Directed by Paul Provenza
Reviewed by Aaron Licht
The Aristocrats has no punch line. As a joke, it is predictable, unstructured and told to death. As a film, it hardly needs a review. If crude humor with debacherous vile situations is your thing, than godfuckit, just go see it. You won't be sorry; The Aristocrats' special ability is to disgust every audience member (... you might be sorry).
In fact, you may expect The Aristocrats, a documentary about the nastiest, most vile joke ever told, to take the upper ground and focus on the history of the joke and profile the comedians who tell it. But the film indulges itself; it gets right down there and slops about in the muck. It offers comedy in its rawest form. I will be careful not to spoil the joke, but since a fundamental goal of criticism is to engage in the discussion, indulge me while I "set the stage."
The theatre was packed. I was a little anxious. After all, I was sitting with my new girlfriend and her traditional British parents. Nonetheless, we were all swept up by the anticipation of a movie premiere. As the lights went down, a slight elderly gentleman (with a gimpy, short arm) slipped in front of the curtain. “Ladies & Gentlemen,” he said, “I don’t wish to spoil the suspense, but I have seen The Aristocrats and, indeed, this is something big. Prepare to bond with your loved ones in ways you never thought possible." I looked at my girlfriend, who was sharing a warm smile with her father. "Our show is full of celebrities, the likes of George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Bob Saget, and they've got a joke that they're dying to tell you. Indeed, those sitting in the first ten rows will get sprayed with ass blood -- let the show begin!"
Well, we heard The Aristocrats. For 90 long minutes, we heard that single joke - the most deliriously filthy and astoundingly unfortunate joke you’ll never want to hear with your girl's parents - told by over a hundred comedians.
The beauty of the film is how each comedian runs with the joke in his/her own way. It is a textbook examination of the personal styles of the most successful performers in the business. You will see Andy Dick's manic perversity, Steven Wright's detached madness, Bob Saget rejecting his "family values" persona (recall his surprising Half Baked cameo) and Gilbert Gottfried's blunt explanation of where all that ass blood comes from (with a visual demonstration you won't soon forget).
From a sociological perspective it is captivating how a hundred artists improvise with the same set of rules in order to offend our desensitized modern day audience. While the film touches on these ideas, they deserve more time for exploration. The documentary has simple intentions and it accomplishes what it sets out to do.
On the downside, the film is literally one long string of talking heads. Despite a few varieties in performance: card tricks, talking dummies, telling the joke to babies (!), the film seldom changes its approach. Reportedly, the extreme filth was enough for the audience at Sundance to kill themselves laughing. My reaction was more of a sly smirk. After I left the show, I wasn't thinking about anything. It is more a performance piece than a memorable cinematic experience.
And, I can't stress enough, that there is more depravity than I have ever seen before - grandpa shitting, bullet-hole fucking, daughter raping. If you have ever had a problem saying 'cunt', you may have some of that pressure alleviated. Is this a good thing?
(by the way, to learn from my mistake, choose carefully who you see this with.)
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P.S.: The staff of Being There loves comedians. Check out past issues for our articles on Lewis Black, Eddie Izzard, and The Smothers Brothers, who appear in The Aristocrats, and articles on Dave Chappelle, Bill Hicks, Greg Proops, David Cross, and others.
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Warner Bros. Pictures
Starring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelley, and Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by Tim Burton
Reviewed by Mark Pittman
In Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory there’s a scene where Charlie and Mike Teavee are falling through space in Willie Wonka’s glass elevator. Fireworks and other strange images are reflected in the glass and there is noise all around them. Exasperated with the situation, Mike Teavee yells out something like, “This is crazy! None of this makes any sense!” To this Charlie replies, “Candy doesn’t have to make sense.”
I wish Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made less sense than it does: then it would be real candy. If the film were all atmosphere and imagery—some kind of experimental film—then it would be an amazing achievement. Taken solely as a showcase for Burton’s nightmarish vision, the film, as it stands, is a great success. Every shot convincingly presents a detailed scene from an intensely imaginative person’s worst dream. The problem is that Burton’s film seems burdened with interesting characters which it chooses to ignore in favor of its fantastic visions. Because of this the film eventually resembles an amazing set that no one ever visits. And in a film with both an actual plot and established characters, an empty set cannot be considered a successful film.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory begins extremely well. The monolithic set design creates a gritty atmosphere, helping the viewer feel the weight of poverty under which Charlie’s family suffers. It looks and feels like a Dickens novel set in a modern-day—but stylized—factory town. Against this backdrop we meet Charlie and his family who endear themselves to the viewer through humorous dialog and obvious signs of mutual affection. Freddie Highmore, who portrays Charlie, acts with amazing naturalness, and his convincing relationship with Grandpa Joe (David Kelly), coupled with the general look of the film, seems to promise a darker, more honest, more adult version of Roald Dahl’s novel than the previous film adaptation.
