Kids come running for the sweet taste of bird box.

What You Don’t See… sure can bird you.

BIRD BOX is the movie M. Night Shyamalan tried to make with THE HAPPENING.

When an unseen entity causes people to kill themselves, a lone woman and two kids brave the rapids to a refugee destination. Blindfolded.

The hook in this compelling thriller is so audacious it works: “something” that can’t be seen – by us viewers – is making people commit suicide; something unholy whispering in the air around them; something that calls inside their skulls, something so soul-crushing that when they “see” it, they are compelled to smash their faces into glass, walk into traffic or throw themselves out of windows… something that its murderous acolytes (who refuse to wear blindfolds), will tell you is beautiful.

This “creature” apparently appears to each person differently. One victim looks into the void and asks, “Mom?” and then climbs into a burning car; one victim asks, “What the fuck is that?” then wells up with tears as she willfully crashes her car. Other than that, no one else describes what none of us viewers will ever see…

Lovecraftian horror sure saves on production budget.

BIRD BOX opens with Malorie (Sandra Bullock) grimly telling two kids that they are all going on a dangerous journey; that no matter what happens – do not remove your blindfolds! While blindfolded, they follow a rope-line to the river into a small rowboat, and Malorie rows away from shore. Through constant flashbacks, we learn how these desperate people arrived here…

FIVE YEARS AGO… After a visit to an obstetrician with her sister (Sarah Paulson, who is stricken by the creatures in an incredibly-acted scene), heavily pregnant Malorie takes refuge in a house of disparate strangers, sheltering from chaos erupting in the streets, as news reports tell of a worldwide plague of suicides. Amongst the strangers, John Malkovich (who makes his “O” face a lot here; not his orgasm face, you know what I’m talking about – when he makes his mouth that O shape while looking blankly at you), B.D. Wong (as always, a solid supporting player), Lil Rel Howery (who attaches an old world legend to the incomprehensible creatures), Jacki Weaver, Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), Rosa Salazar, and Danielle Macdonald as Olympia, another pregnant woman, clingy and insecure. Trevante Rhodes is also amongst the refugees as Tom (a solid leading man presence, who is yet to make his Great Movie).

The title refers to the fact that little pet birds get agitated when the creatures are around and do not die upon seeing them (we presume), and therefore make a good Early Warning Signal. Thus, on the river, Malorie insures their journey with a shoebox containing three parakeets.

From the novel by Josh Malerman, screenplayed by Eric Heisserer as compellingly as his other efforts (HOURS, ARRIVAL), and directed by Danish-born, award winning Susanne Bier (BROTHERS, IN A BETTER WORLD), the movie flits between the crises in the refugee house – how to get food, how to avoid the creatures, how to stay sane – to the danger of the present-day river.

The movie uses its non-chronological structure to create dire conundrums, as when Malorie tells the two kids in the boat that to navigate the rapids – someone has to look! As the terrified little girl and boy gaze at her with frightened eyes, a flashback gives us a clue on who Malorie might pick for the tragic sacrifice!

Black guy heading a white family = First to Die.

Edge-of-seat storytelling coupled with excellent performances across the board: Sarah Paulson is the one who asks, “What the fuck is that?” and her visage suddenly changes, her eyes glazing into tears. We wonder where she had to go in her head to transform her face like that! Was there CGI involved? I can’t tell. Can anyone be that good an actor? And later, a stressed Tom Hollander would join the refugees indoors, bringing his own esoteric fanaticism, and some malicious artist renderings of how the creature might look (as if to allude to the Lovecraftian bent of the film, one of the drawings resembles Cthulhu). Special mention to the little girl (Vivien Lyra Blair), with an adult demeanor far beyond her years.

BIRD BOX was such a hit when released on Netflix at the end of 2018, that idiotic copycats tried some of the blindfolded stunts enacted in the movie, mainly driving while blindfolded. Let these Darwin Award Winners winnow themselves out of the human race, I say.

