Pain, fame, and Mrs. Norman Maine

Ohai. I wrote about a movie this week. But first...like what I've done with the place? Make sure to check out the Simply Streisand fanpage, the "Weekly Sanging" showcase, and, of course, the badass new logo.

Anywho....

A STAR IS BORN

In the cinema you'll find two types of legitimate tearjerkers (and by legitimate I mean those that don't feature the words "adapted from a novel by Nicholas Sparks" in the credits). One breed is the Realist Wrencher, where characters are placed in circumstances so harrowing and close-to-the-bone that we spill over with fear and gratitude all at once; I'm thinking The Deer Hunter,Schindler's List, etc. Then there's the Tinseltown Tragedy. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout-those old Hollywood lulus where the even the most miserable moment is orchestrated with such sprawling grandeur that you can't help but feel ecstatic, even as you blink back tears. Hearts are worn on multi-million dollar sleeves and bleed onto the screen in spectacular Technicolor. And in the realm of enrapturing, exquisite old Hollywood melodrama, A Star Is Born reigns paramount.

The picture is a remake of an already-cliched original, but the embarrassment of technical expertise and top-line talent brushes off all the old bromides and makes them shine anew. No warm-up for this puppy; we begin with one of the most opulent sequences in the decidedly ostentatious culture of old Hollywood. A gala for the stars. An army of flashbulbs, waving hands, craning heads. An auditorium that seats thousands, dressed to the nines. The wavy red curtains part. A massive orchestra rolls in on a giant setpiece. Everyone's ready for the much-touted appearance of renowned actor Norman Maine (James Mason)...except Maine himself, who's drunk as a skunk backstage. When he stumbles onstage clearly hammered in the middle of crooner Esther Blodgett's (Judy Garland) opening set, Blodgett integrates him into the act without missing a beat-ah, he's only playing drunk!-thus saving his reputation. Thus begins Maine's one-man mission to turn Blodgett into the next big thing. It's no surprise they fall in love along the way. Not so anticipated is that, while Esther begins her climb towards transcendent stardom, Norman's life begins to fall apart before his very eyes...

Oh, I'm sorry, were you looking for subtlety? Ingmar Bergman's got a whole shelf for you to check out. This one's all about the grand gesture. The charm of Old Hollywood cinema was its frankness, its what-you-see-is-what-you-get purity. Take that opening scene for example. In our age of cyber-cynicism, we'd probably get a couple jabs at the vanity of celeb life, punctuated with some half-hearted attempts at symbolism; in short, everyone involved would be very keen on exposing the rotting core beneath the glam-bang facade. But here, there is no "real point"; we begin at a premiere, instead of a cafe or a garden or just a regular nightclub perf, because it gives director George Cukor and co. the opportunity to stage a real jaw-dropper of a crowd scene. From the moment we follow that spotlight down into the midst of the crowd, we're gone. There isn't a moment in this picture not designed to stick firmly in the memory. The result is an exceedingly fervent feeling f incredulous rapture as we realize that for every trick pulled out of the bag, there're a dozen more of greater scope and sublimity.

Take Norman and Esther's meet-cute, for example. Backstage after her number, Esther's all in a tizzy. "Why is Norman Maine still in pictures?", she huffs. "You know, I ask myself that every morning." The camera pulls back. Norman is standing there, amused smile on his face. He palms her lipstick. Scrawls a heart on the backstage wall. Scribbles their initials inside. He asks her out. She turns him down, but offers a hint of hope in a gem of a line: "Maybe tomorrow night or the next night. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lay out a whole supply of lipsticks, and we'll celebrate all over the place." A wry smile and then goodnight.

Today, you'd likely see a scene like this saved for the final act, plopped in before the credits roll to redeem middling material. Here, Cukor is so confident in the wonders to follow that he gives us this little miracle in the first ten minutes. And this in a three-hour picture! Cukor's confidence makes sense though; we don't know it, but he's aware that among the things in store are a glorious nightclub scene; an exciting excursion to the big city; a touching marriage proposal; a twenty minute jazz medley giving the inexhaustible Garland her due; and a heart-tugging ending to end all heart-tugging endings. Rare is a movie with a true trump card; even rarer is one with a full deck.

