Grossing Out – When Shit Hits the Fan

In the second installment of our survey of epic gross outs, we shall focus on shit, the core element of all things gross. This perfectly natural side effect of our nourishment has been the target of jokes and gags since the dawn of comedy, second only to its place of origin, the ass itself. This is about as childish as it gets, but who cares, it’s funny. Moreover, it highlights the borderline between the laughable and the repulsive, the basic elements of gross out comedy. Thus shit taken in isolation is disgusting. On the other hand, Dave England from Jackass taking a huge dump on a tiny toy toilet is funny as hell.

In retrospective, when dealing with potty humor there’s no way around Pink Flamingos. The pinnacle of this 1972 cult piece of grotesque is a real-life shit eating by a huge flamboyant drag queen. During the end titles of the movie, Divine wishes to prove that she is indeed the filthiest person in the world. To do so, she sits down next to a small dog that has just finished his business, picks up the fresh pile of excrement from the sidewalk and starts eating it. God, women, don’t you know that the sidewalk is dirty?

But that’s arty hardcore. In the less radical domains of pop culture, poop gross out has always been much more tame, and found its place among teenage and college flicks. The majority of these scenes are set in what is the rightful place for turds in Western society, namely the bathroom. Combine bathroom with college humor and you get toilet pranks. In Dumb and Dumber you have one of the most brilliant toilet pranks of all, later quoted in American Pie, the number one monument for gross out. In both movies the logic is the same. The protagonist seeks revenge. The protagonist has no moral and ethical restrictions. A bottle of laxatives. The target’s drink. Mix it up. Wait. Laugh. For anyone still wondering why Paul Finch is nicknamed “shitbrake”, this is for you.

Though teenage comedies are the natural breeding ground for toilet pranks, these penetrate into other film genres. While Austin Powers‘ adventure on the toilet bowl (“that’s right buddy, you show that turd who’s boss!”) in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a famous example from a mainstream feature, it’s not that surprising to find disgusting moments in romantic comedies such as Along Came Polly, or in indie flicks like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, not quite the casual college film. In a memorable gross out moment that pays tribute to Trainspotting, a drunken Ari Graynor shoves her hand into a disgusting subway toilet in order to get her chewing gum back. When she finally fishes the thing out, saturated with all kinds of goodness, she slowly places it back in her mouth. Yikes.

Gross out toilet humor grew in popularity, thanks to movies such as American Pie and TV shows such as South Park. These paragons of shamelessness brought forward the word of gross, and made shit more socially acceptable. By pushing the envelope on shit they also raised the level of grossness required to shock the audience. Nowadays, shit has broken free from the confines of the toilet. Not for us the common-or-garden farting noises and the good old toilet bowl filled to the brim. We crave interaction with the substance itself. And apropos shit in its purest form, I would like to introduce a personal favorite of mine. One of the best parts of Zack and Miri Make a Porno has two porn actors filming an anal scene, with the cameraman lying beneath them. As they go about doing what they do best, they are interrupted, which causes the male to pull out abruptly. The result is, well, shit landing right on the cameraman’s face. In a very graphic way.

Anatomy of a Trailer – Faster (teaser)

Dwayne Johnson, the mountain formerly known as The Rock, is back, still driving fast, now with bigger muscles and guns than ever.

This is the teaser trailer to Faster.

So, what’s it about?
The teaser doesn’t give away much except essence and genre. The voice over clearly discloses the revenge theme, while everything else is blurry. I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson is an ex-con just out of prison going after the people who framed him (he probably lost his wife and young daughter through a fault of theirs). Only question is whether Billy Bob Thornton is the side-kick or the villain?

Who’s it for?
Probably for fans of the The Fast and the Furious series. The teaser doesn’t put any emphasis on drama or romance. Just big guys with fast cars.  My guess is, it’s not for Oscar voters.

Look like it was inspired by:
Those high-adrenalin neo-westerns such as The Book of Eli, Last Man Standing and Breakdown. I kept looking for Nicolas Cage. Not sure why, though…

Favorite Moment:
I liked the last shot of the trailer, with the sun behind The Rock’s shoulders. Probably the most interesting moment out of all the extremely short moments.

