I See Film People

Recently, a few of the film studies majors got together and formed the Wayne State Film Society, a student organization dedicated to furthering the interests of students in and heightening the profile of the film studies program at the university.

One of our initiatives (sounds so formal!) is to have a monthly film screening series. Each film is chosen by us from our various Qualifying Exam lists and the student in charge that month introduces the film (which is very big here for some reason - introducing films - like people can't figure stuff out on their own) and then that student also leads a post-screening discussion.

Our inaugural film was Alan J. Pakula's paranoid thriller, The Parallax View. We advertised but not many people showed up. Nevertheless, we took pictures. It's not every day a film society has an inaugural event, you know.


I'm not sure what I was saying at this exact moment but it pleases me immensely that my friend and colleague, Carole Piechota, is looking at me as though I just told her she'd won the last Golden Ticket to Wonka's factory. I also like that Jenna Gerds' hand looks like its vibrating into another dimension. Poor photography pleases me apparently.



Mark bemused.


Carole parallaxed.

Sunset Boulevard and The Killing

There are certain movies you always hear about. They are referenced, satirized, ripped off, etc. You know certain famous lines from them and they're always mentioned when people talk about "great" movies.

The more films I watch, the more I realize these films are almost always what they're cracked up to be. I'm not one to automatically buy into the idea of canon. I'm not going to like or praise a film just because it's supposedly "important." I'm far too much of a philistine for that. I like too much low-brow to embrace the high road that much.

But, as I say, I'm finding that these films aren't "great" because they're "important" but rather that they are important because they're great. Over the weekend, I watched Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. I knew about "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille" and had seen Carol Burnett goof on Gloria Swanson's portrayal of Norma Desmond. I knew it was narrated by the dead guy floating in the swimming pool at the outset of the movie but I'd never actually seen the thing.

Well, now I have and I can tell you what everyone else will tell you: it's great. Swanson as an unhinged silent film actress determined to get back on the big screen is really a sight to behold. She balances her manipulation, her neediness, and her jealousy on the head of a pin and does it all while convincingly moving and talking like a silent film actress who never quite figured out how to exist in the more modern world of the Talkies.

One thing that's really interesting about the film is how reflexive it is - a Hollywood production about Hollywood production. Cecil B. DeMille plays himself as does gossip reporter Hedda Hopper. Silent film greats like Buster Keaton and H. B. Warner play themselves in small cameos. In its reflexivity, it reminded me a lot of Robert Altman's The Player. It too was a poison pen letter to Hollywood signed by some of its biggest names.





Stanley Kubrick's The Killing is not often mentioned in the same breath as "the greats." When we hear Kubrick, we think A Clockwork Orange or 2001. Maybe Full Metal Jacket and hopefully not Eyes Wide Shut. Before any of that, The Killing was Kubrick's first feature length film with a professional cast and crew. It's stars Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay, an ex-con out to make one last score. He's out to make the titular killing.

Other than it being Kubrick's first big film and seeing the beginning of directorial touches he developed over his career, it's notable for its disjointed narrative. The story shifts back and forth in time as it shows Clay and his accomplices arrange to steal a cool 2 million dollars from a race track. Though I haven't read it anywhere, I'm pretty sure this has got to be one of Tarantino's touchstone films. Both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction borrow from it, I think. It's an under appreciated classic. Give it a try.

More Accurate Names for Current TV Shows

Grey's Anatomy = Doctors Having Sex

Private Practice = More Doctors Having More Sex

ER = The Exploding, Burning, Shot-Up, Held-Hostage, Contagious Break-Out Hospital

Lost = Pretty People in Tank Tops

Big Brother = Terrible People

Brothers and Sisters = Yelling and Crying

All Fox Game Shows = Let's Make a Deal For Your Dignity

Roll Call: Calling Mr. Fat and Sloppy!