There are a few distractions early in the movie, most notably – Sandy’s face! Like Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock must be nearing her 90s now, but her plastic surgeon is nowhere near the skill level of Nicole’s, who continues to make her look 33. Something about the way that young-woman skin is stretched across that old-woman skull – bugs me. Secondly, I hate Flip Dialogue! Thankfully, this movie avoids that trope of characters alerting us to their relationships in opening greetings, like “Hello, sis!” yet opts for Flip Dialogue which is just as skin-crawling: Bullock is painting, listening to loud music. Paulson enters and turns down the noise, Bullock playfully chides, “Asshole, I was listening to that!” (Oh, so they’re tight. Probably sisters.) Later, pregnant Bullock is lying on a table being examined by a doctor, “I’ve never slept well, even before this…condition.” Doctor replies (flippantly) “It’s called pregnancy.” Paulson chimes in (flippantly), “Don’t you know, doc, if you ignore something it goes away?” (Oh, these characters are sooooo tight. And how many viewers did we just lose?…) Thank Cthulhu that Paulson would stun us with that fear-face not two minutes from now, to keep us glued to our idiot boxes, pondering on the nature of fear, perception, death, and the cosmic horror of plastic surgeons.

END

The best movie ever made about the worst movie ever made.

And one man’s worst performance becomes another man’s best performance.

Adept actor James Franco plays inept actor Tommy Wiseau in THE DISASTER ARTIST, a good film about the making of the bad film THE ROOM.

• In 2003, atrocious writer-director-actor Tommy Wiseau released THE ROOM, a poorly-written, artlessly-directed, badly-acted piece of crap, which nonetheless attained cult status due to Wiseau financing its continual advertising and screenings.
• In 2013, one of the stars of THE ROOM, Greg Sestero, wrote a book (co-author Tom Bissell) based on making that film: The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made.
• In 2017, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber write a screenplay based on that book, and James Franco directs and stars in THE DISASTER ARTIST.

Franco casts himself as the ambiguously-foreign Tommy, diving deep into Method with jet-raven waterfall locks, prosthetics to create a lazy eye, a ripped body, and an accent that Tommy claims is from New Orleans (if by New Orleans he means Lithuania). Reportedly, Franco stayed in character while he was directing, which was a big laugh to his longtime acquaintances who were also cast-mates. (Franco brings Tommy Wiseau along to junkets on talk shows, and I find it hilarious how he only talks to Wiseau in the Wiseau accent, as if it’s a language.)

THE DISASTER ARTIST is told from the point of view of Greg Sestero (played by James’s brother, Dave Franco), Tommy’s best friend (who Tommy cast in THE ROOM as, uh, his best friend). We follow Tommy and Greg from their first meeting at an acting class in San Francisco, through their tribulations in Hollywood (where they move into Tommy’s Los Angeles apartment – just one of many around the world that he can mysteriously afford), to the set of Tommy’s self-financed film after finding no success in the movie business. It is on this last leg that their friendship will be tested, and I find it a decidedly cynical “Hollywood” denouement that they remain friends to this day in real life only due to the success of THE ROOM, however undeserved and unwitting that was.

Franco has gone Daniel Day Lewis in his portrayal of Tommy, from Tommy’s military-styled jackets, to his pocketed dockers held up by numerous belts, to Tommy’s lazy delivery and stunted vernacular, down to his ingratiating little chortle and his inability to throw a football! It’s the role of a lifetime for this talented actor, and the mimicry provides most of the comedy. Brother Dave, up to this point, hesitant to act with James due to trying to forge his own career, is eminently relatable as the bad actor who hooks up with a force of nature that shepherds him into the biz.

Seth Rogen is Sandy the script supervisor, Paul Scheer is Raphael the DP, Zac Efron plays the character Chris-R (notably the best actor in THE ROOM, with Efron probably the best actor of this bunch as well, in this five-minute cameo). June Diane Raphael plays Robin (the hottest chick in THE ROOM and the same here), while Ari Graynor plays Lisa (Tommy’s girlfriend in THE ROOM); Josh Hutcherson plays that floppy-haired weirdo Denny, and Jacki Weaver delivers Lisa’s mother’s lines with that suitable deadness, especially when talk turns to breast cancer. Which she definitely has.

The first half of THE DISASTER ARTIST is played for comedy. No one can quite figure what is up with this Tommy guy; as in real life, this movie does not reveal the mysteries behind his age, ethnicity or financial background; he obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing as a filmmaker (shooting in 35mm and digital simultaneously), but his checks get cashed and that’s all that matters (a bank teller tells Sandy that Tommy’s account is “a bottomless pit” – but I doubt any teller would be that unethical).

