Movie Review: "Whiplash"

Bearing the Whiplash

By Rainey Wetnight

“I’m a vulgar man, but I assure you, my music is not.” -Tom Hulce as Mozart, from the 1984 film Amadeus

“…That he may sift you as wheat.” -Luke 22:31, King James Bible

What kind of movie deserves two epigraphs in its review? One of the most harrowing films of 2014. On its promotional poster, it has been described as “electrifying,” “challenging” and “entertaining.” In the comments for a playlist of its soundtrack, a YouTube commenter said, “[sic et scriptum] i was so captivated with this movie. that i didn't eat any of the nachos that i bought. i ate them when i got home and just started thinking about the movie.” When film-goers completely ignore their zesty, sodium-imbued concessions to watch the screen, someone had better sit up and pay attention.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sure did. Not only was Whiplash nominated for Best Picture, but J.K. Simmons also won the Oscar for Actor in a Supporting Role. Yours truly contends that Simmons was the lead, although intense Miles Teller portrayed our drum-thrashing protagonist. Who was in control of the entire hour and forty-seven minutes we spent inside their world of musical refinement?

Young Andrew Neyman (Teller) seeks one goal: greatness. His area of expertise - nay, the center of his life - is jazz drumming. Posters of Buddy Rich and Charlie Parker adorn his spartan dorm room, which has barely enough space for his bed and his drum kit. That’s all he needs: to eat, sleep (which he finds increasingly hard to do) and play. Practicing, at first a chore that he endures in good spirits, soon becomes a painful and bloody obsession. Once he is chosen, Neyman is already past the point of no return.

The chooser is none other than Terence Fletcher (Simmons), head of the top jazz orchestra at New York’s fictional Shaffer Conservatory. Not only does he never suffer fools, but he ejects musicians that he suspects to be fools from his band. Consider the case of one stocky student: “There’s no [expletive] Mars Bar down there,” Fletcher snaps, accusing a floor-gazing trombone player of being out of tune. As it is, the guilty party is sitting nearby, but the band’s high priest opts to send his fleshier scapegoat away.

The man sneers. He swears. He rants and raves. He hurls a chair at Neyman. He comes up with the most innovative invective since Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket (to which this movie’s been compared). What’s all this supposed to accomplish? Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the exact same aim the military has: to mold boys into men who can perform one task to perfection. There is no margin of error in war; it’s either kill or be killed. Neither is there a margin of error in Fletcher’s orchestra. It must conquer in competitions or lose favor in the ears of discriminating judges. Therefore, the teacher becomes the drill instructor. All should go well for our rising star if he yields to the breaking of his body, mind, and spirit.

The thing is, aren’t those three aspects of humanity the ones you must use to be a superb drummer?

Fletcher believes that the way to turn neophyte “squeakers” into virtuosos is through a combination of grueling ordeals. He uses enough profanity, racial and ethnic slurs, homophobic taunts, and misogynistic comparisons to fill up at least four episodes of South Park. One might argue that any athletic coach would do the same. However, that’s not whom Neyman is expecting at the front of the band room on his first day. Not only that, but Fletcher makes them toil over their instruments for far longer than the allotted class time. One particular scene drives this point home, starring three different drummers and their hot-headed hortator. Originally, that was the title of the man who beat time for slave rowers on Roman triremes.

Is this comparison too grim? I’ll return to it later. For now, I’d like to address the delicate issue of balance.

If there was anything the movie Black Swan taught us, it’s that art should not consume one’s whole life. In the beginning of Whiplash, Neyman clearly understands this. He strives to be a normal college kid in the midst of abnormal circumstances. He attends the movies faithfully with his dad (Paul Reiser), chows down on unhealthy food, and even finds a winsome girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist). However, as Fletcher and the band consume more of his time, he discovers that he has to drop activities and people that he once considered essential. An ambition such as his leaves room for nothing else, no matter what the authors of best-selling business books say. When he breaks up with Nicole, it’s a mercy; when he does the same to his father, he’s being cruel and not kind. What drives his ruthlessness? It isn’t just his teacher, or his love for jazz. It’s his consummate fear of being an unrecognized failure. Balance is for people who can put their passions into perspective. Our hero won’t, and eventually finds that he can’t.

Who is to blame, if blame should be assigned? Perhaps the answer lies with one more character, who never shows his face: Brandon Casey, a former student who had been in Neyman’s shoes (although on saxophone, not drums). Fletcher sheds tears upon the news of Casey’s death, but for whom is he weeping, and why? The film is ambiguous on this point, for good reason. It’s one more turn of the screw, one more lash of the whip upon his protégé’s back - and ours.

In the final scene, what is the meaning of Neyman’s thousand-yard stare? It shows triumph and tragedy in equal measure, the look of one who knows what perfect obedience is - a slave who has, at long last, pleased his master. Whether he has overcome his master is a question with which we all should wrestle.

RAINEY’S RATING: 4 STARS (A PERFECT SCORE)

Unreleased Final Project: "This Sharp Chain"

In retrospect, I wish I would have submitted this for my final writing project in my Kankakee Community College writing course. However, I feared it was way too personal, but not for this obscure blog:

THIS SHARP CHAIN

“There is now in my mouth, this sharp chain,

And it never comes out.” 

- Richard Burton, as Dr. Martin Dysart in the 1977 film Equus 

The Normal is the sharp smell of disinfectant in a doctor’s office. It is the red A on a report card, not the B or C; such grades are beneath the daughter of two teachers. It is singing “The B-I-B-L-E, yes, that’s the book for me!” with all your heart, never daring to believe that Crime and Punishment is better. It is the slim body, the intimate circle of friends, the furtive love of “boy talk”, and the date to Prom. It is the good-natured acceptance of boredom in school and life, because that is its essence. More than anything, however, the Normal is an able body. Can you walk, talk, jump and stretch? Moreover, can you run a relay race in satisfactory time, and do the Flex Arm Hang? If so, then give thanks. You’re Normal. The “indispensable, murderous God of Health,” as Dr. Martin Dysart puts it, has highly favored you.  

