The Second Opinion

Pittsburgh’s entry: “Dawn of the Dead” (197

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-z5wBeFTU

Okay, I’m officially sick of waiting for the people upstairs to get up to get organized on publishing blogs on their website, so from now on, each entry of “Pittsburgh Against the World” premieres here for as long as the series lasts.
For those of you just joining us, this is the series where we look at the movies made in “Little Hollywood” and see if the city deserves it’s reputation, by comparing it to other movies made anywhere else in the states. So far, Pittsburgh has taken on Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the score is Pittsburgh: 1 Other states: 0

This round: Horror

Among the movies shot in Pittsburgh, horror may be the genre that stands the tallest, largely due to George Romero’s acclaimed “Living Dead” series. From the creation of “Night of the Living Dead,” he has used locations all over the city for settings (though a couple, including “Night,” were perhaps filmed a bit too far past the outskirts to count). Today’s entry, however, might be his best in the whole series.

The Movie:

I’d probably have been at least a little skeptical, before seeing “Dawn of the Dead,” if I’d heard that one of the greatest horror movies of all time features a gang of bikers breaking in to rob the Monroeville Mall, hitting zombies with pies, and then winding up in a gunfight over who was there to rob it first. Such is the bizarre genius of Romero.

It’s 1978, and the zombie apocalypse is upon us. There is no explanation, no knowledge of these creatures, other than their hunger for human flesh and their ability to spread the zombie plague with just one bite. But the movie’s tagline (pictured above) is offered as an ominous suggestion.

The movie is never just a video game of survival that viewers don’t actually have to play. It explores the implications of this Armageddon without slowing down the action, forcing characters to address whether there is any future for them at all. It is not, for example, a good time to be pregnant. What’s more, in what seems like an extra mile in modern times, characters like the police squad, in an early scene, have to force themselves to go through with shooting the zombies, not becoming as desensitized as the audience until near the end of the first act. (Though we also see a group of rednecks banded together who happily use the approaching creatures for sharpshooting games.) The movie sets out to explore human nature and succeeds.

The main plot takes shape when four people, two competent officers and a couple less capable of fending for themselves, flee their location in a helicopter, arriving at an abandoned mall. It’s infested with zombies, but upon entering a secluded storage room through the roof and helping themselves to some packaged food, they come to think that they might have a good thing here. Spread out, the zombies are easy to outrun and can’t get through shatter-proof glass, so convenient shopping is a matter of some misdirection, a couple secret passages, and locking the doors behind them.

In fact, after they lock the zombies outside in the second act, the movie puts the horror on hold for a stretch and plays as a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy, one that any middle class citizen can appreciate. The four have a shopping mall all to themselves, with all the food, sharp clothes and appliances they could ever want, and they indulge themselves with no need for guilt. They even have some fun collecting stacks of money, under the pretense of “you never know!” Sure.

Meanwhile, they also try to keep up with the news, as politicians propose nuking major cities and solving the food shortage by “eating the opposition!” Still, while scoring political jabs in a setup one wouldn’t think leaves much room for politics is a nice touch, the director’s strongest and subtlest commentary is in the arc that the four undergo in their new surroundings. Over the weeks, they go from hopeful, to something resembling happy – with the occasional pessimism – to self-entitled. Still, even with them, Romero makes room for some gleefully direct lines. (“Hey, let’s get the stuff we need! I’ll get a television and a radio.”

None the less, the most pulse pounding scenes also come from inside the mall. We’re tensely aware, as they dodge through the crowds of walking dead and race to shut the doors in time, that they’re playing with their lives and are one bite away from losing. Some – just a few – of the dark corridors and backrooms they hide in conceal a lone zombie who wandered in away from the crowd, not easy to see coming by itself. And as one of the characters finds out the hard way, the game is never easier to lose than when you’ve been winning it for too long.

It’s inevitable that it all must come crashing down on them, but in a nice bit of storytelling, it’s not the zombies themselves that secure their victory, nor is it (entirely) a stupid mistake. When an armed bike gang drives by, they discover the mall and its occupants and decide to help themselves, so the main characters summon the zombies back into the mall to chase them off. This is condemnable enough, but when the zombies prove ineffective, they decide to go even farther. It’s well done, though it does start to succumb to what I like to call “Lord of the Flies” syndrome: many stories seem to find the notion popularized by “Lord of the Flies” – that human nature deep down is utterly ruthless and selfish – so powerful, that they eagerly have their characters sink to disgusting lows, with only so much care for logical/feasible progression. It can all just be blamed on (ominous music) some… thing in people, some… need!

I resist the urge to say that “Dawn of the Dead” proves how much life there is in this zombie series, or that it’s a small wonder the series has been resurrected so many times, or that it’s a zombie film made with brains. And, of course, it’d be too easy to tell you that it will leave you hungry for more. But if I did, it would all be true. It’s a zombie film masterpiece if there ever was one.

Pittsburgh’s entry: “Dawn of the Dead” (197

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-z5wBeFTU

Okay, I’m officially sick of waiting for the people upstairs to get up to get organized on publishing blogs on their website, so from now on, each entry of “Pittsburgh Against the World” premieres here for as long as the series lasts.
For those of you just joining us, this is the series where we look at the movies made in “Little Hollywood” and see if the city deserves it’s reputation, by comparing it to other movies made anywhere else in the states. So far, Pittsburgh has taken on Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the score is Pittsburgh: 1 Other states: 0

This round: Horror

Among the movies shot in Pittsburgh, horror may be the genre that stands the tallest, largely due to George Romero’s acclaimed “Living Dead” series. From the creation of “Night of the Living Dead,” he has used locations all over the city for settings (though a couple, including “Night,” were perhaps filmed a bit too far past the outskirts to count). Today’s entry, however, might be his best in the whole series.

The Movie:

I’d probably have been at least a little skeptical, before seeing “Dawn of the Dead,” if I’d heard that one of the greatest horror movies of all time features a gang of bikers breaking in to rob the Monroeville Mall, hitting zombies with pies, and then winding up in a gunfight over who was there to rob it first. Such is the bizarre genius of Romero.

It’s 1978, and the zombie apocalypse is upon us. There is no explanation, no knowledge of these creatures, other than their hunger for human flesh and their ability to spread the zombie plague with just one bite. But the movie’s tagline (pictured above) is offered as an ominous suggestion.

The movie is never just a video game of survival that viewers don’t actually have to play. It explores the implications of this Armageddon without slowing down the action, forcing characters to address whether there is any future for them at all. It is not, for example, a good time to be pregnant. What’s more, in what seems like an extra mile in modern times, characters like the police squad, in an early scene, have to force themselves to go through with shooting the zombies, not becoming as desensitized as the audience until near the end of the first act. (Though we also see a group of rednecks banded together who happily use the approaching creatures for sharpshooting games.) The movie sets out to explore human nature and succeeds.

The main plot takes shape when four people, two competent officers and a couple less capable of fending for themselves, flee their location in a helicopter, arriving at an abandoned mall. It’s infested with zombies, but upon entering a secluded storage room through the roof and helping themselves to some packaged food, they come to think that they might have a good thing here. Spread out, the zombies are easy to outrun and can’t get through shatter-proof glass, so convenient shopping is a matter of some misdirection, a couple secret passages, and locking the doors behind them.

