Spring Breakers

Some brief thoughts on the fascinating Spring Breakers:

The way the film dealt with imagery was pretty incredible. For lack of a better word, I’d describe the film’s visual track as “fractured,” organized loosely by the dialogue accompanying it. In other words, the dialogue acts as a through-line around which the images are organized, but only vaguely, like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. The visuals skip short distances forward and backward through time, illustrating and orbiting around the dialogue or evoking the setting’s atmosphere, sometimes repeating moments for emphasis. Accordingly, very rarely are the characters actually shown speaking their dialogue; instead, a wide array of images show the speakers or their subject(s) engaged in various, emblematic actions. This visual looseness allows for a fair degree audio freedom; in fact, quite often individual lines of dialogue or brief exchanges are repeated with variations, such as different intonations, or different accompanying imagery. At least once the characters are actually shown having the same exchange twice, but with different staging (as in the exchange near the end of the film about whether or not the characters fear their upcoming assault on a gangster’s mansion). These aesthetic choices result the film being shot through with a quasi-dream-like, free-floating looseness.

This stylistic looseness matches the looseness of the plot. The four female protagonists have only the most minimal of goals – get to Florida for spring break – which are quickly met. The film meanders from there through a loose string of coincidences and entirely new conflicts and characters, fitting for a film committed to indulging the hedonistic, consequence-free worldview of its characters.

Also remarkable are the characters, simply because they are almost non-existent (James Franco's "Alien" excluded). Of the four female protagonists, only one, Faith, receives strong distinguishing traits (she’s the religious “good” girl), and she leaves halfway through the film. The other three are practically ciphers; one (Cotty) is distinguished by her pink hair, but she also leaves two-thirds of the way through the film, and is given a nearly identical sendoff as Faith (right down to the staging and framing). The two that remain to the end (Brit and Candy) are practically indistinguishable from one another (I even had to look up Brit's name after seeing the film). However, despite their nearly complete lack of individualistic character traits, these two are in many respects the most interesting, since the collectively, the traits they do display are so refreshing. All four love to party, get drunk, do drugs, flirt with (and presumably screw) guys, but Brit and Candy have a particularly empowered attitude toward their affairs. They are the two who do the violent and scary work of stealing money from a restaurant in order to enable their spring break bacchanal in the first place. As interesting as the scene of their theft is (we see it play out twice, once from outside the restaurant, and one form inside - the second is far more brutal), their empowerment shines most clearly in one of the scenes they share with Alien.

After meeting them, Alien eventually takes them back to his oceanside house, and impresses them with all of the things he has (amongst them: knives, drugs, stacks of cash on a bed, shurikens, two different kinds of cologne, and lots and lots of guns). It’s a funny scene – small things become big in a small man’s world – but it becomes magnificent when Brit and Candy, seemingly impressed with Alien’s bravado, seduce him, pick up his guns, and then shove them in his mouth, telling him they don’t need him, and that they can kill him and just take his stuff. Then, in an unexpected turn, Alien shows himself to be a somewhat open-minded gangster: he fellates the guns like they're Brit and Candy’s cocks, and tells them he thinks he’s fallen in love with them right then and there. Apparently, he’s found his soul-mates. They are his kindred spirits, just as gangster as he is, while at the same time just as fem as all of the other hedonistic spring breakers with which they party throughout the film. It's a sea change in the dynamics of their relationship, which is now one of equals, rather than one of a rooster and his hens.

Their new partnership is nicely conveyed in an inspired, slow motion montage sequence of a series of violent heists (accompanied to Britney Spears’s “Evertyime”), but is most marvelously evident in the film’s climax. Alien, Brit, and Candy – the latter two clad in only pink ski masks and string bikinis – assault the mansion of Alien’s

rival, Archie. Alien is shot to death almost immediately, but Brit and Candy aren’t phased. They don’t even look at one another to reconfirm their commitment to the assault, but simply continue on the warpath, decimating Archie’s gang and killing Archie in his bathtub. Only on their way out of the mansion do they pause to bid Alien goodbye, gently kissing him before running off into the night.