I have been cursed. Cerebral palsy is my diagnosis, written in artificial blood by the white-coated priests of our Deity. Add to that a latent co-morbidity of major depression, present since childhood but only showing itself in my college years. I have other diagnoses as well, informal but no less official: poor, oversensitive, socially awkward, unemployed. They mark me as an anomaly - no longer a Freak of Nature, because that’s not politically correct. Instead, I am the one who’s “struggling, but hanging in there.” I’m the maiden aunt who “waits for the right person, who’ll come along someday.” In church, I am not exactly “lost”, but I’m “not a real Christian.” I believe in a savior called Jesus, but not the workhorse’s life attached to Him. I vote, but my concerns go unheeded after my ballot slides into the box. I’m a minority, but too much of one.

What about you? You, too, may have struggled to be Normal. You may have felt the stomach-churning fear of bullies that no roller coaster ride can equal. You might have sat rigid in class, praying that the teacher wouldn’t call on you to read or answer math problems at the board. When basketballs and volleyballs came hurtling at your face, you ducked, being more willing to lose than to win.

Eventually, however, the Normal turned its countenance upon you. Your coordination grew, in body and in spirit, and no longer were you alone. You were welcomed into the fold of Husband, Wife, and Children, House and Home. Your work qualified you, and God unified you. I, however, remain set apart. If the Lord chooses whom He will, so does the Normal. I do not begrudge you at all. I only wish I was Chosen as well.

For now, like Equus in chains, I struggle against the bit that has been prepared - and forged - for all of us.

My Final Project for the Beginning Writers' Workshop at KCC

VOYAGE WITH THE VISITOR: THE NULL WORLD

“What is this place?” I asked my extraterrestrial Visitor.

The two of us gazed down on the expanse below. Through a combination of electrochemical and pheromone signals emanating from the Visitor, I was able to understand when it spoke to my mind: Look. The planet above which we hovered was swarming with shuffling creatures.

We call this the Null World, the Visitor said.

The beings upon it looked so familiar, although I didn’t know why. They were of various shapes and sizes - tall, short, spindly, round - yet based upon the same blank template. They ambled past each other heedlessly, either not knowing or caring that others were nearby. I noticed two things right away: they were hooked to at least one portable object, and parts of their faces were oddly misshapen.

Their noses are the first to atrophy, said the Visitor, followed by their ears. Their tongues, which were once so useful for the formation of words, now only help them to swallow. Their devices keep them alive.

“Devices?” I asked, feeling queasy. I didn’t want to know what they were, but some part of me already did.

“Maybe try and communicate with one of them,” I said. “Telepathically, like you’re doing with me.”

The Visitor widened its two black, gleaming eyes, until they morphed into one that spanned the bridge of its tubelike nose. I saw it focus upon one of the figures below, and the image grew ever clearer. The creature himself - a bald-headed male - was intensely focused upon the flat screen that he carried. Two seconds passed, then five, then ten. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle as my galactic guide attempted to reach the creature’s mind. Apparently, this telepathy did not only affect its potential recipient.

Nevertheless, the male did not react. He simply moved on, leaning in closer to his beloved tech-wear.

The Visitor drooped its head: I said “Hello”. After hesitating, it let its one eye separate into two again.

We looked at the creatures again. Despite all of their aimless shuffling, their fingers fluttered with manic purpose. They mashed and swiped their thumbs against screens that only they could see, and bobbed their heads to musical vibrations they could only sense - not hear. I shut my eyes tightly against the scene.

“What’s wrong with them?” I asked. “Why don’t they notice each other, or even themselves? Huh?”

They fear death, and seek to escape it by uploading as much information as they can through their technology. Unfortunately, what they’re actually doing is downloading themselves onto these devices. They want to live forever, and in pursuing such a goal, they die. 

This paradox was too much to bear. I kept my eyes shut, shaking my head over and over. It couldn’t be.

It is, my companion replied, and that’s why I’ve come for you.  

The Visitor soothed my mind, and the Null World - Earth - disappeared.

Writing Challenge: "Laughs at the Library"

This is the second writing challenge posed to me by Chris and Jerri Schlenker from my "Beginning Writer's Workshop" course:

LAUGHS AT THE LIBRARY

There are several reasons why our local library is one of my favorite places. For starters, the dusty scent of old tomes combined with that of fresh paperbacks sends me reeling back to my childhood. So do the helpful librarians, several of whom I’ve known since then. Of late, however, my newest reason to love the library is Junior High Game Day. I know what some of you are thinking: “Junior high kids are actually fun?” 

Yes, indeed. One day per month, our librarians invite local children from sixth to eighth grade over to play board games. There are several, including chess, Apples to Apples (a perennial favorite), Monopoly (with electronic banking so you don’t have to perform the arduous task of making change), Twister (which I never play for fear of breaking one or more of my appendages), and Trivial Pursuit (very rarely utilized). 

This last is because the questions are way too hard for post-Millennials: “Who was the first U.S. President to ride in a car?” One kid’s answer: “George Bush!” I pointed out that automobiles were invented in the late 1800’s, not the early 2000’s, so he bravely gave it another try: “Abraham Lincoln!” The actual answer is William McKinley. I confess that the only other thing I know about him is that he was assassinated by a Polish man named Leon Czolgosz. If I have my Slavic pronunciation right, that’s “tsol-GOSH.” The only reason I recall that is because of his last name. I’ve tried to master Russian and failed, so there you go. 

Anyway, that’s why we don’t play Trivial Pursuit. Another big hit at Junior High Game Day, at least when I remember to bring it, is Crappy Birthday. I have no idea if that’s because the gifts depicted on the game cards are so funny, or because the kids are legally allowed to say “crappy” at the library. Perhaps both. Each kid takes turns being the “birthday boy” or “birthday girl”, who is a judge of sorts. All the other kids have five “gift cards” in their hand, depicting horrible presents such as forty gallons of nacho cheese, a decorative urinal, a peeing statue, and so on. The player with the “birthday” has to pick the present they would hate to receive the most. The kid who had that card in his or her hand gets a point. Five points wins. 

“What’s a ‘bid-it’?” asked one boy (not the same one who guessed “George Bush” for the Trivial Pursuit question). He held up a card showing what looked like a large toilet. Blushing a little, I explained that the word was pronounced bidet, and it was “a special toilet that washes you after you go to the bathroom.” Immediately, another boy cried, “I want it! I want it!” Everybody else cracked up, including me. “Who wouldn’t want that? That’s a great present!” he added. More guffaws. Yes, this is a true story as well. 


