you’ve always been saying (if it ain’t broke, I say you are ENTITLED not to fix it). Well, let me be the first to say, well done good and faithful servant. But let me take over from here. Because clearly if you’ve agreed with my every point up until now, then you must know exactly what I am talking about. Clearly I am referring to how much better The Lord of the Rings movies are than the Star Wars movies. If you weren’t tracking there, or if you refuse to admit the superiority of a far more award-winning, critically acclaimed franchise, then prepared to be wowed. What will follow is the most comprehensive analysis of this debate ever conceived.

Concerning Nerds…

According to the internet, Dr. Seuss invented the word “nerd” in 1950. This sounds right. Some guy who wasn’t really a doctor and couldn’t really draw, writing and animating books primarily for children which are constantly enjoyed and quoted by adults; yep, that sounds like the perfect uterus from which to burst forth in all its sticky afterbirth the oversized, veiny, gelatinous crest of the child we know as the modern nerd. Of course, Seuss just coined the word, and out of context at that. The original nerd emerged whenever story did.  As God is responsible for that, as well as black holes, the tyrannosaurus rex, and the aliens who helped build the pyramids, I suppose we could call Him the first nerd. Maybe not. Either way, 1950 seems like a good date to begin our story, because not long after that (1954 to be precise) J.R.R. Tolkien finished the first part of his epic fantasy narrative The Lord of the Rings. Whatever the nerd had been before that – if ever the lazier peasants posted theses on the church doors about whether Lancelot or Robin Hood would win in a fight or a few introverted Greeks skipped the olympics to trade Zeus and Poseidon cards – the whole enterprise changed with Tolkien. Here was a guy who actually spent years developing and conceiving his very own complex world. Not our world with minor additions (like Lovecraft or Wells) or merely a contrived, idealized extension of reality (ahem, Avatar, ahem), his world was complex with its own histories and languages and physics and laws and religions, all of which he actually made up in his head. It was a world so big you could easily get lost in it, and furthermore (perhaps most importantly) it was a world where the celebrated heroes were short, squatty fellows with hairy feet who wrote and sang poetry, read a lot, talked to trees, wore capes, and hung out in the woods playing swords with a group of nine guys without any female interaction at all for months on end. That’s like putting up a big sign on the door saying, “Nerds Welcome!”

J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973, not one month after a young American filmmaker named George Lucas released his first major hit American Graffiti. Sure that’s a stretch, but I had to tie these two together somehow. Maybe American Graffiti was the last movie Tolkien saw before he died. In fact, I’m sure that was the case. We have no way of knowing (please don’t research that). Anyway, just as Tolkien was a member of the “Inklings” at Oxford with C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and others, Lucas was a member of “The Dirty Dozen” at USC with Walter Murch, Robert Zemeckis, and others. Also like Tolkien, Lucas was a student of myth, admitting Star Wars was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell’s 1949 “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Both Campbell and Tolkien were contemporaries well-aware of each other’s works, and both published historic discussions on the origin and deep, perhaps spiritual power of myth (see, there are some legitimate parallels that can be drawn here). It was this power that, while always present in many popular works, gained widespread discussion and analysis in the early 20th century from writers like Tolkien, Campbell, Jung, Freud, Lewis, and Nietzshe. To date, the two most popular commercial examples of original, modern myth are Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lucas’s Star Wars. Which brings us back to nerds, who in essence are semi-religious followers of these mainstream myths.

As everyone discovers when they turn about 8, real life is really, really boring. A lucky man only has a handful exciting things happen in his life, and between those he spends a lot of time reminiscing and waiting. To go anywhere cool requires hours of travel, and even when you get there you spend a lot of time sleeping, traveling, and waiting. Getting a great job means years of running the rat race and clawing to the top, and that’s no guarantee the job will ever come. It’s like raking a crab over for like half an ounce of meat or watching four hours of football for twenty minutes of real gameplay. What can men do? Try to find meaning in the journey or embrace the moment and make sure those things we’re moving towards in life are really worth the time we’re spending? Are you kidding? That’s just impractical. What if everybody did that? What would we have then? Huh? Huh?

Anyway, more than boring, real life is depressing. Good people die and bad people live. People in one country eat til they’re overweight while people in another can’t even get enough food to keep their kids alive (not naming any names). Wouldn’t it be nice to withdraw to a place where all that horrible boring and depressing evil were condensed into bodies, dressed up like stormtroopers, and then we got to shoot them? (without any real risk to ourselves, of course) Such an ideal place, completely fake though it may be, would almost be worth escaping to forever. When the Tolkiens and Lucas’s of the world create vast alternate realities, its very tempting to just fill them and make them our own. Amazingly, this is what people have done. Equally amazing, rather than traveling to all sorts of alternate worlds for a much broader experience in the minds of countless authors and thinkers, many people hold up in only a handful of places and use them, much in the same narrow-minded, short-sighted way they used the real world. Fortunately, then the internet arrived and everybody could have their voice heard in a massive community, which effectively fixed all of that.

Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings were able to coexist for a good quarter century. One was a book. One was a movie. It seemed like an ideal arrangement. But then some jerk named Peter Jackson showed up and screwed with all that. But wait. I am getting ahead of myself. First there was another jerk who screwed with things. You see, in the years following Star Wars, George Lucas presumably went a little loopy. That crazy ambitious USC film student rocketed to the top of the charts less than ten years after graduating, and presumably ever since then he’s longed to go back to the bottom again. He took his most beloved works and plastered CGI dewbacks into shots where they were nowhere near appropriate or aesthetically pleasing. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, he took his millions and made Star Wars Episode I. And even after that, fans insisted on giving the man money. He made Episode II. They still gave him money. Episode III, the same. Then The Clone Wars. And all the while he signed off on books like that Glove of Darth Vader one that I accidentally read in third grade. And still, fans refuse to let him do what he clearly wants, which is dump his money into a giant landfill, burn it, and start from the bottom making experimental college films again. Anyway, while this was going on, that jerk Peter Jackson decided that he didn’t want to make gory  horror films for the Kiwis, and it wasn’t fair that James Cameron made a billion dollars off Kate Winslett when Jackson found her first. And so Peter Jackson started making The Lord of the Rings movies. But because he was a jerk, rather than adhere to general Hollywood procedure of big budget mediocrity, Jackson spent years upon years upon years researching and creating a ridiculously vivid Middle Earth. And then he released all three films to critical acclaim and commercial success, and people started suggesting that maybe The Lord of the Rings was the greatest film trilogy of all time.

Well, that didn’t please the Star Wars fans. Particularly Kevin Smith, the self-proclaimed King of the Nerds. Smith is a professional Twitter troll who occasionally makes films. He also clearly idolizes Lucas because of his repeated attempts to mirror the man’s career trajectory. Smith was a young filmmaker who in 1994 made a movie about nerds that struck a chord with a very specific fanbase, and he’s been out to make them regret that ever since. Anyway, in his clever, tasteful way, Smith made comments about The Lord of the Rings suggesting it would have been better if Jackson had made the ending a porno; his most scathing criticism of the series being that they are just movies about “walking.” The full comments are on youtube, although they’re very, very NSFW. Anyway, Smith has a wide following. Likewise, his eye sees all. Seriously, I think he google searches for negative uses of his name and there’s a very real chance he’s going to read this blog. And if that happens, watch out. Gird your loins, because you are going to see fury unleashed the likes of which you Christian collegiates have never witnessed. But I hope they show up. Because this is the point where I insert my own name into the tale. Because when they read what is below, there will be so much converting going on here it would make Billy Graham blush. Here is my moment of glory. You hear that Smithies? Get ready to bow before your maker; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.

To be continued…

Why Christian Movies Suck (and other musings)

Warning: As the title suggests, the following article is not scholarly. Sometimes broad stereotypes are used for comedic emphasis and I try to balance them on both sides of the issue. Also embedded in the texts are my honest, sincere thoughts. Please read at your own risk and leave comments if you disagree (or agree. Those are really nice too). I’m only 22 as of this writing, and there’s still a lot more that I need to learn. All opinions are welcome.

I just finished four years attending a conservative Christian college. At said college I was required to minor in Bible. I was also required to attend daily half-hour chapel services where camp counselor’s from the north shore tell our students how evolution is evil and how long women’s skirts should be. I was only allowed to visit female dorms during certain hours with the doors open and an ordained minister standing behind us and was prohibited from drinking, smoking, gambling, swearing, and asking questions. Everyone who teaches at that school is required to affirm the entirety of the school’s doctrinal statement including the infallibility of scripture, the doctrine of the trinity, and that all the heathens burn in hell for eternity and if that bothers you you don’t love God enough. On the other hand, I’m kind of a film junkie. I hope one day to pursue a career in film, and I watch everything I can get my hands on from pretentious arthouse crap by gay French intellectuals to violent godless trash from Quentin Tarantino. I am therefore more sympathetic to communists, pot smoking, and Grand Theft Auto and would be considered a negative force in society by Bill O’Reilly. I occupy two very different worlds, but I don’t consider myself a contradiction. A paradox maybe, but not a contradiction. I follow Jesus for very specific reasons and I engage in media for very specific reasons, the primary reason on both sides being I’m passionate about them (moreso Jesus than movies, just to be clear). In fact, I think that the war between Christians and media is poorly defined and picks a lot of the wrong hills to fight over. To be sure, there is an incredible media presence in the world today and very little of it is truly positive. Unfortunately, Christians are pumping out as much negative content as Hollywood, albeit for different reasons. What follows are my honest thoughts about merging faith and film, and how just about everybody yelling the loudest right now is getting it wrong.