Mad Men Season 6, Episode 4: “To Have and to Hold”

Here’s one account for why I think Mad Men is the best show on television: as I proceed through a new episode, I am constantly given cause to think that each successive scene is the best of the episode (with the exception of episodes heavily featuring Betty). No other show routinely causes me to fawn over individual scenes the way Mad Men does.* Tonight’s episode is exemplary – most scenes made me think, “Well, that has to be the best this episode has in store,” especially the scenes in the middle involving Joan and Harry, and then the succession of scenes toward the end. It’s a delight not be able to choose between them.

Mad Men Season 6, Episode 3: “Collaborators”

As expected, this week spends a lot of time focusing on Pete, who continues the trend from last season of becoming a poor man’s Don Draper on an accelerated timescale. Like Don, he’s grown restless in his marriage to a beautiful woman and life in the suburbs.* Like Don, he’s tried his hand at a string of affairs with other women, and now, like Don, he’s decided to start sleeping with his neighbor’s wife, Brenda (in showing how foolish such a liaison turns out to be, perhaps this is a way of the show hinting at later season developments for Don and Sylvia). Pete even has the same corner office on the second floor of SCDP as Don has on the first floor (and with the furniture arranged in the picturesque way the photographers wanted Don’s furniture arranged in the premiere – Pete’s never happy, but at least he’ll maintain the image of being happy).

Mad Men Season 6, Episodes 1 and 2, "The Doorway"

Season 6 (nearly) begins with a rather explicit answer to the question posed at the end of season 5: how much has Don’s marriage to Megan actually changed him? The answer comes in the form of a quote from Dante’s Inferno, which Don reads in voiceover shortly after the start of the season debut: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road, and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” The implication seems to be that Don’s character arc in season 5 was merely his momentarily straying from who he has become, and that he has now returned to the Don we knew in seasons 1 through 3. Don’s restlessness has returned, and despite his being in Hawaii on a work vacation, minor notes of discord abound: outside of the Dante quote, Don doesn’t speak for the first 8 minutes of the episode, and his first conversation is the product of a restless night, when he gets up in the wee hours to have a drink at the hotel bar, and is badgered into speaking with a private he meets there (the wonderfully-named PFC Dinkins). It’s no coincidence that Don is reading about Dante’s version of hell despite being in a place (Hawaii) other characters refer to as paradise (or heaven, as Don will describe it later in a pitch).

Girls Season 2, Episode 8, “It’s Back”

For a show entitled Girls, it’s probably bad form to be so fascinated with a male character rather than a female character, but I cannot help myself. Adam Driver’s performance as Adam is a wonder – his line readings are unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere, and seem to me to give great depth to what might otherwise be a shallow part. Somehow, through a combination of his cadence, his intonation, his volume and his gestures, when he speaks it’s as if I can see through his words to the many unexpressed thoughts beneath them, as if each line of dialogue is the precarious outcome of a tumult of conflicting instincts, intuitions, and thoughts. Usually, his halting cadence makes it seem as though he’s constantly stopping himself from saying more, and bottling up what he’s thinking – which obviously isn’t the case, because he frequently acts as if the outrageous things he says and does are rather ordinary things for people to say and do.

That’s what makes his outburst in the AA meeting of last night’s episode such a treat. It’s rare to have such unbridled insight into what makes this guy tick, especially when it’s so excellently written. He treats this AA group like therapy, unburdening himself of all of his frustration, confusion, and depression over his and Hannah’s breakup. It’s a raw monologue that just flows out of him, making him appear vulnerable and introspective, and in touch with himself. Particularly excellent writing included the bit where he talked about how wanted to teach her things she didn’t know (like how to use soap or what street Central Park started on). I thought it nicely representative of wanting to share things in your life with someone you love. I can’t blame Carol Kane for wanting to set up her daughter with him – based on that display, I’d want my hypothetical daughter to meet him too.

