Random Movie #3: Carrie

For our third randomly selected Netflix movie, Becky and I saw Carrie, the 1976 horror film adapted from Stephen King’s first published novel.  Becky selected this particular movie for the bucket mostly, I would imagine, because of her interest in seeing the remake that stars Chloë Moretz and Julianne Moore (which we were able to see together shortly after watching this movie).

Carrie White is a shy, awkward girl who simply does not fit in at school.  Despite being a senior in high school, she gets her first period while showing after gym.  Believing that she is bleeding to death, she becomes hysterical and begs the other girls for help.  Instead of calming her down, they laugh and throw tampons at her while screaming “plug it up.”  In the aftermath of this incident, Carrie begins to develop telekinetic powers, which her fundamentalist mother is convinced is witchcraft.  One remorseful classmate, eager to atone for what she did to Carrie, convinces her boyfriend to ask the social outcast to Prom.  Another classmate, however, enraged at her punishment over the incident, plans the ultimate way to humiliate Carrie.

The story of Carrie is far more tragic than it is horrific.  Like the more recent Let the Right One In, Carrie emphasizes the human violence done to its protagonist rather than the supernatural violence that she inflicts on her tormentors.  Carrie is a quiet, meek girl who is mercilessly bullied by her classmates, physically and emotionally abused by her mother and generally ignored by the teachers and administrators that could otherwise have helped her.  Even Ms. Desjardin, her gym teacher, slaps her in a moment of supreme vulnerability in plain view of her bullies.  While Ms. Desjardin later punishes the girls for what they did, it is only after she shows all of them what you’re supposed to do to Carrie White.

If there was one this that the film could be faulted for, it is the overly inventive direction of Brian De Palma.  While I can appreciate the numerous directorial decisions that he makes in presenting Carrie’s tragic story, they do keep the movie from aging gracefully.  During the montage where Tommy and his friends choose which tuxedos to rent, rather than cutting from tux to tux, De Palma fast-forwards through the "unimportant" parts.  When Carrie’s own head is spinning from Chris’ unimaginably cruel prank, De Palma recreates this by using a rotating kaleidoscope lens.  During the carnage of prom night, De Palma uses a split screen to show co-current violence against the students and faculty.

Some of these techniques worked very well; the split screen particularly strikes me as well executed, evoking the chaos and confusion of Carrie’s rampage.  Most, however, are distracting, dated and poorly executed.  Taken as a whole, it is a visual cacophony that is far more interesting than good.

The film features an absolutely outstanding cast.  Sissy Spacek perfectly embodies the frightened, introverted Carrie White.  She is alternatingly able capture the intense savagery of her rage and the complexity of her accompanying guilt.  Piper Laurie plays what is by far the most terrifying character in the entire film: Mrs. White.  While both she and Spacek channel the jilting, unnatural, overly-stylized body language of German Expressionism, Laurie excels well beyond Spacek in this capacity.  She succeeds in creating what is by far the most unsettling on-screen presence since Max Schreck's Count Orlock, similar to Carrie's own physical mannerisms during her prom-night rampage.

Carrie is ultimately an incredibly good, though incredibly dated, film.  While De Palma’s unique filming techniques do not hold up well in contemporary viewings, the tragic and emotional core of the film (not to mention Spacek and Laurie's exceptional performances) does.  I rate this film a strong 7.5, on par with I Walked with a Zombie, The Last House on the Left and Suspiria.  Becky rates the film a 7.

Random Movie #2: Equilibrium

Another random movie has come and gone without incident.  For our second selection, Becky and I saw the 2002 sci-fi action film Equilibrium which was, needless to say, a pretty stark contrast to Monsoon Wedding.  This was another film that I had previously seen that I thought that Becky would enjoy (this time on recommendation from a friend).

The film is set in the aftermath of a devastating third world war.  As humanity crawls from the ashes to rebuild its shattered civilization, it is agreed that the world will not survive a fourth such war.  In order to prevent mankind's extinction, the new government attacks what they see as the root of "man's inhumanity toward man: his ability to feel."  By governmental decree, the entire populace is medicated with an emotional suppressant called Prozium and anything that could elicit an emotional response (which ranges from the Mona Lisa to puppies) is strictly prohibited.  Both failure to medicate and possession of banned materials are capital offenses.

John Preston (Christian Bale) is a Grammaton Cleric: a special operative that suppresses terrorists who have gone off of their state-mandated Prozium and incinerates any contraband that they might possess.  After accidentally missing a dose of Prozium himself, Preston begins to feel for the first time: awe at the beautiful works of art that he destroys, remorse for killing his rogue partner and sympathy for the men and women who simply refuse to be medicated any longer.  While he tries to make sense of these new emotions, he becomes a double agent for the terroristic resistant movement while attempting to dissuade his new partner's growing suspicions about his loyalty to the state.

Equilibrium is basically what would happen if the Wachowski brothers directed Fahrenheit 451: a slick, stylized action-thriller with some incredibly riveting fight sequences.  As masters of Gun Kata, a combination of martial arts and markmanship, the Grammaton Clerics are this film's equivalent of The Matrix's Agents.  In the very first scene, we see John Preston enter into a blackened room surrounded by armed terrorists.  After they send off some panicked, scattered fire and a few whispers, Preston makes a series of precise shots to every man in the room.