I was taught while earning my intensive mandatory Bible degree that the primary purpose of Christians on this earth is to bring glory to God. Now whether this is done by unconditionally loving others and making the world a better place or declaring dead birds in Arkansas to be God’s message of hate to the gays on national television is a matter of interpretation. But I think all Christians can agree that bringing glory to God is a good thing. Most evangelicals, especially the most conservative ones, would say that is the most important thing. Anyway, if Christian media is considered to be the worst, most basic, most insular, and least intelligent (and just take my word for it. It is. Even among most Christians in media), how does that glorify God? I’m about to offend a lot of people and there’s really no way around it at this point. I’ve sat in a room where one of the head deacons at Sherwood Baptist Church talked about their surprise hit Facing the Giants. He explained the countless emails and phone calls he’s received from people telling him what an impact those movies have made on their lives. That film was shipped around the world, and the numbers of those who converted to Christianity was staggering. I’m not denying that’s a good thing. Those people were probably wonderful people, and I hope that transformation made a lasting impact in their lives. I have no doubt, however, that they were not filmmakers. No filmmaker would be able to leave Facing the Giants with anything but disgust for the ideology that made it possible. That person wouldn’t just be cynical either. The movie could still legitimately be crap and move a specific audience. The truth is that people can be impacted by just about anything if it hits their lives at the right time, and most people don’t take the time to discern if what they’re consuming is quality or not. Just because lots of people listen to Miley Cyrus music doesn’t mean that Miley Cyrus music is good. People who know anything about music hate it because they know what constitutes quality. I emphasize that I have nothing against the people who do listen to Miley Cyrus. They have other things going on in their lives aside from studying Bach. But objectively, that music is not good. Is that lowest common denominator in every field the one we want to aim for with Christianity? Sure it produces big numbers, but does it express the genuine truth of the gospel and does that impact last? How does it reflect upon Christianity that our art sits in the gutter and avoids broader context? People are looking for answers and I can see them flocking to Facing the Giants because it claims to have them. But are the answers provided in Facing the Giants capable of enduring the many storms of life and complex ideologies and challenges that will come their way? Is that film a lasting artistic statement that will stand the test of time?

Sometimes I feel like Christianity is the McDonalds of religions. In every civilized country each is going to have at least one building in every town, sometimes hundreds if the city is big enough. They all look pretty much the same, inside and out, and are gonna be frequented by a lot of conservative middle Americans and people looking for a cheap meal. Sometimes people from the left show up, but they’re usually desperate and in a hurry and they almost never go back because they feel judged. Anyone can enter provided they have shoes on. In fact, the whole goal of the enterprise is just to bring more people in. Anyone who brings up trying to make things better gets laughed out of the room (actually, this is where the comparison falls apart. Historically, Christians have burned those people at the stake). To be fair, these are stereotypes that by no means apply to all churches, and Christians aren’t the only people who fall into these traps. Most of Hollywood is organized the same way. In fact, most of media has been dumbed down in order to sell products and appeal to audiences, and it is dumbing down society at large. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman compares the future as predicted in George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, arguing the latter view of the future has already come true:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions’. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

Amusing Ourselves to Death, which I highly recommend, makes a wonderful case for how the dumbing down of culture is a prevalent problem and one with far reaching implications. Unfortunately, Christians seem pretty okay with it so long as culture is being dumbed down their way. Christian author Scott Nehreg wrote in his analysis of Christian films, You Are What You See, “The term Christian film has become synonymous with substandard production values, stilted dialogue and childish plots… we still wanted the pleasures of modern culture, only without any tempting content or philosophy.” I would argue that this is the problem with all ideologically insular art, and it is intensified by Christian culture’s rejection of most outside forces as dangerous. The question that arises is does Christianity work as well when dumbed down? When stripped of its context and discourse and a wide view of the world, is Christianity the same effective religion? A billion trillion things happen every day (that’s a real statistic. Look it up) and not all of them have a simplistic answer or a corresponding Bible verse. If our Christian art ignores those things, then it’s a statement that our Christianity ignores them as well. And what does that say to the people who struggle with those things? Not everyone can live in a suburb in the American midwest. You could argue this same pursuit of safety and attempt to escape any conflict is what drives Christians to push their culture on others through politics, but for the sake of time and my own personal safety I’m not going to argue that right now.

When Billy Graham talked to Johnny Cash about his career as a singer, he advised him, “Don’t apologize for who you are and what you’ve done in the past… Be who you are and do what you do.” Cash, one of the most prominent artists of the 20th century who claimed Christianity, had a multi-generational appeal that stemmed from his honesty. Cash didn’t hide his struggles, and he was honest enough with himself to know what they were. Part of honesty is having rounded perspective on the world. There’s enough good stuff in the world that you could just paint pretty landscapes and deer in front of houses for your entire life, and there’s enough ugly stuff that you could make a million No Country for Old Men’s based on real stories. But painting pretty landscapes doesn’t mean kids in Africa aren’t constantly dying of water contamination. The key is to try to keep perspective; not to pretend everything is all rainbows all the time and not to give into fatalism either. Right now Christian film (let’s not even go into music or television) has no balance, in part because Christians are trained from a young age to regard discomfort as the nudging of the conscience. If it makes you uncomfortable it’s probably a bad thing, or so that train of thought goes. Many Christians relate their experience with media to stories like Joseph fleeing from his lust or Paul’s plea to the Philippians, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things,” or to the Colossians, “Since then you have been raised with Christ set your minds on things above.” For these reasons, Christians sterilize their content just to be on the safe side. Let’s ignore for a moment the possibility that most of the sterilization we choose could be cultural and not in keeping at all with the values of the early church those passages were written to, or that to disregard such content in all cases would mean chopping significant segments from the Bible. This entire view ignores that perhaps expressing truth means addressing sin and evil in more direct ways. Former Christianity Today film critic Jeffrey Overstreet wrote in his book Through a Glass Darkly, “If a depiction of evil causes us to sin, by all means, we must respond to our conscience and withdraw until we have become stronger. How many of us are humble enough to admit when we are what Scripture calls ‘the weaker brother’? But if we can look at evidence of sin, consider its consequences and resist the temptation to imitate it, this can lead to wisdom and resilience.” Am I saying that every Christian should go out and rent A Clockwork Orange, or even be willing to make a work with everything contained therein? No. Am I saying there might be some value to A Clockwork Orange and we maybe shouldn’t knock it, and there might even be things we can learn from it (not to mention that it is more valuable to society as a whole than Facing the Giants or Fireproof)? Absolutely.