His monologue at the AA meeting was Adam’s showcase moment from this episode, but he had other excellent moments throughout. His phone call to Natalia was particularly well-acted. As his message got more awkward, he put himself in increasingly awkward physical positions: bending over, climbing a ladder, and then putting his head between the steps. And after hanging up, he instantly becomes disgusted with some of the things he says (specifically, describing himself as a creep), something everyone’s done at some point in their lives after talking on the phone with a potential love interest.

Adam and Natalia’s meeting provided more goodies. I loved the way in which it took him a moment to register that the beautiful woman walking through the door was there to see him – as if never in a million years did he think that Carol Kane’s daughter would be this person. Their mutual reactions to each other were also a delight. Adam is his usual, unfiltered self (“Holy shit!”), while Natalia says, “Oh my god, I love my mom.” The scene was great for vicarious living, indulging everyone’s fantasy of instantaneously hitting it off with a beautiful person.

Of course, the actual girls on Girls are pretty great as well. It’s as if each of the characters is in competition to be the least self-aware character on the show. For my money, Marnie is in the lead, followed closely by Hannah and Jessa, with Shoshana a distant fourth. Marnie’s self-esteem has always been wrapped up in how she compares herself with the other characters, especially her ex-boyfriend Charlie, but also the other regulars. It’s one her most unpleasant characteristics, and one of the reasons she seems like a real character (something I think is true of most of the characters on this show – their unsympathetic traits are a part of what make them seem so well-rounded). Naturally, she finds it difficult to see Charlie so successful while she’s currently in limbo as a hostess (I thought it an especially nice touch that she had her hair in childish-looking tails when she sees Charlie – quite a contrast from his put-together, office-casual appearance).

In another nice touch, Charlie finally seems to have figured out that Marnie is rather toxic for him: after stopping by his new office and telling him she's there for support, he sarcastically mutters, “Yeah, from me or for me?” Apparently, her toxicity is something he figured out a while ago: the app he sold to get the nice job he currently enjoys was predicated on his wanting to call her but knowing he shouldn’t. It’s called “Forbid,” and it’s free to download, but charges you $10 to call a person you designate to the software. In his case, he devised it to prevent himself from calling Marnie after their breakup. However, true to form, Marnie is oblivious to the obvious, and has to be told explicitly that she’s the reason he created the program in the first place (it’s possible that she knows she’s the reason why he created the app and just wants to hear him say it, although I think her reaction to the news – she thinks it is weird – favors the former inference more than the latter).

In another nice touch, Charlie finally seems to be equipped to deal with Marnie’s parasitic self-esteem issues. When Marnie fishes for details about how much Charlie got paid for the app (the better to finely adjust her self-esteem), Charlie strings her along, and they go back and forth in screwball comedy cadence:

Charlie: They paid me a shitload.
Marnie: Good.
Charlie: No, it’s not that much.
Marnie: Oh.
Charlie: But it’s enough.
Marnie: Good.
Charlie: Yup.

Then, to top it off, he asks a demoralizing question: “Do you need money? Is that why you’re here?” It’s a strange situation in which a supposedly benevolent question is actually rather malicious, but given the way Marnie has treated him in the past, it’s well-deserved.

Meanwhile, the pressure of the deadline for her book deal causes Hannah to suffer a recurrence (apparently) of her OCD. I like that the writers have created consequences of the pressure Hannah is feeling, but I’m not terribly thrilled with this development. On the one hand, it led to a nice scene between her and a therapist, where she angrily describes how crippling the OCD has been for her in the past.* On the other hand, if her OCD was indeed so severe, it doesn’t seem to me like this would be the first time we’ve heard of it. Hannah is so quick to talk about her personal issues with anyone that it seems like this is something she would have raised at some point in the past (I can envision it now: she raises it as an example of the struggles she’s gone through in an attempt to win points in an argument over her behavior. Or she raises it as an instance of what an interesting person – and therefore good writer – she is). Perhaps it isn’t something that would have come up over the course of the first season, but it felt a bit like lazy, retroactive continuity.