And then there's the score, which kicks in when the ever-present drama is at its peak, knocks the picture into exhilarating overdrive. In original studio musicals, too often the music serves as pleasant augmentation, nothing more; I love Easter Parade and Gigi as much as the next guy, but beyond the one or two signature numbers, the rest of their musical numbers serve as little more than B-grade balls for A-grade talent to knock out of the park. Here, every individual song is a winner. "Gotta Have Me Go With You." "The Man That Got Away." "It's A New World." "My Melancholy Baby." "You Took Advantage of Me." "Lose That Long Face." "Swanee." If these songs weren't already standards from radio play prior to the picture, they all are now. The music-and-lyrics team was one-of-a-kind-the dreamy decadence of Harold Arlen coupled with the winning wordplay of Ira Gershwin produced rapturous results, and if they songs smart on their own, they fairly smolder when Garland wraps them in the gilded glory of her euphoric tremolo.

Ah, so now we arrive at Garland, the reason this picture works. I say this at no discredit to Mason, who breaks your heart time again with his blithe yet brutal self-serration. But the fact of the matter is that it's our knowledge of Judy's prior career that made this film stick upon its release, and the particulars of her sad final years that allow it to age so peerlessly.

Let's leap ahead in time. 1976. A Star is Born is remade with none other than God herself, Barbra Joan Streisand, and Kris Kristofferson. This movie should've worked. The score's fairly strong, with multiple opportunities for that Streisand voice to really tear into it, the script is better than it was given credit for, and both the crowd scenes and the one-on-one dialogues are expertly photographed. Yet we can't really get into it all. The same goes for 1937 drama on which this one was based; Janet Gaynor does her damnedest, but it comes off as passable entertainment now, nothing more.

Let's think about this. Streisand had three hit albums, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Oscar all before age 25, and has spent the 40-odd years since releasing albums met with either critical acclaim or audience approval or both. Gaynor was the first winner of the Best Actress Oscar, carried a successful marriage, and had such a reputation for excellence across the board that she was often given the opportunity to pick her roles carte blanche. Now look at Garland. Around the time this picture was made, she was fresh off another in a series of suicide attempts. She was gaining weight rapidly. MGM had unceremoniously kicked her to the curb. Her mother was slandering her in the press. Everyone loved Judy, and wanted to see her beat the odds. They wanted to see her shine brighter than ever before. They wanted her-and, by extension, Esther Blodgett-to be happy. Moss Hart's screenplay cannily played on this national desire, drawing frequent parallels to Garland's stage roots, her famous vulnerability, her perfectionist persona. Esther's drive to succeed dovetailed with America's deep need to see their songbird soar again. Moreover, the madness and misery of the previous years had left Garland desperate for an outlet, one she clearly found in the character. Her Esther is nakedly ambitious, nervously witty, quietly hurting-one of the great 20th century screen creations, a startlingly incisive portrait that pokes holes in Gaynor and Streisand's vanity turns. How did she ever lose that Oscar?!

Today, Garland's unique presence aids the film in another way. As we all know, Garland's shining star was soon to be snuffed out-she overdosed on barbiturates at age 47. It was an ugly death, a tragic death, one that left a gaping hole in the fabric of our popular culture. It's a hole that still remains. Before she was an actress or singer, Judy was an Entertainer with a capital E-a woman with an electric presence who threw herself at us with such giddy force-of-will that we had no choice but to forget our troubles and join her for the ride. With Streisand, you're bowled over by every little detail of her exquisite interpretations; Garland made you forget the details altogether, went straight for the jugular.

We've never had an entertainer like her, and as such, the loss still stings. But this film is around to offer some salve. For three hours, Garland is up there, threatened by the very vices that plagued her in real life but strong enough to rise above them, enshrouded by darkness but blessed with that extra watt of ebullience needed to survive this hardscrabble world. We have, as pop culture consumers, an irrational need; something in us requires that little Dorothy Gale from Kansas never stop singing. Thanks to A Star is Born, she never will.

Proof that we're living in the last days; some idiot lost a good 10 minutes of ASIB footage, and, as such, a small chunk of the picture's middle section is composed of stills, voiceovers, and background music. It's more than a little frustrating that one of the great American studio releases is missing some integral pieces, but I make a plea for patience on your part. The other 160-ish minutes, I assure you, are quite quite good. In fact, they are among the very best.

The Writing's On The Wall: Facebook on Film

It is inevitable that, somewhere along the line, those filming a documentary will become a part of the action, voluntarily or not. So gripe all you want about the undeniable fact that the majority the action of Catfish is steered by the folks behind the camera, but you can't deny the overwhelming power of where it ends up, at an alarming crossroads of brutal, brilliant revelation that gets at some of the central tragedies of our time. Here is this year's Academy Award winner for Best Documentary.