Such laughs at the library!

Writing Challenge: "A Great Day"

This challenge was posed to me by Ann Goza, from my "Beginning Writers' Workshop" student group on Facebook. I am to write 500 words or less on the subject, "You know it's going to be a great day when..."

A GREAT DAY

You know it’s going to be a great day when you get to sleep in. Not only is it your day off from work, but if you have kids, they’re on a field trip for school - and you DON’T have to chaperone. So, at 6:00 AM, you snuggle back under the covers and enjoy at least three more hours of rest. Your pet joins you as a comfy bio-pillow.

When you finally do get up, you discover that your significant other has finally broken out the cappuccino machine that you gave him/her last Christmas. Over a steaming cup with extra foam, you engage in friendly discourse whilst still in your pajamas. With a sultry wink, you’re asked the question: “Should I take a shower before…or after?” You respond in kind, according to your preference, surprised that such a high pronunciation of the word “Yee!” can emerge from your throat post-children. You, my friend, are on a roll.

Thus satisfied on both the gastrointestinal and libidinal fronts, you “start” your day after discovering that it’s actually 11:00 AM. Out of a simultaneous sense of habit and duty, you glance toward your treadmill in the bedroom. No, you think, casting a baleful glare at the contraption. I don’t have to do that today. Instead of putting in your required thirty minutes of hard labor outside of the office, you open a book. You haven’t had any time to read it lately. Your favorite mystery/romance/horror extravaganza has been almost permanently replaced by The Poky Little Puppy and, disconcertingly, Walter the Farting Dog. 

Thankfully, the kids aren't here, but do you know who is? Your favorite talk show host during lunch. Your significant other is out doing something or other. Therefore, you revel with perverse glee in the eternally-shocking paternity revelations of Maury Povich, If you’re a more health-conscious sort, you watch that one  episode of Dr. Oz that you’ve had on DVR for two months. Duly admonished, you wash the dishes and promise that you’ll get back to the treadmill and vegetables tomorrow. Today you had to have grilled cheese.

When your significant other returns, s/he poses you a challenge: Another round of you-know-what, or a round of competitive golf on Xbox Kinect? You pick the golf first, with the other activity as a little forfeit. The loser has to submit to the winner’s best impression of Christian Grey from 50 Shades. You’re game. Against all odds, you also emerge victorious! Then again, you dimly suspect that your SO was “showing off” some brilliant “parking lot shots”. However, who cares? To you go the spoils of both love and war.

You eat an early dinner at your favorite Italian place with actual wine, because the kids aren’t around. You even share a portion of tiramisu for a “pick-me-up” that you know you’ll need tomorrow. Oh, well. To finish off your great day, when you tuck your little ones into bed, they decide to give you five hugs apiece.

Short Story: "Called to Account"

This is a writing challenge posed to me by Chris and Jerri Schlenker from my "Beginning Writer's Workshop" course:

CALLED TO ACCOUNT

A 500-Word Short Story by Rainey Wetnight, a.k.a MsFicwriter

“Mister Edmonds? Would you step into my study for a moment?” 

“Certainly, your lordship.” This isn‘t good. If Lord Marsdale wants something, he summons me to the parlor or dining room. I’m being called to the carpet, but what ghastly infraction have I committed? 

Once he’s seated behind his mahogany desk, he places his fingertips together in a pyramid shape. “It seems that two thousand pounds has gone missing from my bank account.”

“Sir?” Calm down. Keep your tone neutral. 

“I find it rather odd, Edmonds, that just one week ago you were requesting some time off.” 

“I - That is true, but I don’t take extravagant holidays. A fortnight in the country is enough for me.”  

He ignores this. “The only three people on these premises with access to my finances are my wife, my valet Coe, and you - for household expenses. Have you been making withdrawals without my knowledge?”

My spine stiffens. “I would never do so, sir, especially for such a large sum. Have you questioned Coe?” 

Lord Marsdale raises an eyebrow. “I shall, but I thought I’d start with you. What are you not telling me?” 

Square your shoulders. Head high. Stand up straighter. “I have been perfectly aboveboard with you.” 

“Yes, you have, and I applaud you for that. Such is why I’m surprised at your reticence now.” 

“Reticence? My lord, I have done absolutely nothing. Theft is far below me, and these accusations, with all due respect, are far below you.” Good. Keep questioning his honor, and putting him on the defensive.  

“Sit down.” 

He’s kept me standing this whole time. Foolish move. I could have bolted, but didn’t. Why? With cautious grace, I take the one seat across the desk from him. I want him to speak next, and to keep on speaking.  

“Have you been having any financial difficulties lately, Edmonds?” 

“Related to my duties, sir? Of course not. I make a point of budgeting wisely, for this estate and myself.” 

My employer leans forward half an inch. “What about the evening gala for Lord Steyne and his wife?” 

I cringe. “It was their anniversary, and so I purchased food and wines according to their particular taste.” 

“Aye. In this case, ‘their particular taste’ happened to dig us five hundred pounds into the hole…” 

The edge in his voice is growing sharper. I’ve got to nip this in the bud. “What can I say?” I shrug. 

“The Steynes were quite pleased, but I was not. I gave you a reprimand, which you seem to have ignored.” 

“No, sir! I’ve striven to be frugal in our dinners, especially in the servants’ kitchen - less meat, more meal.” 

“Bravo.” He lets his hands slip down onto the desk, and then curls them into fists. “Now I want the truth.” 

I give him a slow, oily smile. “Why don’t you ask your wife? Your beloved Mabel, who is now my beloved?” 

Movie Review: "Borgman"

Beguiling Borgman

By Rainey Wetnight

“I saw a magician.” -Isolde, the daughter of one of the two main characters in this fascinating fable

Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) first appears in the lives of an upper-middle-class family as a homeless man. All he wants is a bath, he says, because he is “quite dirty”. One might wonder why he doesn’t ask housewife and artist Marina (Hadewych Minis) for something to eat first, but it turns out he has his reasons for wanting to be clean right off the bat. Her high-profile TV mogul husband, Richard (Jeroen Perceval) is immediately suspicious - so suspicious that he attacks Borgman and almost kicks him to death. To make up for this violent outburst, Marina offers the gray-bearded tramp not only a bath, but a meal and a night in her summer house. “I’m sorry,” she says, but Borgman replies sympathy won’t cut it. “I’m in pain,” he informs her. “Nurse me.” She does, over the course of a few days, but Marina is the one who needs help.

