MY MOVIE SHELF: Four Rooms

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 262 Days to go: 258

Movie #115: Four Rooms

In a nutshell, Four Rooms is a fantastic experiment. It consists of four separate vignettes, each written and directed by four different filmmakers, connected simply by the thread that they all take place on New Year’s Eve in the Mon Signor Hotel, Hollywood, where Ted the Bellhop (Tim Roth) is the only one on duty.

Normally, oddly experimental or gimmicky films like this don’t see wide release and, in turn, aren’t seen by wide audiences. But Four Rooms boasts segments by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (in addition to less well-known Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell), plus appearances by Madonna, Lili Taylor, Ione Skye, Antonio Banderas, Bruce Willis, Jennifer Beals, Kathy Griffin and Marisa Tomei, among others. So there’s a bit of a draw to this film.

Each of the four segments are quirky and fun, with Ted being more than a little inconvenienced by each unconventional request, though he also finds himself pretty nicely rewarded in most of them. It’s very interesting to notice the different writing and directing styles evidenced in each separate vignette, how scenes with the same large-scale setting and main character can be still be individualistic, with their own strengths and weaknesses. For my money, the third segment (“The Misbehavers”) is the strongest, the last (“The Man From Hollywood”) is the most astonishing and the most talked-about, the first (“The Missing Ingredient”) is most fun, and the second (“The Wrong Man”) is the darkest and most disturbing.

“The Misbehavers” features a man (Antonio Banderas) and his wife (Tamlyn Tomita) leaving their willfull and spoiled children alone in room 309, with Ted checking in on them. There is drinking, smoking, Salma Hayek on a nudie channel, spontaneous vomit, and a foul-smelling surprise. It’s excellently paced and it builds a lot of tension and suspense.

“The Man From Hollywood” features an unusual bet between friends (Quentin Tarantino and Paul Calderon) that requires a delivery of a block of wood, three nails, a ball of twine, a donut, a club sandwich, and a hatchet. There’s also Tarantino going crazy over the superiority of Cristal and a ranting (and uncredited) Bruce Willis.

“The Missing Ingredient” features a coven of witches that include Madonna, Valeria Golina, Ione Skye, Lili Taylor, Sammi Davis and Alicia Witt. (I am still incredibly upset Alicia Witt’s career never exploded. She was the best, most perfect thing about Cybill.) They have a little magic to undertake, and are in need of Ted’s … services.

“The Wrong Man” is a psychological torture game between combating spouses (David Proval and Jennifer Beals) and any unlucky man who happens to walk through their door. They don’t have any needles, but they do have a big fucking gun.

There are callbacks and running jokes and a pretty hilarious performance by Marisa Tomei as a completely baked party-goer named Margaret, not to mention Tim Roth being swishy and twitchy and completely mercenary with regard to the tasks he is given, which is super fun to watch. Plus the witches cast their spells in rhyme, and Ted is apparently pretty killer in the sack.

It’s not family-friendly in the least, but it’s a great time and I wish filmmakers today were able to stretch themselves in these kinds of unique and interesting ways, because it broadens the possibilities of the art form and allows for more voices in this realm. It’s a valuable film to own and to study and to enjoy. I hope to see more like it one day.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Fools Rush In

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 264 Days to go: 259

Movie #113: Fools Rush In

There are definitely movies that I can acknowledge as not very good, objectively speaking, but I enjoy them anyway, and Fools Rush In is one of them. I happen to find Matthew Perry incredibly charming — especially his wry sarcastic bent — which I know is not everyone’s thing, but is totally mine. And this came out when Friends was still a huge force in television and pop culture (in fact, it was released the day after “The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break,” so, y’know), so I was at the height of my Matthew Perry admiration. (That’s an exaggeration. My admiration has never diminished.)

I also find Salma Hayek incredibly charming, but I don’t think I really have to justify that one, do I? I mean, she’s kind of perfect.

