post-apocalyptic

today we bid a tearful goodbye to the first of what i hope will be several installments of queue de grâce. i want to say a most heartfelt thank you to my curator, miss chelsea george.

it probably wasn't the easiest thing in the world to put together a list of some of your favorite things and hand it off to someone knowing they might publicly rip it to shreds. i am glad she went to the time and trouble. i hope she feels like it was worthwhile. i certainly do. and, in addition to the other benefits of this viewing experience, anytime i need a laugh i can just picture a li'l chelsea doing her best rodney dangerfield impression. man, she loved that guy.

for posterity's sake, here's what i saw:

valley girl (1983)

soldier child (1998)

the count of monte cristo (2002)

center stage (2000)

how to be a serial killer (2008)

rover dangerfield (1991)

sweet home alabama (2002)

terminator 2: judgment day (1991)

la bamba (1987)

romy and michele's high school reunion (1997)

now and then (1995)

ladybugs (1992)

casino (1995)

gentlemen prefer blondes (1953)

the land before time (1988)

the september issue (2009)

i ran out of time before i could get to these, but for chelsea i will keep them in the queue and watch them all, eventually:

clash of the titans (1981)

corrina, corrina (1994)

wristcutters: a love story (2006)

trailer park boys: the movie (2006)

if you are late to the party, you can go back to the beginning here and for more insight into the infernal workings of chelsea's mind please visit something terrible has happened. if you're a tumblr user you can follow her there. she craves minions to do her bidding shopping!

if you would like to be my curator for a week some time please drop me a line and let me know. i plan on doing these on a semi-regular basis, a few times a year, anyway. cabby, caroline, jon, shen, summer and joe - i already have you guys on the list. anyone else who is interested i will add in order of when their request was received. thanks for following along.

apocalypse chelsea: day seven

we have arrived at the final day of our little experiment. bloodied but unbowed.

day seven:

without a doubt, the most heinous thing i saw all week was the first thing in the chute today - gentlemen prefer blondes (1953).

the opening is an awkward leap directly into a musical number, as if they can't establish the twin pillars this thing is built on - sexual objectification and abject moneygrubbing - fast enough. i am a big fan of howard hawks, typically, but i hate this movie. it's a musical, yes, so it's intentionally broad but any satire that could have brought me over to their side is lost amid the sparkle of a million sequins. since they miss the mark with that so badly, all that's left is a bunch of people ironically and glibly reinforcing the worst gender stereotypes of the fifties leaving me no one to root for. i think about what preston sturges could do with these themes, for instance, and am left profoundly disappointed. the plot is barely enough to bother recounting - two showgirls in search of love and money end up on a cruise to france, betrothed's father sends private investigator - with good reason - to see what hijinks they're up to, men chase women, women chase men, women chase money, wacky mix-ups abound, they get straightened out, everyone gets married. the end. somewhere in between, marilyn monroe does her iconic "diamonds are a girl's best friend" number.

this number is the film in a nutshell. marilyn essaying the twin roles of innocent and whore simultaneously, the men as playthings and objectifiers simultaneously. sex as power, used to manipulate. never once in this film is sex portrayed as something partners do for each other. it is always leverage, something you do to someone, usually for gain. at least in sweet home alabama (2002), from earlier this week, reese witherspoon, after being knocked for a loop by tiffany & co., came to the realization that she actually wanted her husband to be her best friend, not a diamond. fancy that. our young lovers in this gem never have that epiphany. the showgirl snares the millionaire. the lure of pure sex in a pink satin gown landed a man that is dull-witted and easily manipulated. for his trouble, he now has a beautiful wife who is vapid and mercenary. congratulations. you all lose.

next, we leave this mess for a more advanced and enlightened era, the prehistory of the land before time (1988).