A lot of Christian artists have made the arguments that their work is unpopular because it is counter-cultural, to which my question is, what’s so counter-cultural about making something that appeals only to yourself and the people like you, specifically so that you don’t have to listen to what anybody else is saying? My generation does that a lot, wildly consuming only those movies, music, television, and internet content that advocate their self-centered, eternal youth mindset. Is Jesus’ message so weak that it needs that kind of isolation from reality? In that sense, Facing the Giants is about as counter-cultural as the MTV Movie Awards. What would really be counter-cultural is someone who could address pain and suffering head on and find the root of it not in politics or some worn ideology but in the core of human nature. Christians don’t know of anyone like that though, right? C.S. Lewis once said in his book An Experiment in Criticism, “To be moved by the thought of a solitary old shepherd’s death and the fidelity of his dog is, in itself and apart from the present topic, not in the least a sign of inferiority. The real objection to that way of enjoying pictures is that you never get beyond yourself. The picture, so used, can call out of you only what is already there. You do not cross the frontier into that new region which the pictorial art as such added to the world.” I love C.S. Lewis. I’m going to take a moment aside to say that. Most Christians love C.S. Lewis, but I think that’s because most of them haven’t read any of his stuff except the Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. Here’s a guy who knocked on just about every uber-conservative Christian cliche and stereotype in the book, wrote about a ton of stuff evangelicals fight over like crazy these days, and the way he pegs the problem with Christian media is just pure poetry. When films like Facing the Giants or Fireproof or music like that of Casting Crowns appeals to Christians, it’s not necessarily a problem. Maybe there are honest parts of the Christian experience that those works access, but they’re working with material that’s already there. It doesn’t require any craft or strength, and if the goods weren’t there already then it has no effect at all. When our media is like this, we are never challenged and we never improve, and our media has no effect on discerning audiences outside of our demographic. And if you  think you already have it all figured out or that the quality of your media and art is no big deal, then you’re part of the problem because neither of those things is ever true. I heard a number of complaints earlier this year about some mild swearing in a school play I was involved in. That play, while not the height of art, had some interesting things on its mind. I’m probably going to offend some more people here. I guess if you’re still reading at this point you can handle it. If you can sit through an entire play about the plight of the mentally handicapped and come out offended by a light swear word, then maybe the theater (or real life) just isn’t for you.

Next we come to perhaps the most overused excuse for why Christians make the media that they do. If our art doesn’t display the truth of the gospel in a clear and defined (some would say heavy-handed) way, then the artist is ashamed of the gospel and wasting an opportunity to bring the audience to Christ. Most Christians I know who do not work in media see media as a practical form of religious advertising or a clever tool for expressing Christian doctrines. Again, I’m going to ignore a few really major flaws with this line of thinking, like why on earth should a person be moved to our side simply by us expressing it basically (and this is a big one. Like maybe the biggest one. I’m ignoring it because I think it requires no elaboration at all. That just doesn’t make sense). Also, is that method of Christian witnessing effective in all cases, or can it be a hinderance to many seekers? (if you say its not, you have already ruled out most of Europe ever heading to a church ever again) Instead, I’m going to focus on how that view of art disregards what art is. Poet and University of Maryland professor Rod Jellema wrote in his article “Poems Should Stay Across the Street from the Church”, “I don’t think the Church seriously wants ‘Christian poetry’… if you say you want Japanese food, you must first want food; if you want a three-power microscope with oil-immersion lens, it is implied that you already have some working interest in microscopes and what they can do. Likewise, if the Church wants Christian poets, it should be apparent that the church is tuned into the vision of poetry generally, and finds poetry valuable in its rendering of human experience.” The truth is that forcing any type of artistic expression renders it dishonest, regardless of what the conclusion is. Yes, art does reflect the views of its creators, but there are natural steps to achieving that, and starting with a Bible verse in mind and just trying to express what the verse is saying is so simple and contrived that it is a disservice to the form. That is not art. So some Christians argue that art therefore has no value. Actually, they might have their stuff together better than the Christians who just view it as a practical tool. They at least acknowledge that the way most Christians use art is pretty petty and useless outside of church services themselves, and that the way art really works has no value within their worldview. But I still beg to differ. Theologian Karl Barth made a case for the value of art when talking about the music of Mozart. “Because he knew something about creation in its total goodness… He had heard, and causes those who have ears to hear, even today, what we shall not see until the end of time – the whole context of providence.” Is art necessary? Only in cultures that are reasonably prosperous and settled does art thrive. Otherwise people are working on things like, oh, surviving. But the same thing applies to the pursuit of self-fulfillment and truth, and Christianity is pretty dependent on those things being important. Not all truth can be expressed in doctrines and easy catch-all sayings. Maybe in low conflict communities we can manipulate our realities to fit within those confines, but I defy any person living to figure out the best way to deal with the conflict in the Middle East. There are as many opinions as there are people, and they’re all wrong to a certain extent. We live in a complex, sometimes messed up world that doesn’t fit into easy boxes. Art expresses the complexity of life. It expresses emotional truths. It has a life of its own. To make art fit into those confines that our own worldview fits into and not consider any other possibilities makes our art dishonest. A film can be filled with nothing but Bible verses and Christians living them out and it could be a total lie. In fact, it would always be a lie because that is not how the world works. I think R.C. Sproul once said, “All truth is God’s truth.”