In fact, after they lock the zombies outside in the second act, the movie puts the horror on hold for a stretch and plays as a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy, one that any middle class citizen can appreciate. The four have a shopping mall all to themselves, with all the food, sharp clothes and appliances they could ever want, and they indulge themselves with no need for guilt. They even have some fun collecting stacks of money, under the pretense of “you never know!” Sure.

Meanwhile, they also try to keep up with the news, as politicians propose nuking major cities and solving the food shortage by “eating the opposition!” Still, while scoring political jabs in a setup one wouldn’t think leaves much room for politics is a nice touch, the director’s strongest and subtlest commentary is in the arc that the four undergo in their new surroundings. Over the weeks, they go from hopeful, to something resembling happy – with the occasional pessimism – to self-entitled. Still, even with them, Romero makes room for some gleefully direct lines. (“Hey, let’s get the stuff we need! I’ll get a television and a radio.”

None the less, the most pulse pounding scenes also come from inside the mall. We’re tensely aware, as they dodge through the crowds of walking dead and race to shut the doors in time, that they’re playing with their lives and are one bite away from losing. Some – just a few – of the dark corridors and backrooms they hide in conceal a lone zombie who wandered in away from the crowd, not easy to see coming by itself. And as one of the characters finds out the hard way, the game is never easier to lose than when you’ve been winning it for too long.

It’s inevitable that it all must come crashing down on them, but in a nice bit of storytelling, it’s not the zombies themselves that secure their victory, nor is it (entirely) a stupid mistake. When an armed bike gang drives by, they discover the mall and its occupants and decide to help themselves, so the main characters summon the zombies back into the mall to chase them off. This is condemnable enough, but when the zombies prove ineffective, they decide to go even farther. It’s well done, though it does start to succumb to what I like to call “Lord of the Flies” syndrome: many stories seem to find the notion popularized by “Lord of the Flies” – that human nature deep down is utterly ruthless and selfish – so powerful, that they eagerly have their characters sink to disgusting lows, with only so much care for logical/feasible progression. It can all just be blamed on (ominous music) some… thing in people, some… need!

I resist the urge to say that “Dawn of the Dead” proves how much life there is in this zombie series, or that it’s a small wonder the series has been resurrected so many times, or that it’s a zombie film made with brains. And, of course, it’d be too easy to tell you that it will leave you hungry for more. But if I did, it would all be true. It’s a zombie film masterpiece if there ever was one.

Last week, we looked at Greg Mottola’s “Adventureland” (2009), a Pittsburgh movie best described as a romantic comedy with some real drama woven in- hence, a Romantic Dramedy. It was a solid winner, showing a great combination of quiet humor, nostalgia and a surprisingly moving love story. But no need for all the bland gushing again (here’s the link if you need to compare: http/www.manic-expression.com/apps/blog/entries/show/24963595-pittsburgh-against-the-world-a-clash-of-filmography)

This week, we look at the opposing entry as Ann Arbor, Michigan – the first city chosen at random – throws its hat into the ring, with a movie that takes advantage of Michigan’s film incentive legislation passed in 2008. It’s definitely worthy competition.

Ann Arbor’s entry: “Youth in Revolt” (2010)

Based on a novel of the same name by C. D. Payne, “Youth in Revolt” (directed by Miguel Arteta), is a story about embracing one’s inner rebel and enjoying deliciously sinful pleasures, which also describes the appeal it offers to its audience. It begins with the familiar story of Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), a put-upon nerd and virgin in the style of most of Cera’s characters, who’s becoming increasingly desperate to explore the opposite sex. Both of his divorced parents (Steve Buscemi and Jean Smart) don’t hesitate to put him on the backburner in favor of the slobs they are dating, and people at school don’t give him the time of day. Then, menaced by sailors insisting they were ripped off by the mother’s crooked boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis), the three of them leave town to stay near Nick’s dad, where Nick meets the girl of his dreams, named Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). At this point, the story begins a steady dive into farcical insanity.

Sheeni, of course, is an absurd character meant to be the “perfect girl” from a male-centric perspective; she wants Nick right away, she likes all the things that get him written off as a dork, and she’s so flirtatious, uncensored, and bold that she seems just one step away from offering him sex, even while telling him that she technically has a boyfriend (whom we’re made to side against long before his much anticipated walk-on near the end of the movie). However, thanks to Doubleday’s wonderful performance, Sheeni is also a lot of fun. She speaks in analytical terms that would feel cold if not for the way she delivers them, filling every word with with a certain erotic confidence. She exudes an energy that’s simultaneously warm and distant. She’s altogether a great match for Nick, as played by Cera. In fact, she’s so likable that Nick can’t accept risking his chance with her when it comes time to go home; the two of them agree to a plan in which Nick, going against every inclination of his being, will begin an onslaught of destructive and rebellious behavior until he gets thrown out of his mom’s house, allowing him to stay with his dad and be with Sheeni.

Only one aspect of the movie could possibly be better than Portia Doubleday’s performance, and that is Michael Cera’s performance. But it’s not the performance he gives to Nick, which has to settle for third best this time. Cera’s show-stealing performance is as the rebellious alter ego Nick invents to inspire his crimes, whom he calls François Dillinger.

As a character, François falls somewhere between a cold-blooded secret agent and the only gothic poet in the 21st century who likes wearing light colors. He wears a mustache, smokes cigarettes, and sports a slick version of Cera’s haircut. He’s smug, bold, and cruel, but he never seems to take pleasure in what he does. Each rebellious act is done with the air of François collecting a debt, as though he’s long-since been owed the leeway to do these things. Instead of Nick “becoming” François, the two appear onscreen together, leaving us to interpret which of them is in control. Sheeni’s only face-to-face meeting with François is especially gleeful in this approach, with Nick almost too nervous not to interrupt his alter ego.

Most of the story from François’s appearance is a screwball tale of nonsense. It mainly gives us more contrived setups, such as Sheeni’s parents (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh) spontaneously sending her to boarding school, the introduction of another “perfect girlfriend” of Sheeni’s for the kindred spirit Nick picks up along the way, and such liberating crimes of self-empowerment as a multimillion dollar car wreck. None of it is believable, and some of it, such as the Thanksgiving dinner scene with the Saunders family, is vaguely disturbing. In all honesty, this story has much more black comedy than drama, and the drama it does attempt is not always convincing. The scene wherein Nick is forgiven, for example, lack any sort of believability.

Still, only a few of these problems can even be taken seriously; “Youth in Revolt” is not about realistic scenarios or effective drama. It’s about its three central characters, counting François, pitting themselves against the world, and each other, and in that it is an entertaining success. However, it ultimately falls short of “Adventureland,” which has a story more involving and rewarding, without such lazy setups, that’s just as funny to boot. I also, of the two, prefer Jesse Eisenberg’s awkward, virginal character to Michael Cera’s, as Eisenberg is able to convey a more rounded individual who doesn’t need François Dillinger to stand up for himself. The only preferable aspect of “Youth in Revolt” is Portia Doubleday’s performance as the romantic interest over the less memorable Kristen Stewart, and even that is a surprisingly decent contest. Pittsburgh takes a victory in the first match. But be sure to check out both movies if you get the chance.