How much do I like to see it?
Personally, I’ve seen enough of those kind of films and the teaser – as teasers do – doesn’t give away much else. It knows its audience and which demographic group will pay for tickets. We’ll have to wait for the full trailer to see if we have something to talk about.

2/5

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Best Movie Speeches: Eyes Wide Shut – Alice's Confession

The 1999 Eyes Wide Shut was the last bow of one of cinema greatest masters, Stanley Kubrick, but was also an beginning of a new and fascinating Nicole Kidman.
By then little more than a pretty face and head of curly hair, Kidman did have one astonishing role in the 1996 Gus Van Sant film To Die For (for which she won the Golden Globe) but that was only the warm-up to what she had in store for us three years later, just before Moulin Rouge!, The Hours and Dogville.

In her third collaboration with her then-husband Tom Cruise, Kidman’s character Alice set the film’s haunting plot in motion after her confession to her husband of her infidelity in mind. Though she never actually cheated on him, she fantasizes of a young soldier with whom she exchanged only one brief glace the year before.
This speech became a darling of acting students in search of a monologue and a pivotal point in women’s portrayal on celluloid and, of course, Kidman’s career.

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Grossing Out – Introduction

I remember well enough the moment when I realized the poisonous power of gross out comedy. The year was 1999. Austin Powers. Fat Bastard. Stool Sample. Mr. Powers holding the cup near his mouth without taking a sip, building comic tension as he’s interrupted again and again. Eventually, when you think we are out of the woods, he takes a healthy British sip, exclaiming: “hmm… it’s a bit nutty”. I was on the floor.

This series of posts will be about gross out comedies. We will go through cinema’s major gross-out moments, giving you the epic of epics, so you could decide what is so goddamn funny about this genre. To help you out, we divided the filth on the principle of the kind of bodily fluid involved in the scene. Yes, we’re that professional.

Watch Austin Powers and the stool sample

As you saw already, at the basis of this delicious moment lie two of my favorite things in cinema: disgusting stuff combined with funny stuff. These movies challenge social taboos, push the envelope setting new boundaries for laughter. While American cinema was restricted by all kinds of laws and prohibitions made up by people who didn’t get enough laughs in their lives, gross-out comedies were there to push the limits. The genre grew wildly in the nineties, but has its roots in the preceding decades. Without mentioning transgressive hardcore like Pink Flamingos (we’ll get to that later), most gross-out comedies featured mostly Chevy Chase-cute kind of disgusting. I mean, eating cooked bull’s balls is not that disgusting, I know people who do that. One exception is Animal House. This 1978 masterpiece is a benchmark of the gross-out genre. Two words for you- “Zit Impersonation”. John Belushi, in one of the high points of his career, as the gluttonous party animal Bluto, demonstrates his impersonation of a zit to some uptight freshmen who have taken exception to his table manners. He takes a ball of butter (or a mashed potato, a well known debate among fans) in his mouth, and spews it in the faces of his offenders. This quickly evolves into a wild food fight, college-style. In the late 70s, this was the pinnacle of gross-out.

So what is it about these movies that makes them so popular? Is it the social norms being put to test? Is it the wild sexual humor? Is it the dirtiness of it all? I personally think that a good gross-out comprises two essential elements: vulgarity and surprise. Vulgarity is that feeling of wrongness you get in the bottom of your stomach, probably causing you to put your hand to your mouth in disbelief. It won’t push the limits too far, but would rub them close enough to be funny. When Tom Green is licking an open flesh wound in Freddy Got Fingered, it is just about the most disgusting thing ever, yet so ridiculously icky you burst out laughing. The element of surprise consist of that flash of grossness that comes when you least except it.

Knocked Up. Two hours, three and half minutes into the film. Jay is entering into the delivery room to make sure Allison is OK. We then see a vivid picture of spread legs with a baby’s scalp emerging from inbetween them. Now, all you National Geographic fans or gynecology students might think of this as beautiful and amazing. Me and the rest of the world find it disgusting. The surprise just pulls the rug from under your feet, and for lack of a better alternative – you laugh.

