A SAW You Can Believe In - or - Jigsaw Has Pre-Existing Condition

Full disclosure: this essay will contain spoilers.

I didn’t like Saw 5 - perhaps because I was tired, had to wait till 10:30PM to see it (all the previous times were sold out), and it required thinking when I wasn’t expecting it and didn’t think thinking was worth it.

That being said I saw Saw 6 because I was expecting to see something that’s pretty rare: an audience at the Market Arcade Theater downtown (still I counted about 50 people, better than the prior show I attended Walt and El Grupo at the North Park, which saw an audience of about 12). Long and uninteresting story short: I am a “season pass” holder for the chain that operates both, which is the perfect gift for someone like me who would probably go anyway at full price if I had to.

Now to the film: the Saw franchise has been cranking out a new film every October for the past 6 years which like South Park allows the team a great deal of power: they can actually be relevant to the zeitgeist. The films of the past dealt with drug users (perhaps an allegory to excess in good times - not only do you own that BMW you don’t need but you also have a coke habit and as Robin Williams said “cocaine is god’s way of telling you that you make too much.”)

The last film dealt with the police - and as I said I don’t remember Saw 5 except for the fact I didn’t really like it. Here Mark Hoffman is back and Jigsaw is more of a conceptual artist - (spoiler) - he’s still not dead. Jigsaw has been dying of cancer and can’t get his insurance company to cover an experimental treatment. He then proceeds to give a speech worthy of Alan Grayson - blasting the whole system. Although bipartisan and even seemingly apolitical this is the first time a Saw film addresses a current issue head-on. (Then again I could have told you the lobbyists, republicans and Obama would drag this on a year ago, it’s a sad fact of life).

Saw 6 takes perhaps can be somewhat cathartic for it’s core audience which seems to be frustrated apolitical people that may have been energized by the promises of Obama, I know I was - and still am for the most part - but please, deliver on that change that was promised.

For the start this is clear: this is a new Saw for a post TARP era - it’s pissed that wall street was bailed out and millions of Americans who were not financially literature were connected with 50-page credit card agreements and tricky predatory lending practices. While banks are never taken to task here (perhaps that’s Saw 7) - two mortgage brokers are pinned against each other in what is an awfully angry Saw film that proves to be more disturbing than others. While certain moments are tame, there is one image concerning the number 6 that is truly frightening and disturbing in the way that seems to throw it back at us: I didn’t get any pleasure out of watching it.

But do we get any pleasure out of watching the Saw films period? I don’t know - this time it seemed more frightening, whereas you might be let down by someone who is a drug addict who you’ve tried to help - the prospect of people with families killing in the name of revenge (not “curing”) seems to tint this entry into the genre a shade darker than the others.

Still, not a lot of films have taken the heath insurance industry to task and here is a film that is oversimplified for a midnight madness and urban crowd that has a certain amount of power. It hates the “hooray for me and fuck you” politics that flourished under George Bush and even earlier under that jerk-off Ronald Reagan (where as corporations got richer and richer because they found ways of screwing and squeezing the middle class).

Unfortunately the health care industry has not been taken to task by anybody who would get credit in a bipartisan fashion, that is it’s just Saw and Michael Moore’s Sicko. Sicko is pretty brilliant on its own terms, but Saw, for the folks that wouldn’t see a documentary has a certain amount of power to make points and I’m glad the series is finally getting political even if it doesn’t name names.

Here is the situation as I understand it: the US leads the development of new drugs, treatments, ect that are not shared for the greater good. I understand the motivation to innovate, invest and develop - maybe it’s not even the researcher’s fault. Profit is a strong motivation - perhaps I’m rare but I just want to live comfortably, I have no desire to be rich (think back to the Robin Williams quote earlier), but at the same time I understand the concept of being paid fairly for the work that you do - why should your CEO get rich on the backs of employees working, producing and delivering?

The fear is if governmental “public option” health care was introduced, of coarse it would cause the quality of health care to decline for everyone else that has it, even if it’s as mediocre as Jigsaw’s. There is too much misinformation on it, the debate, which I’ve been following has become cloudy thanks to the uninformed radical morons who still believe Obama was born in Kenya. What’s wrong with this country?

