Head Spin

Are there any Bollywood films you'd recommend to a novice?

Easiest yes since I've been a listener. I like to think I cast a wide net when it comes to choosing films to watch, but I may never have gotten around to this one without the podcast. I'm often grateful for the discussion this show creates in the forums and between the hosts, but this week I'm grateful for the breadth of its selections. This was just a very special viewing experience. And I don't know that I have much to say that Devin and Amy didn't say better, so I'll just speak to a few elements I loved instead of gushing at length. (EDIT: Whoops) The hosts talked about how universal the film feels; Pather Panchali has a very strong sense of setting, but feels like a tale that has and is happening all over the world. I agree with them, but even as the film feels universal it expresses such a pride for India. It's depicting what would be the worst part of any nation, but it luxuriates in the setting without glorifying poverty. Probably my favorite shot of the film is when it shoots the kids following the candy-seller through the reflection of the pond that they're walking along. It captures the figures, somewhat, but enjoys the treeline and the pond itself at the same time. The film features brief asides to the bustling town nearby, but it doesn't just shoot it in contrast to their dilapidated estate; the film stops with Apu to watch the folk play performed that was heralded earlier in the film. Now I'm as dumb a white male as it gets, so I'm punching above my weight here, but the film just effuses this infectious Indian pride to me. It doesn't even go out of its way to glorify it, as naturalistic as the film is, but I finished this film ready to devour more Indian cinema. I'm not always confident firsthand about historical relevance - I don't do much research before I vote - but you can just feel the kick that inspired a generation of Indian filmmakers. I'm probably not alone in coming to a mid-1950s piece of foreign film with certain expectations as to what I'm going to see. And Jesus H. did I not expect a movie I only knew as the beginning of a trilogy about the life of an Indian man to be so female! It's great! Apu is featured, and the movie provides the context of his early growth, but this film is either about three great original female characters or the same great character, a cipher for an impoverished woman's experience, at three different points in her life. Each reads as unique and fresh, but also as women who have no other choice but to be what they are, separated only as points on a timeline. And I don't know which is the greatest creation. Which is the most heartbreaking? The hosts were spot on in calling it not sentimental. It's neither cold nor warm, and it lays plain the lives of the characters while finding a kind of emotionally-neutral beauty in it all. And maybe that's why I was so unprepared to be so heartbroken by it. Durga is such a vital character. She is alive on that screen in a way I don't know if I have ever seen before. It never occurred to me that she could die. And the movie plays it so straight. She doesn't die at the climax of a dramatic structure. Her doom is presented in maybe the most innocuously beautiful shot of the entire film: her and Apu huddling together, smiling, in the crook of a tree peacefully while she shares her sari to keep him dry. It's just another moment among many. This movie doesn't even allow us the easy narrative satisfaction of hate for its full length. Once the family is in real trouble the miserly wife of the orchard owner softens to them all, (another situation where the movie deliberately omits a man from the film - it cuts away when her husband is summoned - in order to keep the focus on the women of the story). The real villain of the film seems to be the husband. It's his decision to eschew a livable life as a priest to follow the dreams he dreamt for himself and his family. In the end he returns, and speaks to the elders, and he, too, is hard to blame. He was spineless, but he was willing to try and break the cycle to elevate his family to a better life. It's in that speech to the elders that the scope of the heartbreak becomes clear. If there a more devastating line in cinema than "All my plans came to nothing," I'm not sure I've heard it. We watched years of these lives pass, and all of it came to nothing. Durga's intelligence, warmth, and drive all came to nothing. Maybe it never could. Indir died a beggar among paupers in the forest, having exhausted the goodwill she needed to survive. It all came to nothing. Sarbajaya worked for years like a possessed woman, starving, stealing food to keep her family afloat, and it all came to nothing. Harihar left his family for months at a time to try and elevate their lot, and it all came to nothing. At the film's end Apu is more than a boy, he's the last hope for a generation of hopes and effort to have come to something. But as heartbreaking as the movie is, I don't think it ever despairs. It didn't all come to nothing; it lived and died. Pather Panchali wasn't waiting for the payoff; It was living the experience. I feel like I lived it too.