We follow Yaniv "Nev" Schulman, an unshaven schlub of a New York photographer, daft and a tad horny but somehow more than a little lovable. When Nev receives a painting of one of his photos from 8-year-old artistic prodig Abby Martin he friends her on Facebook, ultimately becoming involved with her family and striking up a long-distance relationship with her half-sister Megan. Only when Yaniv sets out with camera-toting brother Ariel and his good friend Henry to pay a surprise visit to his beloved do the cracks in the tapestry begin to show....but enough. The less said about Catfish in all respects, the better your viewing experience will be. I'm sure you've heard about the whopper of a twist, which actually occurs about midway through the picture. I won't spoil it, but I will say that if you've happened upon its specifics and responded with rolled eyes, you oughtn't judge a book by its cover. The plot point, shocking as it is, doesn't define this film. Ariel and Henry have corralled mountains of pixelated video and grainy soundbites into a lean, steadily engrossing character study, not of a few people but of an entire generation whose ability to connect has slowly, dangerously metastasized into an excuse to escape. As Nev learns the truth about Megan, we learn the truth about ourselves. So skip out on Life As We Know It. Across the hall in the little theater with the faulty air conditioning where indies go to die, this smartly assembled, indescribably disturbing, entirely necessary picture presents a hellish but not entirely hopeless picture of life as we know it.

Or, you could plunk down a totally worth-it ten bucks and see what's basically an anomaly in these days of Heigl-happy hellfire; a great mainstream movie, one that just so happens to cover much of the same ground as Catfish, albeit from the other side of the laptop screen. You've seen the ads. You've read the articles. And, chances are, a chosen few of you have understandably dismissed it as "the Facebook movie". The Social Network is indeed just that, but I don't see the label as an insult. After all, aren't we the Facebook nation? Has any other single website caused such a paradigm shift in how we interact with friends? With enemies? With ourselves? Here is a devilishly entertaining true-life legal drama that doubles as a first-class tragedy given to unshakable moments of almost Shakesperean sublimity. It's a tad earlier to be prepping best lists, but I will say this; if a better film comes along this year, we'll be the luckiest audience in the world.

At heart, this one's all about betrayal. There's Harvard whiz-kid Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), hired by his classmates the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer plays both thanks to the galvanizing magic of CGI) to create a college social networking site. There's Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield), the twiggish softie who helps Mark form a website suspiciously similar to the one he promised to design for the Winklevosses, then unknowingly deprives them of credit. And there's Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), former Napster CEO, ladies men, Iago in designer duds, who sends Mark skyrocketing in the upper stratospheres of financial fruition while slowly snaking his way into Eduardo's position. That's when the lawsuits come in. The ones that involve sex, drugs, and a larger sum of money than it'd take to send a thousand kids to Mark's beloved Harvard.

This sordid saga proof is that truth outpaces fiction, and it has a one-thing-after-another quality that could come off as bad John Grisham in the hands of a weaker writer than Aaron Sorkin, who structures the picture as a series of measured, savvy conversations interrupted by startling cannonades of blistering verbal dynamite. This screenplay is so good I caught audience members ducking and sweating at certain lines as if they were thousand-dollar explosions. But a screenplay's only so much without a cast that can meet its demands, and here we have a series of rising stars who shine so bright they incinerate even our highest expectations. Eisenberg won't win the Oscar for this performances. It's too subtle, too controlled, too unshowy. But it's a performance that will be lauded for years to come as a shining portrayal of an anti-hero, a shrewd, sharp dissection of a man blessed with such superior intellect that he can outthink even himself. More likely to have a shot at an acceptance speech is Garfield, as he gets the kind of Major Meltdown scene that makes older voters cream themselves. But let's hope they also notice the uncanny skill with which he builds to this searing eruption. And then there's Timberlake, who outdoes any artistic output in his career thus far. He slyly plays on our image of him as a performer, shows how Sean's skill with seduction in both bedroom and boardroom blinds Mark to his corroded conscience and coked-out paranoia. He spins like a top, and our jaws plummet in astonishment. All this near idol-worship and I haven't even gotten to Jeff Croneweth's cinematography, subdued yet stunning, or Trent Reznor's score, which runs rings around the meandering, spaced-out crap that tends to pass as movie music these days. And the best for last, director David Fincher, who cements himself as a boundlessly imaginative filmmaker and an astute social commentary. He's here to stay. So is the picture.