I’m excited to see what Saw does next, while it’s as oversimplified as the liars who spread roomers about “death panels” - surely Jigsaw is not an example to be followed (although here with Detective Hoffman carrying out Jigsaw’s orders - it appears the film is more brutal, perhaps another point).

I remember reading an interview with Eli Roth who made Hostel, an over the top, almost pornographic film involving torture. As the studio was releasing Hostel II (which I didn’t see) he was discussing his inspirations including videos of beheadings in Iraq. The torture-porn movement was born out of something political itself. Perhaps national embarrassment Lynndie England is partly responsible for these films, although when it comes to torture, she argues in Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure “I didn’t do it, I just took a picture of it”. These films reflect a disturbing American truth, I think - born out of the last few years. I hope the Saw films will become more interesting (and better - Saw 6 is not a terribly good film although I admire what it achieves in its narrative).

(500) Days of Summer - visited and revisited

This summer I was consumed by Hollow Spaces, a film I’m extremely proud of mostly because of all my films it is the best acted (no offense to people from Hartford, but this time around I hired professionals). In the time spent prepping the film, from pre-production to casting, filming and now I’m coming towards the end of post-production I had taken the time to move from Pompton Lakes to Amherst NY, quitting what was a steady, if somewhat dangerously dead end day job. This still has yet to hit me, and I’m thinking one weekend (perhaps in two weeks when I’m home for the first time in a long time to present Mary May’s Suicide Letter at two festivals - the Big Apple Film Festival and the Hartford International Film Festival) - I will end up in tears.

Unexpected things, perhaps preordained by some higher power happen for better or worse if you choose to look at things that way. (500) Days of Summer, although not reflective of my summer, is a pretty wonderful, life affirming film. Perhaps I’m taking it too far, but to call it a romantic comedy seems to be an over generalization based on a simple way of marketing a film. The film opens with no surprises, we know the ending - or do we. Roger Ebert wisely observes in his review that we never remember things in chronological order. We remember relationships and the moments that comprise these relationships in an emotional hierarchy that exists when we trace back through the remains of what was, filtering out data we deem irrelevant. That is, of coarse until Tom, the hero of the film thinks back on the small moments he didn’t observe when his relationship with Summer starts to run off the tracks.

Much of a relationship can be based on first meetings. If your a jerk, or not in the right frame of mind you might miss that chance. Hell, that girl behind you in line at Starbucks may indeed be the one, but if your having a bad day, she’s having a bad day - then maybe it’s not meant to be. It’s getting past the first meeting that builds a relationship of coarse - but that first meeting is critical. My theory on finding love (which I’ve written about extensively over the years) or even dating is visually displayed beautifully in the video to Seether’s song Fine Again - a pretty girl stands in the middle of a carnival holding a sign “I will change your life” - perhaps, if I’m in the right place, right time and in the right mind frame that might happen - and there begins the maddening complexities of love. Then again (500) Days of Summer doesn’t contain the obligatory meet cute of the romantic comedy - Summer and Tom meet rather boringly at the office, more on that later.

Women have a certain power - often without even knowing the power they have, to drive guys crazy. Tom becomes a stalker, not dangerously so but developing a work place crush. She might like him back - or at least she’s willing to give it a try. I’ve had these, sitting around hoping that a certain someone would call, sure - but never had the opportunity nor did I work in an industry that would have allowed this. Tom studied architecture but is working beneath him, illustrating and writing greeting cards for a firm with the name New Hampshire Greetings (based in LA, the film’s setting). In a creative setting openly dating in the work place may be acceptable, working for an organization in which the HR department has a tendency to overstep ethical and potentially legal boundaries, this is a bad idea.

Manufacturing tools of love is one of many lies Tom points out about this firm, citing the contemporary literature we have on issues of love (mostly popular music - a theory proposed in Whit Stillman’s equally wonderful romantic comedy Barcelona) never tells us that it never works out in the end. Greeting cards are perhaps artifacts of how we are suppose to feel in a perfect world which is sort of why I dislike them. Then again I try to develop special relationships with people that I would give a card to - and thus I’ve had blank cards printed with my name for hand written notes for such an occasion. My theory is my good friends, family and acquaintances are far too important to me to get off-the-rack language.