I call roll in a different, silly way each day. I'll call roll by middle names - I say your name, you tell me your middle name. I'll do it by nickname, by the name of your favorite relative, by the last good movie you saw or book you read. It keeps the students on their toes, allows them to reveal a little about themselves in a safe way, and it entertains the heck out of me.

So today's roll call topic was "Who do people tell you that you look like?" Between my two classes, I have a Sylvester Stallone, a J-Lo, a Mya, an Omar Epps, a Princess Jasmine, a Liv Tyler, and a gaggle of people who say they look like their siblings or parents.

I told them about Suzanne's insistence that I look like Christian Slater. First of all, half of them didn't know who that is. (Which is a bad sign for Christian - but he's been on that downhill slide since Kuffs in 1992.) Second of all, those who do know who that is said, "No. In fact, you look like the guy from Knocked Up." With horror and disgust on my face, I said, "Not Seth Rogen?!" And with glee and evil on their faces, they said, "Yes, exactly! That guy!"

So in my second class of the day, I called roll the same way and started to plead my case to them, saying, "The other class thought I look like Seth Rogen." At least two people said, "I've thought that since the first day of class!"

I then excused myself to the hall where I cried softly for a time and then raised my fists in rage, crying, "Why?! Why have I gotten so fat and sloppy?!" Then I drove to the nearest Rally Burger and bought two milkshakes and an order of deep-fried lard balls to drown my sorrows.

So I did an image search to see if it's as bad as all that. My main problem was, I couldn't even begin to imagine any resemblance. Not having seen Knocked Up, Superbad, The 40 Year Old Virgin, or any of his other super-naughty films, I didn't have a strong sense of what the guy looks like.

This is the primary image I have of him in my head:



Nothing doing, right? Well, I searched around a little more and found this:



If I had a camera with me right now, I'd take a photo of myself in my white shirt and tie, with my little square glasses, and my week's worth of facial growth. I'd post it near the above picture so everyone could say, "Hey, wow, Mark really does resemble that chubby, super-foul guy. Lucky him."

Yeah, my life is sweet. It used to be Christian Slater who at least at one time was considered a sex symbol. Now I've slid down the scale to resembling the chubby, funny guy. Awesome. Kevin James, here I come.

Goodbye To The Jolly, Bronze Giant

Okay, first things first. We must discuss the recent developments on DWTS, my friends. (I will use the term "my friends" as much as possible in this post to make my McCain-supporting readers feel comfortable.) My friends, I was deeply saddened by what happened to Misty May Treanor. First of all, the sound of an Achilles tendon rupturing is about the worst sound in the world. If it makes me squinch up and cry a little to hear it, my friends, I don't even want to imagine what it feels like.



It makes me sad that our friendly, jolly, bronze giant isn't going to be on the show anymore. First, I had Misty picked as a finalist and it was a pleasure to watch her take on a different persona with each new performance. She had a lot of raw talent and was so aggressive about her approach that her dances were never boring. I'll miss her, my friends, because she was fun to watch. But I'm sad also because she seems like a really nice, genuine person. There wasn't much that was entertainer-ish about her. She just seemed like that nice neighbor you could chat with over the fence or that you could ask to grab things off your roof so you didn't have to get out your ladder. My friends, it seemed like she was honestly sad that she wasn't able to continue on and that was sort of touching. (Although, honestly, she was probably more worried about what the injury means for her volleyball career than she was about not being able to do the jive with Maks.)

Another development that deserves attention is the emergence of Warren Sapp as a serious contender. The man is three hundred pounds. Three hundred, my friends. He kills quarterbacks for a living and yet the man is light on his toes and a heck of a lot more graceful than kitchen grease-stain Rocco Despirito. Who knew? Carrie Ann has a weird, too-intense crush on him that is sort of embarrassing to watch.



One other aspect that needs comment: Cloris Leachman is still there. Whatchutalkinbout, Willis? My friends, is all of Florida voting for this woman to consistently keep her around? What's keeping Kim Kardashian and Rocco Despirito from killing themselves over the shame of being outsted before Cloris? I just don't know what it all means, my friends.