The Lost Weekend is a solid movie, but it falls short of being in the Canon of great films. I'd argue that strongest arugment for its candidacy is it's historical importance. It's under-discussed today how transformative film is to the public's perception of social and political issues. Now, there are plenty of writers and directors who take aim at under-represtented topics knowing that a film can force positive change, and there always have been. But many more make films with baked-in prejudices and harmfully conventional perspectives, and they dismiss detractors by falsely minimizing the effect film has in shaping the public consciousness. For that, it's important to look back with a positive scrutiny on the effect a "Lost Weekend" can have on reifying addiction and mental health in a time where there was no vocabulary to even get at the issue. As Devin and Amy brought up, the word "alcoholism" was still fringe, and easy to imagine how little help people had in wrapping their minds around the behavior of an alcoholic before it came into fashion. Even so, I guess I'm discovering that it's hard to vote "yes" on a film that passes the Canon bar on historial significance and nowhere else. The rest of the film excels more in concept then reality. I agree with Devin that the script and lead performance paint Don Birnam in an interesting way; it sells the physicality of his addiction, but also the self-loathing sad sack beneath that commits to it. If one element reaches the Canon bar within the film, it's the script. Sans Helen. Helen's a bad character. I think the film flirts with how unhelpful-cum-enabling she is to Don without committing to it in the finale. Bad performance aside, Helen overcommits to Don in a way that comes off as toxic and patronizing. I think Amy nailed it when she discussed her inherent co-dependency; Helen is trying to insert herself as his savior throughout, and that self-centered choice ends up saving him when it would actually leave him worse off. She's just setting himself for a more intense self-loathing when his addiction comes back for him. I should probably give more credit for making the best out of a 1940's understanding of alcoholism, but the ending rubs me raw. I disagree with the hosts that the ending is self-aware that the victory we witnessed is only around three minutes of sobriety. Unless I'm the mistaken one, Amy and Devin missed that the final shot is a flashback to the initial shot of the film, not a callback to it. It reflects on the beginning of the film as 'the bad ol' times', and postulates a strong chance at the complete conquest of addiction after one moment of clarity. The grand gesture of sobriety is to put his cigarette in the drink and leave it on the table. I don't think the film realizes that Don's probably going to fish out the cigarette and gulp the rye down the second he hits his first writer's block on "The Bottle." I think the rest of the film, as Amy suggested, is solid but un-Canonworthy. The greatness has its pair in dullness, and the rest is solid. For every creepy bat killing a rat there's Ray Milland overselling it. For every opera alcohol temptation scene there's a lecture from a sanitorium doctor that wouldn't be out of place in any bad after-school special. I think the film is paced well and has a fun supporting cast of characters. Doris Dowling is fantastic with her prostitute barfly character, and has more chemistry with Ray Milland then Ray has with his brother or girlfriend. I just feel that very little of the film rises to greatness. TL;DR, I think the film is good, but I don't think that every good film should be in the Canon. A film should at least be great and I"m not sure each and every great film is entitled to inclusion. The movie has an immense social good to it, and a subject that gives an automatic emotional "in" for many people, including myself. But it's just not a great film, and I don't think it deserves entry.

Easy yes. Having never seen it before, I was pleasantly surprised. When it began I kind of cringed, thinking that the tone, dialogue, costumes, and sets would just come off very elementary school level through a modern viewing. I was pretty immediately proven wrong. This movie's smart, fun, and tells a simple story with a depth of personality and emotion. The beginning banquet scene was SO tense, and the final swordfighting sequence was gripping. It really is an anti-Game of Thones, and it's a wonder that it maintains such a fairy tale sensibility of the story without feeling thin or immature. The only element that fell flat to me were the friends of Robin Hood, who really failed to stand out both in writing and performance. But it's a standout film that belongs in the Canon.

As a head-to-head, I think Superman is a clear winner. There's a lot of great elements to Batman, but there's an inherent lack of momentum to that film. The movie spends a lot of time moving between isolated vignettes of the Joker and the Vicki-Bruce relationship. The Joker vignettes are hit-or-miss, but even when they hit they just kind of meander into the climax of the film. The script for Bruce and Vicki goes pretty much from meet-cute to deep emotional connection without demonstrating a development from one to the other, and the actors have no chemistry with each other to sell a fast-burning romance. I love the sets and the score, and Nicholson gives a great effort, but little else in the movie works for me. I find Keaton's Batman and Wayne pretty dull, although I like that Wayne gets screentime. As for Batman, the movie is fixated on gadgets, which are rarely my thing. Keaton can't move in the suit, and it's embarrassing to watch them try and shoot around it. The film takes for granted that the Batmobile and Batwing will cover the difference as far as action intrigue, but it's too much to ask. Superman, on the other hand, nails so much. It feels like a Marvel prototype, where a lame villain and action setpiece give the film enough road to showcase the hero and his supporting cast. The Krypton prologue floored me. It's a shock to go into a movie expecting badly aged effects and to be met right out of the gate with those spectacular sets and costumes. I don't know if I've ever seen an alien world succeed and being so cold and colorless while staying so vivid. Clark growing up on Earth was even better. All of the stuff with the Kents sang, and I especially loved that hurt look he gave the camera when his high school classmates pranked and ditched him. The origin takes up so much time and contains so many little journeys; How do they all work so well? And in such different ways? The journey to the Fortress shouldn't work at all, nor should resurrecting Jor-El ten minutes after killing him, but they do, and the advice he peppers throughout the rest of the film adds a lot. Not to mention the quality of the psychedelic space cinema we're treated to throughout. The rest of the movie is an hourglass; It begins as an introduction to Superman's heroism and to the Clark-Lois relationship. The sand ticks away, however, and the movie gradually fades out those elements to realize a plot about Lex Luthor and nukes and real estate. When the movie showcases Margot Kidder's Lois Lane, it's groundbreaking stuff. When Lex is onscreen, it's as though a fourth rate episode of the Superman TV show snuck into the film. I was begging the movie to show another scene like the interview/date on Lois' roof over Ned Beatty reviving long-dead comedy bits, but those moments kept coming instead. What makes it hard to put Superman in on its own merits is that the thrust of the second half of the movie is dependent on the Luthor plot, and every of those scenes had turn-off-the-movie heat from me. Gene Hackman gives a solid comedy performance, granted, but the rest of the film balances emotional beats with smaller comedy moments so well, it just makes the 2nd Wave Vaudeville stuff sting worse. I'd love to gush more about Kidder, Reeve, the Williams score, or talk about Donner's direction, but I've typed way more than I should have already. Evaluating a film is most difficult when the same film contains great successes and great failures. So much of it comes together, but I find it hard to say that a movie belongs in the Canon when huge swaths of it fall so short as well. TL;DR: Batman falls well short of the canon. Superman beats it easily, although its own shortcomings make me lean closer to "Neither."