PROCESSED HAM

In the multiplexes this weekend:

Animal Farm--Seen in a political and historical vacuum, this new movie is a strange but enjoyable enough animated feature for kids. But it's nearly impossible for many of us to see it in a vacuum.

The film is an adaptation of George Orwell's 1945 allegorical fable set on a farm in which the animals have run off the oppressive humans and set up a new society based on such rules as "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL." What follows, of course, is the slide into selfishness, corruption and classism that seems to inevitably follow even the most high-minded of revolutions.

It's one of the great works of 20th-Century fiction, and the love that Andy Serkis, director of this new version, has for his source material feels unmistakable. But there's no way around it; Serkis and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller have turned Orwell's hard, unsentimental vision into just another kiddie flick. They've given it a star-studded cast with the likes of Kieran Culkin, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Kathleen Turner, Jim Parsons and Woody Harrelson as the saintly horse Boxer.

They've added a character, a young pig named Lucky (voiced by Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things) to serve as the movie's conscience. They've filled the story with contemporary elements like cell phones and drones, and added a long action finale in which Lucky and the kingpin pig Napoleon (Seth Rogen; excellent) face off for the soul of Animal Farm.

Giving happy endings—well, not happy, but less dispiriting—to Orwell adaptations is nothing new. The 1956 version of 1984 offered an alternative ending used in some markets, in which Winston and Julia are shot down protesting Big Brother instead of surrendering to their brainwashing. A harsh but visually beautiful 1954 British animated version of Animal Farm (partly financed by the CIA!) ended with a second revolution by the animals, this time to overthrow the pigs.

So it's almost easier to excuse Serkis for offering a less gloomy and cynical Animal Farm, and certainly for adding flatulence jokes and other lowbrow gags, than for flexing Orwell's masterpiece to the standard template of the commercial animated feature. You can look from this Animal Farm to such rural tales as Barnyard and Ferdinand and Rock-a-Doodle and back again, and already it's impossible to say which is which.

MAIDENHEAD REVISITED

Check out my review, online at Phoenix Magazine, of Judd Apatow's comedy classic The 40-Year-Old Virgin...

...now getting a re-release in the multiplexes in celebration its 20th anniversary, if you can believe that.

DUMBDOG MILLIONAIRE

Opening in Phoenix today; wide on October 6:

Dumb Money--As with 2015's The Big Short, there were plenty of twists and turns in this movie that my finance-challenged brain had to struggle to keep up with. Also like The Big Short, this chronicle of the weird January 2021 boom in GameStop stock is waggish fun. But it's easier to root for the heroes here, because, as least as this movie tells it, they're ordinary people sticking it to rich hedge fund jerks rather than rich hedge fund jerks sticking it to all of us.

GameStop, a Texas-based video game retailer that had been a mall mainstay since the '80s under one name or another, had been in decline since the rise of online game purchasing. The COVID pandemic seemed like the death knell for the company, and hedge fund short sellers were moving in.

Dumb Money's focus is on Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a small-potatoes analyst and broker from Brockton, Massachusetts. Gill had a day gig at MassMutual but spent his evenings in his basement making funny YouTube videos on investing, and posting on other social platforms that I don't understand. He believed that GameStop stock was undervalued, and his enthusiasm helped to cause an explosion in its price that made the short sellers sweat.

But the "dumb money"--apparently that's what hedge fund folk call individual small investors--was sweating too, of course. The movie, directed by Cruella's Craig Gillespie from a script by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo (based on Ben Mezrich's's book The Antisocial Network), jumps around among a variety of GameStop investors who were riding the wave with Gill, and resisting the temptation to sell as a matter of economic principle, to the horror and bafflement of their families and friends. These include America Ferrera as a struggling Pittsburgh hospital worker and single mom; Talia Ryder and Myha'la Herrold as Texas college students besotted both with the investment and with each other, and Anthony Ramos as a GameStop employee who buys in.

