Headhunters (2011)
Wow, I mean wow. Thrilling, so many good twists and really dark and funny in a twisted way. And beautifully shot. So many scenes that are just macabre and yet visually hilarious at the same time.
This must’ve been a really fun script to write. Plus it has Jaime Lannister as the bad guy. This sort of “small-time crook gets way in over his head and much suspense with a sense of humor ensues” is my favorite genre. I love films that are thematically strong and have really solid endings but are relentlessly entertaining in the storytelling (i.e. not resorting to camera tricks).
My review of Grown Ups 2
If you’re wondering why I would even bother to review this movie, then you haven’t been listening to The Worst Idea of All Time podcast. Which you should because it’s so damn funny. The hosts, Guy and Tim, are watching Grown Ups 2 every week for a year, analyzing the movie, and slowly going insane.
After listening to 40 episodes in the last week, I bit the bullet and finally watched it. Here are my thoughts, my absolutely dead-serious, not at all tongue-in-cheek thoughts.
This is Sandler’s foray into experimental filmmaking. He’s in unchartered territory and in over his head, but you have to admire the bravery– he’s experimenting with anti-narrative and anti-humor but packaged in a completely commercial vehicle (even the excess of product placement is a joke in itself).
Look at the hard, unmotivated cuts, the unexplained actions, the furious randomness of the whole thing. He’s trying to tell us something about the world–something that he tried to tell us (presumably, I haven’t watched it) in Grown Ups that we just didn’t listen to.
And the joke is on us–he set out to break the comedy genre and the expectations around it and then was squarely rewarded for it, for all the wrong reasons. If that’s not a meta-commentary on our society, then I don’t know what is. This is not a man failing at comedy, this is a man asking the question “why is comedy?”
The obvious comparison is Godard’s Weekend. A non-linear or non-existent plot. Unmotivated cuts. Bizarre, unintelligible characters. Violence without motivation or consequences. Horrific accidents that happen for no reason, with no effect on the plot and no empathy evoked.
The climactic party scene, with all its fantastical elements (Shaq’s blue pee, a dog bonging a beer, and the surreal violence to name a few) and characters in costume, is a clear nod to Weekend’s fantastical use of famous historical figures showing up in the woods.
Let’s delve into the big party scene. It has all the trappings of a major climax–action, noise, excitement, proximity to the chronological end of the movie. But it’s a cargo cult, it’s empty. You think this is a failure of execution but no, you’re dead wrong. It’s exactly what the film calls for–an anti-climax, a charade. It’s as if to say “this is not a traditional story! look how empty it is!” And you, by not seeing it, are empty too.
Which brings us to the question: is Sandler content with genre-bending or is he actually trying to say anything? I say yes. The film wrestles with (sometimes literally) the changing notions of masculinity, sex roles, father- and motherhood, and the sometimes heartbreaking struggle of children trying to grow up with well-meaning but obviously not-up-to-the-task parenting. If anyone is going to deliver that message and get people to listen, it has to be Sandler himself, the poster child (no pun intended) for men-children everywhere.
In this case, the title says it all: Grown Ups 2. It’s about adults in America and the prognosis is not good. Perhaps the surgeon does not wield the knife with skill, but he surely sees that the patient is sick.
The fight scene at the party really brings this home. The only character who fits the “real man” archetype, Tommy Cavanaugh (played by Steve Austin), chooses to sublimate his raw physical strength to make the man-child (Lenny Feder/Adam Sandler) feel better about himself. But it’s a sacrifice he makes not for Feder, but for his children.
And so here we have masculinity turned on its head– the dumb meathead is the only man who in the end actually A) thinks more than 5 minutes into the future and B) is willing to sacrifice anything for a child–in his case, it’s his entire identity sacrificed for the sake of another parent’s child.
Not only would none of the other adults in the movie make this sacrifice, the thought would not even occur to them.
He called you out, parents, and not only did you hand him a pile of money, you brought your kids. You think they’re laughing at a guy who burps, farts, and hiccups at the same time. But they’re laughing at you.
Watch the trailer for Words Fail Me, my new web series
Words Fail Me is a comedic series of portraits of self-involved and seriously flawed people who desperately need something from each other but just can’t find the right way to put it.