And now, kiddies, for my recommendation. See these two films in the same day. I'd suggest Catfish first, followed by a nice long lunch break, and then a viewing of The Social Network to cap off the experience. We make fun of the FB phenom, but we do it at our own peril-after all, how many Facebook posts have you seen about the stupidity of Facebook movies? Catfish tells of a virus rapidly infecting our country, a desire to maximize at-a-distance contact so as to perfect our words, our looks, our actions. The Social Network shows us how the strain was planted, by people twice as smart as most of us but also twice as insecure. They started it to encourage exclusivity. Then they stumbled upon an entire nation of people like Yaniv Schulman-a United States united by a need to belong. Both films: A

Classic, Schmassic!

O hai guyz. I hope everyone's getting into colleges. I hope everyone is equally uneasy about the fact that, ten years from now, the average human being is married with children. And I hope everyone will listen to my bitching, as is the norm...

So I saw Never Let Me Go last week. It's astoundingly photographed and flawlessly acted, but underdeveloped characters make the experience a bit less than it could be. Still, it's the kind of Oscar-ready film that will probably be mistakenly hailed as a classic for years to come. It got me to thinking; what films truly got off easy when it came to public approval. What slices of sorry treacle has been masquerading as masterpieces for too, too long? I don't mean the slightly over-hyped (The Dark Knight), or the decent sentimental goop that bleeding-heart soccer moms put on a pedestal (Forrest Gump....shoot me, the heartlessness comes with the religious territory)-I'm talking the really awful stuff that's been passed off as the really great stuff. I'd be shocked if the remainder of this post doesn't piss a few people off. In fact, I'd be dissappointed.

THE MOST OVERRATED FILMS OF ALL TIME (in no particular order):

West Side Story

The Consensus: With its lush score, intricately choreographed dance numbers, and ingenious re-imagining of the traditional tragedy, this is one at the summit of stage-to-screen adaptations.

Jew Says: Okay, the greatness of Jerome Robbins choreography isn't up for debate. Viewed out of context with the actual story, the sangin' and a-hoofin' are both impeccably orchestrated and captured with infectious energy by Robert Wise's camera. But, judged as a part of the movie's whole, they reveal that this one's attempting the damning practice of having its cake and eating it, too. West Side Story the motion picture doesn't work for the same reason West Side Story the show doesn't work-its two conceivable reasons to be cancel each other out. The gangsters inGuys and Dolls could sing and dance up a storm convincingly because they weren't really gangsters; they were broadly rendered caricatures who, despite their "fuhgeddaboutits" and hackneyed scowls, never dipped deeper into the pool of vice and vanity than a little gambling. Here, however, the members of the Sharks and Jets are supposed to be the real thing, hot-blooded, impetuous hoods who open up old wounds in midnight "rumbles" just to feelsomething. So why are these people we're supposed to be at least little afraid of doing ballet? The story could've worked as a straight examination of the gang mentality-there's certainly potential there. Or, it could've been a parody of said gangs, reveling in the singular absurdity of its dancing ruffians. As it is, WSS attempts to manufacture menace in the dialogue scenes, and then undoes the effects of that menace by reaching fervently and frequently for jazz-hand glory. Or, looked at the other way, it creates a inventive, winningly idiosyncratic musical conceit that's constantly being abandoned for scenes of jarring violence. In the end, both incarnations of this piece commit artistic suicide in so many ways that all I can do is weep for what could've been done with such a talented roster of writers, choreographers, and actors. Wow, have I ever incurred the wrath of the theatre kids with this review. Please still talk to me guys! I like My Fair Lady and Hello, Dolly! as much as the next guy!

La Dolce Vita

The Consensus: Federico Fellini was the greatest visual stylist in the history of film, and he puts his talent to good use here, exposing the seedy underbelly of celebrity life and creating an erotically despairing vision of Italy that still astounds today.

Jew Says: Fellini had serious behind-the-camera chops (see 8 1/2 and La Strada), and judging by this picture he knew it too. The film follows a cadre of disillusioned starlets, raging hubbies, greasy hucksters and hungry paparazzo for seven tempestuous, oversexed nights of vacuous happiness and camouflaged misery. As you may have noticed, it's not the most tightly focused plot, and the director chooses to tell what little story there is in a series of whiz-bang setpieces that are individually thrilling but cumulatively empty. Every scene is staggeringly self-conscious; you can always feel the auteur behind the curtain weaving wonders just to show off, straining to entertain us for his own ego's sake. The picture reminds me of those too-talented musicians who can jam incessantly and ostentatiously for hours without ever settling on a coherent melody. For all its beauty, it's just too high on itself to leave some kind of lasting impression.