i was long past the target age for this thing upon its release, but i imagine if you were five years old in 1988, or any year since, it fairly made your head explode. dinosaurs! and they talk! and they're like me and my friends! seriously, these things are freaking adorable. while it doesn't quite have the art and depth to make it into the pantheon where disney reigns, it does pretty much everything right. a band of li'l orphaned dinosaurs go off after a cataclysmic event in search of the great valley. they learn to trust each other. they learn that even though they're each a different type - longneck, three horn, et cetera - those differences are no reason they can't love and look out for one another. they persevere through a number of adventures and run-ins with a sharptooth and are reunited with loved ones in the land of milk and honey and abundant leaf growth as a result. it looks decent and teaches kids to be decent. as modern kids classics go, i can see why it is so endearing and enduring. plus, i repeat, dinosaurs! that just punches you right in your five year old heart.

the last thing i took in for the week was r.j. cutler's documentary, the september issue (2009).

ostensibly a behind the scenes look at how vogue's iconic september issue, the 2007 issue in particular, is assembled, it actually plays more like a propaganda piece. it is neither incisive nor particularly insightful when it comes to the nuts and bolts of assembling a magazine. it seems chiefly designed to humanize vogue's editor-in chief, and red queen, anna wintour in the wake of the devil wears prada (2006). it doesn't help matters much that she seems to be surrounded by nothing but sycophants and cowering toadies. to those of us (read: almost everyone) who operate outside the world of high fashion it just seems farcical that she inspires such terror. it's a house of cards, the fashion world. it's a mirage. and nothing she says about it to justify it to us, and seemingly, more importantly, herself, can make me believe in it. i can't be made to believe that anyone should be afraid of someone based on the fact that she doesn't like your frock. tug on that thread and it all comes unraveled. you know who could make me care, though? grace coddington.

grace is the creative director at vogue and she steals this whole show. she is the only person in the film that i would like to have a conversation with. actually, make that love to have a conversation with. everywhere her boss is cold, calculating and aloof, grace is warm, witty and earthy. make no mistake, she is a canny veteran of the fashion trenches and she has a few tricks up her sleeve but her motivation sets her apart from the endless stream of bootlickers and the icy automaton at the head of the parade. every other single person onscreen is trying to sell something. grace, it would seem, is trying to make something. she genuinely seems to care about the art and history of fashion in a way that celebrates the creative force, not just commerce. more importantly, it's just as obvious that she cares about art and history beyond fashion. fashion is her lifelong career but you can see in her demeanor that she understands the folly of it. she loves it and is devoted to it, but in the way that people are devoted to a craft, not to the almighty dollar. i was very taken by her. fortunately, she hijacks the proceedings fairly completely, a wise decision on the part of the editors of the film. it's worth the time just to get to know her.

well, there it is. hope you guys enjoyed it. i am off to watch something of my own choosing for the first time in a week.

apocalypse chelsea: day six

this first run of queue de grâce is nearing its end but that doesn't mean it's getting any less bizarre...

day six:

rodney dangerfield makes his second apocalypse chelsea appearance this week in ladybugs (1992).

i loved this picture so much i thought i would run it out there again.

rodney, who the hell is this movie for? i thought rover dangerfield (1991) was confusing but this thing blows past that like it was standing still. the basic plot is simple - in order to impress the boss and get a promotion at work, which will also allow him to get married to his long-suffering girlfriend, rodney takes the job as coach of the girls soccer team that the company sponsors. wholesome enough set-up, right? you know what this needs, though? how about a healthy dose of leering awkwardness and underage crossdressing?

he enlists the help of his girlfriend's son, a whiz on the soccer pitch, to ensure the success of the team which, in turn, will ensure the success of all of rodney's machinations. the obvious answer? pass the kid off as a girl. this allows for some delightful misunderstandings. for instance, once their scheme gets busted and his girlfriend gives him the gate, rodney is drowning his sorrows at the local watering hole where he tells the bartender by way of explanation "i took her son and dressed him up like a girl and talked him into playing with me".