Set in Chicago, the series rolls up its proverbial sleeves to ask some questions you didn’t even think to ask: what do you do when you wake up to a new roommate, get extorted by your babysitter, or spill CIA secrets to the tamale guy?
The stories are written in advance and the dialogue is improvised by actors that Robert met while taking classes and hanging out at The Artistic Home theatre, as a way to give some serious actors with dramatic chops a chance to do comedy.
Production is by Hannah Welever (cinematography), Erin Turney (sound), and Erin Miller (production assistance). They are all very good at what they do and you should hire them if you need this sort of thing.
But it is the thing that wants to live
Via Four Eyes, a tumblr that I really enjoy, comes this lecture from Charlie Kaufman. I really liked this bit:
I now step into this area blindly, I do not know what the wound is, I do know that it is old. I do know that it is a hole in my being. I do know it is tender. I do believe that it is unknowable, or at least unable to be articulable.
I do believe you have a wound too. I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that won’t be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic. It is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself. But it is the thing that wants to live.
It is the thing from which your art, your painting, your dance, your composition, your philosophical treatise, your screenplay is born. If you don’t acknowledge this you will come up here when it is your time and you will give your speech and you will talk about the business of screenwriting. You will say that as a screenwriter you are a cog in a business machine, you will say it is not an art form. You will say, ‘Here, this is what a screenplay looks like.’ You will discuss character arcs, how to make likeable characters. You will talk about box office. This is what you will do, this is who you will be and after you are done I will feel lonely and empty and hopeless. And I will ask you for my two hours back. I will do this to indicate my lack of love for you.
I will do this to communicate that you are a waste of time as a human being. It will be an ugly thing for me to say. It will be intended to hurt you. It will be wrong for me to say. It will lack compassion. And it will hurt you. And you will either dismiss it or take it in, but in either case you will hear it and it will affect you. And you will think about what you can do next time so you can be more lovable, and with that your wound will be buried further. Or you will think about how hateful people are and how your armour needs to be thicker so that you can proceed as planned with your ideas. With that, your wound will be buried further.
Beautiful.
Quentin Dupieux has a new film coming out
Quentin Dupieux, the director of Wrong, has a new film coming out, called Reality. As I wrote before, I loved Wrong. But I tried to watch Wrong Cops a few weeks ago and just couldn’t get into it.
The absurdity that was so wonderful in Wrong just rang false for me in Wrong Cops. There’s a delicate art to arbitrary weirdness that I can’t quite figure out, but it might come down to just “it works if it’s funny” or “it works if it fits the broader theme.”
The things fictional characters shout upon orgasm
From After Hours (1985):
MARCY On our wedding night -- I was a virgin -- well...when we made love...you've seen the film, haven't you? PAUL "The Wizard of Oz"? MARCY Yes. PAUL Yes, I've seen it. MARCY Well...when we made love... whenever he...you know...when he came...right at the moment of...orgasm...he would just scream out: "Surrender Dorothy!" That's all, just "Surrender Dorothy!" I mean, you know, instead of moaning or saying "Oh, God" or something normal like that... PAUL Wow... MARCY I mean, you know...it was pretty creepy, and I told him I thought so but he couldn't stop. I mean, he said he didn't even realize it, can you imagine?? So I just broke the whole thing off.
From David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (p. 17):
It's cost me every sexual relationship I ever had. I don't know why I do it. I'm not a political person, I don't consider myself. I'm not one of those America First, read the newspaper, will Buchanan get the nod people. I'll be doing it with some girl, it doesn't matter who. It's when I start to come. That it happens... ..."Victory for the Forces of Democratic Freedom!" Only way louder. As in really shouting it. Uncontrollably. I'm not even thinking it until it comes out and I hear it.
There is a bright and tiny joy from finding connections between works you love, whether or not they’re intentional.1 I wonder if Wallace ever saw After Hours.
I hereby commission a German to coin a word for that feeling. ↩
Shooting episode 1 of my still-untitled web series
Finally, in production for something! We went to Senior Citizen Memorial Park in Bucktown today to film the first episode of a web series that I created. It’s a comedic series of strange vignettes from Chicago.