Raging Bull

The Consensus: The screen's answer to Othello, Scorsese's peak, and the best film of the last 30 years.

Jew Says: Look, any subject can be made watchable. Schindler's List could've been agony, but juxtaposing the compelling story of Oskar's personal evolution with what critic Owen Gleiberman terms "grace notes of cruelty" made it bearable enough to sit through without doing injustice to the nerve-frying horrors of the Shoah. Cool Hand Luke gives us plenty of keenly observed, deeply felt moments of comradery between the prisoners, which softens (but doesn't dull) the effects of the Captain's startling sadism. Hell, Scorsese himself did it in Goodfellas by leavening the gore of mob life with the chintzy glamor. Here, we have a film about Jake LaMotta (Robert Deniro), a man who beats people up in and out of the boxing ring and makes his wife and brother into mental punching bags so as to vent his sexual insecurities. And that's it. No moments where we're allowed a relief from the anger, the tension, the impotent fury. Not a second where someone isn't shouting or clearly building to a shout. Scorsese can find nothing to do but stage fight after fight after fight, so that every punch and epithet becomes a little less effective than the last, because, quite frankly, we're just worn out by it all. To see how this sort of personality is corrected portrayed onscreen, see A Streetcar Named Desire, where Kazan and Brando probe the simple, stormy soul of a man with animal tendencies. Here, because Scorsese finds no technique to make Lamotta's story anything less than hell to sit through, I felt like I was watching an Animal Planet documentary on a creature that incidentally shared some traits with homo sapiens. DeNiro puts his heart and soul into realizing Scorsese's vision, but the vision itself is one of the few flawed ones in the director's career.

Dances With Wolves
The Consensus: A great American epic the likes of which we don't see anymore, gilded with spectacular production values and boasting the first accurate cinematic portrayal of Native Americans in ages.

Oh come on now, kiddies. That's just bullshit. No one can deny the waving wheat and rampaging buffalo fill the screen and the speakers impressively, but my problem with this shameful, pandering wreck of a film is how earnestly it pretends to be exactly what it isn't. As former Civil War combatant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner, directing himself and therefore miscasting himself) becomes an observer of, participant in and activist for Sioux culture, we're treated to scene after scene of Nice Indians and Big Bad White People. Okay, for accuracy's sake, I should mention there is one mean Indian who-spoiler alert-turns out to be a good ol' boy deep down, and this revelation did indeed move me-to get up and find a toilet to vomit in, that is. The point I'm trying to make here is that flagrant oversimplification is a two-way street. For years, Hollywood was viciously vilified for casting the entire Native American people as spear-brandishing armies just waiting to get plowed down by John Wayne and co. Costner was showered with Oscars and box-office moolah for finally breaking the mold, but think about it. Isn't this picture just a three-hour act of revisionist racism? Now the whites are the sneering sociopaths, and the Indians get the saint role. Is canonizing an entire people any better than condemning them? God, how I hate this movie so! Costner's "magnum opus" (ha ha, he's done TONS better) is a meat-and-potatoes Western stretched to bladder-busting length and drenched in sickly-sweet preachiness; in short, pleasing to the eye, downright offensive to the intellect.

The Third Man

The Consensus: Carol Reed's stunningly shot thriller doubles as an insightful character piece that says something eerie but essential about the post-WWII world. Also, its score is among the best ever written.

Films should either A) Give us a story told with energy and originality or B) in the absence of conventional narrative, provide us with characters whom are interesting enough that our desire to study them supplants our agitation with the lack of conventional plot. In short, get me into the events, or the people. Or, if you can, both. This film does neither. Our lead Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an incalculably dumb pulp writer who's capable only of smart-ass remarks and shows no real emotion, so the Interest In Character technique doesn't work. And, seeing as the entire film consists of Martins walking around post-war Vienna trying to uncover what led to the death of his BFF Harry Lime (Orson Welles), intercut with the occasional random close-up of a "random" figure in shadow, we know that, unless the screenwriter really intends to rob us of our monies, the dead dude is really alive and-gasp-is the guy whose been lurking around the whole time! Some films are said to "telegraph" their plot twists; this one grabs a megaphone and shouts it louder and for longer than a senator the month before election time. Of all the films I've talked about in the course of this post, it is this one's success that baffles me most. How can you praise the depth of a character who undergoes no real change-who goes from slightly bitter to really fucking bitter, not gradually, but suddenly because the plot requires him to? How can you laud camerawork and background music so showy and pretentious that it's at right angles to the barely existent drama? Most importantly, tell me; how can you praise this as a great work when every single personage involved in the making of this film also produced masterpieces of inconceivably greater quality?