Fools Rush In is a fun little romantic comedy about a couple that meet, have an instant attraction and a one-night fling, but then three months later Isabel (Hayek) tracks down Alex (Perry) to let him know she’s pregnant. She wants nothing from him, but just thought he should know, though she does ask him to come with her to meet her family, posing as her boyfriend, so when she tells them about the baby they will at least know who the father was. However, due to their marvelous time and (allegedly) sizzling chemistry, they decide to get married. Hijinks ensue.

Now, I would neither support nor condone marrying someone you just met, even if you were knocked up, but in the grand scheme of things it’s really not all that big of a stretch for a romantic comedy. People in other movies have certainly declared their love under shakier circumstances. And what I really like, besides the two leads who, despite not necessarily sizzling on-screen as much as they’re purported to even though they do share a certain spark, is that the film actual deals with things like cultural and geographical issues that create obstacles in relationships. She is Mexican and Catholic, two things that deeply influence her character and lifestyle. He’s the kind of WASPy East-Coaster completely lacking in cultural or religious identifiers. And there are definitely clashes that come up because of that, but when they meet I kind of love that he just openly asks her about a discussion he overheard her having, without any sort of discomfort surrounding the idea of maybe bringing up taboo topics. He’s openly curious about her, and I find that refreshing.

There is also a bit of a trumped-up issue surrounding Alex’s job and his need to move back to NY for a big opportunity, but, again, what I like is that both Alex and Isabel make bad decisions with regard to their situation. They both withhold things and expect things that aren’t fair to the other person, so neither one of them is really solely at fault when things fall apart. And the reasons they act the way they do are also rooted in who they are as characters and what their backgrounds are, which is the most important facet of character-building, and that’s one thing I really think Fools Rush In does fairly well.

In the end, what I love most is how Alex is led back to Isabel by the metaphorical signs he encounters. Signs are a big part of Isabel’s identity, and something Alex has never quite embraced, but then he walks by a priest who says “There are signs everywhere,” and there’s a chihuahua that looks just like Isabel’s, and there’s a bus sign for Caesar’s (where Isabel works), and there’s a Kodak ad with a picture of the Grand Canyon (which is Isabel’s vocation), and there’s even a little Latina girl named Isabel that he comes across. And while signs aren’t usually that prolific or that obvious, I do believe in signs. I am neither Mexican nor Catholic — my ancestry and upbringing would put me far closer to Alex’s side of the spectrum — and religion in general is not something I embrace. But I do believe there are forces in the Universe greater than I am, greater than my understanding. And I have, from time to time, felt drawn in certain directions, toward certain opportunities and paths. It might be simply that your mind interprets things around you to lead you the way you were already subconsciously hoping to go, but I still find myself looking for direction when I’m feeling lost.

I also enjoy Jill Clayburgh (as Alex’s mom) getting drunk on margaritas for Cinco de Mayo. I’m not made of stone.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Dogma

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 287  Days to go: 276

Movie #90: Dogma

As the disclaimer states at the start of Dogma, this movie is a comedic fantasy. It tells the story of two angels cast out of heaven that are trying to get back through a Catholicism loophole and a ragtag band of crusaders trying to prevent that from happening because to prove God wrong would unmake existence. And like any Kevin Smith movie, it’s filled with fast-paced dialogue, witty observations and a lot of silliness wrapped up in a lot of profanity. Also, in the same way every other Kevin Smith film is basically a stage for Smith to expound on his numerous pet theories, Dogma is a single, consolidated location for all his theories on religion.

Unsurprisingly, Smith has a lot of theories on religion — particularly Catholicism, which I assume he’s most familiar with — and everything is presented here in both a wry, discerning way and a completely tongue-in-cheek one. But in the midst of all this wildly overblown farce are some actual thoughtful and enlightened ruminations on the concept of faith.