Here’s another problem I’ve realized with Christian art, and this tangent is going to probably going to derail this article for its duration. I spent a long portion of time in college as an agnostic. In the Christian community, that’s a tough thing to admit (it’s like coming out for gays, except it’s Christians who shun you instead of… oh, never mind). This might be the first time I’ve ever admitted it publicly (not that we all don’t live like we’re agnostics most of the the time, but really, would you want me to explore all these tangents? This article’s too long as is). Pretty much from the moment I set my foot on Northwestern’s campus, I was arguing with atheists and fighting against evolution and liberal politics. But I found myself empathizing with the other side. And people in chapel kept telling me that theirs was the only way and leading me down logical alleys by which any view but theirs led to the abandoning of Jesus. I know a lot of Christians who argue that their worldview is given to them by the Holy Spirit and anyone who disagrees probably just hasn’t had the truth revealed to them. It’s an easy way not to have to listen to anyone else ever. Must be nice. Instead of viewing the whole Bible as true, they view the Bible as the only source of truth. Anything outside is either off limits or unimportant. I thought as soon as I started asking questions about mass killing in the Old Testament or the justice of sending people to eternal hell or why God’s plan for restoring the world really didn’t seem to be working in Africa, I was out.

I no longer struggle with my faith at all. I struggle with things in the Bible and the way it should be lived out daily, but my faith is unwavering. Here’s why. Some point last summer I finally felt okay with leaving the faith. I was no longer in it for the guilt or the fear. The world was going to end and I wasn’t going anywhere when I was going to die, and I was absolutely alright with that. Human nature was driving the world to hell in a hand-basket and self-absorbed Christianity was no different from any of the other ideologies more concerned with recruiting members and being right than with fixing these problems. The thing that happened when I gave up was important. I finally became able to read the Bible again. I hadn’t read the Bible for years except for class purposes because I was terrified that what was in there was what everybody on both sides kept saying there was. I rediscovered Jesus when I reopened the book. The thing I love about Jesus is that whenever somebody asked him a question, he’d ignore the question entirely and ask another question that got to the real heart of the issue, usually something that person was terrified to give up or admit. That’s somebody who I’d like to follow, not out of guilt or fear, but because he seems to transcend the system. He was surrounded by people who wanted to turn what he said into a political message or something that attacked all the people they disagreed with. He avoided it. He was focused on living and doing and breathing truth, while everyone else looked for safety. In my culture today, that’s really appealing. Terrifying as hell itself, but appealing.

I think even in peaceful America we’d kill Jesus all over again, and I think there are some Christians who would lead the charge. Really. That’s not hyperbole. I really, genuinely think in this world we live in today, Jesus wouldn’t make it to 33. Jesus was a troublemaker (I almost said maverick, but my goodness that word has to leave my vocabulary). He called his followers to give everything; not ten percent of their income or attending church on Sunday mornings (both can be good, but are not the point) but to give absolutely everything they had. He looked people in the eyes and made them unmistakably aware of the lies they were telling themselves and the things they weren’t ready to give up to find enlightenment. In our world, entrenched in all of its ideologies, each of us so entitled to our own opinions and angry at others for theirs, he’d just have to meet somebody who’d get so angry at not being able to lie to themselves anymore that they’d have to kill him. Jesus had perspective. Jesus knew of the evil in the world. There was child sacrifice, slavery, and rampant poverty going on in his day. He knew the incredible sacrifice required to combat fatalism in a self-centered, problematic world. All of my favorite Christian authors from Rob Bell to Greg Boyd to Donald Miller all refer to Christianity as a response to fatalism. There’s a lot of messed up stuff in this world (child sacrifice, slavery, and rampant poverty to name a few), and only apathetic or ignorant people aren’t bowled over by it. Jesus’s was a worldview that acknowledged all of that, but provided a tough answer. God wants to restore all things. We, the church, the people of the world, are His way of doing that. We just have to be willing to die, to give up our material possessions, to give of ourselves in ways that supersede following moral checklists and signing doctrinal statements in order to do that. It’s not forced or coerced. It’s by God’s grace. I struggle with that so much. I’m still getting up the courage to live it out like I think I should.