This wonderful, dark atmosphere continues to build as the film introduces the other child ticket winners, all portrayed as walking nightmares. By the time the children and their equally nightmarish parents reach the gates to Wonka World, we’re ready for Johnny Depp’s entrance as Willy Wonka to take us to the next level of darkness and insanity.
When Willy Wonka finally appears, what we’re faced with is a Michael Jackson look-alike, who sounds like a bland, tenor-voiced version of Pee Wee Herman mixed with Depp’s own portrayal of Ed Wood. This sounds creepy, but actually it comes off as entirely unconvincing. There’s something strangely normal about Depp’s characterization that his clothes and dialog can’t disguise. It often sounds as if he’s reading his lines deliberately, as if to ensure that he doesn’t miss any words, and what dialogue he does have isn’t especially witty or memorable. Overall, his portrayal resembles Johnny Depp, the actor, being uninterested in the role provided.
Despite Depp’s disappointing characterization, it’s Tim Burton’s reluctance to include any other established characters in the second half of his film that renders his film meaningless. At one point while watching the film’s second half, I realized that I hadn’t heard Charlie or Grandpa Joe say anything at all for several scenes. The other children and their parents say even less, except when it’s time for a particular child’s mistake and departure. We never get to concentrate on anyone for very long or see them interact meaningfully or emotionally with anyone around them. The cumulative effect of this reduces the viewer’s experience to watching a bland, strangely dressed man lead a group of automatons to their inevitable and awful fates.
If you find virtuosic nightmare imagery more intriguing than human relationships, this is the film for you. Otherwise, I would think twice before investigating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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March of the Penguins Warner Independent Pictures
Directed by Luc Jacquet
Reviewed by Mark Pittman
After watching March of the Penguins, I realized how one’s expectations affect the experience of seeing a film in the theatre. If I had seen this National Geographic film on television, I might have been pleasantly surprised by this tale of the Emperor Penguins’ nine-month struggle to mate, keep their fragile eggs warm, and raise their chicks. It’s true that purely as documentary footage, March of the Penguins is invaluable. I can’t imagine that similar footage exists, especially since the temperatures in Antarctica during mating season peak at 30 below.
I would expect that this theatrical release would be something beyond the ordinary television special. It’s about penguins, which are cute, so maybe it’s a film for kids. Or perhaps it demonstrates some technically advanced filming method, as Winged Migration did. Or because it was filmed in Antarctica over five years, perhaps it follows the filmmakers and demonstrates their hardships while filming the penguins’ trek across the ice. The filmmakers might present on-the-scene commentary about what the penguins are doing at different points and provide a more immediate experience that way. In short, I would expect everything I normally get from National Geographic’s television programs, only something more innovative and entertaining.
Instead what we get is a standard National Geographic special about a particularly inaccessible species with a long, challenging mating ritual. Other than the somewhat sentimental narration spoken by Morgan Freeman, no personality imposes itself on the story. Because of this, your enjoyment of this film will probably depend on what you bring with you to the theatre. If you already have a particular fondness for penguins, or if you respond to the narration’s tendency to stress the penguins’ “family” and “love”, then you may be entertained or even moved by this film. Most viewers, however, will find the film simply informative, interesting, and a little dry.
Strangely, March of the Penguins seems to undermine the emotional aspect of the penguins’ struggle at every stage in its story. A good example is the opening march from the ocean shore to the traditional mating location, seventy miles inland. Much is made of the travails the penguins will endure. The male penguins are loaded down with food they will need for the next four months; the penguins will walk day and night sometimes for a week straight; the route to the mating location may have changed its appearance. But then, after what seems like five minutes of penguins marching, they arrive at their destination! Oh, that’s it? Hmm. Later, after the chicks have hatched, there’s a scene where a predator bird flies in, seemingly out of nowhere, and clumsily attempts to capture and eat a few of the chicks. No narration is given during this scene, the predator bird is never identified, and we never see the bird verifiably succeed in capturing a chick. And why don’t the adult penguins try to fight off the predator? March of the Penguins seems determined to give us only the facts it thinks we need, but none of the facts we actually want.
On the plus side, there are some amazing images in the film. The scenes showing the penguins’ march filmed from high-vantage points often have the scale and feel of a Cecil B. DeMille exodus sequence. Another scene, viscerally painful, is of a mass of male penguins huddled together, protecting themselves and their eggs against a gale-force blizzard. Most moving of all is the behavior of the male and female penguins once they decide to become a pair. The abstract shape of the two penguins arched toward each other seems like a perfect modernist representation of pure love between two individuals.
Besides these few images, however, the film shows a lot of images of penguins marching, penguins huddled together, and penguins protecting eggs. March of the Penguins is undeniably interesting, but as entertainment deserving theatrical release, it’s disappointing that it doesn’t attempt to be more than what it is: a straight, quality nature documentary. The less you expect going in, the more you’ll enjoy it.
