Austin Pendleton | Poffy's Movie Mania

FINDING DORY

Poffy The Cucumber — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 08:45:37 +0000

Dory uses her camouflage of species to surreptitiously touch Marlin’s bottom.

FINDING DORY is lost at sea.

She worked so well as a supporting character in FINDING NEMO (2003) that Pixar spins off Dory’s origin story in FINDING DORY – and only ends up highlighting what a horrifying brain disease she suffers from.

Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, first appeared in the animated road tale NEMO as comedy relief to Nemo’s father, Marlin. Her memory loss was the driver of many jokes in Marlin’s quest to cross an ocean to find his son. Now, in her own feature, she just comes across as retarded. And not in that inspirational way, where she conquers her disability and triumphs in an orchestra swell. No, the message in the movie is actually: act retarded like Dory and you’ll achieve your goals.

Disney, Pixar’s mother company, is renowned for mixed messages, conflicting messages and downright stupid messages, but even I can’t believe how low Disney/Pixar have, uh, sunk. You think I’m exaggerating? When our fish heroes find themselves in jams in the final act, more than once they ask themselves, “What Would Dory Do?” – and find that being impetuous, ignorant and unmindful of consequences actually saves their skins. You’re welcome, Parents.

In the movie’s opening scene, while watching Dory’s parents futilely trying to teach baby Dory how to stay away from the undertow, we get the distinct impression that Dory is short a few scales. Since fish psychology hasn’t been invented, these poor fish parents have to live with the fact that Dory is in need of round-the-clock supervision and any dreams they had of travel, relaxation or independence are dashed in being Dory’s constant caregivers.

We cut to the inevitable – Dory lost, looking for her parents. She grows up in a montage of asking other sea creatures if they can help her find what she’s looking for, until it becomes apparent that even she has forgotten what she is looking for; her prime directive becomes simply continuing a generic search…

“You doin’ okay, fish? Don’t worry, I don’t need to breathe or anything.”

In a tie-in to NEMO, Dory runs across Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) looking for Nemo (Hayden Rolence). Then their paths separate. Later, Marlin and Nemo would join Dory closer to her goal, hitching a ride with Crush the Turtle again (voice of Andrew Stanton) to the Marine Life Institute in California, where Sigourney Weaver voices the marine park’s announcements as herself.

Ty Burrell is Bailey the Beluga Whale, who uses his echo-location by putting his pectoral fins to his head like a psychic and going, “Ooooooo!”; Ed O’Neill is Hank the escapist octopus, camouflaging into his surroundings to avoid capture; Bob Peterson is flat-faced Mr. Ray the schoolteacher; Kaitlyn Olson is the shortsighted whale shark Destiny (a brazenly funny chick, but vexing as this character); Idris Elba and Dominic West are seals; there are also cameos by all the fish from the dentist’s office in NEMO, led by Willem Dafoe, still floating around the ocean in plastic bags. (Hasn’t the oxygen in their bags run out yet?)

As the journey progresses, the plot jumps the shark with incalculable lunacy, ending up with the octopus actually stealing and driving a truck into the ocean, freeing all the fish within. Don’t even ask.

We have to entertain the possibility that the title might refer to more than just the journey of Dory. (In essence, she is not really lost from the audience’s point of view, as we are physically with her all the way.) Is it about Dory “finding herself”? Is it referring to Dory’s parents losing her and trying to find her? (No, because that would’ve been told from the parents’ point of view.) Is it about Dory finding a way to live without them and still be happy? (No. Because she finds them anyway.) Is it about Dory finding a path through her cluttered lost memories to one that makes sense and redeems her? (No, her memory comes and goes as required to move the plot.) OK then… I don’t get it! I don’t get why you would put this hapless fish through this brain-wracking misery in front of craven audiences just looking for a laugh with some animated sea life.

And in the end, when everyone is happy and joyous living on the reef again (with Dory’s parents as well!), what ensures that Dory will retain enough brain power not to wander off again and cause another panic-stricken sequel?

You might have found Dory, but you lost me at octopus driving a truck.

END

FINDING DORY (Jun 2016) PG
Directors: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane.
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Victoria Strouse, Bob Peterson, Angus MacLane.
Starring: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Bob Peterson, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Andrew Stanton, Bennett Dammann, John Ratzenberger, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis.

imdb
Word Count: 760 No. 1,322

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WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

Poffy The Cucumber — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:37:11 +0000

Freakonomics and Con-sumerism.

“The mother of all evil is speculation…” So says Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS.