Hopefully I've made you re-think some "classics" (lawl). Your turn. What are your picks for the most overrated films ever made? Ready set go.

One is the loneliest number

MAGNOLIA

The 25: Wondrous, wrenching rebel cry that strikes nerve after unguarded nerve.

As far as openers go, an attempted suicide turned manslaughter ain’t bad. In the prologue of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, we swoop over the roof of an apartment building as 17-year-old Sydney Barringer leaps to his death, eyes closed, fists clenched, farewell note crumpled up in his pants pocket. We follow him down, down, down towards the asphalt in a conventional Hollywood camera angle, only to have our carefully established expectations shattered when the unthinkable happens-a gunshot bursts from an apartment window and rips a gaping hole in Sydney’s stomach. Flashback to a few seconds ago (another original concept); Sydney’s parents are arguing vehemently when his mother, intimidated and empowered in equal measure, pulls out a gun that would have been empty had Sydney not coincidentally loaded it a few days ago. She pulls the trigger and a bullet goes through the window, hitting her son in mid-fall. In one of the most morbid punchlines I’ve seen, Sydney Barringer ruins his own laboriously planned suicide. As mommy lets out shriek after lachrymose shriek, we slowly inch back down the hallway, away from her, away from this story….the lighting becomes overexposed, hellish, eerie….voices echo on the soundtrack…a dissonant whine in the music builds, builds, builds-

Cue credits.

It’s my favorite opening scene in all of cinema, but that’s not the reason I choose to spill so much ink over this film’s first five minutes. In addition to setting up a key motif I daren't reveal, this sequence makes a promise, one so mad and thrilling and grandiose that you don’t believe Anderson and co. will deliver on it. How could he possibly sustain such a rich, resounding note of orgasmic, operatic intensity for three hours?! The thing is, he does, and from this breathtaking opening scene Magnolia only grows in its power and mystery. Hell, even after you’ve taken the ride once, you’ll appreciate the picture even more with each viewing-trust the guy who’s seen it nine times. This is an appallingly underappreciated tour-de-force, an exhilarating example of the cinema busting out of its own predetermined boundaries. Here, lovelies, is the best movie of the 90’s.

What's it about? So there’s Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying millionaire whose trophy wife Linda, once a balm in bed, is now an overmedicated, undersexed wreck who employs male nurse Phil (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to ease her husband’s pain and help him tie up loose ends before he goes. Only one unresolved conflict really interests Earl; his broken relationship with his son, Frank (Tom Cruise), a brazenly chauvinist motivational speaker who runs “Seduce and Destroy” seminars for men half as rich and twice as lonely as he is.

Frequently on Earl’s TV is Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall), a philandering game show host who plows away at his work even as his ticker starts to give out and his daughter Claudia (Melinda Waters) slips deeper and deeper into coked-out oblivion. However, redemption might await her in the arms of painfully endearing cop Jim (John C. Reilly).

Finally, there’s Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), a former contestant on Gator’s show who’s grappling with his sexual identity, and Stanley (Jeremy Blackman), a current contestant desperate to break free of his pile-driving father Rick (Michael Bowen). They are all brought together in the film’s final hour, not by Crash-esque coincidence but by a shocking, supernatural occurrence straight out of Exodus. Oh, and there’s a sing-along, too.

None of this would work without the screenplay, which, at almost 200 pages, is still a model of economy. Go through Magnolia 190 minutes. Go on, do it. Tell me if you can find one scene that isn’t completely instrumental. There is something of the divine in this script; surely no mere mortal could juggle scenes of such startling variety with such staggering agility. We get a brief scene of anal sex so bruising we have to look away, followed by a wryly amusing moment where Macy gets fitted for adult braces. Cruise’s horrifying “Seduce and Destroy” sermon comes not long after Reilly and Waters take part in one of the most genuine meet-cutes in movies. Any single story thread could be plucked out and spun into a comedy/drama/romance/thriller of its own. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a screenplay more confident of where it’s going. You can always tell when a writer’s slapped a sequence of events down on paper for an easy paycheck and when they’ve planned their work, when it fits together like pieces of a jigsaw. There’s an underlying arc here that I want you to pay attention to; each individual plot plays like a long, squirmy, excruciating buildup following by a breathtaking, brutal emotional eruption. Each character drifts through life like a driver asleep at the wheel, headed for a jarring collusion yet fatally unprepared for it all.