In the latter half, the movie loses its breezy tone. Whilst filming THE ROOM, Tommy succumbs to megalomania, blindly leading the more experienced cast and crew while ironically claiming he has a vision, cussing them out regularly, and obsessing over details that would prove inconsequential in the final product. We lose our sense of wanting Tommy to succeed despite his shortcomings. At many points, we wish he could be taught a lesson on how bad THE ROOM really is. Unfortunately, real life has superseded art, and through Tommy’s insistent paid screenings, THE ROOM has attained cult status, and made back its budget many times over, playing at midnight screenings around the world. And the fact THE DISASTER ARTIST exists has made any life lesson for Tommy moot. The time for THE ROOM to sink into the overflowing hellpit of failed Los Angeles projects has long past, and its infamy guarantees that Tommy will never realize what a tool he truly is.

In making a movie about THE ROOM, Franco and Co. actually shoot some scenes from THE ROOM (as filler for when the gang is watching the movie in the theater in the finale). And these scenes are uncannily recreated, terribly-produced and terribly-acted ROOM scenes; so much good work to reproduce so much bad work. It gets so meta that we expect to see ourselves onscreen, looking at ourselves onscreen, looking at ourselves onscreen…

One theme that James Franco makes apparent in DISASTER ARTIST is a theme Tommy Wiseau failed to purvey effectively in THE ROOM: betrayal. Franco as Tommy finds betrayal in everyone around him – from acting coaches who suggest he should be a Frankenstein-like villain, to Hollywood casting agents who laugh at his accent; from producers that he tries to cajole in restaurants (Judd Apatow cameo) to his own cast and crew. Tommy finds betrayal in the fact Greg moves in with his girlfriend (Alison Brie), as opposed to staying his roomie; betrayal in Greg stretching to other projects; betrayal in Greg calling him out on his age, ethnicity and financial background. Thus, from this film, we can now more fully sense that betrayal theme built into the original film this movie is about – of course, we say: in THE ROOM, Tommy’s girlfriend and best friend both BETRAY him by having an affair! We were too busy laughing and being slack-jawed in shock before.

There is a tragic background tale to Greg appearing with a beard in the first part of THE ROOM, and then clean-shaven for the conclusion. Tommy had the notion that Greg should shave in the second half of the movie due to being a best man at an upcoming wedding. And in real life, Greg was asked NOT to shave for a walk-on lumberjack role he scored by making a lucky contact with Bryan Cranston (playing himself) at a café. Greg asked Tommy for a day off to do the Cranston shoot. And this is where Franco’s Tommy attains his nadir of darkness, selfishness and con-man. Not only did Tommy veto Greg’s time off, he forced him to shave, almost like he was removing any chance for Greg to sneak off in the near future to do the Cranston gig, implying that a one-off gig with Cranston would lead nowhere, while Greg’s starring role in Tommy’s excellent film would rocket his career. And citing betrayal just to twist the knife. Greg, disconsolate for possibly destroying his career by blowing off Cranston, stays. And shaves. Whether he made the right choice or not is pure conjecture. It is at this nadir for Greg that Dave Franco’s performance, ironically, achieves its zenith. (It’s also ironic that Tommy would cite Greg as the betrayer when Tommy is actually the one betraying Greg from moving up.)

The only aspect I disagree with in THE DISASTER ARTIST is the way Franco portrays Tommy as a “dreamer struggling to make it.” That’s a fine point of view if you are a talented artist who is not recognized, and the frustration of your predicament causes you to go all-out with some grand scheme that is do-or-die. Now – take that whole previous sentence, apply it to Tommy Wiseau, and remove the words “talented artist.”

Even the talking heads that open the film (including Ike Barinholtz, Kevin Smith, Keegan-Michael Key, J.J. Abrams and Kristin Bell) promote the wrong message: that Tommy’s struggles as a downtrodden artist paid off. “…the sheer ambition…” “A combination of fearlessness and confusing self-belief…” They’re not saying, “It’s a shit movie – with an amazing turn of fate due to insidious marketing,” no, the content of their enthusiastic tributes leans toward the film being a passion project of great quality. And that is the wrong message in a world where people cannot discern facts from fake, where as many people support lack of quality as support craftsmanship and hard work; it’s the Howard Stern defense: ‘if it makes money, it’s gotta be good.’ So the very existence of this film, THE DISASTER ARTIST, muddies the waters about the actual level of quality of THE ROOM. That is, zero.