Check out other posts in the series:

Grossing Out – When Shit Hits the Fan

Grossing Out – Pissing Everybody Off

Grossing Out – Barf It Out Good

Best Movie Speeches: Good Will Hunting – You're Just a Kid

A lake in Boston. A bench. Two men. A veteran actor in his finest hour. That’s all screenwriters Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, director Gus Van Sant and actor Robin Williams needed to create one of the most unforgettable and heart-rending speeches in the history of cinema, in the 1997 Good Will Hunting.

Williams’ character Sean Maguire rips apart Will Hunting‘s cocky facade and leaves him stripped and bare probably for the first time in his life. With words that come from the inner parts of Maguire’s soul, never once raising his voice, he aims straight to the heart. Will’s heart and the audience’s heart. You can not stay indifference to those words.

One for the books, people. This is, to me, Robin Williams’ best 4 minutes of screen time in his deservedly celebrated career. Gladly, Oscar voters thought the same and bestowed upon Williams the Best Supporting Actor award:

You’re just a kid genius speech from Good Will Hunting starring Robin Williams Matt Damon

Film and Voyeurism – Sex, Lies, and Videotape

In our all too brief survey of great movie moments featuring voyeurism we’ve seen contributions from two great British auteurs (Powell and Hitchcock respectively), and a gritty 70s classic from Coppola in the style and spirit of New Hollywood. The final moment comes from a film that in 1989 defined (never mind gave birth to) the indie cinema for the the two decades to come: Steven Soderbergh‘s groundbreaking Sex, Lies, and Videotape. The film is centered on self obsessed, messed-up characters whose preoccupations never seem to transcend their relationships with one another – this is not the textbook definition of mumblecore, but it comes damn close.

At the heart of the story is Graham Dalton (James Spader), an emotionally traumatized impotent, and his somewhat deviant habit of filming women as they discuss their sexual fantasies (hence the videotape of the title). As in Peeping Tom, the camera for Graham is a surrogate for phallic penetration; only unlike the incurably disturbed maniac in Powell‘s masterpiece, Graham is an innocuous sad little creep. In the scene that for many viewers marks the film’s culmination, Ann (Andie MacDowell in her breakthrough performance) confronts Graham seizes his camera and aims it at him in order to convey to him what’s it like to be watched.

It might be alleged that the confrontation has a positive effect, as the film boasts what probably is the most understated of all happy endings. If in The Conversation we witness how voyeurism gnaws away at the protagonist’s sanity and humanity, in Sex, Lies, and Videotape the voyeur is delivered from irreversible alienation by the power of love.

Best Movie Speeches: Braveheart – They'll Never Take Our Freedom!

A small twist on a cliched speech can go a long way.

In Braveheart, Mel Gibson as William Wallace stands in the battlefield and about to lead a mob to a fight against the trained armies of the English. It is a fight the result of which crucially relies on his troops’ ability to act as one. Wallace needs the men to believe they can win and stand firm against the attack of the English. He needs to unify them all with a speech. And so, a speech about respect, dignity, cowardice and freedom is written. A speech we’ve heard many times before.

But then, just before the pathos kicks in, a moment of self-awareness in which Wallace shows he is one of the men and not part of the institution. It is a moment aimed at his men and the audience alike, making us feel for the man, not the legend.

A great speech in a great movie, here is Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

Battle Speech from Braveheart starring Mel Gibson David McKay Peter Mullan
Braveheart (1995)

Directed by: Mel Gibson

Written by: Randall Wallace

With: Mel Gibson, Patrick McGoohan, Sophie Marceau

Film and Voyeurism – The Conversation

In our brief survey of some of cinema’s greatest moments involving voyeurism, we’ve seen two classic accounts: Peeping Tom and Rear Window. However Francis Ford Coppola‘s dark 1974 thriller The Conversation might be seen the New Hollywood answer to these classics (as well as to Antonioni‘s Blowup, an acknowledged source of influence). If the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s, heralded by such luminaries as Scorsese, Altman and Coppola,  was marked by introduction of greater degree of realism and psychological accuracy as well as bold depiction of violence,  here we see a classic instance.