Yes, it is as depressing as it sounds, but, like an actual car wreck, we never want to look away. The most brilliant aspect of the screenplay is how it teases us with poignant glimpses of these peoples innate goodness. Moore comes off as a spoiled bitch, but her meltdown at the pharmacy (how did it not win her the Oscar?!) shows a long- slumbering moral center finally reawakening. We're angry at Waters for throwing her life away, but touched by her quirky adherences to little niceties like offering guests a cup of coffee. Even Cruise's merciless man-child reveals a twisted compassion for those who attend his seminars. We stick around because, through the grind of vice and vanity, little glints of rock-solid goodness keep peeking in through the slits. We stay riveted, because, if these people's redemption is plausible, isn't ours as well?

If the screenplay is the tightrope, the actors are the walkers, and its a thrill to watch them at work. Anderson assembles the ensemble of a generation, and smartly plays on the performers public personas in order to expedite characterization. We already believe Tom Cruise is an arrogant prick, so we quickly accept that he's playing one. Phillip Seymour Hoffman has always seemed like an endearing teddy-bear of a man, so his nurse immediately has our sympathy. And, for all Moore's considerable skill, hasn't something about her always seemed a little cold off-screen? Mind you, this isn't to deny these thespians any credit. Each individual performance is flawless, filled with astonishing line readings and indelible non-verbals. Cruise in particular is an emotionally naked marvel as a character who, instead of ascending, shrinks, who starts off trying to drown out the world with his ignorant shouting and winds up crumpled beside a hospital bed, humbled and broken. Waters is an undernoticed wonder; she makes her keening despair alternately seductive and repulsive.

But in the end, it all comes down to Anderson's vision. It's a testament to the man's boundless inventiveness that this entire vision spewed forth onto scrap paper in a few weeks when he shut himself off in a cabin due to a bout of agoraphobia. It's a testament to his courage that this picture was made without compromise. He takes the piece exactly where it needs to go. When things build to such exaggerated proportions that only music will resolve the tension, he lets his characters burst into song, even though this is decidedly not a musical. This is a move most filmmakers would've quickly nixed; they'd recognize its brilliance but note that its not "essential to the story being told" or something like that. But Anderson sees beyond the mechanics of plot; he recognizes film as a medium of emotions, one that must provide structure, yes, but first and foremost supply us with awe, with agony, with catharsis. This is one of maybe a half-dozen films that seems to be made without the slightest self-doubt, with well-placed confidence that each carefully calculated risk will pay off. It's cinema on all cylinders. Aspiring auteurs would do well to check it out.

As you've noticed, this post is longer than my average column. That's because Magnolia isn't just a masterpiece. It's a milestone in my own moviegoing history. I was cultishly obsessed my freshman year, and I still pop the DVD in whenever I a) need a good cry b) a good envy binge courtesy of the screenplay or c) my faith in film renewed. But above all, I think, what brings me back to this movie again and again is one of its central themes. Look at these characters; almost all are disconnected. Buoyed on by the advent of transportation and technology, they have slunk off into urban anonymity, attempting to clip all close connections, and, thus, avoid the pain of loving. Frank ignores his father. Rick denies his son even the slightest affection. Linda parcels out her wifely duties to others now that sex is out of the equation. Yet, over the course of three glorious hours, these people come to a realization summed up eloquently by the Macy character; "I have a lot of love to give, I just don't know where to put it." The people on display here have tried to sever themselves from emotion, but, Anderson tells us, our desire to supply and need to demand compassion will catch up to us in the end. We will feel. We will grieve. We will grow. Get used to it. It's a message for the Twitter generation, delivered here without a drop of sermon-ific sap or false uplift. I can't think of a picture I feel more strongly about. Above and beyond its considerable technical successes lies the fact that this one nourishes something deep and vital within us. Take that, Marmaduke.

Leave My Lit Alone!