But so much of our daily life is crafted from Tom’s walk to work (listening to his iPod) that one might suppose we’re programed how to feel in some way. Enter free spirit Summer played by the very lovely Zooey Deschanel - who we learn in voice over is cynical while not believing she has an effect on me. She does find love, Tom doesn’t - and so starts the cycle, this time perhaps with a very lovely women named Autumn (sure it’s a silly joke but why not leave the audience smiling).

(500) Days of Summer (I learn from an interview with the filmmaker that 500 is punctuated in parenthesizes to mimic pop song titles) - is as rich as a great mixed tape. While all the usual markings of narrative cinema exist (plot - check, character - check) - the film functions as a friendly mind-fuck. It is not a mind-bender (it’s coherent because the film provides useful tags labeling the days - an idiots guide to the film - shit hits the fan at about day 275).

So what we have is about a year with Summer and about half the time getting over her. Tom is a victim of his own idealism - falling in love with April and imaging happiness while dancing in an imagined but fun sequence to Hall and Oats. Summer is easy to fall in love with: a strong women, she knows what she wants or so she thinks - the film makes a complex case for love. She doesn’t leave Tom to have a series of trysts with other men - but at the same time one could argue her omission of finding a new lover and her engagement until Tom finds out in public is either cruel and or necessary.

But trauma inspires one to go out, not just to find a beatiful women but to reassess one’s own life: Tom does this. To quote Bill Maher: America we can either die in bed hopped up on drugs like Michael Jackson, or we can be like Brittany - but on our circus outfit and go out there and show the world we still got it.

And there in lies the charm of (500) Days of Summer, a romantic comedy that I think guys will enjoy more than women: haven’t we all been there before? Tom’s own reactions mirror mine - I was young, stupid and optimistic once (optimistic for what - I don’t know, hell in retrospect I wish I could talk to little John Fink and tell him if you end up with THAT girl you’d be bored out of your fucking mind). What I learned is to become more like what Summer is: someone who doesn’t believe in being tied down. Then again if the right women comes along.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt I think walks a fine line in approaching Tom. He’s not pathetic the way that Michael Cera might have played the role (to me he continues to play George Michael, and while it’s funny sometimes, it’s growing old). Gordon-Levitt walks a fine line and nails it: here is a guy who’s a product of his experience, he loves British pop songs. I should note I write this while listening to Pete Yorn’s remake of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle.

Yorn doesn’t contribute to what is a solid soundtrack here, opening with the haunting Regina Spektor track Us - but I thought of his music throughout the film. Obviously Last Summer comes to mind first (“we were great last summer - we were fresh as the ocean”) but, perhaps because of the chronology Crystal Village comes to mind first (“we were good in the beginning”). Yorn like Tom is a fan of British popular music of the same era (the late 80’s), and like his contemporaries is creating work that continues in that vain without really cracking the hip-hop, younger pop music sound of the Top 20 (or iTunes’ top 100 for that matter). We shall the discussion regarding Mily Circus’ Party in the USA at a later date. (a quick look at iTunes shows me Mily’s grip on the top spot has slipped to Fireflies by Owl City - which I’m less impressed with by listening to 30-second sound clip).

But back to the subject at hand: (500) Days of Summer is an example of great cinema in that it hits all the right notes and works as both a comedy, drama and romance. There are some films that perhaps don’t work in execution: here Zooey Deschanel is perfectly cast and its nearly impossible to Summer played by anyone else. One particularly beatiful moment played perfectly is where she cries while at a screening of The Graduate, for reasons we, and she probably cannot fully comprehend. Moments like this are truly rare in romantic comedies - moments of deep self realization. Often in romantic comedy two opposites become attracted to each other quickly and spend the rest of the film sorting the matter out, ultimately to come together in some form, and thus some realization occurs - the characters are changed, often simplistically by the other person. Often this requires both people to change, while both characters change, swapping ideologies on love even (although Tom’s period of cynicism is brief, dark but also pretty funny) - neither changes to accommodate each other. Rare, indeed.