my sentiments exactly. what's a family comedy without a few incest and pedophilia jokes? the other material is only marginally better. it's still fraught with near-constant crude/sexual humor. i have no idea what possible audience they thought this was going to work for - ten year old girls who love to play soccer when they're not busy being longshoremen? honorable mention for the most uncomfortable moment in the film goes to the rodney/jackée duet on "great balls of fire". nothing like picturing his sweating face and bulging eyes singing "i wanna love you like a lover should" to a minivan full of ten year old girls. no respect, indeed.

so we go from rodney dangerfield's career going down in flames to robert de niro going up in them in martin scorsese's casino (1995).

i remember when i walked out of the theater after having seen this in 1995 thinking that it was good but it was no goodfellas (1990). had i known i was watching scorsese's last great film, i would have paid closer attention. i took it, and him, for granted. in retrospect, he brought all of his considerable powers to bear for one last time on this film. it is virtuoso work. even at 178 minutes it feels lean, sleek. it takes nicholas pileggi's true crime source material and elevates it to grand opera. it is beautifully lit and impeccably edited. the camera work is lithe. strong performances all the way down the line, especially the rabid joe pesci and surprisingly good sharon stone. it really made me wish i could go back to that day in 1995 and watch it in that same theater knowing what i know now. i would look harder at everything. i would stay in my seat until the lights came up. i would thoroughly enjoy a really great day at the movies, having a good time with old pals.

i am learning, or being reminded of, all kinds of things from this experiment. even with a film like this, that i have seen a number of times, this approach is offering me a fresh perspective. it makes me grateful that i was there the first time around for this, especially now that it seems scorsese's best work as a director is behind him. i saw a lot of great things during that part of my life and my film education was at a point that everything still felt extremely new and exciting. i still get those feelings but i have to work a lot harder for them. it takes a great deal more to surprise me these days. revisiting this movie for this project has reminded me to be open to the possibility of greatness in everything i go to see. when i sit in the lovely cold and dark, and those images begin to flicker, i may be seeing a future favorite's first tentative steps or i may be going around one last time with a master at the height of his powers. you just never know. man, i love the movies.

p.s. even if his recent output has not been on par with these earlier efforts, scorsese's time lately has been well spent. his work in support of the restoration and preservation of neglected films from around the globe via his world cinema foundation has been of incalculable value to filmmakers and cineastes. if you ever bump into him, please tell him i said thanks.

one more day to go. let's make it a good one.

until then.

apocalypse chelsea: day five

as the days roll on, i am starting to get a clearer picture of just who chelsea is.

day five:

today had a definite theme and that theme was true friendship served with a side of janeane garofalo in a bad haircut.

first up today we have romy and michele's high school reunion (1997).

i suppose another theme with today's offerings would be "universal" experiences that i just cannot relate to at all. was high school really that bad for all of you? i will just never get this one. i can understand it maybe being a little confusing as a kid, when you're trying to figure it out. those "scars" being so readily accessible now that you're not a child, though? jesus, as much as this theme is a part of our cultural currency, it's a wonder anyone can function within one hundred yards of a blackboard. apparently, we are a nation so traumatized by the experience that it haunts our collective consciousness. guess what? turns out, it was just high school. you're welcome. no need for the sound of a locker door slamming to reduce you to a fetal position anymore. take back the night!

as for the film itself, it's essentially a funnier, more feminine counterpart to dumb and dumber (1994). not a lot funnier, necessarily, but at least a little. to my surprise, there were a number of things i enjoyed about the film. the chemistry between mira sorvino and lisa kudrow is good. their loopy devotion to each other is endearing and there are moments where each comes to the other's defense that belies their state of perpetual naiveté. the physical comedy nails it more than once, in particular when lisa kudrow is hit by a stretch limo, the whole thing, and a spectacularly absurd spotlight dance. what was most surprising, though, was how technically sophisticated the camera work was. the opening shot is one uninterrupted take that flies in over the ocean, zooms in on their apartment building, goes through the window, pans around the room and then recedes, introducing our two leads in a fairly ambitious manner. it will never be confused for touch of evil (1958) but it's a damn sight more impressive than any other ditzcore i've ever seen. and it continues throughout the film - a clever dissolve from club scene to daily grind, helicopters, crane shots. some of it works and some of it doesn't but cheers to david mirkin for not making something static and visually pedestrian when it would have been the easy thing to do. i don't know that i'd watch it again, but i'm glad i saw it.