Linda Fiorentino plays Bethany, a lifelong Catholic who has lost her faith (though she still goes to church out of habit). Bethany is the last Scion (the last living descendant of Jesus — the movie doesn’t posit Jesus himself had any children, but that Mary and Joseph had other children after Jesus was born and that Bethany is his many-times-great-grand-niece) and is tasked by the Metatron (the voice of God, played of course by Alan Rickman because I assume Morgan Freeman wasn’t available) with stopping fallen angels Bartleby and Loki (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, naturally) from transsubtantiating into human form, being wiped clean of all sins, and ascending into heaven. The two angels were long ago servants of God but were cast out when they questioned His/Her orders and have been roaming the cheese-headed wasteland of Wisconsin ever since. Like Bethany, Bartleby has lost all faith, is disillusioned by the seeming capriciousness of a God that can be so forgiving with some and so cruelly unjust with others. Even coming from a comedic fantasy, that’s a feeling I know for a fact many people have felt in their lives.

Bethany is joined by thirteenth apostle Rufus (Chris Rock), former muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek) and supposed prophets Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith), and they all have quite a lot to say about religion, the Bible and belief systems in general — well, everyone but Jay and Silent Bob, who are mostly around for comic relief. Serendipity talks about the Bible’s gender bias, while Rufus has a beef with its racial homogeny — both pointing out the obvious fact that, moved by divine inspiration or not, (white) men wrote the Bible and inserted their own agendas and prejudices into it — not necessarily intentionally, but that it’s a known risk factor in the translation. People always see things through the lens and perspectives of their own experiences, and so mankind has to find a way to filter through the biases of the hundreds of generations who came before and simply connect with the truth of the original message. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I think it’s such an important part of living a full life. Faith is not about taking things as they are spoon fed to you, never questioning the things you are told. Faith is about humbling yourself enough to know that you don’t know the answers — that no one does — and seeking out the truth in your heart and in your soul. Faith is about simply believing that we have a purpose, even if we never know what it is — that something out there is bigger than we are.

Of course, it’s not easy to promote that kind of faith. That kind of faith is difficult and taxing. It’s much more convenient to simply follow a bunch of rules and take the required steps and go through the motions that many of us are taught in childhood. But as Rufus and Serendipity point out, God is bigger than all that, and no single religion has it truly figured out. Real faith is work because it requires toil and acceptance and humility. It requires tolerance and patience beyond what most of us have naturally. Bethany initially rejects her role as a leader of this kind of faith, because it’s scary and it’s hard. Nobody could fault her for resisting that path, because most people would do the same — it would feel like too much of a burden, too heavy a responsibility to carry. I like that the film accepts this about us as humans, and doesn’t make judgments about the innate flaws we all have.

Where it does make judgments is everywhere else, from Loki smiting a bunch of Mooby executives for laughs, to Bartleby and Loki being mere pawns of the demon Azrael (Jason Lee) because as far as Azrael’s concerned going back to the nothingness before existence would be better than Hell, to the cynical idea that a pompous man of God (Cardinal Glick, played by George Carlin, OF COURSE) would bless his own golf club in order to improve his game. It also winks at God’s sense of humor, casts street hockey punks as minions of Hell, accuses someone of selling his soul to Satan to up the grosses on Home Alone, says that God is a woman (played by Alanis Morissette, duh), and indicates She has a serious love of Skeeball. Like, who doesn’t?

Obviously I don’t think Dogma is the last word on God and religion, any more than I think religions are the last word on God and religion, but I do think that open-mindedness and discussion and meditation on a subject — even one as fraught with the perils of questioning closely-held belief systems as religion is — are the true paths to enlightenment. I think we learn more by opening ourselves up to the views and experiences of others than we do by insisting that our way is right and nothing else is possible. As Rufus says, wars are fought and lives lost over beliefs, but ideas are much more flexible. If our faiths were built on ideas — changeable, malleable, evolving ideas — I think we’d be a lot closer to peace and acceptance than we are now.

I’m not so naive as to think anything like peace or total acceptance is even a possibility in this world, but it certainly is a nice idea.