Last week, we looked at Greg Mottola’s “Adventureland” (2009), a Pittsburgh movie best described as a romantic comedy with some real drama woven in- hence, a Romantic Dramedy. It was a solid winner, showing a great combination of quiet humor, nostalgia and a surprisingly moving love story. But no need for all the bland gushing again (here’s the link if you need to compare: http/www.manic-expression.com/apps/blog/entries/show/24963595-pittsburgh-against-the-world-a-clash-of-filmography)

This week, we look at the opposing entry as Ann Arbor, Michigan – the first city chosen at random – throws its hat into the ring, with a movie that takes advantage of Michigan’s film incentive legislation passed in 2008. It’s definitely worthy competition.

Ann Arbor’s entry: “Youth in Revolt” (2010)

Based on a novel of the same name by C. D. Payne, “Youth in Revolt” (directed by Miguel Arteta), is a story about embracing one’s inner rebel and enjoying deliciously sinful pleasures, which also describes the appeal it offers to its audience. It begins with the familiar story of Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), a put-upon nerd and virgin in the style of most of Cera’s characters, who’s becoming increasingly desperate to explore the opposite sex. Both of his divorced parents (Steve Buscemi and Jean Smart) don’t hesitate to put him on the backburner in favor of the slobs they are dating, and people at school don’t give him the time of day. Then, menaced by sailors insisting they were ripped off by the mother’s crooked boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis), the three of them leave town to stay near Nick’s dad, where Nick meets the girl of his dreams, named Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). At this point, the story begins a steady dive into farcical insanity.

Sheeni, of course, is an absurd character meant to be the “perfect girl” from a male-centric perspective; she wants Nick right away, she likes all the things that get him written off as a dork, and she’s so flirtatious, uncensored, and bold that she seems just one step away from offering him sex, even while telling him that she technically has a boyfriend (whom we’re made to side against long before his much anticipated walk-on near the end of the movie). However, thanks to Doubleday’s wonderful performance, Sheeni is also a lot of fun. She speaks in analytical terms that would feel cold if not for the way she delivers them, filling every word with with a certain erotic confidence. She exudes an energy that’s simultaneously warm and distant. She’s altogether a great match for Nick, as played by Cera. In fact, she’s so likable that Nick can’t accept risking his chance with her when it comes time to go home; the two of them agree to a plan in which Nick, going against every inclination of his being, will begin an onslaught of destructive and rebellious behavior until he gets thrown out of his mom’s house, allowing him to stay with his dad and be with Sheeni.

Only one aspect of the movie could possibly be better than Portia Doubleday’s performance, and that is Michael Cera’s performance. But it’s not the performance he gives to Nick, which has to settle for third best this time. Cera’s show-stealing performance is as the rebellious alter ego Nick invents to inspire his crimes, whom he calls François Dillinger.

As a character, François falls somewhere between a cold-blooded secret agent and the only gothic poet in the 21st century who likes wearing light colors. He wears a mustache, smokes cigarettes, and sports a slick version of Cera’s haircut. He’s smug, bold, and cruel, but he never seems to take pleasure in what he does. Each rebellious act is done with the air of François collecting a debt, as though he’s long-since been owed the leeway to do these things. Instead of Nick “becoming” François, the two appear onscreen together, leaving us to interpret which of them is in control. Sheeni’s only face-to-face meeting with François is especially gleeful in this approach, with Nick almost too nervous not to interrupt his alter ego.

Most of the story from François’s appearance is a screwball tale of nonsense. It mainly gives us more contrived setups, such as Sheeni’s parents (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh) spontaneously sending her to boarding school, the introduction of another “perfect girlfriend” of Sheeni’s for the kindred spirit Nick picks up along the way, and such liberating crimes of self-empowerment as a multimillion dollar car wreck. None of it is believable, and some of it, such as the Thanksgiving dinner scene with the Saunders family, is vaguely disturbing. In all honesty, this story has much more black comedy than drama, and the drama it does attempt is not always convincing. The scene wherein Nick is forgiven, for example, lack any sort of believability.

Still, only a few of these problems can even be taken seriously; “Youth in Revolt” is not about realistic scenarios or effective drama. It’s about its three central characters, counting François, pitting themselves against the world, and each other, and in that it is an entertaining success. However, it ultimately falls short of “Adventureland,” which has a story more involving and rewarding, without such lazy setups, that’s just as funny to boot. I also, of the two, prefer Jesse Eisenberg’s awkward, virginal character to Michael Cera’s, as Eisenberg is able to convey a more rounded individual who doesn’t need François Dillinger to stand up for himself. The only preferable aspect of “Youth in Revolt” is Portia Doubleday’s performance as the romantic interest over the less memorable Kristen Stewart, and even that is a surprisingly decent contest. Pittsburgh takes a victory in the first match. But be sure to check out both movies if you get the chance.

Well, deals have been struck, agreements have been reached, and it’s official! I’m now a published blogger on the campus magazine website! (Not that I get paid or anything, but it’s sorta fun to, uh, pretend it’s significant.)

So what does this mean for my part time series on this, the website that helped get me started? …Pretty much that all the people (both of them) who were into the ongoing entries I was doing will have to switch to this series, in which I stroke my home town and the films to come out of it by favorably comparing them to movies from across the states. But, it will be more of a full time thing from now on. (Unless of course I get fired or give into my extraordinary laziness.)

This round: Romantic Dramedy

You might be surprised to learn how many movies have been filmed in Pittsburgh. For over a hundred years, directors have found the steel city to be a valuable location, sometimes leading to all-time greats – particularly in the horror genre – that I’ll be covering eventually. In this series, I’ll be exploring how Pittsburgh filmography stacks up to entries from all across the United States. Each new city will be brought in for one side by side comparison in one genre. This week, to help soothe the last of the annual disappointment for so many that is Valentine’s Day, romantic comedies would seem the easy choice. However, the best love stories filmed here aren’t quite lighthearted enough to fit that category. They have a bit more substance to them, best described with the little-used phrase “romantic dramedy.” So today, we explore how well a Pittsburgh story of romance, humor, and personal struggles succeeds against its peers.

-Pittsburgh’s entry: “Adventureland” (2009)

“Adventureland” (Greg Mottola, of “Superbad” fame) has been described as sweet and nostalgic, which it is. But it is not “sweet” in the style of a basic romantic comedy, and the nostalgic gaze does not for one second gloss over the frustrating side of the past. Mottola understands that the dimension of an experience is what really makes it worth conveying; if you go to a picnic and have a good time with your friends, that’s just fine, but if a storm hits while you’re all tossing a Frisbee and a bear wanders out of the woods when you go to retrieve it from the mud, now you’ve got a story.

It’s 1987 and James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), a comparative literature major, isn’t quite ready to be left to his own devices when his dad loses his job, forcing him to stay with his parents for the summer and work to pay for graduate school. Not only is he less than fond of his hometown, with nothing to do besides suffer his immature friend Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush), but it seems the options for a summer job in Pittsburgh were never much broader than they are here in the present.

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not even qualified for manual labor,” he vents, after getting nowhere with his attempt to list driving his friend’s van as a qualification.

This leaves a job at the titular amusement park, which Pittsburgh natives will recognize as the beloved Kennywood. It’s more or less his last choice, managing rigged games for a rough crowd, but this makes it easy for him to befriend the people working there. Everyone endures the same lousy routine, so they might as well be miserable together. The movie has a perfect understanding of the frustration behind these summer jobs. Then he’s saved from a knife-toting redneck by a jaded game manager his age named Emily (Kristen Stewart), and a subtle spark ignites. It takes some time hanging out in the same crowd together, but they find that they have a deeper connection than the rest.

