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Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (2005, Liam Lynch)
There are a few things I try not to do with these posts. First, I try not to use too many adjectives. I used to be better at this one. For fun, just go back and do a search for “incredibly.” I was using it twice a post, which is two times too many. Second, I try not to write the post before I even start reading or watching the text. With Jesus is Magic, since it’s a comedy concert with musical discretions, I had something I could say before I watched it. I could say, I had no idea how to write up a concert film. I’ve only seen a few (HBO comedy specials don’t count and neither does Comedian) and they were all music concerts and I had nothing to say about them after watching them (even though it was long before The Stop Button). So, I didn’t think I’d have anything to say about Jesus is Magic.
Luckily, Jesus is Magic isn’t good, so I can easily say quite a few things about it.
I was never a standup comic guy… I’ve never seen one live and between watching Comic Relief tapes in the late 1980s, I didn’t see any actual standup until Seinfeld’s I’m Telling You for the Last Time on DVD in 1999–so probably ten years, but maybe nine. I heard some (Chris Rock’s Bigger & Blacker) in 1999, actually, as well. The fiancée, however, loves standup (she thinks Seinfeld’s standup bits are funnier than the episodes of “Seinfeld”). She’s reintroduced me to Carlin and we’ve watched all the Chris Rock HBO specials. I’m somewhat familiar with standup now and–especially after Comedian–I have a real appreciate for good standup. Sarah Silverman is not a good standup comic. She’s also not a good singer and songwriter, but I’ll get to that part in a paragraph or two.
Jesus is Magic is funny–the title line comes from a funny joke about Silverman and her Catholic boyfriend having kids (“Mommy is one of the Chosen People and Daddy believes Jesus is magic”)–but not really… Silverman has outrageous setups and awful closes. She’s faithful to her shtik above all–she’s an egocentric Jewish girl who talks about race and sex and smokes pot–but her observations about race and sex are old hat. I’ve seen all of Silverman’s jokes on “Family Guy,” except maybe some of the Jewish ones, and they work better on “Family Guy” because it does visual presentation of comedy. Most of the glowing reviews I read online–I was excited for Jesus is Magic from the great preview, but from the first three minutes I could tell how it was going to go–most of the reviewers hung out with Silverman after the screening, before they wrote their reviews. I hate using they. English needs a male plural. Besides men. I need a masculine form of reviewers dammit. I think I should brush up on my French and start publishing The Stop Button in French. Not a fan of the contractions, but it’s a nice language. Anyway, I didn’t hang with Silverman. I wouldn’t like her, I don’t think. We wouldn’t have anything to talk about. Liking her standup is buying into it–you’ve got to part of the group. Silverman only tells jokes she knows her audience will find funny. She plays only to her demographic. In other words, you’ve got to be the white person who thinks he or she isn’t racist so you can laugh at Silverman’s race jokes. It might work better in the film if there were any Asian people visible in the audience. I think I saw a black guy, but I might be wrong. Or maybe Silverman really is funny and the joke is white people laughing about racism….
Then it would be funny. Instead, it’s “Family Guy,” only not good.
But Silverman’s set is only about forty-minutes out of the seventy minute movie. The rest are either scene–the terrible opening five minutes–or musical numbers. The musical numbers are well-produced, the songs just aren’t any good. It’s some of the jokes in the songs. It’s not funny. Especially when Silverman does a song recounting material she just did… They’re superfluous. Though the editing is nice. The editing is about the only technical aspect of Jesus is Magic I can find something nice to say about. The direction is bad. It alternates between an overhead long shot, close-up, and a torso shot. Silverman doesn’t move very much and I kept thinking the director should have been watching some HBO specials. There’s also no transparency about the making of the film. There’s a dumb story and dumb song about she throws it all together in one day, but there are four or five cameras on her. That grandiose camera setup is not part of jokey agreement of the film. It’s slick and the film never says it’s going to be slick.
When the film actually came out last fall (all the glowing fanboy reviews were from festival screenings), Jesus is Magic did not get good reviews. The critics were offended, in particular, by 9/11 jokes. They should have been offended by the film, not those jokes. Those jokes were pretty damn funny… but the film isn’t.