Why? Clue number one: One opening scene of Borgman involves a priest. Two: There are also two men with the holy Father, one with a makeshift spear and the other with a shotgun. Three: See the italicized quote above. However, our villain is not just any magician, or even any evil magician. He can make a little girl’s fever vanish (as well as himself), but for what purpose does he need a surgical team? Like a regular stage prestidigitator, he has several assistants, namely Ludwig, Pascal, Brenda and Ilonka. “You’re early,” he tells two of them that Marina can’t see. “Off with you”. However, they’re currently in greyhound form.

With all this supernatural weirdness going on, what’s just as intriguing are the tense familial dynamics. Marina feels underappreciated, mostly by her husband. A gardener (disposable yet biodegradable) looks after the grounds, while a beautiful nanny named Stine looks after the children. Surprisingly, there’s none of that kind of hanky-panky going on, but someone sure is looking to wreck this supposedly happy home.

The best scene in the movie is a late one, a family dinner to which Borgman and his friends are invited. However, despite their malevolent nature, their being present isn’t really necessary in order to make these solid suburban citizens tear at each other’s throats. Richard has just been fired, and the son of his former boss also happens to be at the table: Stine’s new boyfriend. As before, Richard springs into action. He aims to pummel this threat as he had the bearded, tattered old one, but Marina immediately stops him. Later she asks her gardener for a favor: “He has to die, Camiel.” Is her request utterly unreasonable?

What director Alex van Warmerdam excels at is subtlety: the sound of flies buzzing whenever a certain character is around, shots of glasses of dark red wine, the harried scraping of a knife on buttered toast, and metaphors of kisses and a white child near a lake. Even though his touch is deft, sometimes it’s almost too light. You might start wishing that the protagonists would just go off the proverbial deep end already and quit standing on the diving board. However, once they do, it’s absolutely riveting to watch.

In most movies about a capital-A adversary, the main character knows pretty quickly with whom s/he’s dealing. Negotiations ensue, the rate of exchange for temporal happiness is revealed, and a deal is made (blood-signed contract optional). In this one, though, the Tramp can take his time. In one hour and fifty-two minutes, he slowly worms his way into the hearts and minds of his human prey, discovering and warping their desires. “There will be consequences,” Borgman warns Marina when she wants to hire him as the family’s new landscaper. However, she barely bats an eyelash. Does she not suspect…or not care?

Calamity befalls us in several ways. We can lose our jobs, our homes, even our families, due to events that we neither plan nor control. However, with actual evil - as with a fictional vampire - you have to let it in.

RAINEY’S RATING: 3.5 STARS

Movie Review: "Night Moves"

Night Moves, Then Darkness Dawns

By Rainey Wetnight

“I’m not focused on big plans; I’m focused on small plans.” -Jackie Christianson, eco-filmmaker

Here’s a thought experiment: If you knew that according to science, marine biodiversity would be gone by the year 2048, what would you do? If you also knew that protests, online petitions, “Likes” on Facebook, and even environmental filmmaking wouldn’t catch most people’s lasting attention, how far would you go to get it? That’s the question three young people have to answer in Kelly Reichart’s Night Moves. Josh (Jesse Eisenberg) and Dena (Dakota Fanning) are organic farmers living at a cooperative which they and their fellow environmentalists call Nature’s Harvest. Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) is Josh’s brother, a former Marine trained in demolitions. These three seek to make their cause known with a bang, not a whimper.

The Green Peter Dam, on a certain unnamed river, prevents salmon from swimming upstream to spawn. They perish with their purpose as fish unachieved, and with no fish, the river’s ecosystem will collapse. Thus, so must the dam. All it takes is five hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, wires, a detonator, a timer, and an unassuming rich senior’s named speedboat - from where the film’s title comes. Early on, the eco-terrorist trio shows more remorse about destroying the boat than the dam. “Well, we don’t really give a [expletive] about longevity,” one of them comments with a rueful look in his eyes. They plan their attack so carefully, pondering each step with as much concentration as a chess grandmaster considers his moves. Nevertheless, even the smallest missteps can cause monumental repercussions.

The most tension-fraught scene in the whole film is not the one at the fertilizer store, but the one on the edge of the obsidian-colored reservoir where the gang plants their boat. They notice that on the opposite side, someone gets a flat tire and has to change it. Meanwhile, there’s only fifteen minutes left until ‘big dam go boom’. “That’s not a good spot,” Dena murmurs in a near-whisper. “No,” says Harmon. He returns to the loaded vessel, looks at the bomb timer, and waits. In the end, however, he must decide: Whose life is more important, especially in the long run? Is it worth turning back when so little will be changed?

Afterward, all of them believe that they’re - in fact, they are counting on - going back to normal, as if nothing happened. (Why is it that criminals in movies almost always think this, and then their conscience betrays them? Since the days of Dostoevsky, this has been true more often than not). What two of them realize too late is that nothing will ever seem normal again - eating dinner with one’s friends and family, working, listening to gossip, or even sorting vegetables for CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture). They’ve all worked so hard to support life through what they do, and in the end, they’re prepared to take it.

Half of this film’s excellence lies in its powerful nature shots: the dam being turned on in the morning and spilling an effervescent geyser into the reservoir, the reservoir itself under cover of darkness, the woods, and most powerfully, a forest of dead trees standing up in the middle of the river being dammed. This is the price we pay for our digital gadgets, our mass-produced food, and industrialization in general. Nothing comes without a cost, without sacrifice. Unfortunately, the trio here is prepared to sacrifice not only their own lives, but the lives of bystanders and strangers, to teach the world (or at least the locals) this lesson.

The question that haunts me at movie’s end is this: How much of an impact did they really have? As one of Josh and Dena’s coworkers mentions: “One dam? You’d have to blow up twelve dams to make a difference. I don’t call [what the perpetrators did] a point. I call that theater.” Real-life terrorists know that scale is crucial: the more people who die, the more attention they’ll get from the media and governments. What Dena, Josh and Harmon do is terrorism, yes, but it causes no widespread panic. Even though their crime makes the national news, there’s (oddly?) no nationwide manhunt. What they thought was a “big plan” ultimately turned out to be small potatoes, at least in terms of people’s response to their message.