next up - now and then (1995).

these girls are alright. don't blame them because i generally don't like coming of age stories. again, i just don't relate to most of them. i just don't share a lot of the common experiences, and reactions to those experiences, that so many people apparently do. don't get me wrong. i have seen good ones, just never any that i thought had anything to do with me.

again, through lines all over the place today, as this one also has a male counterpart in a relative minor key - stand by me (1986). a pivotal summer long past, a dark/mysterious turn of events, the first signs of "it's not going to be like this forever" that come with the onset of young adulthood. unfortunately, the girls get the short end of the deal this time precisely because of the other reason i hate coming of age stories. they're so condensed and artificial, so many monumental events to squeeze in and so little time. they typically don't unfold in any fashion that is similar to life. i wish more of the consequential conversations happened in the margins. i wish more wisdom was dispensed in minor moments, almost in passing, rather than in full close-up with a string section telling you to pay attention. i wish it was more real and less obvious. i wish robert altman made it. the girls all do a fine job. i definitely liked them better than their grown-up versions. they just aren't given a lot to do that's not rote. everything that happened just made me think of a better way that thing could have been done. i was pulling for the girls. i am glad they got their treehouse and i am glad samantha had the guts to go back and talk to crazy pete, but i just wasn't ever unaware of what i was watching. i was never that invested. it's the pitfall of the coming of age story, for me - there's hardly ever anything in them that i remember fondly so there is no haze of nostalgia to distract me from the shortcomings of the film, no gooey reminiscences to caulk up the plot holes. plus, if i thought you were going to grow up to be demi moore i probably wouldn't want to ride bikes with you.

today, an interesting day of unexpected parallels. tomorrow, i don't expect that to be the case.

you can never be too sure, though.

apocalypse chelsea: day four

who knew that the queue de grâce name for this experiment would have been so apt? it took some doing but i think i have sufficiently recovered from yesterday to move on, though the black mark on my soul in the shape of reese witherspoon may never be completely erased. it's strange. i am stained but that stain is just as cute as a button!

day four:

we begin today by revisiting james cameron's terminator 2: judgment day (1991).

again, this is one of those films that i haven't seen in its entirety since around the theatrical release. unfortunately, time wasn't as kind to this as it was to valley girl (1983). the much ballyhooed advances in special effects from the T-101 to the T-1000 still have a certain charm but everything else, with one exception, is a generally a drag. there is a good reason that james cameron is constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to filmmaking technology - he is terrible with actors. ideally for him, his films will eventually not contain one single organic element and his ego will become the most formidable, unstoppable juggernaut he has ever created. no cyberdyne systems model will be able to defeat him.

stilted dialogue, one of the most unappealing juvenile leads in the history of film and a couple of process shots that are distractingly bad for a movie that was supposed to be so cutting edge are just a few of the problems here. time travel stories are fraught with peril for even the best writers, none of whom came within miles of this thing. the inconsistencies with other science fiction elements are irritating as well. i understand that some terminators have to be able to double as humans, but if the neural network was so damn smart why didn't it make combat terminators in some form other than human? give them four arms, eight arms, make them smaller, faster, more heavily armed. and that whole explanation about the limits of the T-1000? bunk! we're told it can imitate anything it touches of an equal size but it can't form complex machines that include chemicals and multiple moving parts. it then proceeds to spend the rest of the film imitating other humans almost exclusively. last time i looked, the human body was nothing but chemicals and complicated moving parts. in all fairness, there were a couple of spectacular stunts, particularly in the final third of the film. the motorcycle jump into the helicopter and the sequence with the liquid nitrogen truck are particularly noteworthy. only one special effects scene actually made a lasting impact on me, though. the central dream sequence after she escapes the institution in which linda hamilton clutches the chain link fence while everything, including her, is reduced to skeletons and ash still maintains its power after all this time. the only consistently good thing about the movie?