“Adventureland” moves more slowly than Mottola’s breakout feature “Superbad,” and its humor, while funny, is more quiet and reflective. There are exceptions (the married park owners played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are hilarious), but the foremost quality of the film is the weighty affection that it carries. James’s pursuit of Emily is riddled with mistakes on both ends – real mistakes too, not rom com misunderstandings – but we get the sense that whatever happens, both of them will look back on the summer fondly.

Eisenberg is impressive as usual, giving James a sort of cynical dignity, despite his also being a genial nerd; he might live the life of a lovable loser, but he’s no pushover. Most-all of the cast is solid, but the surprise is Kristen Stewart, of Twilight infamy. Critics who blame her derided performances on the direction might have a point after all. Stewart turns Emily into the type of girl we’ve all probably met, unintimidated, unapologetic, and, yes, often unemotional, but also – there’s no other word for it – cool. Emily fits right in with the group at Adventureland. She may catch almost as many stares from the guys as the seductive Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), but she’s the one that’ll be hanging out with everyone when the shift is over.

Unfortunately, old Kennywood Park is stuck playing more of an antagonist this time, reworking its classic rides and various games to appear cheap and secondhand. It’s really a pretty good performance, but as an old friend of the place, it’s one I can see right through.

“Adventureland,” is a gentle ride on a grand old rollercoaster, taking us down bumpy tracks and nostalgic turns with a deft design, all adding up to a more emotional experience than you might expect.

Next week, the city to throw its hat into the ring will be Ann Arbor, Michigan. Feel free to suggest genres and cities you’d like to see examined against Pittsburgh in the future.

Well, deals have been struck, agreements have been reached, and it’s official! I’m now a published blogger on the campus magazine website! (Not that I get paid or anything, but it’s sorta fun to, uh, pretend it’s significant.)

So what does this mean for my part time series on this, the website that helped get me started? …Pretty much that all the people (both of them) who were into the ongoing entries I was doing will have to switch to this series, in which I stroke my home town and the films to come out of it by favorably comparing them to movies from across the states. But, it will be more of a full time thing from now on. (Unless of course I get fired or give into my extraordinary laziness.)

This round: Romantic Dramedy

You might be surprised to learn how many movies have been filmed in Pittsburgh. For over a hundred years, directors have found the steel city to be a valuable location, sometimes leading to all-time greats – particularly in the horror genre – that I’ll be covering eventually. In this series, I’ll be exploring how Pittsburgh filmography stacks up to entries from all across the United States. Each new city will be brought in for one side by side comparison in one genre. This week, to help soothe the last of the annual disappointment for so many that is Valentine’s Day, romantic comedies would seem the easy choice. However, the best love stories filmed here aren’t quite lighthearted enough to fit that category. They have a bit more substance to them, best described with the little-used phrase “romantic dramedy.” So today, we explore how well a Pittsburgh story of romance, humor, and personal struggles succeeds against its peers.

-Pittsburgh’s entry: “Adventureland” (2009)

“Adventureland” (Greg Mottola, of “Superbad” fame) has been described as sweet and nostalgic, which it is. But it is not “sweet” in the style of a basic romantic comedy, and the nostalgic gaze does not for one second gloss over the frustrating side of the past. Mottola understands that the dimension of an experience is what really makes it worth conveying; if you go to a picnic and have a good time with your friends, that’s just fine, but if a storm hits while you’re all tossing a Frisbee and a bear wanders out of the woods when you go to retrieve it from the mud, now you’ve got a story.

It’s 1987 and James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), a comparative literature major, isn’t quite ready to be left to his own devices when his dad loses his job, forcing him to stay with his parents for the summer and work to pay for graduate school. Not only is he less than fond of his hometown, with nothing to do besides suffer his immature friend Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush), but it seems the options for a summer job in Pittsburgh were never much broader than they are here in the present.

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not even qualified for manual labor,” he vents, after getting nowhere with his attempt to list driving his friend’s van as a qualification.

This leaves a job at the titular amusement park, which Pittsburgh natives will recognize as the beloved Kennywood. It’s more or less his last choice, managing rigged games for a rough crowd, but this makes it easy for him to befriend the people working there. Everyone endures the same lousy routine, so they might as well be miserable together. The movie has a perfect understanding of the frustration behind these summer jobs. Then he’s saved from a knife-toting redneck by a jaded game manager his age named Emily (Kristen Stewart), and a subtle spark ignites. It takes some time hanging out in the same crowd together, but they find that they have a deeper connection than the rest.

“Adventureland” moves more slowly than Mottola’s breakout feature “Superbad,” and its humor, while funny, is more quiet and reflective. There are exceptions (the married park owners played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are hilarious), but the foremost quality of the film is the weighty affection that it carries. James’s pursuit of Emily is riddled with mistakes on both ends – real mistakes too, not rom com misunderstandings – but we get the sense that whatever happens, both of them will look back on the summer fondly.

Eisenberg is impressive as usual, giving James a sort of cynical dignity, despite his also being a genial nerd; he might live the life of a lovable loser, but he’s no pushover. Most-all of the cast is solid, but the surprise is Kristen Stewart, of Twilight infamy. Critics who blame her derided performances on the direction might have a point after all. Stewart turns Emily into the type of girl we’ve all probably met, unintimidated, unapologetic, and, yes, often unemotional, but also – there’s no other word for it – cool. Emily fits right in with the group at Adventureland. She may catch almost as many stares from the guys as the seductive Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), but she’s the one that’ll be hanging out with everyone when the shift is over.

Unfortunately, old Kennywood Park is stuck playing more of an antagonist this time, reworking its classic rides and various games to appear cheap and secondhand. It’s really a pretty good performance, but as an old friend of the place, it’s one I can see right through.

“Adventureland,” is a gentle ride on a grand old rollercoaster, taking us down bumpy tracks and nostalgic turns with a deft design, all adding up to a more emotional experience than you might expect.

Next week, the city to throw its hat into the ring will be Ann Arbor, Michigan. Feel free to suggest genres and cities you’d like to see examined against Pittsburgh in the future.

Life’s as busy as ever, and I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to finish my series, but I’m not about to fade off just yet. So please enjoy my list of the most evil kids ever to appear on the big screen!

Rules:

– No possessed or mutated pseudo-children, and no actual monsters just posing as children. Kids with superpowers are okay, but they have to be human beings acting evil on their own accord. (If anyone was ambiguous on this one, they’ve probably been left out because of it.)

– Teens are allowed, but young adults (18+) don’t count.

– Nobody who was questionable as a child and then started doing evil stuff when they grew up. They have to do more than “think about” terrible things to make the cut, and it only counts if they do it as kids.

– Only movies with at least some type of theatrical release are eligible.

– There will be spoilers

With that out of the way, let’s begin the countdown!

10. Christine Hargensen (Carrie): Most of us know the story of Carrie White, the shy and nerdy girl secretly developing psychic powers, until her tormentors push her too far and she unleashes them on an auditorium full of prom-goers, plus her deranged mother. But the proverbial true monster in the movie, along with said mother, is not Carrie but her lead tormenter, Christine.