So, no Koran burnings, "not today, not ever", according to the venerable Rev. Terry Jones, who called off his media blitz..ermm, I mean holy war....early this morning. I'm glad. No, really. Hopefully he finds a way to sell all those extra "Islam is of the Devil" t-shirts, though. I think his high school classmate, Rush Limbaugh, would enjoy one. (That would've been a fun lunch table...) But Jones's decision to call off the public expression of his massive misconception doesn't represent an acknowledgment that his core beliefs about Islam are substantially mistaken, nor does it erase from my memory an incident that occurred on a recent family trip to Waco. We're sitting on the couch watching the ever-eventful Waco news, which frequently consists of 25 minutes of world news pilfered from better channels, and 5 minutes of local paraphernalia regarding ball games, yard sales and school supplies. Today, the former section features a report on a "nearby" (read: "Somewhere in the state of Texas"). A picture of the Koran appears onscreen.

"What book is that?", my grandma asks.

"That?", my grandfather responds, "that's them Al-Qaeda's Bible. Made them do all kinds of bad things. Told them to attack our country."

Ever the respectful grandchild, I just nursed at my cookies and coffee and let him crumple up on the couch and succumb to his delusion. Had I twice the balls and half the social decency, here's what I'd've said;

Papaw,

I love you. I do, I really do. I appreciate your adherence to tried and true values, your emphasis on supporting the financially vulnerable, and your fierce devotion to TCM's "Summer Under The Stars" month-a devotion we share, as you know. What I don't appreciate is your near zealous devotion to one of the most idiotic, ill-supported theories of modern popular culture. But, hey, if it makes you feel better, half the country's doing it. Perhaps now, on the anniversary of saddest yet most misunderstood occurrence in our history, is the time to correct it.

If I told you that, on September 11, 2001, 19 Korans climbed on an airplane, assumed control of the cockpit, and crashed it into the World Trade Center, would you believe me? Of course not. How about this? On December 8, 1980, a rogue copy of Catcher in the Rye hit outside the Dakota and shot John Lennon in the back. Plausible? No, sirree.

Why is it, then, that the Koran is blamed for the 9/11 attacks, when, A) it actively preaches against such extremism in verse 2.190 and, B) IT'S AN INANIMATE OBJECT?!! Why does JD Salinger get a bad rap because his book just happened to be picked up by a psychopath? Why does Martin Scorsese still get castigated to this day because last week's featured film, Taxi Driver, was listed by would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley as a major inspiration? You should know, Papaw, that, as an artist, nothing angers me more than to see the creator blamed for the actions of the consumer. But what interests me is this. Why do we blame works of art (for, like the Bible and my people's Tanakh before it, the Koran is a work of literature before it is anything else) for human foibles? I've an idea why.

What disturbs us more than anything is the idea that we are not all intrinsically good. For every one of us who starts a charity organization or saves a life, there are four who swindle money and bomb city streets. More disturbing than that fact is the idea that a mind in its own right can make such diseased decisions. How could one have such an innately skewered moral compass that acts of terrorism and bloodletting would appear to be morally acceptable? The said answer is, they simply do. Science proves me right, lists chemical imbalances, bodily toxins, bloodflow blockages that erase for some any possibility of sanity. For whatever reason, some members of the human race simply have deeper, darker reservoirs of evil lying within than the rest of us. But, like that mom who just can't acknowledge her baby made a boo-boo, we constantly dodge the idea that members of the human family are inherently bad. Instead, we point to intangible things that corrupted them.

Abuse made this man shoot a pop star.

A book made these people knock down a building.

This makes the problem of evil easy to solve. If we take away the art that's doing the corruption, the mind itself will cease to be corrupted. Not the case. There are those among us drawn inexplicably and completely towards the sinister, and no book they read or film they watch should be held responsible.

Actions are actions. Words are words. What someone reads cannot and should not be confused with what they do. The Koran has served as a call to peace and tolerance, not just to violence. Yet its reputation is tarnished because a select few misinterpreted its prose for their own depraved cause. The Catcher in the Rye alerted many to a higher purpose, but is best remembered for uncloaking one man's darker nature. I've had enough of folks using art as a scapegoat to avoid confrontation with inbred human folly. Some people are bad. Many are good. Books are books. Movies are movies. Music is music. Think about it.

If you ever really want to piss me off, Papaw, go to Listverse.com and show me the list entitled "Top 10 Books That Screwed Up the World". After an hour-plus bitch session, I will inform you what that page should be called; "Top 10 Books Whose Readers Screwed Up the World."

Sincerely,

Mason