23 years after WALL STREET (1987), Gekko’s back! Oliver Stone‘s sequel to that pimping film is just as confusing and hedonistic, with its insider knowledge and corporate thuggery, but set very much in the present of the 2008 economic meltdown. (A newspaper headline featuring Obama indicates the times they are a-changing.) Released one year before Occupy Wall Street, I wonder how MONEY NEVER SLEEPS – a story set smack amongst the 1% – might have gone over, had it been released after the police pepper sprayings…

Michael Douglas returns as money shark Gordon Gekko, looking the worse for wear, exiting prison after doing 8 years for his amoral, sharky past, yet holding his dignity in a world market gone mercury-fast and Too-Big-To-Fail arrogant. (It should amaze all of us how everyone on the real life Wall Street is committing the same crimes Gekko committed – even as you read this! – yet only a few scapegoats do actual time.) Meanwhile, Gekko’s daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is contemplating entering prison – yes, she’s thinking of getting married. Her boyfriend is young financial upstart Jake (Shia LeBeouf) who, like most young financial upstarts, worships Gekko as a legendary Wall Streeter; while Winnie’s view of her father is akin to the Occupy Wall Streeters’ – he’s a criminal, plain and simple.

Jake works for a financial firm run by Frank Langella, a more traditional trader from a more ethical time, who is run out of business by one of the new breed of unethical sharks, Bretton James (Josh Brolin, so well-coiffed and upscale we can smell the Yves Saint-Laurent wafting off him). Plot is about Jake’s moral choices as he decides whether to follow the Old Guard or swim with the new sharks.

Gekko has published a book, Is Greed Good?, twisting around his much-quoted 80’s axiom, to reflect the cultural Zeitgeist that is now vilifying the very same avaricious hedonism it lauded in the 80s. Co-writers Stanley Weiser and Stone attempt the TERMINATOR 2 schematic, where the “villain” from the first movie returns as the “good guy” – or at least “anti-hero” – of the sequel. Michael Douglas (looking very much like father Kirk) has become a “Hannibal Lecter” trope in MONEY; the bad guy who’s the good guy, the perp who has done his time and now advises on criminal practices from the inside track. Jake seeks his advice on how to destroy Bretton.

And we realize Brolin’s Bretton is the Gordon Gekko of this movie – as ruthless, filthy rich and greedy as bad boy Gekko used to be. When Jake asks Bretton, “What’s your number to walk away from the deal? Everyone has a number,” Bretton answers, “More.”

The Wall Street crash is almost implied with this movie, as we never do hear of the methods of the crash, or the investment bankers and credit raters who gave AAA ratings to trash stocks, then sold them and betted against them – that is not the focus of this drama. And it would completely remove us from the story in blood-red outrage were those predatory felons ever mentioned.

But one aspect of half-witted trading practices comes through loud and clear. Speculation – and speculation alone – drives stocks up or down, not actual financial activity. Activity is generated BY speculation. Some mothergrabbber standing on the floor of a stock exchange wonders out loud, “D’ya think Atlantic’s stock will go down because Kim Jong Il is dead?” – and Atlantic’s stock goes down. This is how you idiot humans let your society be run. On the whims of wonderers. Stock doesn’t go up or down because the stock itself is becoming rare or plentiful, not because of the stock’s intrinsic worth at any given time, not because it is actually “rising” or “falling” in any way! Any wonder the business-savvy amoral sharks who stand in those glass-paneled rooms overlooking the stock exchange ripped your money from your incognizant, grasping fingers. You idiots deserve it!

Gekko’s illegal insider trading involved inducing others to trade on information that he knew to be false. In other words, selling a lie. So who sold the lie that women look attractive with short hair? Carey Mulligan is a tremendous actress, but whoever is telling her she’s beautiful with that atrocious Bieber hairdo is just cultivating panty, nothing further need be speculated.

And the movie itself is a grand rope-a-dope con. We only realize it during a short scene between Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen – you read that right: Charlie “Tiger Blood” Sheen makes a cameo (playing Bud Fox playing Charlie Sheen), with two women on his arm, arrogant, coked-to-the-gills, and hilarious; Gekko and Fox trying to out-boast each other on fiscal war stories. We realize this movie would have been more entertaining had its focus been these two characters circling each other like mythic beasts, rather than Brolin and LeBeouf hazily discussing stock derivatives. They called it WALL STREET and roped us in, but it’s not about those two flamboyant characters we met back in the ’80s, it’s about two new characters whom we are on the verge of actively hating due to what their real life analogues did to our mortgages and retirement accounts.

And the greatest con of all: Just when we think Gekko has been relegated to second-stringer, passively watching from the sidelines as his short-haired daughter and Jake play out their romantic drama, we discover this old dog has some new tricks. Reminding us who really has the tiger blood…

END

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (Sep 2010) R
aka: WALL STREET MONEY NEVER SLEEPS.
aka: WALL STREET 2, WALL STREET PART II.
Director: Oliver Stone.
Writers: Stanley Weiser, Oliver Stone.
Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia Le Beouf, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella, Eli Wallach, Josh Brolin, Charlie Sheen, Austin Pendleton.

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Word Count: 960 No. 780

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