The prankster-types wouldn’t be too impressive on a list that includes slasher villains, as several potential placers found out the hard way, but Chris takes it to a level beyond any little brat. Gleefully bullying poor helpless Carrie, who doesn’t even understand that her period does not in fact mean that she’s dying, is cruel enough, but what does she do when she’s caught and reprimanded? Since even the threat of missing the prom can’t make her sorry enough to accept punishment, she instead recruits her boyfriend to take revenge on Carrie for… existing, I guess. As if it wasn’t bad enough to get her hapless victim onstage in front of the whole school and drench her in, of all things, pig’s blood, she sets it up by getting Carrie to take the stage as the prom queen, thinking she’s in the happiest moment of her miserable life.

So what do you do when your prank spawns a bizarre explosion of death and destruction that your victim, from what you know, may or may not have caused? Run from the guilt? Get as far away from the scene as possible? Follow it up with a second degree murder attempt by trying to run over said victim in your boyfriend’s car? Whichever one the tenth most evil kid in movie history would do.

9. Darla Dimple (Cats Don’t Dance): Okay, Chris was beyond the level of almost any little brat. But Darla made her whole career on being what she is. To the movie going public, this blond little cherub is their version of Shirley Temple, but with her cast and crew, the tantrum-throwing animal hater hardly bothers with the facade, ruling everyone who could possibly make someone other than her the star with an iron fist. Not to mention she managed to enslave a man, I think, as big as a house for a butler, whom she always keeps nearby just in case she needs to break somebody.

Just being as hateful as she is scores points. (I believe Gene Siskel said something along the lines of “I know we weren’t supposed to like her. I didn’t even want to spend five minutes in the same room with her.” ) When flipping out on Danny the cat (as well as the whole crew) and summoning Max the butler to inflict soul-crushing fear on him doesn’t stop the cat from trying to make his name in Hollywood, she shows her cunning side. Similar to Chris and Carrie, she lures Danny and friends into a trap, making them think they’re about to get everything they ever wanted, except no effort is required on Danny’s part for mass destruction. Darla just wipes out their big premiere with a giant flood that leaves them blacklisted and in despair. (Later, she wishes that she’d set it up to drown all of them instead.) Her downfall is that she really has a tough time with subtlety, but if you’re caught in the middle of her wrath, that’s only all the worse for you.

8. Anthony Fremont (Twilight Zone: The Movie): This kid is easy enough to explain; he was born with the power to make pretty much whatever he wants happen. He uses it deform his sister, do who-knows-what to his parents, separate people he wants to use as family members from the rest of the world, and leave them in fear of any moment he’s unhappy.

Actually, the Anthony from the show probably would have placed higher. While it’s hard to totally buy the movie Anthony’s pleas of “I just want people not to be afraid of me!” he’s still less “evil” than he is “misunderstood”. True, he pretty much ruins the lives of 7+ people, but if they could see his TV show counterpart, they (most of them) would probably be stunned with how good they have it. And we see at the end that it’s actually a pretty easy fix. Still, presumably having a body count puts him above Darla on the list.

7. Junior Healy (Problem Child and Problem Child 2): Among the classic Dennis the Menace-style pranksters, Junior is without doubt the evil king. True, these types of characters aren’t blood-thirsty like the slasher villains nor as heartless as the real sociopaths, but if Junior were either of those in addition, he’d probably place 1st. Junior has all the tricks the “Home Alone” movies could ever need up his sleeve and doesn’t need burglars as an excuse to play them. Not to mention that he’s totally incorruptible. If causing pain and misery isn’t what he lives for, it’s just what brings him the most joy. Having a serial killer for an idol doesn’t hurt his standing either.

Sheer quantity racks up Junior’s score in spades. The kid got himself returned to the orphanage full of nuns dying to get rid of him no less than 30 times. There’s nobody he can’t outsmart. Yes, some stuff he does is relatively harmless, like blowing up cakes and taping bullies to chalkboards, but his biggest stunts are disturbingly mean. Over the course his two theatrical releases, he’s destroyed a family’s mobile home with a bulldozer, knocked his adopted grandpa down the stairs, set his house on fire, attacked a rival baseball team one by one with a bat (taking care to aim for the groin as much as possible), tricked a woman into getting a Pinocchio nose through plastic surgery, knocked his adopted grandpa out a window, blown up a man’s grill literally in his face, left his adopted grandpa in a tree, projected a live recording of his babysitter having sex to the whole neighborhood, teamed with a female counterpart to beat the tar out of his adopted grandpa, and tricked girls into selling his urine as lemonade. The movies do go through the motions of trying to make us not like the people he hurts, but let’s face it; we wouldn’t wish Junior on anyone short of Freddy Krueger.

6. Henry Evens (The Good Son): His pranks in Home Alone might not hold a candle to Junior’s sadistic stunts, but Macaulay Culkin took off the kid gloves and one-upped him as a sociopath named Henry in The Good Son. He may have an extra advantage living in a house full of oblivious morons, and he may sometimes play like Stewie Griffin made into the antagonist of a melodramatic thriller, but there’s no doubt about it; this kid was spawned without a shred of decency in him. Before we even meet him, he’s gotten away with drowning his baby brother in a bath tub. He spends the rest of the movie trying to top himself.

When his cousin Mark comes for a visit, Henry introduces him to the joys of shooting neighborhood pets with homemade crossbows and causing pileups on the highway. When it turns out Mark isn’t on board, Henry decides it’d be more fun to get a move on killing the rest of his family, just because Mark’s starting to like them. Admittedly, the move on his sister was a pretty weak attempt, in the middle of a skating rink full of witnesses, but he was pretty clever in dealing with his mom via a conveniently placed cliff. Still, in the end, his body count not including the pets stayed at one, and if anyone in the house besides Mark had a clue, he probably would have been stopped a lot sooner. But though he’s not always the brightest entry, there’s no denying he had his heart in the wrong place.

5. Angela Baker (Sleepaway Camp): Who knows what’s really going on in the mind of Angela Baker? We get all of one glimpse. Otherwise, she mostly just sits and stares. Through most of the movie, not even the audience knows how troubled she really is. Though she more or less has our sympathy for the most part, the sole survivor of a boating accident that killed her other family members runs this slasher movie well enough to give Jason Voorhees a run for his money. See, this is how you do it, Henry.

Angela led a pretty antisocial life before she was sent to Camp Arawak. Understandably, she doesn’t fit in too well, though she does have a cute fling with her cousin’s best friend. So what does she do when she doesn’t like the way some of the other campers treat her at first? What else? Kill them, and use methods far from quick and painless. She’s pretty clever about it too, and until she gets a little reckless at the end, she’s not even suspected by anyone, apart from every person in the audience. It’s true she’s another example of a child who’s really more tormented and confused than downright evil, but the largest personal body of anyone one the list racked up in one movie has to count for something. Plus her means make some of the previous entries seem downright considerate.

4. Rhoda Penmark (The Bad Seed): Anyone who knew her name probably knew she was coming. The original and possibly still the scariest, Rhoda is everything Henry was trying to be, with one key difference; she knows how to get away with it. Even a director explicitly against her coming out on top, as she did in the novel, didn’t actually have a way for anyone to take her down. Angela demonstrated the massive horrors that damaging nurture can bring about, but Rhoda’s case argues that true monsters are born, not made. Nature made her what she was, and nature alone had the power to stop her. Otherwise, she probably would have gone on to do her serial killer grandparent proud.