Let’s get that straight: there is NO QUALITY in THE ROOM. Zero quality, zero talent, zero craft, zero production value, zero understanding of filmmaking dialect. Yet it retains some kind of “worth,” for it is, in fact, maximum entertainment, due to that rubbernecker’s glee of trying to see a dismembered head in the street while driving past a horrific crash. And there is zero curiosity from Tommy Wiseau to educate himself in the craft. Meaning that over the past 14 years of THE ROOM’s existence, Tommy Wiseau has not created anything of quality to dispel the notion that he still doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing. He just keeps eating out on THE ROOM…

Yes, Tommy had ambition and a dream that wouldn’t die, and the balls to make something of his own, and all that stuff they keep telling us artists to cling to – but there’s one difference between Tommy and the majority of struggling artists with dreams to conquer the world, who take up residence in a Hollywood apartment that smells of pee – MONEY. However mysterious its source, Tommy had money to market his product. And when you market anything with enough verve, you get results. Look at the Snuggie, look at the Salad Shooter, look at the STAR WARS Prequels, hell, look at the dimwit, racist 45th president of the United States!

What also creeps through is the notion that due to THE ROOM’s inadvertent success, Tommy is a success as an artist. The fact that Tommy can accompany Franco on THE DISASTER ARTIST junkets and claim fame, however vicarious, seems to bolster that notion. But it is just a case of money – and money doesn’t make something of no quality attain inherent quality. Look at the Snuggie, look at the Salad Shooter, look at the STAR WARS Prequels, hell, look at the dimwit, racist 45th president of the United States!

So I’m not sure what the aim of THE DISASTER ARTIST is. In one respect, James Franco has crafted a reasonable comedy about a comedic figure in filmic history. In another sense, he is paying tribute to someone who simply had the money to continue the advertising push of something that should have died a grisly death in the crib. This is not a movie about a film deserving of tribute, like THE GODFATHER, UNFORGIVEN, or 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

This is about the making of THE ROOM. Which is definitely not a film deserving of accolades. It is naaaht.

END

Couldn’t find the silver lining.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a teachable moment in filmic history. They showed us how to cure bipolar disease. You just need to get laid!

Two damaged people Meet Cute. They pretend to hate each other. By movie’s end, they love each other, which apparently means they’re not damaged anymore. Yay. All it took was sex.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the single most overrated piece of romantic crap that I stepped in because other people were stepping in it and saying how nice it tasted through their shoes. Sure, gutterloads of frilly romcoms assault us weekly, but none so pretentious. Due to this movie’s plot revolving around bipolar disease, it acquires Oscar cred. And Oscar cred apparently connotes High Art, rather than Chick Flick bullshit. You lost me at White American Heterosexual Couple who should just screw and get it over with.

Mantoy Bradley Cooper is Patrick, bipolar, just out of hospital, lost his job, wife, house, moved back in with parents Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver. His temper is on a hair trigger, his meds intake erratic, his filters non-existent, as are his social skills. Manically believing that bettering himself by reading Hemingway and losing weight and looking for the “silver lining” in every situation will endear him to his adulterous ex-wife, he is painted as crazy. And he is. We all know crazy when we meet it, even if you euphemize it as “bipolar.” And Patrick is crazy. But – so the movie tells us – Patrick becomes Not Crazy after The Sex with Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence is Tiffany, recently widowed, and with such low self-esteem that she banged the whole office after her husband’s death, even the women. She says she doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore, but it’s a part of her that she accepts and likes. I like that part of her too. Wanna get a drink sometime, Jennifer? That raven hair, those dark, dark eyes; swiveling that sexy little botty during her dance routine. So cute, the way she keeps darting out from behind a tree, to jog with Patrick – “Hey–!” That kills me!  And those cheeks! I just wanna pinch em pinch em pinch em PINCH EM! And the ones on her face are pretty cute too.

Tiffany also has no filters, which she construes as “being truthful” (which is correct), is well-acquainted with meds, and is as socially inept as Patrick, yet though she was previously married to a cop in a stable loving relationship until his death, now she is attracted to loser Patrick. For no reason other than the script says so. He’s a bad catch (bipolar, no prospects, unpredictable, unreliable), so her stalking reaction to him must be because he’s hot. But is a character in an Oscar film allowed to be that shallow? Or are we meant to regard her irrational pursuit as True Love? Then it’s okay to be a stalker. Meg Ryan tells us so in FRENCH KISS (and every other execrable piece of dogshit that she calls romantic comedies). Or are we to assume that Tiffany is still obsessed with casual sex to satiate her demons when she tells Patrick, “You can fuck me if you keep the lights off”? And – by your own judgment – isn’t casual sex a Bad Thing?