joe morton. solid dude. i love this guy.

next up - la bamba (1987).

this movie is delivered in such cinematic shorthand that it could have been over in half an hour, the weekly reader version of ritchie valens' life. i'm not sure if it's just because i am so familiar with the mythology of the day the music died, but this seemed almost embarrassingly remedial. the only thing that really redeems it is the good-natured ebullience of lou diamond forehead phillips. and few things drive me crazier than poorly faked playing in music biographies. really just isn't a whole lot to say about this one. it's competently assembled but i don't feel like i know ritchie valens any better. buy the records, skip the movie.

still, not a bad program for a day of healing. nothing too taxing, a few good songs, joe morton's calming influence. i think i see a light at the end of the tunnel.

or maybe it's a train.

apocalypse chelsea: day three

after the debacle of center stage (2000) it seems as if we are through the looking glass...

day three:

how quickly fortunes turn. i was riding high on day one, thinking i had it made. that was folly. i have lost all mooring. did you know that sweet home alabama (2002) and rover dangerfield (1991) were the same movie?

more on that later.

the day began with how to be a serial killer (2008). there is one reason, and one reason only, that this made it on the list - chelsea maria george is of the opinion that matthew gray gubler is one hot bitch.

we can debate that all you like. what is not up for debate is that this movie is a mess. it follows the story of mike, a serial killer who, through his violence, feels he is teaching people not to take life for granted. he takes the milquetoast bart (the hot dog pictured above) under his wing to impart lessons on the ethics of murder. it jumps back and forth between narrative vignettes, talking head/documentary style footage and motivational speaker sections with little rhyme or reason. it's all over the place. it fairly reeks of "indie comedy", just like dozens we have seen before. low budget doesn't have to equate to little imagination, especially disappointing with a subject this rich with potential black humor. i know the handheld, faux documentary thing is a cheap way to get a first feature made but can we trot out a new cliché for the twenty-first century? take the schizophrenia of natural born killers (1994) and the savage comedy of man bites dog (1992) and dilute it with clerks (1994) until what you have left is neither interesting nor funny and you end up with how to be a serial killer. by the way, he was a terrible serial killer. rash, unprepared, impatient, hardly thorough - i wouldn't take lessons from this guy unless i wanted to go straight to jail.

next! rover dangerfield.

does your kid like broads, nightclubs and gambling until the wee hours? then this will be right up their alley. this is, without a doubt, one of the weirdest movies aimed at kids i have ever seen. at what point did rodney dangerfield decide that his best bet was to court the under-ten set? take his bug-eyed, tie-tugging schtick and shoehorn it into a lovable schlub of an animated hound dog and you get the picture. rover, owned by a showgirl, gets waylaid by said showgirl's boyfriend and ends up in the country living on a farm. there he learns a number of valuable lessons about life and love, wears boxer shorts with hearts on them (hilarious) and sings a few tunes, most notably "i'll never do it on a christmas tree". did i mention it begins with him shooting dice in an alley and in the first ten minutes he busts up a mafia meeting and he is tied in a bag and thrown off hoover dam? and not in a funny cartoon way, either. it also ends with the aforementioned boyfriend taking that long ride with the aforementioned mafiosi. i know pixar has gotten especially good at that one level for the kids/one for the adults kind of thing but i think that was the furthest thing from rodney's mind - he was scriptwriter, songwriter, executive producer - when he made this. i'm not sure how i feel about this one beyond just baffled.