I don’t have all the answers. Nobody does, and anyone who says they do is lying. Anyone who says the argument is over or that thinking things through for yourself is dangerous is also lying. That’s what cults do because they can’t stand under the weight of truth. If I thought Christianity taught that, I wouldn’t be a Christian. There’s lots of truth that’s not in the Bible. The Bible itself says that God reveals himself through nature. As Rob Bell put it in his book Velvet Elvis, Christianity is  “about the identification of a God who is already there.” Back to art for a moment. There are lots of Christians whose artistic work is excellent; musical genius Sufjan Stevens, Pixar’s writing brain trust of Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter; the late, great Johnny Cash; heck, Stephen Colbert is a practicing Catholic. Look at their approach to making art and see how it differs from the traditional understanding. It will say a million times more than anything I can write here. I think Christianity can make a difference in the world, and I think art can make a difference in the world. They both do when used correctly. And I think Christians, for that reason, should make and consume the best art. End of story.

Now please argue with me below.

Review: X-Men: First Class

It’s been a long three years for the superhero genre since The Dark Knight. The Watchmen trailers turned out to be better than the actual film. X-Men Origins: Wolverine became the new gold standard for big budget disappointments. Downey Jr.’s once-fresh Tony Stark went the familiar-but-dull way of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates sequels. Raimi left Spider-Man, Aronofsky left The Wolverine, Jon Favreau left Iron Man, people keep casting Ryan Reynolds, and Marvel put Joss Whedon in charge of The Avengers, so we know audiences have to find some way to lose interest entirely before that comes out next year. Not to mention that after fan distaste for Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand, everything in the last five years has been some twist on an origin story or a very predictable hero’s journey, and when they can’t do one of those things they reboot the series and start over again. Hardly a week ago, I said in my review of Thor that I was perhaps growing out of superhero films, a sentiment that seems to be reflected by the masses in the declining box office receipts of what was once always a sure thing. It almost feels like, in order to survive, the superhero film desperately needs to… well, evolve.

Fortunately for everyone, a young new team was up to that challenge. Their mutant creation is a slick, humorous, idea-and-character-driven monster that puts to death once and for all those last strands of the campy, personality-driven 90’s heroes that still plague the last generation of superhero films. Helmed by Matthew Vaughn (whose Kick-Ass, while kind of a flop, was easily the best post-TDK superhero film to date) and bolstered by the return of Brian Singer (who takes a story credit) with the help of some of the industry’s best upcoming actors like James McAvoy (Atonement), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) X-Men First Class is a title that should be taken literally, restoring not just the waning X-Men franchise but breathing enough fresh life into the superhero to keep me (and hopefully cinematic thrill seekers everywhere) from losing interest just yet. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to watch people fly around in colorful suits and use illogical powers to make things explode. Fun if done correctly, that is.

The sheer number of ways that X-Men First Class succeeds where so many of its predecessors have failed is staggering. The challenges facing it are equally so. Here is a film that attempts to tell a story we already know about characters whose destinations are already set in stone. It’s this exact scenario that ruined Star Wars, and most series since have gone to great lengths to avoid it, be it Batman which just did away with the previous films altogether, Star Trek which dabbled in time travel to erase its predecessors, or Wolverine which relied upon convenient amnesia. But in keeping with Vaughn’s approach to everything, First Class just faces this challenge head on with the confidence that with enough talent and care, everything will turn out alright. And sure enough, this was the exact approach that the franchise needed.

When Brian Singer opened his original X-Men in a 1940’s German concentration camp, it was a statement. The previous consensus about comic book films was that there was a vast degree of separation from reality required to make it all work. The DC heroes Superman and Batman were first to find cinematic interpretations because they operated out of fictional cities in a fictional world, utilizing camp and exaggerated fantasy to aid the suspension of disbelief. Flawed though it was, X-Men brought a confidence that these stories could carry thematic significance – maybe even importance – which revitalized the genre and effectively jump-started the superhero craze we have right now. Now, some films like Thor require this separation because of the ridiculousness of their premise and the lack of genuine subtext inherent in their stories; but self-reference and intentional camp are easy crutches that too many big budget movies of late (including X-Men: The Last Stand) have leaned heavily on. X-Men First Class opens with that exact same concentration camp scene, as though refocusing the series once again. It explores the same themes and ideas of the original X-Men, but does so with a focus and confidence not seen in recent summer entertainment without Christopher Nolan’s name attached.  It’s almost as though Singer has kept this world close to his heart since he left in 2003, and knew exactly how to create the definitive statement with those questions he only could dabble with back then.

Whatever potential appeared in the original X-Men films, they never felt like the final statement on the matter (including the much-revered X-Men United). Sure, they hinted and even elaborated on themes of prejudice, oppression, hatred, violence and the like, but at their core was the predictable, pre-determined battle of good vs. evil. One of the most amazing things about X-Men First Class (especially considering we essentially know where all the characters end up) is that prior to the end of the film, I had no idea what was going to happen next. This contrasted with Thor or Iron Man 2 where the ending is so pre-determined that the screenwriters don’t even try to hide what will happen next, but rather just focus on entertaining us with other story elements. First Class revolves around two separate ideologies on the discovery of mutants, one being Eric’s, that human nature will drive mankind to exterminate the mutants unless the mutants strike first, and the second being Charles’, which is essentially the exact same thing, except that mutants can somehow keep people from killing them by pursuing peace at all costs. This debate should be familiar to anyone who has followed the X-Men series at all, but what is surprising about First Class is how even-handedly it argues both sides, and tosses in others stemming from Hank Williams’ search for a cure to Raven’s desire to be herself in a world that would clearly never accept her for what she is. Furthermore, the film uses the concentration camps and the cold war as examples of human nature that make Eric’s side far more convincing, making these mutants’ stories mirror the checkered past of our own species and playing all of the characters’ conflicts against each other to produce drama.