I know why *I* love her – because I like casual sex and I like sluts. And those cheeks. But that’s not what MAINSTREAM SOCIETY likes. Is it? Do you? Then why do you like this character? Are you vicariously living your own wet dreams through her? Shut up, hypocrites!

It’s not that I dislike PLAYBOOK. The film is funny in odd places, and the performances from the stars are stellar, as can be expected. Even the B-players are all reliably solid: Paul Herman (BEANSIE from THE SOPRANOS) as De Niro’s compulsive gambling buddy, Julia Styles as Tiffany’s sister, Paul Ortiz as Julia’s henpecked husband, Chris Tucker as Patrick’s friend, another patient from the hospital, constantly trying to escape. The only miscasting seems to be Dash Mihok as a policeman, that turns up whenever and wherever he’s needed to quell disturbances (shyeh, when has that ever happened? I mean, this guy is on duty 24/7 keeping tabs on Patrick, whether it’s a family disturbance at 3am or a Sunday football game). But PLAYBOOK doesn’t go nearly deep enough to warrant its claim as a beacon and boon to bipolar people; that for those who feel alone or depressed, they can take heart that someone out there understands their predicament. Well, someone out there just might – but it ain’t the filmmakers of PLAYBOOK.

De Niro’s character is supposedly obsessive-compulsive, and arranges his remote controls and folds his hanky a certain way, and believes son Patrick is a good luck charm for his football team. That’s not Obesssive Compulsive Disorder – that’s arranging your remote controls and folding your hanky and being a superstitious clod. Try dating someone with OCD and then get back to me on your understanding of it.

Which leads us to: Do the filmmakers know what ‘bipolar’ really is? Writer-director David O. Russell (from the book by Matthew Quick) plays Patrick’s situation like a fish-out-of-water tale: Pat’s back from the hospital too soon and trying to fit in with normal society again. Wackiness ensues.

Telling tall tales and having a tripwire temper, and going to jail for petty disturbances and having a cop check in regularly doesn’t mean you’re bipolar. It means you’re a fuckup. But waitaminute, you say, that describes ME. But I’m not a “fuckup”… okay, let’s go with the euphemism… I’m BIPOLAR! Yay. Soooo socially acceptable.

Movie doesn’t go anywhere near deep enough to make us truly concerned or disturbed. It’s two sexy white kids with no debilitating physical deformities verbally sparring until they have sexual intercourse.

And here’s where the bipolar express really leaves the rails: final scene shows an idyllic Sunday afternoon at Patrick’s household, parents, friends, Patrick and Tiffany in a cutesy embrace; there is not one shred of indication that Patrick and Tiffany are in an ongoing battle with their ids, their antisocial personas. For all intents and purposes, the movie paints a rosy picture of everyone being normal. And why? Because Patrick and Tiffany are an item. So that’s all it takes? The movie spends two hours setting up bipolar and OCD and self-esteem issues as the obstacles that these youngsters must overcome to find each other, then in its final frames, it tells us those obstacles were easily curable if only the youngsters overcame the biggest obstacle – taking down each others’ panties. Cos apparently that cured not just them, but everyone acquainted with them!

But Tiffany has a problem so deep rooted that as soon as she believed Patrick was not with her psychologically, she turned to drink and a quick lay. She did this at THE most important moment of their lives up to that point. What’s to say she won’t do it again when she feels him drifting? And Patrick’s temper is supposedly so out of control that he can’t be trusted not to get into a fight at a football match. Both of them have no filters when we meet them. Are we to believe that they have now suddenly grown filters on their big mouths? If you rationalize that both their anti-social behaviors were only manifest because they were still seeking their soul-mates, that in itself is an argument against their supposed serious conditions of bipolarity. That way lies the kingdom of fuckup. Not clinical depression or bipolarity or obsession.

So you know those times when you hit the roof and throw things at the wall and one of your friends says, “Dude, you need to get laid.”

Turns out they’re right.

END