My only other critique is that the ending of this film is so dull and anticlimactic that it will resound with a thud in viewers’ minds. None of their questions, or mine, will truly have been answered.

RAINEY’S RATING: 3½ STARS

Movie Review: "The November Man"

Bittersweet November

By Rainey Wetnight

“WHAT DO YOU DO?” -Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, shouting at his fellow covert agent

Welcome to the grown-up world, Mister Bond. You’ll still find malevolence, mayhem, and gore galore, but no longer will any of your female conquests bear suggestive names revealing their actual purpose. Along with your daily doses of cranial junk food - death, fear and copulation - you’re going to have to choke down vegetables of virtue, moralizing as you’re murdering. Preferably afterward, but you know what I mean.

I am speaking, of course, to you, Pierce Brosnan. You’ve played the iconic role of 007 in four films. Most of them were unintentionally hilarious. We audience members could be forgiven for grinning at your chiseled face being superimposed upon stunt doubles’ heads through the subtle wonders of CGI. As you told the world how you liked your martinis, over and over, we couldn’t help but roll our eyes like you’d roll an olive across a bar counter. We even tried to hide our guffaws until after the ending line in Goldeneye about “debriefing each other”. Now there’s no more time for monkey business. You’re in a different zoo.

Instead of a name pronounceable in macho, monosyllabic grunts, you’re going to have to grapple with the moniker “Peter Devereaux”, coined by Bill Granger. I’m sure you know how to pronounce that first name, but the last one might be a bit of a stretch. Hint: It doesn’t rhyme with “sex”, although there’s plenty of it. I am also sorry to inform you, but the main scene is between your young rival David Mason (Luke Bracey) and a nightclub-loving blonde named Sarah (Eliza Taylor). For you, there’s Alice Fournier (lovely Bond girl Olga Kurylenko). Look, but don’t touch. That would almost be pedophilia at your age, so keep it zipped.

Your present plot is - well, a naturally-convoluted series of plots. Who are the good guys, the bad guys, the good bad guys, and the bad good guys? Add to that some raucous QueasyCam™ car chases, rear-kicking explosions, and gun battles that make those in Treasure of the Sierra Madre look like child’s play. If you’re looking for depth of character a la your role in Remember Me, remember you’re the November Man. ‘When you pass through, nothing lives.’ Which makes me puzzled: what’s up with the ending, then?

Let me be frank with you for a moment. This movie is schizophrenically unsure of what it wants to be, as RogerEbert.com critic Matt Zoller Seitz has so clearly pointed out. If it were a video game, one moment it would be Grand Theft Auto V, and the next moment Mass Effect. I once read that there were only two kinds of plots in the whole world: those of forza and forda, or body and mind. If you try to mix them up, audiences usually get confused, and the less they’ll want to see of one or the other. Nine times out of ten, what they’re looking for is much less mind (a la Agent Hanley, played by Bill Smitrovich) and much more body (Kurylenko). The issues presented in The November Man are very salient, and the villains’ raisons d’etre more believable than the ones in any of your Bond movies. However, I would have preferred that you turn down the volume of blood and turn up the intrigue, a la Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Gary Oldman.

The character that had me the most interested in your latest picture is the one with the least screen time: Natalia Ulanova, played by Caterina Scorsone. She’s the reason why you do what you do, or why Peter Devereaux does what he does. If it weren’t for Natalia, then you wouldn’t be trying to off David Mason as he tries to boff his latest girl (What was her name again? Remember, man?) “WHAT DO YOU DO?” you bellow after you yourself do something beyond despicable. I almost stopped rooting for you at that point. Then I recalled that you’re the…hero?…and you wouldn’t (would?) stoop so low. I understood perfectly.

In closing, Mr. Brosnan, you’ve earned the right to gravity - and gravitas - through your silver hair.

Embrace it. Let this bittersweet November be a draw, half-win, half-loss, in your considerable career.

RAINEY’S RATING: 3 STARS

Movie Review: "The Master Builder" (1958)

Master Builder, Master Destroyer

By Rainey Wetnight

“Homes for human beings…” -Donald Wolfit as Halvard Solness, on what he designs 

In high school, I had a thing for Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. While my classmates devoured the latest teen magazines and YA novels, I slowly savored A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler. I can’t recall reading A Master Builder back then, though, and in retrospect I’m glad. To understand this master work and what makes it tick, it takes a lot more maturity than my sixteen-year-old mind could have mustered. It centers around several opposing themes: youth versus age, desire versus duty, light versus darkness, and life versus death. Which characters embody which concepts, and at which times during the play? I have chosen to review the 1958 made-for-television version, distributed by BBC Films and 2 Entertain.

Halvard Solness (Donald Wolfit) is a man on a mission. Just as driven as Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, Solness’ goal is to slay the great white whale of “the younger generation”. The eponymous middle-aged architect is afraid that one day youth will replace him, crying “Make room! Make room!” Therefore, he has practically enslaved his former employer Knut Brovik, Brovik’s young but slightly-stooped son Ragnar, and his bookkeeper mistress, Brovik’s niece Kaia (Catherine Lacey). Ragnar has definite talent, but Solness yearns to keep him under tight control. Kaia yearns for Solness, even though she and Ragnar are engaged. Knut yearns to see his son branch out and build on his own, although he fears this won’t happen before illness overcomes him. At the beginning of the movie, he begs Solness to let Ragnar go. “Am I to die in such poverty?” he rasps. To which the Master Builder replies: “You must die as best you can.”

Also dead are Solness’ wife Aline, in a spiritual sense, and the two twin boys they once had. Rather than consider this dire misfortune to be what it is, he believes it’s the source of his remarkable luck in business. Once their former residence, Aline’s ancestral home, is consumed in a fire, the Builder is free to parcel out the land and build “happy homes, [for a] mother, father, and a troop of children” - the ones he lacks. His own house is a dark mausoleum, a monument to the past, with no less than three (!) separate nurseries. Who will occupy them now? Enter Hilda Wangel (Mai Zetterling), a lovely sprite of twenty-four who knew both Solness and Aline ten years before. She appears out of nowhere, dead broke and seeking lodging.