i know how i feel about sweet home alabama, though. i feel depressed. i would have rather watched this for 108 minutes.

you know the plot, or can find a synopsis, so i am not going to rehash it in detail here. if you're patient, ten new films will rehash it by next summer, anyway. i don't know what it is. i can watch the most scathing, harrowing, violent examples of man's inhumanity to his fellow man and not bat an eye. this stuff, however, leaves me in a dark place. i think some of it has to do with how readily people want to invest in these things, what people think is important. one of the things that really stuck with me has to do with that thing i mentioned yesterday about how adept they are at exploiting your princess dreams and how willing people are to line up for it over and over. i think about a theater full of women aflutter at the notion of tiffany & co. being at their disposal and it just makes me sad. i contrast this presentation of conspicuous consumption masquerading as a crucial component of true love with an example from the count of monte cristo (2002) from yesterday's entry. in that film, the bride-to-be in question wore a piece of twine around her finger for sixteen years, while she thought her betrothed had been imprisoned and executed. i'll take one mercedès iguanada over an army of melanie carmichaels any day of the week. while you go shopping we will have many a dashing, bold adventure, living and loving as you never could. i know that's not all there was to the message of the movie but i know for a fact that there was a segment of the audience that audibly gasped when the lights came up and mcdrippy told her to pick out any ring she wanted. i just wish more fairy tales emphasized pieces of twine over shoes and accessories.

and how are sweet home and rover the same? well, let's see...

main character starts in the city, amidst the glitz and glamour, fast paced, with their crew, in their element.

somehow character is shanghaied, physically or emotionally, and ends up in the country.

after of period of adjustment and reflection, character begins to put their life in order.

pivotal scene revolves around dead, or soon to be dead, dog.

parental figure comes around to see that maybe lead character isn't so bad after all.

repeated, gratuitous comedy sound effect - rover's rimshot/fred ward's recliner's boing sound.

city element is reintroduced to character's life, seemingly being what they want.

character figures out what the city has to offer is not what they want after all and decides to stick with the rural life and their soul mate, eventually raising a family.

same movie. at least with the cartoon i laughed a couple of times. advantage, rover dangerfield!

whew. that was a rough one. maybe tomorrow will be better.

aw, crap.

apocalypse chelsea: day two

queue de grâce rolls on. day one was free of catastrophe, but i have an uneasy feeling about this...

day two:

first in line was kevin reynolds' adaptation of alexandre dumas' the count of monte cristo (2002).

"my subtlety and restraint, have you seen it? i would have sworn i left it right over there."

all things being equal, it is a fair adaptation. it's much better than i had anticipated, my only previous exposure to kevin reynolds having been a couple of insipid kevin costner vehicles. guy pearce, uncharacteristically, provided the biggest hurdle for me in this one. i understand he is the villain but it's a shame to resort to such overplaying to put the point across. and, dear lord, poor luis guzman. i love the guy but in this thing he is a walking anachronism. he couldn't have taken me out of the film any more if he had reached through the screen and grabbed me by the shirt. every time he opens his mouth we might as well be on the set of boogie nights 2: the scarlet pimp-ernel. it's the one major flaw that seems to fly right in the face of the most important thing that the film gets right, and that thing is that it makes few concessions to a modern audience's sensibilities. i admire how much it plays things right down the second republic line. it doesn't resort to a lot of ridiculous CGI. it doesn't attempt to update the film in some way so the 18-25 year olds will shell out for a ticket. it's a grave mistake people often make, not realizing (or not caring) that these things only make a film eventually look dated, even more dated than by basing it on a book written in 1844. this film sidesteps those problems altogether, thankfully. i would imagine guzman's casting is just unfortunate, not a ploy, otherwise you would have seen a much more marketable face in the role. the screenplay may take a number of liberties with dumas' novel but never with the intention of modernizing it. some good work from the location scouts goes a long way in maintaining the mid-nineteenth century feeling as well.