Equally as rare is a picture that hits these notes so well leaving one fulfilled and eager to take the trip again: classic Bollywood attempts this, but the long running times can be off-putting, I think. Pixar also does this time and time again, whereas their works are both technical masterpieces, as well as solid storytelling. Good storytelling offers an emotional experience for all viewers - I may be alone in my love for (500) Days of Summer, but it hits all targets and is funny, tragic, and as fulfilling as one of those British-pop inspired Pete Yorn CDs (that’s high praise from me). It’s also well directed from a technical point of view by Marc Webb although it’s an easy criticism to call it too stylish. Style gets boring fast if substance is lacking (I find the movie to be satisfying on all grounds, notwithstanding there are a few moments that don’t work as well as others). The narration is tricky - who’s story is it? Tom’s remembrance or the narrator who aids us in tracking Tom’s frame of mind - the film is as temporal as it is lucid - in one sequence Tom’s expectations are shown in a split frame from the actual reality of the situation. Not confusing, sure, but slightly disorienting without having it explained. Still the storytelling is strong.

To be fair all great movies have small flaws, don’t let that stop you.

** I originally saw (500) Days of Summer the weekend before I went into production on Hollow Spaces. If you’re in the greater Buffalo area it’s currently at the Moveland 8, where I revisted it. The theater is a pretty good cheapo-plex ($1.50 shows on Tuesdays - but trust me, this one was well worth the $12.50 ticket price I paid at the Empire in New York). It’s also scheduled to come out on video in January, although I wish the studio would make a push for a few Oscars, at least in the screenwriting category.

Mary May's Suicide Letter at the Big Apple Film Festival

It's a Love Story, Baby Just Say "Yes" - Capitalism: A Love Story

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After slacking-off on the blog and a lot of other things that I consider to be important (school work always comes first), I’m actually returning to my occasional series of reviews.

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Michael Moore is at it again, and when I think the film scholar in me can resist, he doesn’t. This is not to say I disagree with Michael Moore or the sentiments of his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story, to disagree would make me a Glen Beck-sized douche bag. Roger Ebert’s law of film criticism is that a film is not what it’s about but how it is about - in that the construction of a film, skillful or otherwise is what decides if a film is “good” or “not good” - simply put.

Michael Moore is manipulative. I’m a liberal and I admit it, and yet this is the second film of his that had my in tears and strangely simultaneously proud to be an American. Capitalism: A Love Story is a pro-America film, it stands in defiance of profit makers who reap large benefits by cutting costs, overhead and making complex bets and hedges. It feels wrong to see it at Regal Cinemas, the largest theater chain in America (I didn’t, by the way - opting to go to Dipson instead).

I once was a banker, coming from an institution that I don’t believe to be inherently evil and short-sided the way that some where (being a community bank they didn’t make high risk bets the way that WaMu and Countrywide did, they never made a sub-prime loan, however they did take TARP money). This, unnamed bank, of coarse being what it is, is a small fish in a large pond did not garner national attention the way Citi, Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo did. The two former institutions don’t look so good through Michael Moore’s lens, nor does Goldman Sacks. Chase and Wells Fargo are nearly absent from the dialogue, along with a handful of larger corporations. Wells Fargo was targeted - perhaps fairly for lending practices in Baltimore (“reverse redlining”) that lead to the destruction of neighborhoods in the other crisis doc out now, American Casino (more on that later). Foreign owned banks, who did not take TARP funds are left out (unlike in Sicko Moore doesn’t explore how other countries regulate banks - Canada is one such heavily regulated example which has caused its stronger banks to branch out beyond Canada).

I’d be interested to see a narrative film on Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, I can’t wait for his memoirs which will hopefully provide more interesting insight than Bill Clinton’s did. And perhaps a great deal more intelligence than the upcoming Going Rouge...