Gene Hackman delivers a masterful performance as a guilt ridden surveillance expert whom illicit involvement with other people’s lives drives to paranoia and, ultimately, complete insanity. Here we see the opening sequence which features a complex monitoring of a conversation of a couple, on which the film’s plot is hinged. Already at this point one can discern the uneasy undertones which pervade the film, and its considerable psychological complexity.

My Week in Movies: 8/19/2010-8/25/2010

Unintentionally, this mid-August week became a 90’s flavored one. Apart from the American Pie project we are working on (soon on Anyclip with lots of cool other stuff), half the films I’ve seen this week were 90’s productions.
I was born in 1983 so the years that influenced me and shaped me the most were between 1994 and 1999, which makes me a big fan of this decade, its cinema, music and television. Though, you know… after the eighties… everything kinda look good.

This is the 6th My Week in Movies. We have growing-up matters, nostalgia for the masses and Oscar fetish. Enjoy.

Knocked Up
Saw it over the weekend with a friend of mine. It’s over two hours, it’s vulgar and extremely conservative (get an abortion will you?!!?) but I can’t seem to get enough of this film. I still laugh every time, I still root for Seth Roegen like he’s my own brother, I still fall in love with Leslie Mann. Again and again.
My theory is that what makes a comedy a good one is its ability to survive repeated viewings. Only a few can pass this test. Knocked Up is fun each and every viewing. Kudos. My only question is, will it withstand the test of time. When, somewhere in the distant future, I’ll sit with my 14-year-old kid in front of this film, will he laugh as much as I did? Stay around for 30 years or so, I’ll get back to you with that.

The Rules of Attraction
Another film I’ve seen about 15 times. Have no idea what connects me to this movie so much. I’ve seen it in the the theater for the first time in 2003 and something just clicked. Something changed. From all the people I know only a few saw it. From those few I know only one who liked it. But I’m returning to this film every once in a while like it’s my own photo-album.
These days I’m working on a screenplay centered a love triangle with some obsession going on and with every scene I realize how much The Rules of Attraction influenced me. I’m even planning on stealing the last shot of Shannyn Sossamon (where is that girl?) and Ian Somerhalder standing together in the snow.
The thing that bugs me the most, which can be silly, but still, is the fact I’m 26 now. Is it possible that a few years from now, at some point in my fourth decade, I won’t be able to relate to that  film anymore? I mean, I’m afraid that at some point I will see that film and think to myself, Oh, my god, this is not anywhere near your world at all. This film is not for you anymore…

Last Action Hero
There are two conditions for enjoying Last Action Hero: to be between the age of 10-14 OR to be older but in 1993.
I’ve seen it for the first time this week (I know. I know) and though I could feel the nineties boy in me smiling, the older film-buff in me was kind of bored. I think that the main thing that troubled me was that the film is so ironic, so full of awareness and reflexivity, that there was no emotional core. The film didn’t touch me once. It was a cold showdown of action related jokes. Don’t get me wrong, there are some brilliant moments in the film and as nostalgic entertainment it’s pretty nice, but it’s too long for its own good and without a doubt has the most annoying kid in cinema until the over-smiley boy in The Blind Side.

Batman: Under the Red Hood
It’s a 2010 straight-to-DVD animation film based on the DC comic. While the animation itself is pretty basic, I have one short thing to say, at the risk that you will probably click your way out of the blog and never return: I wish the Christopher Nolan‘s Batman was be good as this animation piece. Yes, I’m not a big fan of the recent Batmans, as you might’ve realized by now. Still, Under the Red Hood, the running time of which is about the half of an average Nolan film, has a very good plot-line, fully developed characters, a touch of existentialism that is intelligent yet not tedious, and some very nice action. Watch it if you’re a Batman fan. You’ll enjoy it.