the true ace up the film's sleeve is jim caviezel's earnestness, his righteousness. it's easy to believe in him. the film plays it in pretty broad strokes, but what you see in his eyes burns right through that. his holy innocence and his unyielding fervor in his quest for retribution are two sides of the same satisfying coin. i have only seen him in the passion of the christ (2004), otherwise, but he seems to have the market cornered when it comes to brilliant and resolute purity. seems like typecasting might be an issue. how many times can you play jesus? richard harris provides a nice turn as his fellow prisoner and mentor in the château d'if. overall, a good, not great, bit of swashbuckling action adventure.

i knew it was too good to be true, though. now the heavy lifting begins with nicholas hytner's center stage (2000).

HI!

"life is no rehearsal", the tagline says. this film follows the lives and loves of a group of young dancers chosen to attend the prestigious american ballet academy in new york. life may be no rehearsal, but maybe life could shell out for an acting coach once in a while.

i am a sucker for processes. if you can show me how something works, how it's put together, you have my attention. rehearsal, collaboration, creation, performance - i'm game. these sequences in the film are fine - interesting if you like the creative process, probably great if you love dance/ballet. i enjoy watching people put in their 10000 hours. i like the dedication to craft. i like to see artistic ideas clash and combine. when these characters are working in rehearsal studios or onstage, it can be captivating. the cast, largely professional dancers, are skilled and athletic. personally, i prefer the ballet sequences to the more overblown production number-type things, but it's all very well choreographed and executed.

HI AGAIN!

then there's the other hour of the movie, which is wretched. there is not one character that is introduced in this thing whose fate you are unsure of five minutes after you meet them. stock characters, incredibly lazy writing. paint by numbers, primary colors all the way:

chubby (in the world of ballet this means 115 lbs.), vaguely ethnic girl who gets the boot - check

token black guy - check

token gay guy - check, and a bargain for payroll as he is also the token black guy.

tough-talking diva from the street with a bad attitude - check

stern teacher with a heart of gold - check

ice princess overachiever who is troubled on the inside - check

shrewish stage mom living vicariously through her daughter - check

the boy who really understands and supports you and will wait until you're through being mistreated by that jerk - check

and on and on. i am always surprised that studios don't have to work harder to earn your money. they count on, and exploit, your short attention span and princess dreams. it was called fame (1980), and a hundred other names besides, stretching back to the beginning of filmdom. i know it's made for young people, but young people can grasp more complexity than this. and i know films like this are primarily a vehicle to display the dancing or singing or whatever else it is that these kids do but don't you find the presentation ridiculous? why don't you demand a better story in between? in this day and age, you can just go to youtube and watch endless drum battles/dance competitions/vocal tryouts/et cetera. you don't have to have your intelligence insulted on either side of it to enjoy the art, a fact that outs all of you people that claim "oh, i just watch it for the competitive parts". plainly, you're liars. reality television has exposed you all. you also watch it for the poorly scripted, poorly acted "drama", but i'll be damned if i know what it nourishes in you. if the dance is really what moves you, why aren't you just watching a ballet? if you need soap opera with your dance try the red shoes (1948) instead. final verdict - ballet should be choreographed, not story arc. as actors, they are spectacular dancers.

but, taking a lesson from those plucky kids, i shall prevail. i won't let this get me down. i will come back swinging on day three. damn it, i've gotta dance! or write. or something. talk to you tomorrow.

apocalypse chelsea: day one

it begins - apocalypse chelsea.

welcome to the inaugural queue de grâce, an ongoing experiment where i turn over control of my streaming netflix queue to someone for one week. there aren't many rules to this. basically, if i watch something at home it has to be something of their choosing. the only time i can pick my own films all week is if i go to the theater. i spend a week watching through someone else's eyes and tell you guys all about it. our opening salvo comes courtesy of miss chelsea george, the misunderstood genius behind the candy-coated explosion that is something terrible has happened. she has selected twenty films for me to start with. if i need more, she is ready. she provided me with a dossier. this girl is prepared. let's get to it!