This first episode was a test run to see how things will go before deciding to move on to episodes two through six. And things went very well.
The actors have a detailed set of circumstances to work with but the dialogue itself is improvised, which presents a bit of a directing challenge as I had an idea of where I wanted to go but not a full map of how to get there.
Finding some really nice surprises and good moments along the way was fun. And a relief. Mostly a relief that it worked out. I didn’t invite you to this park on a cold November Saturday to create something boring and terrible.
I’m working with Hannah Welever as a DP and Erin Turbo as a sound engineer and they were both great today, as were the actors Tyler Collins and Mike Maggio, who I know Tyler and Mke through The Artistic Home.
Most, if not all of the episodes will feature actors that I’ve met through that wonderful theater.
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Writing a screenplay (process)
I took my first stab at a feature screenplay in 2009. It was a comedy that would never work as an actual movie, just too many issues with it. But it had its moments.
This was my process back then:
Come up with an idea, write the first 15 pages, realize that I didn’t know where the thing was going, write an outline to figure that out, then freak out and get insecure and buy three screenwriting books and compile all the rules, ideas, and notes from those books into a big document that I probably titled something like “How to write a screenplay,” then rewriting my outline based on all the ‘rules’ I learned.
This time around, I’m doing it differently. No books. I am taking a class though. I’m still skeptical about how much I’m really getting from this class, but one thing I can say about writing classes in general is that they force you to write on a schedule. I tend to get sidetracked a lot with side projects and so having the weekly deadline of a 1-page treatment, then 5-, 10-, and 20-page treatments has helped me keep things moving.
And instead of worrying so much about ‘rules’ this time around, I’m just trying my best to write a simple and compelling story that doesn’t require a lot of plot engineering.
The process of starting with a 1-page treatment, then fleshing it out more and more every week works. It works in that the story is there and now that I have a full outline, the fun part of writing the scenes will not be fraught with the mechanics of getting from A to B.
I don’t know if it will work in the sense of creating something excellent–that’s sort of hard to judge. I’m in love with the story but who knows if anyone else will be.
Outline complete…
Just finished the outline on a feature I’m writing, tentatively titled Begin. Feels so good to have it out on note cards where I can see it all in front of me (instead of in a 16-page Word doc).
I wanted to write something that I could film here in Chicago on a shoestring budget but the way it came out, it’s going to need a decent amount of special effects.
And a tank, but I met a guy that collects WWII tanks so that’s actually not an issue. We’ll see. I might just finish this up and write another super-inexpensive one after that.
After Hours (1985)
I watched this last night on a recommendation from a screenwriting teacher. It’s an insane film. And very funny. Probably my favorite Scorsese film now, which I know, sacrilege or something. Goodfellas never did it for me though.
It’s really funny. Deadpan jokes and strange circumstances everywhere. As a whole it seems completely implausible but the individual events are believable, if that makes sense.
“You have a great body.”
“Yes. Not at lot of scars.”
A woman falling asleep during a seductive massage. And good physical stuff, like Griffin Dunne being wrapped in papier-mache and then stolen by thieves (Cheech and Chong!) because they think it’s valuable art. Hysterical women trying to sleep with him then forming an angry mob when he refuses. So many weird things going on and then interlinking later.
I wish they made more comedies like this, but it didn’t do very well at the box office, which doesn’t really surprise me. It’s dark, deadpan, absurd, and compelling. There are genuine laugh out loud moments.
And a scene with a bouncer outside a club that was pulled from Kafka’s The Trial, which is a scene in the book that was life-altering when I read it at 16.
At the beginning you think “what a bleak future at that boring job he has” and by the end you’re desperate to get back to that job where the world is boring but comfortingly stable.
It’s grounded in the sense that he doesn’t call out the insanity of it. He deals with it in a grounded, logical way. But no matter what he does, the labyrinth goes deeper. So you go crazy with him, which is a fun ride.
All that and no men had to cry or shit explosively to make it funny. Imagine that.
Also, it turns out that the first 30 minutes or so were ripped from an episode of Joe Frank’s Radio Playhouse.
I’m writing something similar in tone to this, but not as dark. After Hours is a very dark film. But hilarious.