Why has Hilda returned after all this time? What does she want from Solness, and what is she prepared to take from his family? Those are the central questions of the play, and I won’t spoil it entirely. I’d much rather explain why, two centuries later, The Master Builder casts a spell over those who cherish drama.

This play is, first and foremost, a character study. All of the explosions and special effects are the ones secretly churning in the human heart, searing everyone they touch once they boil over. It’s also about our longing to relive and correct the past, especially if it contains tragedies we’d rather try to hide. Solness’ struggle is our own, on a profound level. As he attempts to build high towers and “castles in the air”, so do we. He is no longer satisfied with what he promised (and what he shouted at God) that he would do. He craves much loftier things, even though he’s now terrified to glance down from a second-floor balcony.

However, what separates the Builder from most of the rest of us is the true source of his strength. It’s most clearly expressed in his greatest delusion of grandeur. Solness believes that he is one of a very few “special people” who can cause events to happen if they simply wish hard enough. (Did he write the massively popular self-help book The Secret two hundred years in advance?) He calls “helpers and servers” to him, uses them, and then discards them like apple cores. Indeed, one can almost say that he consumes them, as one consumes food, attributing their positive qualities to himself while projecting his own negative qualities onto them. He is a Narcissus in love with his own reflection, and the Impossible Dream. There is nothing he would not do for what he wants, and for the people he supposedly loves.

Solness is a master destroyer, a false Odin - god of the sun - taking human sacrifices unto himself.

RAINEY’S RATING: 4 STARS

Movie Review: "Jack"

Jack Be Simple

By Rainey Wetnight

“It’s too soon! It’s too soon!” -Diane Lane as Karen Powell, “Jack’s” mother

It’s only fitting that an absurd fable about a ten-year-old boy in a forty-year-old-man’s (Robin Williams’) body begins with an entourage dressed as the cast of the Wizard of Oz in the delivery room. “Jack’s” mother (Diane Lane) is the Wicked Witch of the East with ruby slippers; his father (Brian Kerwin) is a tearful Tin Man. “Don’t rust up on me now!” Lane exults as her baby boy is born seven months early. It is, perhaps, the funniest line in the whole movie. Certainly, his condition isn’t meant to be funny, but pitiful.

So, what exactly is wrong with Jack? He doesn’t have progeria, as a doctor explains early-on in the film, which is “devastating to the child”. Rather, his cells mature at four times the normal human rate, but he’s otherwise healthy. Why being so different from his peers would not be devastating to him is just as much a mystery as his main trait, and indeed, Jack is viewed as a monster by some curious neighborhood kids. Nevertheless, he’s just as happy-go-lucky as any typical ten-year-old boy, and as distracted. His tutor, Mr. Woodruff (Bill Cosby) comes to Jack’s house every day to teach him, but Jack wants to go to regular school instead. “We’ve seen how people react,” his mother says in defense of keeping him at home, “and we don’t want Jack to have to face that.” What Jack must face, of course, is other people (kids and adults) looking at him like he’s a child molester instead of a child - or, in this case, a man with a child’s mind.

So he goes off to school. He wakes up late, in his blue print pajamas. His mom makes him a lunchbox. He has a rather dorky plaid shirt and a backpack that’s half a size too small for him. The only differences are that Jack has to shave and his dad tells him he can come home any time he wants to, a luxury that ordinary kids lack but often wish they had. His new fifth-grade teacher, Miss Marquez (Jennifer Lopez) is too gorgeous for her own good. Let’s face it - a romance between her and Jack would technically be pedophilia. Knowing this, she loops her arm through his and introduces him to the rest of her class just as if he were a child-sized new student. Unfortunately he’s not, and promptly tips over in his child-sized desk.

Such sophomoric hi-jinks are only the beginning of Jack’s journey through the world of middle school. His shoelaces come untied. He doesn’t realize that he can easily navigate the balance-beam ledge. The other kids laugh, point and stare. “He’s probably planning on kicking our butts or something,” one neighbor boy with glasses says. If only, but this is a kids’ movie, and Robin Williams can’t unleash Jack’s inner beast. Instead, he gets poked with a long stick by two snooty little girls and ignored by the basketball team. Will he have his revenge a la Carrie, or eventually win them over? Even a ten-year-old knows the outcome.

The trouble with this movie is not Robin Williams, or even director Francis Ford Coppola. It’s the inane plot, flat characterization, toilet humor, vapid dialogue, and utter lack of insight into Jack’s character - until he starts getting gray hair. By then, the poignant fear he feels at growing truly old is too little, too late.

What are we supposed to learn from Jack? Accept those who are different? Yes, but why couldn’t Coppola have directed a movie about a real person with a real disability instead? Live life to the fullest? Yes, but why couldn’t Robin Williams have learned that lesson as a forty-year-old man in mind and body? Jack’s graduation speech is supposed to sum everything up, but the entire movie Dead Poets Society does the exact same thing in a much better way over the course of its running time than this movie does. Jack is insulting on so many levels, and to so many kinds of people, that it’s a wonder it was ever made.

I’d like to close this review with a modified Mother Goose nursery rhyme:

Jack be simple, with such schtick,
Jack’s so dumb that it makes me sick.

The late, great Robin Williams deserved better for bringing out the wishful, wondering kid in all of us.

Robin Williams
1951-2014

Blues Song: "Count You Down (and Out):"

COUNT YOU DOWN (AND OUT)

By Rainey Wetnight

I've got to count you down, count you down and out, you see.

I've got to count you down - there's nothing left, don't you agree?

I thought you WERE GOOD, but you are NO GOOD for me.

I've got to count you down, count you down and out at last.

I've got to count you down - the love we had is in the past.

I thought you WERE GOOD; you became NO GOOD, and fast!

10, 9, 8, oh, yeah, we started so great.

7, 6, 5, you did deceive and connive.

4, 3, 2, the end of me and you,

And now you're 1, alone. That's why you'll sing the blues!

(Wicked Guitar Solo)  

10, 9, 8, oh, yeah, we started so great.

7, 6, 5, you did deceive and connive.

4, 3, 2, the end of me and you,

And now you're 1, alone. That's why you'll sing the blues!

I've got to count you down, count you down and out, you see.