Tom & Viv
In 1995 I’ve seen my first Oscar ceremony. It was the show where Forrest Gump won 6 awards, Quentin Tarantino took his only Oscar to date and gave a terrific speech, The Shawshank Redemption lost in every category it was nominated for and David Letterman was a terrible host. It was the beginning of an obsessive Oscars fetish which I am nursing to this day.
In the years that passed since then I managed to watch all the nominees from the 1994/5 Oscars’ main categories except for one film that I never managed to find anywhere. It was Tom & Viv, a British drama that was nominated for two Oscars that year for Best Actress (Miranda Richardson) and Best Supporting Actress (Rosemary Harris). The film lost in both categories and never been heard about since. After telling that to Maor, he managed to find it and I watched it with great anticipation. Unfortunately it wasn’t that good. I mean, it was OK. Kind of a dry British BBC thing. Which isn’t bad… just not that good. At least I can put the 1995 Oscars to rest.

The Book of Eli
First viewing of Denzel Washington‘s apocalyptic action film. I have to tell you I didn’t quite get this one. After a very impressive opening the film kinda lost me. There are some very cool sequences and it’s fun seeing Gary Oldman in his most Draculish role since Dracula, but to me there were more questions than answers and not in a good way. I was also disappointed by Mila Kunis whom I adore. Her casting is not a wise choice. She’s too sophisticated and Californian for that role. And she’s much better as a comedian.

American Pie
Embarrassingly enough, that was the first time I’ve seen this smash hit. And I didn’t like it. Not at all.
At first I blamed myself. I told myself I’m too old for that one and I missed the time and age where I might’ve actually enjoyed it. It took me half the film to realize that it’s bullshit. Animal House is one of my favorite films, I can watch The Breakfast Club once a day and still fall in love with it, and of course my never-ending love for Accepted, Wet Hot American Summer and, as mentioned above, The Rules of Attraction, made me understand that if a film works, it works. It doesn’t have anything to do with age or maturity (hell, I even enjoy a Glee episode now and then). No excuses. American Pie didn’t survive the decade that passed. It’s not that funny, horribly acted, and predictable to the dot. I refuse to feel old because of that!

L.A. Confidential
1997 was a good year. It’s the year that gave us Titanic; the year that dropped Matt Damon and Austin Powers on us; The year that gave Robin Williams his best role; when Kevin Spacey was the coolest thing around and when Paul Thomas Anderson debuted with Boogie Nights. It was also Julia Roberts‘ come-back and Quentin Tarantino’s most mature film ever, Jackie Browne. It was the year of Lost Highway, Princess Mononke, As Good as it Gets, Chasing Amy, Men in Black and Funny Games.
The pick of that year, though, was Curtis Hanson noir-epic L.A. Confidential, based on the James Ellroy novel. I saw the film at the 1997 Haifa Film Festival with my family in the festival’s auditorium which was then the biggest movie theater I’ve ever been to. It was actually watching a classic being born.
We can ridicule American cinema as much as we want, but every now and then it gives us a shiny pearl such as L.A. Confidential just to show the world where cinema’s really made (even when the writers and the director are Australian…). Every frame is meticulous to the last detail, every cut is perfect, every line is delivered with great precision.
There are only a number of films such as this 1997 masterpiece and it’s your responsibility to watch it.

Here’s to another week and some other films.
Keep letting me know what you have in mind…

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Best Movie Speeches: Animal House – In Defense of Delta House

In Animal House, the first great college comedy and spiritual father to American Pie, the Delta House Fraternity is up on trial after being on double secret probation. Eric “Otter” Stratton, head of the fraternity, has to resort to traditional, institutional means to fight the dean and his lackeys, and acquit Delta House. He makes a speech in which he admits Delta’s failings, but spins it so that these mirror the failings of the whole U.S. of A. Now, you can badmouth Delta, but Otter won’t let you badmouth the great U.S.

He fails miserably, but not before he delivers this funny piece of cinema.

http://player.anyclip.com/PlayerEm.swf?v=634181448423431745&mode=prod&Otter defends Delta House from Animal House starring Mark Metcalf James Widdoes Peter Riegert
Animal House (1978)
Directed by: John Landis
Written by: Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller
With: Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson, John Belushi, Karren Allen, Kevin Bacon, John Vernon, Stephen Furst, Tom Hulce