Drama; that’s an odd term. We hear a lot these days about the entertainment value of action, comedy, horror, and fast moving colorful things, but drama? That classic battle of personalities and ideas has been kind of out of vogue in the populist sector, the assumption I suppose being that big budget thrills need not be weighed down by all that talk and stuff. Unfortunately, what has resulted from that is a decrease in substance and an increase in self-aware extremism, the exact same flaws that killed the Batman franchise in the 90’s. I’ve even noticed more critics have begun to give free passes to movies that at least knew they didn’t have anything going on upstairs. Unfortunately, frequent narrative leaps of logic and simplicity of character and ideology start to form more of a barrier from engagement than a pillow easing the escape. Tell me the last time that you genuinely cared about the characters in a big budget summer romp. Like truly, genuinely cared, in that guilty way where you awkwardly imagine yourself hanging out with them after the movie is over? It’s a rare thing, even rarer when we’re talking about superhero films. And yet, what lens can we look through into the big thrills when we aren’t attached to the characters? I’d argue there is none. It’s all empty spectacle. This is where X-Men First Class, in spite of whatever flaws it might have, becomes a legitimate triumph. It’s a globe-trotting actioner that never feels like it’s trying to be a globe-trotting actioner. It seems like the characters are actually driving the action forward, so when something exciting does take place, the audience is fully invested. This is an incredibly fun movie with at least four major action set pieces, directed with a sense of danger, immediacy, and exhilaration by Vaughn. But it’s all anchored in something that feels real, and that makes it even more exciting.

On that same note, McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, and the rest of the cast are all experienced enough to bring respectability to the proceedings but still young and unknown enough to take it all seriously and not realize when to mail it in. McAvoy imbues a charm in Xavier that mirrors Patrick Stewart’s, but with an additional youth and naivety that we watch slowly fade as the film progresses. Fassbender, on the other hand, is every bit as rough and intense as he was in Inglourious Basterds, making Eric’s presence ten times more BA than Hugh Jackman ever was with Wolverine. Too many actors in the original X-Men movies were too aware of the larger-than-life nature of their characters, or worse, were just playing themselves. That goofy, personality-driven superhero gene, of which strands have always still remained, needs to be exterminated once and for all if the genre is going to stay alive any longer. When it was released, The Dark Knight felt like some distant, unreachable ideal where ideas and craft coalesced in a big budget setting to make something legitimately substantial. At the time, I thought that was as good as these movies were going to get before they died out. X-Men First Class is a smaller, but nonetheless equally important step that shows that more people than just Christopher Nolan know how to tell a good story and are interested in doing it with superpeople in tights.

Sure, not everything works. Like all prequel films, the movie begins wearing down under the weight of all the storylines it needs to tie together before the end. Eric and Charles’ relationship, upon which most of the film hinges, doesn’t have enough time to develop to make their final confrontation as effective as it probably could be. Yes, there are also a few too many characters and the scenes get crowded pretty quickly, but that’s kind of unavoidable in these superhero team films. Actually, you’d be amazed how far just a few moments with each character can go when the screenplay makes the most of each of them. Every interaction between Hank and Raven carries with it a substantial amount of subtext, both relational (they are attracted to each other by their insecurity with their deformities) and ideological (Hank hopes to solve his problem by finding a cure for his mutation, while Raven really wants to be found beautiful for what she is). By the end of the film, only one or two people feel truly extraneous, and every one of the central characters feels like a complete individual who has undergone an interesting journey. No prior X-Men film has come even close to accomplishing that. On top of that, the film’s revisionist history gamble pays off in spades, driving the film forward whenever it needs it, providing it with an incredible thematic context, and never feeling like a cheap gimmick. Really, every decision in this movie adds to the final product, which is a constantly-entertaining, gloriously unexpected romp that I didn’t think I’d get again from this kind of material. I guess I was wrong about growing out of superheroes. Nobody is ever too old for a good story told well.

A (I know, right!)

Midnight in Paris

How many films have attempted to capture that form of wish-fulfillment that one most desires at the end of reading a good book, to either experience firsthand the featured adventure or to be a part of its creation? Movies go there all the time (in fact, one could say that that’s what movies are, but that’s a discussion for another time), the most recent and obvious – though by no means most successful, unless we’re talking financially – examples I can think of being the Night at the Museum franchise. As a matter of fact, that’s not a bad example at all. For all their lowbrow slapstick and complete lack of any substance whatsoever, those movies hit upon something that I think is downright exciting. Imagine being set loose in a museum, with all the great figures of history available for any discussion you could ever want to have, except not drawn by hack writers as broad comedic caricatures accessible to seven year olds who know nothing about history. Such a film could capitalize on that innate desire we all have to escape the ho hum present with all its waiting, uncertainty, and wasted potential and find those few moments of thought and creation that seemed to grab hold of the essence of life; to escape mortality for a brief second by mixing words with those whose words have become immortal. I feel almost guilty admitting I’ve passed many a long car ride in these hypothetical discussions. It’s a presumptuous, almost narcissistic concept, so leave it to Woody Allen to make the film that captures it most accurately. Midnight in Paris is a delightful movie that claims to be about embracing the present, but does a much better job of fantasizing about the past.