I've got to count you down - there's nothing left, don't you agree?

I thought you WERE GOOD, but you are NO GOOD,

I thought you WERE GOOD, but you are NO GOOD,

I thought you WERE GOOD, but you are NO GOOD for me!

Short Story: POWER

POWER

By Rainey Wetnight, ©2014

December 18, 6:00 AM

‘Twas two weeks before Christmas, and all through this plant,
The lines keep speeding up, but as for us, we can’t…

“Y’all right?”

I nod. Charlene means me, even though her concern (muffled by her face mask) sounds like it’s for more than one person. Except for her skin being black and mine as pale as death, we’re identical twins. We’re wearing hairnets, safety goggles, the aforementioned masks, navy-blue jumpsuits, and thin latex gloves that sink into every fold and wrinkle on our hands. You’d think they’d puncture, but they don’t. At first glance we all look like doctors or nurses, but none of us will ever have that kind of skill - or pay grade.

We’re assembly-line drones, “rightsourced” as the official jargon goes, in the thick of the holiday rush.

Tech0p0l1s, 1nc. (yes, it’s spelled that way, with ones and zeroes) is both state-of-the-art and dirt cheap. It makes the world’s most advanced robotic toys for children ages six and up, so how come its workplace P&P’s - policies and procedures - are straight out of the late nineteenth century? I’ve been working double shifts lately, which means sixteen hours instead of eight, but I’ll really GO FOR THE GOLD this time.

I hate that stupid plaque, staring right across from me when I’m not powering up robot after robot. It’s not actual gold, but it gleams. Someone actually gets paid to polish it to a high mirror shine every day.

“You sure? You’re looking like a space cadet.” Charlene again.

“Sorry. It’s the new energy pill I took. SILA: One’s all you need.”

She looks at me warily. Hasn’t she seen their ubiquitous ads? I guess not, because with schedules like ours, who has time to watch TV? Fortunately there’s one in the break room, plus Internet access. The pills are made by a Russian pharmaceutical firm, hence their own spelling of the product: СИЛА. I felt vaguely uneasy when I first looked at the label on the bottle, feeling a dim memory of the Russian I’d learned from my grandmother resurface. I couldn’t remember what this word meant, however, in her native language.

Anyway, I’d taken one of the iridescent blue capsules - only one - and now I was raring to go.

“Good morning, everyone,” a calming male voice says, fit more for GPS’s than a factory intercom. “We’re glad you’re here for another day at Tech0p0l1s. Please remember that time is of the essence. Thank you.”

The signature notes of our company’s jingle play, and then after a whirr, the conveyor belt jerks to life.

6:15 AM

It’s my job to plug in each toy and see if it activates with initial power, leaving all the fun of testing to the testers. They’re the ones who get to play with the robots and work out all the bugs, so to speak. Me? I’m the “on” technician, and if the products don’t turn on, I’m supposed to toss them in REJECT bins at my feet. Out of the hundred I’ve plugged in, only one hasn’t made the cut, which speaks well for our assemblers. The conveyor belt is deceptive, as sterile and white as the fluorescent lights in a hospital, but I know better. Sometimes we cut ourselves on the small parts as we build the toys, but we’re supposed to deal with that.

To me, the belt runs as crimson as the sunset with the unseen, and unheeded, blood of tiny lacerations.

I blink. What was that?

Nothing. Come on. You’re just nervous because you’ve never put in a twenty-four-hour shift before. 

I want to rub my eyes, but can’t because of the goggles, and pray the sudden itching goes away.

6:30 AM

I’ve fallen into a rhythm. In a job like mine, this is critical. New fish on the line start out so worried, fretting about absolutely everything and if they’re doing it right, that someone has to tell them not to think. It’s best to let the simple parts of your brain take over: the lower ones responsible for reacting instead of reasoning. This stuff should become as automatic as breathing, as it has with me, and SILA helps me do it faster.

Next, next, next. I’m already up to two hundred units, and only two more REJECTS. So far, so good.

I’ll make the rent if I pull this off, and buy one more month of begrudged silence from my landlord.

7:00 AM

I…I can’t believe this. My count should only be 300 by now, but it’s 375. Am I actually getting faster?

If this keeps up, I’ll take SILA every day and do this all through Christmas. Even on Christmas.

Not since I was little - I mean, like five or six - have I had this much energy. Robots fly to me and past me faster than I ever thought they could, yet I still find time to plug each one in. I feel no pain, no discomfort from standing on my feet for a full hour, not even the tingling I felt in my eyes before. There’s nothing. More than that, though, I feel something slowly building in me, something wonderful. It’s as if that little blue pill I took this morning - no, not THAT one! - has awakened something in the chemistry of my blood, the meat-machine of my body, to turn it from being thin and spent into something fluid, something malleable yet infinitely charged. I’m literally being refreshed, renewed, with each second that I surrender to work.

10:00 AM

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice people coming on and off the line for their morning breaks. Wimps! 

12:00 PM 

“Lunch?”

Shut up, Charlene. Don’t you know that a “gold shift” is twenty-four hours STRAIGHT? 

The robots are no match for me. I was once their slave, but now I have become their lawful master. The conveyor belt, helpless to do anything but bring more, is nothing but a crazy blur. My count? The big 1000.

So simple and beautiful a cipher, a one and three zeroes, an “on” and three “offs”. Bountiful. Celestial. Millennial. It is this number, more than any other, that entrances me. It is my salvation, in dollars and in the electronic tally that represents how many units I’ve activated. Never before have I reached it so quickly.

Tears form along my parched corneas, but I don’t even notice them until they’re rolling down my cheeks.

3:00 PM

FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER FASTER 1800 FASTER FASTER FASTER…

6:00 PM 

This factory is alive, and I don’t mean with people. We’re the most mechanical (or should I say, digital?) things in it. Everything else, from the walls to the fluorescent lights to the plaque I abhor, teems with life.

Some people believe that every form of matter, now matter how inanimate, possesses consciousness. They’re right. Even the dust motes in the air, which land against my face mask like sleepy children’s heads coming to rest on pillows, know exactly where they’re going, what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it. They exist to float, and to remind us that we are like them in every single respect. None of what we call our great accomplishments, not even the ingenuity to come up with the idea of these toys, is worth a whit.