Having offed a neighbor before the movie even begins, Rhoda doesn’t wait long before drowning a boy her age in a lake to swipe his penmanship medal. But even though she does a decent job covering it up, Rhoda is surrounded by a bright group of people, for horror movie victims anyway, plus an unlucky janitor with an unfortunate sense of humor. She plays on her mother’s sympathy when it’s her only way out, then lights a man who knows too much on fire. Her mother slips her a lethal dose of sleeping pills, but the gal is back on her feet not long after, at which point the director strikes her with a deus ex machina bolt and the whole thing abruptly stops.

3. Isaac Chroner (Children of the Corn): What’s worse than becoming a scheming, murderous child? How about recruiting a whole town of kids to join you in killing off every adult within sight of the place, and then leading them in worshipping a demon? For what you might ask? Just to make sure the yearly corn harvest is bountiful.

What more can you say about Isaac? He shows up out of nowhere and starts a death cult that makes the folks in The Wicker Man seem rational and merciful, all out of respect for a monster calling itself “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”. All adults must be killed. All kids who age to adulthood must be killed. All kids who want to leave the cult must be killed. Eventually, even his own cult can’t take him anymore and sacrifice him to his own precious demon, still ranting and raving about the deadly consequences he can’t wait to see He Who Walks Behind the Rows dish out. The next time we see him, he’s worse than ever, though that may or may not count as possession.

2. Damien Thorn (The Omen and Damien: Omen 2): I did say that demons posing as children don’t count, but after some thought, it’s at least safe to say that Damien falls into the species of “man” more than anything else, even if he does have the powers of Hell ingrained in him. Heck, he thought he was just an average boy until the second movie. But he isn’t just a boy; he’s a vehicle for Satan’s will.

Growing up, Damien, it seems, is a lightning rod for bizarre horrors. First his nanny gives him the gift of hanging herself with grand showmanship at his fifth birthday party, then a priest trying to warn his parents about him is struck through the neck, and finally his mom miscarries after an “accident” involving Damien. Eventually, the dad discovers that his adopted son is nothing more or less than the antichrist. From then on, anyone who makes a move against Damien, or just doesn’t like him, drops dead in tragic accidents or just suddenly expires, until Damien learns the truth and accepts his destiny (and starts killing people he doesn’t like with his mind). Maybe he’s not as sadistic, or even as cruel, as Henry or Rhoda, but he doesn’t need to be. Like them, though in a different way, Damien was born as a vessel for evil, and neither of them, nor any other previous entry, holds a candle to the amount he contains. On that note, you may be wondering; who could possibly one-up the antichrist? It takes someone bizarre.

1. Clifford Daniels (Clifford): Hey, the winner is a prankster-type after all! Sort of. Clifford, both the movie and the boy, is the type of horror only a warped sense of humor could invent, which makes sense, since the story was intended as a comedy. I said that if Junior was bloodthirsty or truly heartless, he might have made number one, and Clifford could very well be both. But his pranks alone put even our problem child to shame. Clifford is all the callousness of Rhoda and all the craftiness of Junior mixed with the unhealthy obsession of the cable guy. His uncle, at first, sees him as a doofus ten year old boy. But since he’s played by 40 year old Martin Short, made shorter with camera angles, the audience can see exactly what he is; a psychotic freak of nature.

We first see 10-year-old Clifford on a plane ride to Honolulu with his parents, who have long since been struggling just to hold on to their sanity. Before pulling his first stunt, he kills time by shoving his toy dinosaur up his dad’s nose and running up the aisle like an airplane, smacking all the passengers in the head (and pausing to smack an old man especially hard). Clifford wants to land in Los Angeles so he can visit the object of his obsession, Dinosaur World. So he sneaks into the cockpit and shuts off the engines. This is just the set up for the movie.

The plane does not crash and kill the hundreds of people on board, unfortunately for Uncle Martin, who the parents dump Clifford on before continuing their flight to Honolulu. Martin wants to convince his darling fiancée Sarah that he is good with children, so he makes the mistake of telling Clifford he’s taking him to Dinosaur World. The poor, doomed man is then forced to reschedule, and, well, killing him just wouldn’t be satisfying enough for Clifford, who can make anything happen. When they attend an anniversary party for Sarah’s parents, Clifford starts by slipping Martin a hot sauce drink and ends by framing him for making a bomb threat, getting him arrested in front of everyone. He then tricks Martin into boarding a train to San Francisco, throws a giant party in his house, and deals the deathblow to his engagement by tying himself up and calling Sarah over to “rescue” him from Martin (and… hitting on her). Enough? Of course not; Clifford’s having too much fun. The next step is to plant a bomb that blows Martin’s dream project to pieces (this kid was really lucky not to end up with a body count) in the middle of his presentation, which also gets him fired. Martin thinks up a way to put his ruined life to good use in a revenge scheme on Clifford, and the destructive climax resolves with Clifford’s miraculous turnaround, leading him to become a priest. This actually sort of makes sense. I mean, the human body must have a maximum capacity for evil in one lifetime, right? If Henry or Rhoda had been able to reach adulthood, they might have closed in on the level reached by Clifford (well, maybe crossed the half way point). But Clifford packed it in to his first ten years to become the most evil child in movie history. Antichrist? This kid was like the anti-Chuck Norris.

Just felt like unleashing my inner cynic because (what was the usual excuse?) the world needs to be hit with a little realism every now and again. (That’s code for “it makes me feel smart,” right?) And what better to unleash it on than the holiday season? Because, hey, it’s right in front of me.

Now since movies are technically my forte, I’ll also be connecting each entry back to one.

5. Cliches/Cheesiness: Certain pet peeve at least deserves a nod here. Yes, everyone wants to spread good cheer on Christmas, but how many times must we hear an attempt to recreate Linus’s speech on what Christmas is “really about?” And as of today, Christmas only has just enough revered cliches to carry the insipid songs cashing in on it; “It’s Thanksgiving” may be a terrible precursor of what’s to come if the inspiration gets any weaker.
Movie in which this is the problem: (In a roundabout way) Christmas With the Kranks

4. Commercialism: Don’t need to say much about this bit of influence from companies everywhere, giving us a 24/7 message of what to focus on this holiday season (lining their pockets). Many a cynic would put this virtual cliche at #1, but, let’s face it, it’s always been around. In the grand scheme, it’s just a mild shame.

Movie in which this is the problem: A Charlie Brown Christmas

3. Greed: Another near-cliche deplored by cynics everywhere, we may get motivation from commercials, but it’s ultimately our choice that seals it. It still really amounts to just a mild shame, but the public Twitter posts cursing out parents who didn’t get them the latest iPhone are almost enough to make you want to dedicate the rest of your life to helping the needy.

Movie in which this is the problem: Home Alone

2. Writing off the holidays as meaningless: Screw the time off dedicated to positive emotions you say? It’s all one big hypocirte-fest as long as there’s such a thing as avarice? It stresses you out too much anyway? What a shame you don’t have the final say on what you do with your own holiday and the options that come with it! I’m already ashamed of my own cynicism. Could it be that the thing taking the most meaning from the holidays are people claiming that meaning has been taken from the holidays? A little greed and shallowness is just part of being human, but a self-fulfilling prophecy of this caliber is just a shame.

