Mad Men was a workplace drama set in an advertising agency. Most of the characters in Mad Men earned their livelihood working at a Madison Avenue advertising firm (the splendidly-named Sterling Cooper), and that workplace provided many of the show’s defining moments. Yet for all the excitement and catharsis of the pitch room, the show excelled in depicting all the mundane twiddlings, the stuff between the client lunches, that came to define the characters as people.
Life rarely works out the way we expect it to. Sometimes you think you are going to take your new company by storm, but your foot gets run over by a lawn mower on your first day. Sometimes you go on a duck hunt with your best client and get your eye shot out. Life is full of failures, but none of them truly herald the end of times. Life is often stranger than fiction, and Mad Men strove to juxtapose the wildly strange with the relatably mundane. Such was its magic. Read more…
This is a little off brand for me, but I wanted to use some time and space to appreciate one of the great prime time soap operas of my lifetime: The O.C.
In August of 2003, as I was gearing up for freshman year of high school, Fox debuted a hot new show called The O.C. (a mostly unwanted slang name for Orange County, CA). Josh Schwartz’s delightfully trashy and hyperbolic teen drama opened to big ratings and strong reviews. Like Icarus flying too close to that lovely Southern California sun, ratings and enthusiasm petered out over ensuing seasons. The final episodes ran in early 2007, capping a satisfying, somewhat truncated, 92 episode run over four seasons.
The series began with Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) and his older brother being arrested for grand theft auto. Ryan is the Chino, CA, version of Will from Good Will Hunting, right down to his aggressive intellect, hotheadedness and bowl cut. Enter Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), public defender and wise father figure, to help guide Ryan, just 16, to a more constructive path. Unable to regain footing in his personal life, Ryan takes up residence in the Cohen family pool house. Sandy, Kirsten (Kelly Rowan) and Seth (Adam Brody) live a posh life in Newport Beach, and generously adopt Ryan as part of the family. Just try and tell me that Will Hunting getting adopted by a wealthy Newport family isn’t a tantalizing setup.
Yes, that Deep Blue Sea. The one where scientists run a medical laboratory floating in the middle of the… deep blue sea. The one where they’re testing Alzheimer’s drugs on marine life. The one where normal sharks become supersharks. Despite its late night movie trappings, director Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea is pretty enjoyable pop art.
At times, the tone suggests horror comedy like Tremors, Lake Placid or Slither. But Deep Blue Sea (1999) often takes itself a little more seriously than those, and generally not to its detriment. The most apt comparison might actually be Jurassic Park. While Deep Blue Sea simply doesn’t have the gravity of the Spielberg film, it does dial up a lot of junk science mumbo jumbo, and feature genetically enhanced monster mayhem.
“What in God’s creation?”
“Not in His. Ours.”
Tony: Quick tangent. Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. While I haven’t seen that yet, that has to be one of the year’s great movie titles. Sometimes a movie‘s title gets ruined when you actually see that movie itself, but I like to think that films win an important battle early on when they really nail down a great title. Typically, a great title tells you something vital to the story, even if you don’t know exactly what it means at first and I think it has to have some lyrical quality as well. Here are my top five titles from 2014, regardless of whether I’ve seen them or not, in some order:
Nightcrawler/Foxcatcher (Nightcrawler is the better title, but don’t they look great next to each other??)
The Hundred Foot Journey
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Only Lovers Left Alive
Inherent Vice
Zack: You know, I hadn’t really thought to put together a list of the best-named films this past year, but that does seem like a fun little exercise. Read more…
Last week, I posted the first part of a conversation I had with my friend Zack (check him out at @QuickFilmPile to find out what movies he’s been watching). He saw a ton of movies last year and is always game for this kind of thing. This conversation occurred in the week leading up to the Oscars, hence any conspicuous lack of Oscar talk you may notice. Read on to see what we had to say about 2014’s auteur landscape as well as our unpopular opinions.
Tony: What do you think? Time to see what the reigning auteurs were up to in 2014?
Zack: Staring down the entirety of the list I made for all the films I saw in 2014, it really shows what a ridiculous year it was for auteurs. Richard Linklater, David Fincher, Jim Jarmusch, Christopher Nolan, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Bennett Miller, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Lars von Trier – the list goes on.
I’m a fervent PTA supporter, as can likely be seen, so my feelings there are fairly apparent. But look at the rest of those names. Filmic constants still churning out great art. Did you have a favorite auteurist vision this year from a known name? And was there a new cinematic voice you found that you feel warrants discussion?
I’m eager to see what you say. I’ll respond in kind.
Tony: It’s always fun to see which directors are active in any given year. The list of big names was long this year and we didn’t even get anything from Tarantino, Spielberg, Soderbergh (I’m holding out hope that he hasn’t retired to TV permanently), etc.
I went non-traditional in expressing my Oscar opinions this year. It was a lot of fun. I also needed a good way spiritually move on from 2014 as a cinematic year and decided to have another conversation. This one with Zack (@QuickFilmPile), another friend from college, was actually conducted via email in the week leading up to the Oscars. Zack lives in New York City and saw approximately 150(!) films from 2014. I chose to exploit this fact by chatting him up about what he saw and it ended up being a great structure for discussing a great number of movies and topics.
Tony: So Zack, what did you think of 2014 movie-wise? Good year? Weak year? A Most Violent Year? I feel that a quick survey of 2014 makes it look like a pretty strong one, but it will be interesting to look back down the road and see what sticks. I think at least a handful will have staying power, which I guess is a good start.
Zack: Hey, Tony. I’d have to start off by saying I thought 2014 was, by and large, an entertaining and varied year for movies. I suppose this could be said most years, but maybe I can just appreciate it more this year. Some big-name directors (at least to me) released some great work. Some indie features blindsided me. There were unexpectedly fun adaptations and disarmingly original works.
Looking down my year-end list leads me to believe two things: Read more…
Our Planet Burke 