* I liked Hannah’s outburst both for its dramatic weight, but also because it’s typically Hannah – her anger is a product of the therapist suggesting her OCD is “classical,” as if he is categorizing her pain as no different from that of others who suffer from her disorder. Now, this might be upsetting for a lot of people, but Hannah’s particular brand of self-unawareness is her insistence that her experiences and thoughts are more powerful because they happen to her. Everything that happens to her is lived more fully than when it happens to others (even though really, she just likes to talk about it more). As Alan Sepinwall wrote in his review of the bottle episode a few weeks ago, “Hannah's pain still has to be more interesting and special than everyone else's.” Thus her anger at her therapist is slightly less sympathetic than it would be otherwise. Although, as Sepinwall insightfully points out in his review of this week's episode, her need for her experiences to be special is in part a way for her to cope with her previous powerlessness over her OCD.

Other thoughts:

- I like that Adam keeps a bottle of milk by his bedside table for so long that it curdles, yet he doesn’t think to check the milk before drinking it.

- At first, I thought Hannah’s checking over her shoulder after Adam called was her looking to see if he was stalking her, rather than a manifestation of a previously unrevealed struggle with OCD.

- Ray is a source of constant amusement. Like him, I also winced when Shoshana’s friend referred to her roller blades as “vintage.”

- I loved Marnie’s face as she assessed the attractive blonde Charlie consults with briefly in his office, and then the false smile Marnie gives Charlie when he turns back to face her. Rarely is her insecurity so baldly on display, but given where she is in her life at the moment, it works.

- Not only is Natalia beautiful, she’s also fascinating: she works with a private eye, sometimes as a decoy for his subterfuge. A real-life femme fatale!

- More hilarious honesty from Adam: “You’re very easy to talk to. I thought this was going to suck ass, but you’re very easy to talk to.” He then goes on to say he’s sweating bullets and that he’s had to pee for the past thirty minutes. And she finds this charming! Be still, my beating heart.

- Adam uses AA for therapy, while Hannah is forced to go to see an actual therapist. Some nice symmetry there.

- Poor Shoshana. Her behavior with the doorman upon leaving the party makes me wonder if she’ll ever realize that she may be happier if she isn’t so concerned with what others think of her (perhaps this is her arc for the series). As soon as she registers that the doorman is interested in her, an affected, unconvincing air of attempted coolness washes over her as she tries to conform to what the doorman might want. At least she throws her neuroses out the window long enough to hook up with him.

- Marnie “mentally budgeted six years of brokenness” for Charlie after their breakup. It’s ambiguous whether or not she means she intended for him to be broken for that long, or if that was just an estimation she made based on his behavior. Ugh.

- Marnie sums up her lack of self-awareness quite nicely in her outburst with Ray. Standing in her demeaning hostess uniform, she tells Ray, “It doesn’t matter how right you do things. You know who will end up living their dreams? Sad messes like Charlie! And the people who end up flailing behind are people like me! Who have their shit together!” (Loved Ray’s deadpan response: “Marnie learns another life lesson. How adorable.”) Kudos to Ray, though: despite his previously stated disdain for Marnie, he tries to get her to realize she should stop judging herself against others, and just focus on doing what she wants to do (which is singing, hilariously enough).

- Really, I would be happy with an entire episode of Marnie and Ray interacting. Ray tries to impress upon Marnie the urgency of her following her dreams of singing by telling her, “You’re never going to look this good again.” To which she sadly responds, “Thank you.”

Update: Apparently, seeds of Hannah's OCD  have been planted in the past, but I just forgot about them or didn't notice them. See Sepinwall's review.