Movie in which this is the problem: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

1. General negativity: Am I about to backhand my own list? Yes I am. A greater man than me once told me that all conflict stems from fear, and even people who don’t meet that last category seem to feel they have to acknowledge and embrace the negative to get to the positive. Some don’t even bother getting there, just passive-aggressively going through the motions of the holiday. Is there any real need for #5-3 to hold you up more than a moment? Who cares? It can be a busy season, but it’s your holiday. Sometimes it just takes a little creativity to find your way to get into it. (Whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than making a speech-giving top 5 list with only 2 entries meant to be taken seriously.)

Movie in which this is the problem: It’s a Wonderful Life

Happy Holidays everybody!

Just felt like unleashing my inner cynic because (what was the usual excuse?) the world needs to be hit with a little realism every now and again. (That’s code for “it makes me feel smart,” right?) And what better to unleash it on than the holiday season? Because, hey, it’s right in front of me.

Now since movies are technically my forte, I’ll also be connecting each entry back to one.

5. Cliches/Cheesiness: Certain pet peeve at least deserves a nod here. Yes, everyone wants to spread good cheer on Christmas, but how many times must we hear an attempt to recreate Linus’s speech on what Christmas is “really about?” And as of today, Christmas only has just enough revered cliches to carry the insipid songs cashing in on it; “It’s Thanksgiving” may be a terrible precursor of what’s to come if the inspiration gets any weaker.
Movie in which this is the problem: (In a roundabout way) Christmas With the Kranks

4. Commercialism: Don’t need to say much about this bit of influence from companies everywhere, giving us a 24/7 message of what to focus on this holiday season (lining their pockets). Many a cynic would put this virtual cliche at #1, but, let’s face it, it’s always been around. In the grand scheme, it’s just a mild shame.

Movie in which this is the problem: A Charlie Brown Christmas

3. Greed: Another near-cliche deplored by cynics everywhere, we may get motivation from commercials, but it’s ultimately our choice that seals it. It still really amounts to just a mild shame, but the public Twitter posts cursing out parents who didn’t get them the latest iPhone are almost enough to make you want to dedicate the rest of your life to helping the needy.

Movie in which this is the problem: Home Alone

2. Writing off the holidays as meaningless: Screw the time off dedicated to positive emotions you say? It’s all one big hypocirte-fest as long as there’s such a thing as avarice? It stresses you out too much anyway? What a shame you don’t have the final say on what you do with your own holiday and the options that come with it! I’m already ashamed of my own cynicism. Could it be that the thing taking the most meaning from the holidays are people claiming that meaning has been taken from the holidays? A little greed and shallowness is just part of being human, but a self-fulfilling prophecy of this caliber is just a shame.

Movie in which this is the problem: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

1. General negativity: Am I about to backhand my own list? Yes I am. A greater man than me once told me that all conflict stems from fear, and even people who don’t meet that last category seem to feel they have to acknowledge and embrace the negative to get to the positive. Some don’t even bother getting there, just passive-aggressively going through the motions of the holiday. Is there any real need for #5-3 to hold you up more than a moment? Who cares? It can be a busy season, but it’s your holiday. Sometimes it just takes a little creativity to find your way to get into it. (Whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than making a speech-giving top 5 list with only 2 entries meant to be taken seriously.)

Movie in which this is the problem: It’s a Wonderful Life

Happy Holidays everybody!

As would happen in the middle of a series, I haven’t had the time to hunt up and rewatch the rest of the Don Bluth and Hayao Miyazaki films that I need to see to finish their match up. So in the meantime, please enjoy my gushing review of one of the more bizarre and polarizing movies you will ever see (with a director who fits the same description).

A Freakish Vision Perfectly Realized

This is one of those movies tough to put on a rating scale. Going by how well it accomplishes what it sets out to do, it’s an easy 10/10. By how much I appreciated the experience, I’m still not sure myself. Not much lower though.

Every so often, I’ll come across a genuine mind trip of a movie, one that’s not just strange but challenging in some unsaid way. And that challenge only grows more layered across the runtime. Even in the trailer, I could feel a magnetic quality in Gummo. The brief testament to life’s beauty all but resonated with the odd, affectionate images of poverty. The film includes as much crude and disturbing content as some of the worst attempts I’ve seen to make money off of cynical shock vaule. But this isn’t cynical, and it isn’t really shock value, and most of it doesn’t even feel at odds with the rest of the vision. On one hand, I’m inclined to say that a plot with roughly three acts, which the film deliberately avoids, is the popular storytelling form for a reason. But where I’ve paused during my favorite movies to think about the score-out-of-ten and what magnitude the experience had reached, I had forget this during Gummo. It only detracted from the experience.

I should ad that I didn’t intend to watch it at first. My first encounter with Harmony Korine was when “Trash Humpers” became a candidate for the movie to watch at next week’s Obscure Movie Group meeting. I decided to skip that week. (I heard it lost to Pink Flamingos.) But I read up on Trash Humpers just to see what corner of the no-budget, no-effort grade z film world the people in charge had dug it out of. Learning that it not only had drawn some attention but had a few critics giving it dead-serious praise was the first hook. In fact, making it look like a grade-z film was a deliberate choice by the director. From there I just had to know more. And everything I came across was somehow intriguing.

Intriguing is the word of the day here. Korine has yet to achieve a fresh score over at rottentomatoes.com, yet the consensuses two of his movies have been given sound like they’re secretly on his side. His early films, including Gummo, seem to be his most admired as well as his lowest scoring. There is definitely a “trademark odd beauty” to them, but many of the negative reviews insist they’re as pretentious and detestable as they could possibly be. I’ve also noticed a few speculations on why people say such things. Here’s mine;

I think we can agree that people don’t gravitate towards things that are too outside the norm. We need to get used to the idea of something before we can trust it. If it doesn’t easily fit into one of the labels we have ready, we come prepared with “annoying”, or “stupid”, or at the very least “weird”. Gummo is “weird” to most people, and disturbing on top of it. For that, most don’t want to understand or consider it, writing the whole thing off as disguised ugliness. While simply declaring other critics’ opinions invalid is unfair, I think it’s a misunderstanding to say that Korine is “mean”, “smug”, “sour”, or “pretentious”. Korine has said that he made this film because he finds the people portrayed very interesting, and his sincerity is clear. What his film sets out to do is not to judge them, or us, but simply to show us life on their terms. This isn’t a statement. It’s a tribute. It’s a collage, both realistic and dreamlike. The images are funny, sad, adorable, pitiful, and oddly nostalgic. Sometimes what it portrays is dispicable, and the dislike I felt probably did drop my approval a little. But every moment has a place in this visceral image of life that Korine weaves, and as the main character says, though he seems to forget it himself at points, “Life is beautiful. Really it is. Full of beauty and illusions.”

I still can’t put my finger on Korine himself. Watching him in person, he’s awkward and sometimes unintelligible. Reading his prepared statements, he’s confident and assertive in his visions that seem operate on a different plane. He claims to admire or identify with the subjects of just about every movie he makes, which sort of sounds visionary and pretentious at the same time. But if it’s made one thing clear by now, it’s that Korine is not worried about how he comes across. Whether a good one or not, he’s a true artist out to express visions, not elevate our vision of him. He is, I agree, “the real deal”.

As would happen in the middle of a series, I haven’t had the time to hunt up and rewatch the rest of the Don Bluth and Hayao Miyazaki films that I need to see to finish their match up. So in the meantime, please enjoy my gushing review of one of the more bizarre and polarizing movies you will ever see (with a director who fits the same description).