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Me and You and Everyone We Know IFC Films
Starring Miranda July and John Hawkes
Directed by Miranda July
Reviewed by Michael Allen
Watching Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know is akin to stumbling across a collection of undergraduate art pieces: Too many half-thought ideas that strive for greatness but are self-aware enough to undermine such ambitions. Me and You is July’s debut as the auteur triple threat of director-writer-lead and centers around Christine, an untalented performance artist who wishes to connect with an audience. Christine creates art in her pink apartment with a digital camcorder, postcards of happy couples, and melodramatic recorded dialogue. It is of little surprise that July is a performance artist who deals in pink. So when the auteur mocks the self-protagonist’s art and fails to rise above said clichés, what’s the chance of the audience investing in the film?
As the title suggests, Me and You and Everyone We Know is a collection of anecdotes of seemingly interconnected individuals struggling to find meaning and love in contemporary society. Richard, a shoe salesman recently separated from his wife, attempts to rebuild a family with his two sons, Peter and Robby. The two brothers have anonymous chat room sex without realizing their depravity or juvenilia. Peter receives practice blowjobs from two neighborhood girls, Sylvie and Heather, who also taunt Richard’s co-worker (and neighbor) Michael. Michael one-ups their come-ons by posting hand-written versions of online sex and the girls decide to take it one step further because, “losing your virginity to a stranger is alright, cuz, you know, it’s okay if it sucks.” Peter befriends Nancy, a pre-adolescent neighbor that is already building a dowry.
Within July’s film, one can find instantly dated commentary on technology’s indifference to human emotions, the heavy-handed and unoriginal motif of the color pink to remind us of feminine oppressiveness, and perhaps the greatest indie-film crutch of them all: adults acting as children and children acting as adults. Another unfortunate trend in contemporary filmmaking is the use of the mosaic structure to comment on “Society.” Once a writer/director realizes that they don’t have enough story to last a feature, they pile on coincidences and chance meetings for a wide variety of sub-par plotlines. The hope within the mosaic is that it will eventually add up to something, but July is content with the ho-hum thesis that technology is making people drift apart and kids are growing up too quickly.
July is perfectly capable of introducing a compelling and substantive character, but retreats from any meaningful pay-off. When Richard’s wife leaves him, Richard tries to speak to his kids, but can only sputter out half-thoughts. He realizes that he can’t connect with words, so he goes outside their bedroom windows and sets his hand on fire (July wisely uses this image as the background for the title credit). What is done with this haunting image of self-immolation? July uses it as an off-hand joke about the character’s ignorance of what type of liquid to use so the hand won’t get burned. The director is too afraid of seriously involving her detached audience and instead goes for the cute laugh.
There are moments of perfectly realized truth within each character’s story such as the restless jostling of a bored teen’s foot or a clanging noise Robby hears outside his window as he goes to sleep. She’s a fine director of small moments that exist outside plot mechanics and unoriginal resolutions. But her characters speak in such contrived quirkiness, that the dialogue becomes just as phony as any of her postcards. In the film, a pretentious art gallery director explains her criteria for an upcoming collection: it must belong within the present time and space. The implicit criticism is that any artist who focuses on being hip and modern will fade quickly; Me and You belongs within said gallery.
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Starring Ryan Black, Kyle Henry, and Deena Fontain
Directed by Noam Gonick
Reviewed by Lisa Hood-Anklewicz
Stryker is the story of a turf war between two street gangs in Winnipeg’s north end. What makes Stryker much more than this, though, is the way in which it was approached. Director Noam Gonick looked at the film from a unique perspective. Taking events that were public record and making them a cohesive story line, Gonick lays out the reality of Canada’s Native street gangs. Gonick says, “I have found an amazing sense of camaraderie, and a belonging to something pure and raw. Gang family life mimics the abusive ways of the superstructure, yet as misguided as it can be, I admire the impulse to resist.”
To further this point in the film, Gonick cast street kids from the Winnipeg area to star in the film, with Ryan Black as Omar, leader of the Asian Bomb Squad, the only cast member with previous acting experience. The result is a performance of passion, because the cast stood behind what they were portraying. Deena Fontaine plays Mama Ceece, leader of the Indian Posse, rivals to Omar and the ABS and Kyle Henry puts in one of the strongest performances of the film as Stryker, a name which is slang for a prospective gang member. Henry is virtually silent throughout the film, and, even though neither gang initially want anything to do with him, Stryker becomes the catalyst for the whole film. The silence of Henry’s character adds a great effect to the film, as the other character’s all play off his silence in their own interpretation, and his own intentions and motives are kept in shadows, which keeps the audience at a state of suspense from start to finish.
Even with the heavy and often violent content, Gonick has still presented a very cinematic film. The idea of a gang war film typically invokes images of fast-paced chases and quick editing. However, Gonick has stayed quite clear of anything “typical” of the genre. The camera work and cinematography are so smooth they are virtually unnoticeable.
To some the notion of transgendered and teenage prostitutes, the underground drug rings, the substance abuse from cocaine to sniffing gasoline may seem to be the truth stretched, however, as Ryan Black points out, “This is not how Natives are commonly depicted in Canadian culture but believe it or not, they are all people I know.” Stryker is a slice of reality, a hard one to own up to, but an important one.
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