Skyfall

Perhaps the best way for Bond films to remain interesting is for their continual reinvention. Skyfall, the latest entry in the franchise, is certainly interesting, and often quite good. It contains most of the trappings of a typical Bond film: classy, gorgeous women; ritzy social milieu (a casino, in this case); a misanthropic, playboy antagonist with a grandiose lair; location shooting; tuxedos; a suspenseful introductory action sequence; espionage; assassinations; chases; mayhem, and so on.

However, it dispenses with most of these conventions within about an hour or so of the film, and then becomes something else entirely. There are many ways in which the film diverges from convention. Early in the film, we see Bond in his off-hours. Apparently he seeks an adrenaline rush in both business and leisure, judging by his new drink of choice: whiskey consumed under threat of scorpion bite. Bond has lost a step, and fails both physical and psychological evaluations. A potential femme fatale figure is introduced, but then removed almost just as quickly – Bond cannot save her. Bond discovers the villain’s lair, but doesn’t destroy it, and then calls for backup. Bond’s only high-tech gadget: a gun locked to his palm print. Later, Bond does not play on offense, but defense, and the action takes place not in an exotic location, but London, and then later Scotland. We learn a smattering of Bond’s history and upbringing, such as his parents’ names and his growing up an orphan. The film’s climax does not involve Bond foiling grandiose, world-changing plans, but stopping an (admittedly elaborate) revenge murder, and is equal parts Bond film, Home Alone, and MacGyver. Finally, Bond simultaneously both succeeds and fails at foiling these plans.

All of these deviation from convention make this the most human Bond has ever seemed (perhaps outside of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and in my opinion, he's better for it.

Other thoughts:

- My god, Roger Deakins is a wizard. Skyfall is resplendent, every image lovingly kissed by his amazing cinematography. Two scenes are particularly breathtaking. The first has Bond sneaking up on an assassin in a Shanghai high-rise at night. Gigantic, neon advertisements dance past the windows and reflect off the glass, silhouetting Bond’s target, and surrounding Bond in a kaleidoscope of liquid-smooth pastels. The second is at the Bond estate in Scotland. The setting begins grayed in fog, but then night falls, explosions ensue, and the rest of the climax is illuminated by the warm yellow-orange glow of a raging fire. White tendrils of breath stream from Bond and company, who are lit as if the fog itself were ablaze.

- Javier Bardem is excellent. His calm, knowing, yet gentle air of superiority is continually refreshing. The only shame is that there isn't more of him.

Tremé, Season 3, Episode 4: The Greatest Love

Tremé, like The Wire, is partly about the ossification, corruption, and failure of the governmental institutions meant to safeguard against urban decay and to improve quality of life. It’s also partly about the persistent humanism that grows between the cracks of those institutions: people who help each other out in both big and small ways; people who fight a knowingly futile battle against that ossification and corruption, and people who do their best to steer clear of the trouble those institutions bring. And of course, it’s also about music. And food. And musicians. And cooking. And family. And sex. On the whole, you might say it’s little like jambalaya. All of these ingredients were certainly in effect in this week’s episode.

This week, however, institutional corruption seemed to be at the forefront, because the LP and Toni scenes carried with them an extra special spice: some very slow-burning suspense. LP has been digging around a case where the police seem to be responsible for the death of an innocent man during the storm, while Toni has actively antagonized the police by placing an ad in a newspaper soliciting witnesses to come forward to testify against a corrupt officer. Last week, Toni warned her daughter Sofia to be extra careful not to get involved in anything which could land her in trouble with the police, and this week, LP comments somewhat worriedly on all of the people who’ve told him to be careful (including, in this episode, an extra-skittish law enforcement informant who provides him with incriminating photos).

All of these developments start to simmer in this episode, and the police become a menacing presence in these characters’ lives. Sofia is pulled over and given a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. LP encounters two patrol officers having a conversation in front of his car. Described this way, these scenes do not sound suspenseful, but the episode gives each of them room to breathe. Even in a show where very little can seem to happen over the course of any given an episode, Tremé still has no absolutely pointless scenes. Thus when a scene begins with Sofia leaving work, getting into her car, and beginning to drive, it’s easy to suspect something bad might happen. Sure enough, the police pull her over, and an officer aggressively explores for reasons to get her into trouble. In LP’s similarly uncomfortable scene, LP excuses the officers as he gets into his car, and in his rearview mirror he sees them staring somewhat hostilely at him as he drives away.