Owen Wilson plays Gil. Actually, Owen Wilson kind of plays Woody Allen playing Gil. From pretty much the first scene, Wilson is thrusting his hands in his pockets and throwing his shoulders back in understated, neurotic frustration at “pseudo-intellectuals” and making inappropriate comments about Tea Party politics to his super conservative future father-in-law. Fortunately for everyone, there isn’t a better surrogate than Owen Wilson, whose on-screen personage falls somewhere between Jack Lemmon’s and Jimmy Stewart’s for pure charm. A successful but unhappy sellout screenwriter, Gil is in Paris with his fiance, Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents (Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy). Gil is enraptured by the city he once hoped to live in before he found success in Hollywood, particularly as it was in the golden 1920’s. While his conservative future family shops and acts like any typical American tourist would treat Paris in Woody Allen’s mind, Gil scours the city for remnants of a bygone, one might even say superior, era. Soon he finds himself drunkenly walking the streets of Paris alone late at night, and as the clock strikes midnight, he is ushered into a passing antique car, taken to a bizarre club with flappers and live Cole Porter music (in the most literal sense), and introduced to Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald (Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston). Yes, those Fitzgeralds, he discovers. Next thing ya know, he’s meeting Ernest Hemmingway (Corey Stoll) and arranging to have his unfinished novel read by Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Soon Gil is living two different lives, a contemporary Parisian tourist by day and a member of the Jazz age intellectual elite by night.

And that’s the extent of the fantasy, comprised of two wonderfully absurd and unexplained premises; first that there exists in a corner of Paris a portal to the great minds of the 20’s, and second, that they would all be absolutely taken with Woody Allen (whoops, I’m sorry… Gil) if he walked among them. I’ll give Allen credit for knowing exactly how to handle both of these, refusing to explain either and calling attention to both as much as is funny but no more than is necessary. Hemmingway asks Gil if he hunts, to which Gil responds, “Only for bargains,” to the delight of the wittiest, most sophisticated minds of the twentieth century. The movie doesn’t exactly make a point of these types of jokes, but one certainly gets the sense that the fantasy world is just and only that; a fantasy Allen probably had while driving the streets of Paris one afternoon, especially when Gil enters into a love triangle over the beautiful Adrianna (Marion Cotillard) with Picasso and Hemmingway. In that same vein, all of the characters are drawn (not one-dimensionally or broadly as in the aforementioned Night at the Museum piles) but with the sense that we are not watching the actual historical figures, but detailed pictures of the characters drawn in the mind of someone who has seen, read, or listened to their work, and then based on that imagined what they must be like; especially Hemmingway who at one point hits on a woman by asking her if she’s “ever shot a charging lion?” One could possibly argue for the sake of further meta-commentary that the characters are creations of Gil’s mind, but I don’t think Allen intended for us to think that hard about that part of the film, and the final scene goes out of its way to disprove that altogether.

As Gil becomes more entranced and involved in the twenties, the irony of these worlds begins to catch up with him and create conflict. I think. Actually, I was still kind of enraptured by all of it. Allen finds a way to make even the dysfunctional Fitzgeralds seem like a beautiful relational ideal. Even the cast members seem to have been chosen for how well their faces brighten the screen, making everything seem just a bit more ideal and the amazing just a bit more possible than real life would seem to dictate. Paris at night, Paris in the rain, Paris in the 1920’s: this is a love story for a city, no less profound than Allen’s own 1979 classic Manhattan; also, I would argue, no less quality. That’s right. I just said Midnight in Paris is as good as Manhattan, and I’m one of those people who actually likes Manhattan. A lot. The way it tells its simple fairy tale and fills it with everything Allen’s best work brings to the table – his trademark wit, ideological candor, and contagious optimism – creates one of the great cinematic reflections on nostalgia (and there are a lot of great cinematic reflections on nostalgia).

At the end, the movie comes around to a more practical view; that we all to some extent idealize the past, but we must live in the present and make the most of our specific time and its opportunities and challenges. But it only does this begrudgingly. Allen’s screenplay, which opens with nearly five minutes of fetishist shots of Paris in the rain, cannot muster more than one small monologue in support of this claim. The rest of that time is spent painting a lavishly idealized picture of a bygone era so alluring that I would pack up my things and move there in a second if given the opportunity. Such is the dichotomy of all the best fairy-tales. The better the world created by the author, the more honest and the more interesting, the less satisfied the reader will be with his or her own reality near the end. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the real idea is that our society needs more Fitzgeralds, Bunuels, Hemmingways, and Kathy Bates, and its our job not to soak ourselves in “pedantic” pseudo-intellectualism or comfortable commercialism, but to live as though this is a golden age, learn to appreciate walks in the rain, and treat every street corner like its own work of art. Maybe that’s a distant, impractical ideal, but such is the cinema of Allen, and this might be the most disarming film of his that I’ve ever seen, as well as an early competitor for the best of 2011.

A