A Freakish Vision Perfectly Realized

This is one of those movies tough to put on a rating scale. Going by how well it accomplishes what it sets out to do, it’s an easy 10/10. By how much I appreciated the experience, I’m still not sure myself. Not much lower though.

Every so often, I’ll come across a genuine mind trip of a movie, one that’s not just strange but challenging in some unsaid way. And that challenge only grows more layered across the runtime. Even in the trailer, I could feel a magnetic quality in Gummo. The brief testament to life’s beauty all but resonated with the odd, affectionate images of poverty. The film includes as much crude and disturbing content as some of the worst attempts I’ve seen to make money off of cynical shock vaule. But this isn’t cynical, and it isn’t really shock value, and most of it doesn’t even feel at odds with the rest of the vision. On one hand, I’m inclined to say that a plot with roughly three acts, which the film deliberately avoids, is the popular storytelling form for a reason. But where I’ve paused during my favorite movies to think about the score-out-of-ten and what magnitude the experience had reached, I had forget this during Gummo. It only detracted from the experience.

I should ad that I didn’t intend to watch it at first. My first encounter with Harmony Korine was when “Trash Humpers” became a candidate for the movie to watch at next week’s Obscure Movie Group meeting. I decided to skip that week. (I heard it lost to Pink Flamingos.) But I read up on Trash Humpers just to see what corner of the no-budget, no-effort grade z film world the people in charge had dug it out of. Learning that it not only had drawn some attention but had a few critics giving it dead-serious praise was the first hook. In fact, making it look like a grade-z film was a deliberate choice by the director. From there I just had to know more. And everything I came across was somehow intriguing.

Intriguing is the word of the day here. Korine has yet to achieve a fresh score over at rottentomatoes.com, yet the consensuses two of his movies have been given sound like they’re secretly on his side. His early films, including Gummo, seem to be his most admired as well as his lowest scoring. There is definitely a “trademark odd beauty” to them, but many of the negative reviews insist they’re as pretentious and detestable as they could possibly be. I’ve also noticed a few speculations on why people say such things. Here’s mine;

I think we can agree that people don’t gravitate towards things that are too outside the norm. We need to get used to the idea of something before we can trust it. If it doesn’t easily fit into one of the labels we have ready, we come prepared with “annoying”, or “stupid”, or at the very least “weird”. Gummo is “weird” to most people, and disturbing on top of it. For that, most don’t want to understand or consider it, writing the whole thing off as disguised ugliness. While simply declaring other critics’ opinions invalid is unfair, I think it’s a misunderstanding to say that Korine is “mean”, “smug”, “sour”, or “pretentious”. Korine has said that he made this film because he finds the people portrayed very interesting, and his sincerity is clear. What his film sets out to do is not to judge them, or us, but simply to show us life on their terms. This isn’t a statement. It’s a tribute. It’s a collage, both realistic and dreamlike. The images are funny, sad, adorable, pitiful, and oddly nostalgic. Sometimes what it portrays is dispicable, and the dislike I felt probably did drop my approval a little. But every moment has a place in this visceral image of life that Korine weaves, and as the main character says, though he seems to forget it himself at points, “Life is beautiful. Really it is. Full of beauty and illusions.”

I still can’t put my finger on Korine himself. Watching him in person, he’s awkward and sometimes unintelligible. Reading his prepared statements, he’s confident and assertive in his visions that seem operate on a different plane. He claims to admire or identify with the subjects of just about every movie he makes, which sort of sounds visionary and pretentious at the same time. But if it’s made one thing clear by now, it’s that Korine is not worried about how he comes across. Whether a good one or not, he’s a true artist out to express visions, not elevate our vision of him. He is, I agree, “the real deal”.

After putting blogs on the back-burner for awhile, it seems I’ve sold one of the university’s websites on the idea of a new movie review blog written by yours truly, which means my focus has to change. First, the final rounds between Bluth and Miyazaki will have to be suspended indefinitely (which will give me time to make up my mind on the movies of theirs I saw too long ago to give a fair judgement on but not long enough to go in with a clean slate). Replacing it is a clash of cities, with the cinema recorded here in Pittsburgh taking on a new city every week, each throwing in their best entry from a specific genre.

In the meantime, today I’d like to offer my small nod to Ted Demme, nephew of oscar-winner Jonathan Demme, who was still working to get out from behind his uncle’s shadow when he died of a heart attack at 38. I pull no punches in my review of this early effort of his, titled The Bet, which I think makes the praise significant; hopefully it says something worthwhile about the young director.

Ted Demme’s The Bet opens not with a scene but with images, of relatively still streets and shops in New York City. Demme knows that they’re familiar images to the audience, but there is little to no affection in the shots. The Bet is not nostalgic, and it’s not hopeful; it does not pass judgment one way or the other on any of its characters, save for one. It is, through and through, a “slice of life” movie.

If it had taken out one character and replaced him with a wife, a father, or some other character in a relationship destined to sit passively and cut their losses, it would have been a recycled story with all parts conveyable in one sentence (perhaps two, after its final twist). Harry (Josh Mosby) owns a sandwich shop left to him by his father, but he is indebted to mobsters due to a gambling problem and can only think of going to the track one more time to save himself, risking what can only escalate to everything. The additional layer comes from his partner, the more responsible and weary but hopeful brother Henry (John Benjamin Hickey). In a way, this is the most closely-knotted relationship possible. Henry and Harry don’t just play on the same team; they are the whole team and the owners. They are each other’s only means of success.

Henry dreams of turning his deli into chain, just enough to gain some prominence and recognition, and without a hindrance, he may have the business savvy to do it. But Harry is stopping him. Harry shows us right away that he’s a petty game-player with money. Phrases such as “I give you my word” and “I swear to God” by now are only means of buying time for him. Henry needs a partner, but though Harry seems to care about his brother’s well-being, he doesn’t tell Henry what he really wants.

In fact, we have no reason to think that Harry knows himself. Peeling back his lies only reveals more lies. He might have already sealed his fate. When he’s cornered by his lender’s thug demanding a straightforward answer, he can only submit to a thumb-breaking.

The villains are less impressive, despite sincere efforts from Vincent Pastore and Anthony Crivello to breathe some life into the thug and boss archetypes. As usual, the most telling thing about the thug is the consumer item he enjoys while doing his business; the true Rocky and Mugsy caricature usually carries a cigar, while the more everythug type may enjoy a sandwich or a pastry. This thug seems to be getting in touch with his inner child; he enters sipping a pink snow cone. His Steve Buscemi gangster of a boss only gets a few moments to chew the scenery when we meet him while the thug switches to sinisterly biting into apples, evidently on a new diet.

Demme makes some decent use of scenery, as when a shot of the city slowly turns to face Harry’s uncle, who’s made his brief appearance to help us contemplate Harry. The story, however, can only lead to the inevitable climax of Harry attempting to solve his problems with more gambling, putting everything on the line behind his brother’s back. Amoral though it may be, I admit I wanted to just once see what happens when putting all his faith in a horse pays off for the gambler and suddenly gives him everything he wanted. I won’t reveal whether the movie gave me my wish, but I will say the mild surprise it gave quickly turned into something just as cliché. It’s a shame too, because, actually, if the ending had taken more time to develop and convey true authenticity, it could have been a rather poignant statement. It was definitely on to something.