All of this suspense culminates in the episode’s final scene, where Sofia drives her boyfriend and LP to a show. LP notices they are being followed by a squad car. He has Sofia turn right, and the squad car follows. He has Sofia turn left. So does the squad car. He has Sofia pull over. He gets out, and looks at the car as it slowly rolls by. In a point of view shot, both officers angrily glare at LP as they drive past. It’s a somewhat tame-sounding resolution to the episode’s buildup, but considering Tremé’s sometimes glacially-paced plotting, this dollop of foreboding is quite possibly the most suspenseful scene the show has ever had. It’s like encountering an extra spicy pepper you didn’t know was in the jambalaya, one that makes the whole stew all the richer.

Other thoughts:

 - Davis and Annie continue to grow a little farther apart. Goofy Davis antics – sacrificing a sock to the music gods that rule over a former recording studio-turned-laundry, for instance – that previously would have amused Annie now seem to mildly annoy her, and he can’t get a hold of her when she’s on the road. This is a sad development, because I like them as a couple. It makes sense though; as Annie becomes more and more of a serious musician, Davis likely looks more and more like the clown he is.

- LaDonna and Albert finally have a scene together, and they immediately take a shine to one another (of course). His stubbornness has finally met its match in her brassiness. These two characters were cut from the same cloth, so it’s nice to see them play off one another. The practice session at her bar is also pretty neat, with another big chief joining the festivities for a showdown. This scene was also laced with a bit of suspense: last week we learned Albert has lymphoma, and this week Delmond finds out. I was just as worried as Delmond that too much activity might make Albert keel over.

- Some nice editing in this episode, including a great montage sequence of Toni having the same conversation with people in different settings as she tries to get informants to come forward in her case against the corrupt office. It’s all done with shot/reverse shot: a potential witness would say a line, and in the next shot, Toni would respond. Cut to a reverse shot of a different witness responding, and then cut back to Toni, in a new location, responding to yet another witness. All of the conversations are identical (no one wants to come forward out of fear of reprisal from the police), so it gives a nice sense of the futility of Toni’s case.

- Another nice bit of editing was the crosscutting back and forth between LaDonna being shown potential houses by her husband, and Janette interviewing potential kitchen staff for her restaurant. Both are presented with a parade of lemons, until they each hit upon the perfect candidates. These crosscut scenes had two things I liked, one for each scene. During the house-hunting portion, LaDonna’s husband gets the best line he’s ever had when he shows LaDonna a house that’s way too big. She sarcastically asks him what they’ll do with the five extra bedrooms, and his deadpan response is that she can move her bar into the third floor and throw the customers out onto their residential street at closing time. The thing I liked about Janette’s scene is that she notices that her business partner, Tim, is interviewing only attractive young women rather than experienced professionals for positions on their new restaurant's wait staff. So already there’s trouble in paradise, and only one episode after Janette agreed to this whole arrangement.

- The scene that opened the episode was fun as well, as a little smartass in the marching band Antoine teaches plays a musical stinger at the end of a disappointing practice session. Wah wah indeed.

- The Indian practice session had four regular characters in the same scene: LaDonna, Albert, Delmond, and Antoine. I think that might be the most the show has ever had in the same place at the same time. Although since it was a music scene, none exchanged a word of dialogue with one another (of course).

- No Sonny this episode, which unfortunately means none of my new favorite character: Sonny’s Vietnamese girlfriend’s dad. I laugh my ass off every time he pops up on one of Sonny’s dates, having a great time with them and preventing Sonny from fucking his daughter.

- Colson had a fun little scene where he got to sleep with a hotel concierge. Their spontaneous sex initiation was nicely timed for maximum laughs.