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An Affair (1998, Lee Je-yong)
After Asako in Ruby Shoes, I had high hopes for An Affair, Lee’s first film. Seeing one film, then going back and watching earlier films from the same director can be odd. You’re watching the blossoming in reverse. I’m trying to think of someone whose first films aren’t good. An Affair is good, it’s just not as good as Asako. It came really close to being… close to Asako, but Lee’s powerful visualization isn’t fully realized in An Affair. He has wonderful framing–there’s one particular scene, when the two people having the affair are walking along a lake and their motion pulls the camera… until the end the shot, they’re in control of the camera, not the director. The sound design is the most striking. Every one in the film works to create the mood. The music’s also important, but the sound design is more masterful. Everything hasn’t come together yet. He doesn’t understand just how important he make his shots.
More, however, the film’s problems come from the screenplay. For the first half of the film, the cuckold is poorly defined. He’s a successful architect… he works too much… blah blah blah. In the second half, of course, we learn he’s harboring deep feelings for a coworker (and has been for years) and suppresses them to keep his marriage together. He reacts to his suspicions in wonderful ways… ways the character in the first half wasn’t capable of realizing. The boyfriend, played by Lee Jung-Jae, who’s usually great, is an enigma for the first half of the film. It could have been a stalker movie during the seduction. Lee (the actor), in all of his other films, realizes these conflicted characters, and here he’s got his armed tied behind his back… (by Lee, the director). The film hides the character and his intentions from the audience, which is not a good thing to do.
Lee Mi-suk, the wife, gives the film’s best performance because it’s her film. She’s quiet and her performance is a perfect performance for (the director) Lee’s style–it synthesizes with the rest of An Affair. Lee Jung-Jae’s doesn’t (again, not all his fault), but it needed to do so. Together, however, the two leads are wonderful. They play very well off each other and, in the early scenes, the ominous air about the boyfriend begins to make one wary of the film. You can’t trust the film and a film like this one–(it’s long… it’s boring… it’s that good boring I love so much… it’s a lengthy 108 minutes)–you need to be able to trust it.
An Affair is a good film, made by a great director who wasn’t quite ready on the writing. But, he had a co-writer, so… who knows….
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Valley of the Kings (1954, Robert Pirosh)
Eighty-six minute movies are not supposed to be boring. Eighty-six minute sound films anyway. Valley of the Kings manages to be boring in the first twelve minutes. Even those twelve minutes are boring. It takes the film until just over the halfway point to actually get moving. Not interesting, not good, but moving. There are three action scenes back-to-back–a sandstorm, a Bedouin duel, and a fist-fight atop a giant Egyptian statue. The film tries to start with action too–a buggy chase within the first six minutes, but chases are hard enough to do in cars, much less buggies.
Valley of the Kings was filmed on location in Egypt, so I imagine those visuals were much of the prospective appeal, but the writing’s bad–in multiple ways–and the director doesn’t know how to make the visuals work for the film. They’re background instead of attraction and the film still tries to replace content with them. At eighty-six minutes, it’s hard for a film to take much responsibility–and Valley of the Kings tells the story of the archeological proof of Joseph in Egypt (something archeology has yet to prove), and it’s a deep subject. A lot has to go on… and nothing goes on in Valley of the Kings. It tries to be a few films–one about this search for evidence, another about adulterous relationship, and yet another (action-filled one) of grave-robbing intrigue. In the end, it doesn’t any of these subjects seriously and there’s little to hold together….
…except, of course, the locations–which are excellent in the second half–and Robert Taylor. Valley of the Kings is Taylor and Eleanor Parker’s second of three films together (for MGM). Their first, Above and Beyond, was great. This one manages to waste Parker by changing her character in the third act (she becomes positively unlovable in the last three scenes, then the film expects the audience to embrace her). She has a cuckold, played by Carlos Thompson (who I’ve never seen in anything else, much to my glee)… but the opening credits tell us the film stars Taylor and Parker. Taylor is getting the girl, so there aren’t many surprises once it gets going. Taylor is great in the film and would have been even better had to been serious film about archeology or adulterous affairs.
The film has a lot respect for the Muslim characters it portrays, much more respect then they get today in films–even in culturally sensitive films. It’s a reasonably important footnote in the history of American perspective of Muslims (Islamic fundamentalism hadn’t come around yet) and they’re treated with more respect then the European character, who’s a big shithead.
Valley of the Kings isn’t terrible thanks to the second half, but Robert Pirosh is a bad writer and a bad director. Of the two problems, the writing hurts the film most. With a good script and another twenty minutes, Valley of the Kings would… still not be as good as Above and Beyond, but it wouldn’t be so middling.