But back to Moore. He makes propaganda. As a supporter of his, and I enjoy his films (I’ve been there opening weekend for everyone since Bowling for Columbine) - he makes entertaining films that aim to inspire, move, and motivate audiences. If anything they serve as time capsules of emotional energy: his Captain Mike Across America (later Slacker Uprising) which I saw at Toronto in 2007 - is a painful reminder of the Summer of 2004- when we were all so optimistic and John Kerry for lack of a better word, proved to be a pussy. Hey, you went to war, the other guy didn’t and has the balls to start conflicts that essentially lead to massive profits for major corporations, not to sound like a conspiracy theorist here but come the fuck on.

My gripes with Capitalism: A Love Story is in the documentation. He shows memos from Citibank and highlights the key points, I tried to read what else was being said. I’m sure I could find it somewhere, but that requires digging. Moore’s films usually are released in conjunction with a companion reader that will contain such information, I’m not sure if one is out yet. Other gripes I have is with the theatrics of his presentations at times, here it feels like he’s trying to hard, an animation (you’ll know the one) representing a Bush speech is over the top and embarrassing. We’re smart enough to get what’s going on without the computer graphics. That’s like something Morgan Spurlock would have done.

But what he gets right is pulling at the emotional cords. The Republic Windows and Siding folks make me proud to be an American, proud to be middle class and fighting for the betterment of the middle class. Capitalism is fine - we need people to play a role in society but poverty, joblessness - all for short term profits, stock options, yachts - that’s pretty evil. The material addictions.

Granted I own stock, sure I’d like explosive growth but not at the sake of the middle class. I may never be rich, that’s fine by me - I’d sleep better at night doing an honest day’s work and living comfortably, I don’t need five high end cars like the rappers on MTV cribs, I’m fine driving a Passat. But I do see the hardcore capitalists point of view: without incentives we can’t encourage breakthroughs, but what are we encouraging now?

Interestingly enough the film makes a great point about the top students in science and math. Some don’t take jobs improving the lives of others, they go to work on Wall Street building derivatives, credit default swaps and other products that the film tries to make sense of. A lot of these instruments seem ludicrous when explained, sure - additional security. As does the insurance policies which I knew about from my undergraduate minor (I won’t blow all of Mr. Moore’s surprises for you).

The film is worth seeing. I blast the parts of it that seem fluffed up, done for entertainment, even guerrilla theater. The film is so good on its own. Granted, if you wanted to see the bland, boring version of this I could point you to Leslie Cockburn’s American Casino, which I saw at Tribeca last year. As part of the post-screening panel a discussion was moderated by Alex Blumberg from NPR, who’s reporting on This American Life remains the best journalism on the financial (or perceived) crisis of 2008. But we aren’t out of it yet.

Moore remains optimistic on Obama, not so much on Timothy Geithner. Perhaps it’s too early to judge Obama, and I’m still hopeful he’ll deliver what he promised, and what I and the majority of Americans voted for last November: change, accountability and affordable healthcare for all.

I learn Capitalism: A Love Story started as a follow up to Fahrenheit 9/11. Perhaps Sicko II can be made in the event the health care industry continues to reap record profits while millions of American go bankrupt over health care costs. Health care isn’t cheap, and if I could continue to pay what I paid while employed to insure all Americans had the same coverage I had, I’d be glad to. Of coarse there are other issues at hand (i.e.: it shouldn’t cost more to eat poorly that it does to eat well - yes - Whole Foods, why can’t you be as cheap as Burger King).

I think the reason I despise Moore’s theatrical antics are two fold: the content is entertaining enough on its own, his voice is genuine - using crime scene tape to tape-up Wall Street buildings and banks seems unnecessary. Secondly, they make it easier for the people seeking to discredit his films to attack and dismiss him as an entertainer. The film also dives into a strange examination of religion and capitalism, it works, but only as a critique of Bush and his moron followers on the religious right. Moore for the first time in his career tries to win them over, I hope it’ll work, shall we call Samuel Wurzelbacher.

Still, if you want the boring, emotionless, but highly credible flip side to this picture: American Casino may still be playing at Film Forum.

(Note: Capitalism, I saw in the end credits was was co-produced by Carl Deal whom I met at a Q & A at IFC Center a few years ago and I remember he was kind of a dick)