The Hudsucker Proxy
One of Joel and Ethan Coen's lesser known films, The Hudsucker Proxy is in a similar vein as O Brother, Where Art Thou? with its peculiar brand of absurd humor and magical realism. Tim Robbins, rocking a modest pompadour, plays a rube named Norville Barnes who gets hired to be the president of Hudsucker Industries after the owner of the company commits suicide. The scheme is to get investors to lose faith in the company so that the board of directors can buy up stocks for pennies on the dollar. But when Norville invents an "extruded plastic dingus"--you know, for kids--an item that becomes a wildly popular bestseller, the board of directors realize that their scheme might not pay off.
Co-starring Paul Newman as the oily Sidney Mussberger and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a fast-talking journalist, The Hudsucker Proxy is not the among the best of the Coen bros. films, but it's a solid little gem.
3.75 out of 5 stars
***
Jug Face
A strange indie horror film, Jug Face is about a group of families living out in the sticks who follow a cultish religion where they regularly sacrifice members of their group to a creature that lives in a pit. Young Ada finds out that she is the next sacrifice chosen for the pit and refuses to accept her destiny, causing havoc to those around her. There's also incest. Yay.
Jug Face is entertaining, but ultimately not very good or very scary (the special effects that reveal the thing in the pit are amateurish). The movie is more concerned with making fun of weird, provincial hillbillies than with building a creative and tense storyline.
3 out of 5 stars
***
Devil's Pass
Another indie horror movie with iffy special effects, Devil's Pass has the advantage of actually being scary. Filmed in "Blair Witch" style, with handheld cameras, the film follows a group of college students setting out to make a documentary about the events of the Dyatlov Pass Incident--a real-life mystery where a group of hikers all died under mysterious conditions in the Ural Mountains in 1959.
Devil's Pass uses the facts of the actual incident to build tension that leads to an over-the-top climax involving a government cover up. The climax itself isn't as scary as the events leading up to it, in which the college students find themselves in increasingly dire straits as they retrace the steps of the Dyatlov hiking group. A worthwhile Netflix streaming watch.
3.5 out of 5 stars
***
True Detective
I had a couple beefs with this admittedly addictive HBO series, the main one being that women are treated like sub-human annoyances and sex dolls throughout all 8 episodes. Granted, the show looks down on the sexist and hypocritical way Det. Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) treats his wife, daughter, and mistresses, but it also doesn't really put its money where its mouth is by giving us a few strong, complex female characters. We get Hart's long-suffering wife, Maggie (Michelle Monaghan), and that's basically it. The way the show is written is misogynistic at worst and just plain male-centered at best.
HOWEVER. Stupid sexist bullshit aside, True Detective is, in fact, a well-written, extremely well-acted (especially Matthew McConaughey's portrayal of nihilistic weirdo Det. Rust Cohle), tightly-paced, creepy, addictive series. I can't deny that it's good watchin'. If you don't know the plot, I'll give it to you in one sentence: Cohle and Hart work together (despite massive personality differences) to solve the murder of a young woman whose death may have been part of a satanic ritual. Intrigued yet? Although I felt that there were certain threads to the mystery that were never fully addressed, the overarching themes of redemption, faith, and friendship give this series some meat. Let's hope women play a more central role next season.
4.5 out of 5 stars
***
The Disaster Artist
Those who know me know I'm a big fan of The Room--a laughably awful movie written, directed, produced, and starring professional weirdo Tommy Wiseau. The Room, unlike many other films that are simply bad, has a certain je ne sais quoi which elevates it to an almost artistic level of wrongness. The mystery of Wiseau--where he came from, what his motivations are--adds an additional element of strangeness to an already bizarre movie. So when The Disaster Artist, a memoir/tell-all by Greg "Sestosterone" Sestero (co-written by Tom Bissell), came out, I knew I had to snatch it up. And snatch I did.
Sestero interweaves his experience working on The Room (he served as line producer and also played Mark, the plum role of Johnny's (Wiseau) "best friend" who betrays Johnny by sleeping with his fiance) with the story of his own struggle to make it as an actor and how he met and befriended Wiseau. Sestero reveals tantalizing details from the set of The Room (the scene where Johnny exclaims "I deed naht heet her. Ees bullsheet. I deed NAHT. Oh, hai Mark" took about 4 hours to film) and even more tantalizing details about what might possibly be Wiseau's backstory. The book ends at The Room's premiere, which is a bit of shame since I would have liked to learn more about how The Room went from a shitty movie to a cult phenomenon. Sestero tries pretty hard to be even-handed in his description of Wiseau, but one wonders why he--and anyone else--put up with a man who has all the qualities of a delusional megalomaniac. Maybe because Wiseau had an inexplicably gigantic bank account? Probably.
The Disaster Artist isn't so much a tell-all as a tell-most. And Sestero's constant teetering between attempting to paint Wiseau as a latter-day Ed Wood and outright making fun of him comes off as disingenuous and condescending. However, the book is such great fun, with laugh-out-loud moments, that it's well worth reading for fans of The Room.
4 out of 5 stars
***
Bittersweet
I had heard a lot about Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's novel Bittersweet before I swiped it for $2 on Amazon. The story is about an average girl, Mabel, who gets sucked into the world of her very, very wealthy college roommate, Ev Winslow. After Mabel comforts icy Ev when her cousin commits suicide, Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer with her extended family at their estate in Vermont. "Bittersweet" refers to the name of the cottage Ev's parents give her when she turns 18. The Winslow estate is a chunk of land where each family member has their own cottage. Every summer, the entire damn place is overrun by privileged WASPs with mounds of juicy secrets. Sounds like a great read, huh? In truth, Bittersweet is good, but it just doesn't pay off. Mabel is encouraged by one of the older Winslows to go through family documents to find a mysterious manilla envelope proving ownership of a certain Van Gogh painting hanging in the dining hall. But that's just a red herring for the *real* Winslow scandals, which are much darker and much more overwrought. Think to yourself--what would be the most scandalous family secret for a gaggle of wealthy, upper-crust yankees? Whatever your answer is, it's probably one of the myriad family secrets that plague the Winslows in Bittersweet. The 400-page novel slowly, teasingly builds up to an overstuffed climax in which Beverly-Whittemore attempts to reveal all the Winslow secrets and tie up loose ends in about 20 pages. It's a shame since the novel is otherwise well written and decently paced. It's as if the author couldn't commit to one mystery or family secret and decided to just throw everything into a pot.
3 out of 5 stars
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