Tag Archives: slice of life

The Weather Man

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The Weather Man has been advertised mostly as a bunch of people throwing stuff at Nick Cage, not because of his naturally depressed expression or because his movies can be overbearing, even the actions ones, but because he sometimes predicts the weather wrong, and people apparently like to dress appropriately more than they like to hold onto their food. Although this has a bigger place in the theme than you might initially expect, it is nevertheless a very misleading portrait of what the movie is actually about.

It’s slice of life, just like Sideways that I saw early this year. Which means that I found the conclusion ultimately unsatisfying; as is nearly always the case with this kind of thing, the end result is an internal change in the character irrespective of the presence or (more likely) absence of a change in external circumstance. It’s not that I want the “good guy” to win or be happy or whatever; he could reach his lowest low instead, but the mind-numbing horror of the status quo terrifies me a lot more than Jason Voorhees ever could, whether he lived on to kill another teen or died to be resurrected later on (and, okay, still kill another teen).

However: the acting is pretty good all around, and my early without-seeing-the-nominations prediction is that Michael Caine can get Best Supporting out of it. The themes are not just adult, but uncomfortably adult, the kinds of things that could end up causing a divorce even in people who were compatible emotionally but not strong enough to get through bad times, never mind people like weatherman Cage and his ex-wife. It’s not exactly black comedy, and it’s not dark enough to be black drama, but it is certainly an oppressive piece of visual fiction. See it for the acting, but wait until you can afford to be introspective and quiet for a little while, to shake off the gloom; or, if you’re a death row inmate, or Saddam Hussein, or Scooter Libby or someone like that, see it to feel better about your circumstances. (Worst of all: I say all this fairly secure in the knowledge that what the weatherman got was a happy ending.)

Sideways

So, early this week, I saw Sideways. Without a doubt, the best thing about it was the bleu cheese burger that accompanied it, since I was at the Alamo Drafthouse, prince among movie theaters that it is. Other than that… this review is going to have spoilers, because it’s hard enough to come up with anything to say even if I don’t worry about them.
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Napoleon Dynamite

I saw Napoleon Dynamite yesterday afternoon. This is good, because now I only have one thing left to do before my trip. This is also good because I really, really liked it. It’s bad, though, because I have no clear idea how to express what about it I liked. I mean, even to myself. It has everything I don’t like in a movie. Deliberately framed shots that scream ‘look, I’m a movie over here!’ Characters in which I have no legitimate interest. Slice of life reality as the setting. A plot resolution that came essentially from nowhere. And yet, there’s some kind of perfect storm thing going on, because I thought that the combination of all the elements was great, such that none of them really even bothered me during the few times I wasn’t actively enjoying myself.

Perhaps it’s because everything touched by Mormons is pure gold.

Probably not, though. I know it was funny, but funny isn’t really enough to make me want to see it again and recommend it to people, by itself. Lots of things are funny. Most things don’t leave me with a goofy smile on my face just thinking about bits and pieces of it, or having a similarly goofy conversation last night with a friend who independently saw it for the first time the same day, with the whole ‘”Do you remember the cow?!” laugh of hilarity while everyone else stared at us’ thing going on. This did, though.

And, yeah, I eventually came to care what happened to a few of the characters. This is unusual, in movies where I don’t care during the first ten minutes or so.

You may note I haven’t described the plot. This is because I don’t even really know what that was, although I know a little better than I know why I liked it so much. In short, it’s about this kid in high school in Idaho, the template upon which high school geeks are drawn, and a snapshot of a few weeks in his life during which Things Change. Which still doesn’t say a lot, since that is (except for the character and duration being specified) that point at which any story should be told, if it expects to be even mildly interesting.

In short: Weird scenario, but funny. Mormons. Good, but I can’t say why exactly. Is this review worthless? I think it is.