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Leviathan (1989, George P. Cosmatos)
Leviathan has to be one of the few films where the hero punches out a woman for audience satisfaction, which is actually quite an achievement for the film, since it’s so derivative. Leviathan is Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Peter Hyams’ Outland rolled together, with an amazing 1980s cast kneaded into the dough–there’s Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters, Daniel Stern in his final, pre-Home Alone role, and Lisa Eilbacher from Beverly Hills Cop. Stern essentially plays his Home Alone role and Eilbacher isn’t particularly good (but, the good heavily outweighs the bad), but Hudson’s likable. The script gives the actors a little something–quirks, good speeches, anything to establish them in a couple minutes.
Leviathan is one of David Webb Peoples’ genre scripts. Peoples is known for Blade Runner, Unforgiven, and Twelve Monkeys, but he also wrote a lot of other sci-fi stuff that ended up getting made. Leviathan is actually a rather well-constructed film. It’s tense when it’s supposed to be tense and it never takes itself too seriously–though it would be hard, since Peter Weller is well-aware of what he’s doing (I think he once said he took the role so he could get a free trip to Italy). There’s even character establishment well into the second act, which I always like, coming out naturally instead of being explained to the audience. The script’s far from perfect–it prejudges Stern’s character, making it impossible for the audience to care about him.
When I worked at a video store, I once recommended Leviathan to someone over The Abyss (they came out at the same time). I caught hell for it from the customer and from a co-worker, but there’s nothing wrong with Leviathan. It’s beautiful–shot by Alex Thomson of all people–it’s ninety-six minutes of dumb fun with no glaring faults. Weller is always an interesting lead actor, it’s probably Richard Crenna’s finest work (Alien³ is actually derivative of Leviathan when it comes to medical officers), and Amanda Pays is good in the film. I rented it after I watched Dead on the Money and she’s actually good for a lot of Leviathan–she relates better to the film camera than the TV camera.
So, I feel rather vindicated. Now, I’m not recommending Leviathan, but there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if I was….
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Lucky Number Slevin (2006, Paul McGuigan)
Critics enjoy ruining movies on the day of release. They must–Roger Ebert gives away more endings then not (he gave away The Sixth Sense of all things). Worse, however, is when critics spoil the experience for the audience. I read a couple reviews of Lucky Number Slevin today and one said it’d have audiences picking it apart like they did Memento. Besides the incredibly odd image of anyone exerting brain power on Memento, this review put me on my guard during Slevin and it wasn’t fair of it to do so… There is a twist in Slevin, but you’re supposed to figure it out–heck, you’re supposed to figure it out really, really early. I figured it out late because I kept waiting for Patrick Duffy to take a shower. The twist isn’t what the movie’s about, it isn’t the filmmakers’ focus. In other words, last time I read that critic….
Lucky Number Slevin is Josh Hartnett and Paul McGuigan’s second film together, after Wicker Park. They’re an odd pair, or at least were when they got together–McGuigan makes tough violent films and Hartnett was, at that time, about to become Brett Ratner’s Superman. Slevin is easily McGuigan’s best film, just because he’s got so much to do–it’s not just witty banter between crooks or violent scenes or even an incredibly touching love story (the date in Slevin is the best movie date in years)–but it’s also a serious story about fathers and sons. I actually can’t wait to watch Slevin again, because without the fear of the Duffy, I can appreciate the film’s depth. It’s touching in small moments, small ways, ways maybe one cannot understand the first time through… maybe that critic was correct in that regard.
Still, for the first viewing, Slevin is constantly entertaining. There’s a slow start at the beginning, but once Hartnett appears, it starts. Nicely, it starts with Lucy Liu (as the love interest) popping in. She and Hartnett are great together in the film, but their relationship is so well written it’d be hard for them to be bad together. The other acting is all excellent, particularly Ben Kingsley. It’s his loosest role and he has a great time with it. Morgan Freeman is good, but he’s playing Morgan Freeman again. He’s been playing Morgan Freeman since Unforgiven or so. Stanley Tucci is in the film for a bit and he gets to say “fuck” again. He’s got one particularly great scene with it. Bruce Willis has a difficult role, since he’s supposed to be the enigma, but he manages to do a couple nice things with it. Hartnett’s back in his usual, excellent form (Mozart and the Whale seeming like a high school play).
I remember the back of my Sabrina (the remake) laserdisc. It said, approximately, everyone knows what’s going to happen, so the joy of Sabrina is watching it happen. I might not have predicted everything in Slevin (though the fiancée did), but I certainly did enjoy watching it unfold–McGuigan does a masterful job with it. He’s getting to be a singular talent.
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