While it's not exactly "the thinking man's action movie," it never-the-less is thoughtful.  The treatment of the dystopic future is very intimately unsettling.  Robbie Preston (John's son) is largely comes off as the second coming of The Omen's Damien: calm, composed, insightful - essentially nothing like what an actual child is like (owing to Prozium).  The tragedy that befalls Preston's wife is genuinely heart-wrenching, both in John's inability to defend her and the nature of why it happened to her.  Most memorable of all is the Clerics' inability to understand why the terrorists would keep adorable Bernese Mountain Dog puppies (one going so far as to ask if they ate them)

While the film is not without its faults - including a minor case of Reindeer Games' "One Twist Too Many" Syndrome - they are not so great as to detract from what is an admittedly exciting film that delivers everything that it promises.  While essentially a poor man's Matrix, it is still a more thoughtful, measured and entertaining addition to its genre than most other action movies.  Both Becky and I rate this film an 8, putting it on par with The Boondock Saints, Fearless and I Am Legend.

Random Movie #1: Monsoon Wedding

For our inaugural random movie, Becky and I ended up watching Monsoon Wedding, a 2001 Indian romantic comedy.  This selection was one that I had added to the movie pool.  I had previously viewed it in one of my film classes at ISU and thought (correctly so) that it would be one that Becky would enjoy watching.

The film follows a traditional, Punjabi Hindu family in the days immediately preceding the arranged marriage of daughter Aditi Verma with Texas Indian Hemant Rai.  But, as ever, the course of love does not run smoothly.  Increasingly anxious over the prospect of marrying a man that she has never met before (and moving halfway around the world with him), Aditi begins an affair with her married ex-boyfriend.  The mounting pressures of the wedding begin to compound with Lalit Verma's (Aditi's father) increasing financial difficulties and concerns over his son's effeminint behavior (cooking, dancing and not playing sports).  P.K. Dubey, the wedding planner, falls in love with the Verma's servant Alice, who shuns him due to an embarrassing misunderstanding.  Cousin Ayesha begins seeing a visiting Australian, Rahul, behind everybody's back.  And, on top of all of this, a dark secret from adopted daughter Ria's past threatens to break the family apart.

Monsoon Wedding is able to successfully combine the relatable humor of My Big Fat Greek Wedding with the deeply personal tragedy of The Celebration.  The film doesn't focus on any one plotline or set of characters.  Instead, director Mira Nair is able to deftly balance and develop every plot she introduces to fruition (similar to Joss Wheddon juggling an incredibly full cast of characters in The Avengers).  Aditi's anxieties over the wedding are weighed equally with her father's;  Ayesha's light-hearted secret is balanced against Ria's heart-rending one; even the romance between Aditi and Hemant does not over-shadow P.K. and Alice's own courtship.  Every story has its moment to shine.

The most impressive aspect of the film is that despite the increasingly dramatic nature of the Verma's problems, Nair avoids succumbing to histrionics.   Instead of sickeningly over-the-top drama, she offers us dramatic composure.  And, in doing so, she is able to create a complete image of the family, not just one or two individual characters or plotlines.

Monsoon Wedding is the film that My Big Fat Greek Wedding wanted to be: a sometimes-comedic, sometimes-dramatic big-picture view of a large family's wedding.  The real difference between them is that in Monsoon Wedding, family is shown to be comforting and protective rather than suffocating and often very silly.  This is an exceptionally entertaining production with an infectiously vibrant energy woven throughout the film.  Ultimately, I would rate this film an 8.5, putting it on par with Much Ado About Nothing,  Silver Linings Playbook and Persona.

Prologue

I think that it's safe to say that we've all been there: sitting in front of tv, Netflix titles scrolling past, arguing over what to watch.  For Becky (my girlfriend and movie partner of 4+ years) and me, this was par for the course.  Sometimes we would find a movie that we both wanted to see.  Sometimes one of us would give in to the other so that we could at least watch something before we had to go to bed.  Usually, however, we'd just settle on old episodes of Archer or The IT Crowd.

I was tired of the tedious negotiations.  Tired of always circling back to the same shortlist of safe choices that we had already seen ad nauseam.  Tired of my watchlist hopelessly outstripping my ability to keep it in check, especially when so many movies on it were streamable on Netflix.  Mostly, though, I was just tired of all of the excitement being sapped from sitting down to watch a movie.

After this last week's debacle, I told Becky to make a list of movies in which she could say either "I have not seen this movie, but want to" or "You have not seen this movie yet, but should" about each one.  When she was done, I combined her's with a list of my own.  I printed the list out, cut the titles into strips, folded the strips and put all of them into a massive pilsner.  From now on, whenever we wanted to watch a new movie on Netflix, we would give the cup a few shakes, pull out a random movie title and watch that.

When all was said and done, we had 138 movies consisting of a diverse mix of genre, acclaim, subject matter and release dates.  Some were there just to show the other person (War Games, Grave Encounters).  Some had won Academy Awards (Midnight Cowboy), AFI Awards (Lost In Translation) or the Palme d'Or (The Wind that Shakes the Barley).  Some were silent (Metropolis), in a foreign language (Tsotsi) or just plain weird (Lars and the Real Girl).  Some were action (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol), comedy (Duck Soup), horror (The Hamiltons), western (True Grit), documentary (Jiro Dreams of Sushi) or drama (A Late Quartet).  All told, it was pretty impressive.

The account which follows is our 100% reel journey into the savage, unexplored reaches of Netflix.