The Cruise

Although my time in Manhattan proper was limited during my trip to Electric Zoo in NYC last weekend, I think that my recent exposure to the city has inspired me to further explore it through the documentary/character study of Tim "Speed" Levitch in The Cruise (1998). It was on my Netflix Instant Queue for a while after seeing Edward Norton say it was his favorite movie of all time.

In the first minute of the film, I thought I might have trouble watching over an hour of this guy's somewhat grating voice, but by the end I grew to find it endearing. At any given time I was thinking that Speed was either mentally unstable, hilarious, wise, innocent or a poet. Or perhaps a combination of many of those. The main subject of the film is Speed's obsession with "The Cruise," the term he uses to describe his routes as a tour guide for the Gray Line double decker bus. Speed is a truly fascinating character who describes his love affair with The Cruise, the city and its geographical features in a way that is both blatantly sexual, but somehow naive or innocent in its delivery. While he speaks of wild sexual exploits frequently, he often seems too juvenile to have ever experienced a sexual encounter. He is particularly enamored by the architecture, whether it is the terra cotta buildings or the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond. He speaks of his relationship with the city and these buildings as if they were people, while he also rages about his disgust for human civilization. At times it is hard to remember that he is talking to a double-decker busload of tourists, most of whom are probably a little put-off by their intensely poetic and dramatic tour guide.

And in addition to presenting an interesting individual with captivating critiques and comments about the Big Apple, its people, and its nature, Speed crams a lot of actual information about NYC in his tours. Some of his information may seem eclectic, and uninteresting to the fanny-packing crowd, he is full of knowledge about the city. His description of Central Park alone is worth watching the film. In the film, you don't often see the reactions of the tourists to his words, but I often laughed just thinking about how they must have been reacting to his running commentary.

I'm going to go ahead and urge you to see this movie, because it is entertaining and oddly inspiring among a slew of flowery adjectives that I could throw in, but I'll leave that to Speed. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 86%, and I would say that I might give it a little higher. Maybe a high B+.

The Kids Are All Right

Once again, my movie review is going to contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the film and don't want anything revealed ahead of time, read no more! I just will always put this kind of disclaimer up because one time I went to a friend's house while he was watching Fight Club, walked in around the time of the big Tyler Durden plot twist, and he knowingly let me ruin the entire movie before I got to watch it from the beginning.

Last night I saw director Lisa Cholodenko's newest film, The Kids Are All Right. Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) are a lesbian couple living in Southern California with their two children, Laser and Joni. Fifteen year old Laser decides he wants to contact the sperm donor responsible for bringing him and his sister into the world. Legally, eighteen year old Joni has to make the contact with donor Paul. Paul is a smooth-talking 30-something organic farmer/restaurateur whose hyper-masculine persona and irresponsible behavior first gains the love and admiration of the family, then their disgust and anger.

Rather than to regurgitate the plot here further, I want to talk about the way the movie addresses sexuality. I do not want to overstep my bounds here, after all, Cholodenko is, herself, a lesbian, and thus I trust that as the director she portrayed the lives of Jules and Nic in a way that was similar to her own experiences. After all, Cholodenko herself had a child with her life partner through an anonymous sperm donor. That being said, I was mostly pleased with the way sexuality and gender were portrayed in The Kids Are All Right.

To begin, I liked that this was a film that did not fall into the typical trap of needing to characterize the lesbian couple as a copy of a male and female couple. I wouldn't say there was a butch or a femme role assumed by either Nic or Jules, which was refreshing to see, as I feel that lesbians are often portrayed as one hyper-masculine and one hyper-feminine partner. Sure, there was masculine and feminine performativity carried out by both characters, you can't strip away the fact that gender is inherent, or at least deeply associated with many different traits. According to US or Western social standards, Nic's short pixie haircut and no-nonsense attitude may be seen as a more masculine performance, while her sensitivity and maternal protectiveness is typically associated more with femininity. I don't try to fall into these generalizations, of course men can be family-oriented and women cut their hair short all of the time. But there are gendered associations with behaviors and appearances in every culture, and I doubt you can argue that the associations I just laid down there don't ring true, at least in the US. Thankfully, the film doesn't portray these characteristics and behaviors as dichotomous.

I also like the way that sexuality was interpreted as a more fluid and complicated matter than simply hetero or homo. Nic and Jules get their kicks in the bedroom while watching all male porn. In fact, Jules goes quite in depth about the fluidity and convolutedness of sexuality when Laser asks why she and Nic watch "gay man porn." Definitely a funny part of the movie as the hippie-esque Jules tries to be honestly explicit when explaining herself to her fifteen year old.

Jules does not turn out to follow an explicitly homosexual path as well, when she eventually comes to cheat on Nic with sperm donor Paul. I think this is where those who identify as strictly heterosexual or homosexual (i.e. 0 and 6 on the Kinsey scale) might have problems. I might be assuming here, but I have a feeling that many people thought, or even whispered to a fellow movie-goer "but I thought she was gay," at the onset of Jules and Paul's affair. And indeed, when Paul proposes that he and Jules move their relationship to an even more serious level after their affair is discovered by Nic, Jules says into the phone "I'm gay," maybe even further confusing many audience members. But I think this was a realistic exhibition of human sexuality, especially under the conditions that the family and Jules was under. Namely, Joni is an emotional 18-year old preparing to leave for college, Nic is stressed out about Paul's arrival and is downing more wine than ever, Laser is experimenting with drugs and hanging out with a sociopath, and Jules is trying to start a business and productive working lifestyle for the third time. Paul comes along and becomes Jules' first customer at her new upstart landscape design business, and this galvanizes the whole sexual escapade.

Although I delved into the sexuality of the film, The Kids Are All Right is a movie that really tackles family, growing up, infidelity and other issues that many mainstream or heterocentric films cover, but it shows how these same issues are present in nontraditional (in typical Western culture) family structures. Any of the problems that come up are neither further exacerbated nor smoothed over by the fact that Jules and Nic are in a homosexual relationship, and I think that is such a good step in a society where many still think that shows like the L-Word are the Last Word (heh) in lesbian relationship representation.

Alice in Wonderland- A minute Review

I submitted this clip for consideration for the Current TV show, Rotten Tomatoes.



Here is a clip from Jan Svankmajer's version:

In addition to this short video, I have plenty to say about the movie. I wanted it to be incredible since I am such a fan of Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately, I'm more of a fan of American McGee's video game version of Alice in Wonderland that Tim Burton's highly anticipated film. I wanted it to be darker and more sinister. Although the insanity angle is played more thoroughly in Tim Burton's new movie than Dinsey's cartoon version, I still could have used more insanity. The acting was so exaggerated it drove me crazy. Anne Hathaway's character, the White Queen, is always talking in the delicate whisper of a Disney princess, and always waving her hands back and forth whimsically. It was distracting to the point that I was hyper-aware of Hathaway's presence as an actress, and I didn't lose myself in the fantasy of Underland or any of its characters. Helena Bonham Carter (as the Red Queen) was by far the most enchanting part of the film, and I was relieved for her contribution whenever she came into a scene.

My disappointment may have partially come from the fact that I was in the fourth row at an IMAX theater, and my eyes and brain were fried after the 2 hour 3-D joyride. But I had been looking forward to this movie for a long time, and was heartbroken to be let down by Mr. Burton's rendition.