Dust we are, and to dust we shall return, unless we merge with the infinite and the mathematical: 2900. 

12:00 AM

I have learned the truth:

“One’s all you need?” That’s a big lie, because it’s only eighteen hours into my shift and I’m wearing down.

I have to take another SILA, or else the two O’s in GO FOR THE GOLD, shining maws, will swallow me.

5:00 AM

There are a 4, a 5, a 6 and a 7 on a screen in the near distance. What do those things mean?

I feel completely liquid, full of acid. Battery acid. If the pills can’t help me, then I bet something else will:

Two sharp prongs.

As quick as a wink, I roll up my sleeve and stab them into my arm. I feel hot and sizzly-tingly all at once.

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. 

At long last, I have enough

POWER

~ 3/31/14 ~

Movie Review: "Terms of Endearment"

I know this isn't a blues song, but I lost a bet with my movie critic friend on Facebook, Susan Wloszczyna. Therefore, here's my forfeit: a review of the spectacular movie "Terms of Endearment".

Terms of Endearment, Terms of Life

By Rainey Wetnight

“Emma, I’m totally convinced if you marry Flap Horton tomorrow, it will be a mistake of such gigantic proportions it will ruin your life and make wretched your destiny.”  --Aurora Greenway

Before the term “helicopter parent” was ever coined, Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) embodied it. She’s the type of Southern-belle suburbanite, reminiscent of a faded heroine in A Streetcar Named Desire, who longs for ambition, gentility, and a more-than-comfortable future for her exuberant daughter Emma (Debra Winger). While Emma smokes marijuana in her bridal veil, anticipating her upcoming wedding to affable, philandering Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels), Aurora has other plans. “What mother doesn’t, especially regarding a groom with a nickname like that?” one might ask. True, but Mrs. Greenway is, shall we say, different. With her immaculate garden and penchant for wearing sheer 1940’s floral prints when everyone else has moved four decades ahead, fashion-wise, it’s clear why her astronaut next-door neighbor, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson) appalls her. He’s the grinning Stanley Kowalski to her Blanche DuBois.

Thankfully for both mother and daughter, they move on in their respective relationships. Emma finds out about her husband’s eye for nubile college girls, and Aurora finds out about Garrett’s…rocket. Despite these new developments, some things never change. Flap and Emma continue to argue about money and moving, and Mrs. Greenway always manages to fit in more than a few digs at her daughter with every telephone conversation (“You have cysts because you haven’t kept yourself up, and never learned how to wash.”) Meanwhile a sinister shadow lurks beneath the surface of this family, and Emma’s skin. When the gut-wrenching revelation hits, all of their apologies and hugs seem like too little, too late. They are.

What is life? Is it something to jump into with both feet and a hotrod, as Garrett Breedlove demonstrates in the Gulf of Mexico? Is it to be approached cautiously, as Emma’s meek banker acquaintance Sam (John Lithgow) does? Is it better to know everything that’s going on with the ones you love, or to have the simple faith of Emma’s children that all will be well? Most importantly, is life something that one can control?

That is the true essence of Mrs. Greenway, and what she yearns for throughout this searingly honest film. In the end, one answer to these many questions is that sometimes, all we can do is give each other sincere love and Terms of Endearment, before we ultimately lose our chance.

RAINEY’S RATING: 4 STARS

I'm a Gambler

I’M A GAMBLER

By Rainey Wetnight

(Guitar Intro)

If riches can’t buy happiness, they sure can buy some peace.
I’m slaving day to day, and hoping not to break my lease.
Yeah, I’m a gambler, and I’m playing with my life.
What else you gonna do - what else you GOTTA do - when money’s tight?

I’ve no renter’s insurance, or any coverage for my car.
If the police pull me over, they’ll surely lock me up behind gray bars.
Yeah, I’m a gambler, and I’m playing with my life.
What else you gonna do - what else you GOTTA do - when money’s tight?

(Slow-Burn Guitar Solo)

I work two jobs already, but they just don’t pay enough.
If I get another one, I’ll sleep four hours a night, and that’s too rough.
Yeah, I’m a gambler, and I’m playing with my life.
What else you gonna do - what else you GOTTA do - when money’s tight?

I shun the doctor’s office, because I know what they’ll say:
“We’re going to bill you later”, but with my soul I’ll have to pay!
Yeah, I’m a gambler, and I’m playing with my life.
What else you gonna do - what else you GOTTA do - when money’s tight?

(Guitar Outro)

Just Another Woman/Just Another Man: My First Blues Song

JUST ANOTHER WOMAN/JUST ANOTHER MAN

By Rainey Wetnight

(Guitar Intro)

MALE SINGER:

I think I’m going to leave you; there’s no need to stick around.
We knew that when we met. Why do you keep dragging me down?
Why do you nag me all day long? Why can’t I get some peace?
Our baby’s not only one who’s wailing. Stop and cease!
We found each other at the bar, and formed a simple plan.
You were just another woman. I was just another man.

FEMALE SINGER:

So now you say we’re over, and you’re headed out the door.
You say that I’m not good to you, but I think you’re just bored.
I knew you were a player, but I’m tired of your games.
There’s someone else to think about. You put our child to shame!
Just like with your last hookup - first you loved her, then you ran.
Sure, I’m just another woman, but you’re just another man.

CHORUS:

(Female Singer)  Just another woman! (Male Singer)  Just another man! (Sung 4 times)

(Wicked Guitar Solo)

MALE SINGER:

You may be my “baby mama”, but it’s all the same to me.
Take the bottles, and the diapers, and the kid, and set me free.
Don’t act like you’re so blameless, with no stain upon your hands.
We both knew what we were after, and it’s called a one-night stand.
That’s the number-one reason I am not your biggest fan:
You’re just another woman, and I’m just another man.

FEMALE SINGER:

That’s how we’re going to end it? I should have known from the start.
I should have gone on “cruise control,“ and never lost my heart.
Of course you think it’s time to go, and finally clear the slate,
‘Cause you think you’re the only one involved. Now it’s too late.
Think you’ll forget us quickly? No, I don’t think you can.
I’m not just another woman. You’re not just another man.

CHORUS:

(Female Singer)  Just another woman! (Male Singer)  Just another man! (Sung 4 times)

(Guitar Outro)