day one:

i think she's taking it easy on me to start with. a little rope-a-dope to lull me into a false sense of security? i enter our cinematic octagon to meet my first opponent...martha coolidge's valley girl (1983).

i don't think i have seen this thing in its entirety in over twenty years. you'd be surprised at how well it holds up, especially if you remember much about the cultural climate of teen movies in the early eighties. kids of the current generation who have stumbled onto it unfortunately have to view it, at least a little, as a bit of a time capsule novelty - a mall suspended in amber - and that's too bad. as decent a film as it is now, it was even more of a standout then. it was a true teen romantic comedy in a festering mass of shoddy teen sex comedies. remember, lloyd dobler was still years away. everywhere you looked around this time it was peepholes in showers, underwear up flagpoles, trips across state and international borders with the sole intent of scoring. valley girl set itself apart by just being honest, silly and simple.

don't get me wrong. it's a teen movie and hormones are running rampant. you can't go five minutes without a discussion about how totally, tubularly cute someone is, but it's populated with kids who seem real. i'm not saying it's the best character development you'll ever see, but they have heart. its contemporaries were cartoonish, at best. and we've seen the story a million times - two different worlds/romeo and juliet - but it's done sweetly, with a deft touch, and every generation should get a chance to tell its own version of the story. there a lot of little reasons to like the film. the parents are as interesting and real as the kids, frederic forrest, especially. deborah foreman is adorable and nicolas cage exhibits a dopey, heavy-lidded charm that he would do well to remember how to access these days. bonus points to the soundtrack for not making the most obvious choices (the plimsouls!). and, as if all that wasn't enough, michelle meyrink! the face that launched a thousand nerdy ships. well, mine, anyway.

if you haven't seen it for a while it probably wouldn't hurt you to go back and see it again, if only to see the lightning speed with which they get to the shopping montage (hint: opening credits). ironically, with all its valleyspeak, it's probably the most emotionally articulate teen comedy of its era. you can keep your john hughes garbage. if you need me, i'll be over on the wrong side of the tracks with randy and julie.

alright, so we're off to a good start. what's next? a 180 degree turn for neil abramson's documentary, soldier child (1998).

upon reading the description, i had high hopes for this one. in northern uganda, a religious fanatic named joseph kony commands an insurgent group he calls the lord's resistance army. to populate his army, he abducts, brainwashes and impresses children into service. it is appalling, and if you follow contemporary african political struggles you know it is also appallingly common. these children have been the victims of atrocities we can't imagine. they have done things that i think the human mind, with all its resilience, cannot come back from. this film attempts to relate the stories of some of these children, but ultimately falls short. it cannot accurately convey the scope of the horror and ends up playing like a piece of amnesty international propaganda, rather than a piece of journalism. it may be my fault. i like much more objectivity in my documentaries and just was not given it. it spends far too much time engaging in finger-wagging at the audience when we already know it's terrible beyond words and that something needs to be done. i halfway expected danny glover to say "please, for just seventeen cents a day, you can help a child in need". still, there were parts that were valuable. watching their faces when the children blandly told stories of being given a hoe to chop other children into pieces was a chilling reminder that the human animal is capable of most anything. the few details that were given about the therapy process they use to help children who escape were most interesting. i wish they could have spent considerably more time outlining the process that helps recover a mind from that abyss. there are a number of documentaries on this subject. maybe one of them treats the material in a more informative and objective fashion. this one, at least, inspires me to look for more. if you would like to decide for yourself, and you don't have streaming netflix, click here to watch it in its entirety on hulu.

so, i survived day one. a pretty good start, actually. i've read the list, though. there is danger ahead. pray for me.

i feel the thunder gathering even now