I presume that some or all of these people are fictional "composites" representing the online rabble who collaborated on the short squeeze. They're nicely played and sympathetic. The millionaire and billionaire vultures are based on real players: Seth Rogen as Gabe Plotkin and Nick Offerman as Ken Griffin and Sebastian Shaw as Robinhood's Vlad Tenev and Vincent D'Onofrio, extra-creepy, as Steve Cohen. A scurvier bunch of parasitical cruds you'd have a hard time finding. Shailene Woodley is touching as Keith's supportive wife, Kate Burton and Clancy Brown are believable as his parents, and Pete Davidson is a perfect fit as the idiot brother.

Driven forward by a lot of stately, foul-mouthed hip-hop on the soundtrack and tricked out with split-screens and montages, Dumb Money cruises along absorbingly and, despite copious comedy, with an ambiguous tension--I wanted to see the hedge fund guys squirm, but I was anxious for the everyday people when they didn't sell. They, after all, need the money. The incidental backdrop of COVID adds to the unnerving atmosphere; the masks and empty malls and streets create an almost sci-fi flavor at times. It may be the first pandemic period piece.

Although the GameStop boom had fans as diverse as Elon Musk and AOC, I was never sure, watching this movie, that I wasn't falling for a simplistic interpretation of the events--the little guys banding together to take the big boys, who have rigged the system so only they can win, down a few notches. Is there another side here? I mean, no doubt GameStop was undervalued, but was it really that undervalued? Did this amount to a whimsical, sentiment-based pyramid scheme, even if it was motivated altruistically rather than as a con job?

One of the posters for the film reads "THE TOP 1% THINKS YOU'RE DUMB." No doubt they do, and as far as finance is concerned, in my case they aren't wrong. So if there's another, more negative, legitimately dumb side to this story, I'm not smart enough to see it.

In any case, I'm not prepared to shed a tear for the hedge funds. Despite the hit some of them took, in the end, the well-connected big investors appear to have pulled strings and avoided ruination; the film resigns itself to the game being rigged. But it also suggests that the big boys will think twice before they ignore the dumb money again, and it claims this as a triumph. As the movie presents the story, it's all but impossible not to invest in it--invest emotionally, that is.

GREEN NEW DEAL

Opening in theaters today:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem--This new animated feature version of the adolescent DNA-altered martial-arts-practicing chelonians is about mayhem that arises due to mutants. In case the title doesn't make it clear.

The quartet, all named for some reason after Italian Old Masters, dwell in the sewers of New York under the strict protective care of their teacher and adoptive parent, the mutant rat Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan), but long to go to high school, maybe have girlfriends. On one of their sorties into the city, they meet high schooler April O'Niel (Ayo Edebiri), who's an aspiring journalist. They also run afoul of an evil scientist (Maya Rudolph) as well as a gang of other mutant animals led by the monstrous Superfly (Ice Cube).

It's a striking movie to look at. The visuals have a garish, roughed-out, graffiti-esque look, and the animation has a stylized hint of stop-motion in the Rankin-Bass manner. Among the writers are Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen; Rogen also provides the voice of the mutant warthog Bebop. The trailer and poster say the movie is "FROM PERMANENT TEENAGER SETH ROGEN."

The jabbery, overlapping dialogue is ticklingly funny, and I appreciated the characterization of the young April, who in the earlier movies has seemingly served as eye candy for the dads in the audience, as a smart and brave but unconfident kid with a typical body shape. As with earlier entries in the series, the film is packed with product placement, to the point that it becomes part of the comedy.

The Turtles made their debut in 1983, too late to be part of my childhood; my nephews were fans. I remember finding the '90s-era live-action TMNT movies annoying, but I found the live-action features of 2014 and 2016 surprisingly fun, even without a nostalgic attachment. Mutant Mayhem, however, may be the best-looking and funniest of them all.

As is so often the case in movies for kids, the ultimate goal that our heroes are seeking is, of course, acceptance, popularity, or simply "to be normal." This persistent theme can be tiresome, but undoubtedly it does reflect a common wish among this film's target audience. Permanent Teenager Rogen and his collaborators know their business.

DISASTER RELIEF

Opening here in the Valley this weekend:

The Disaster Artist—If you’ve never seen The Room, you probably should. An attempt at a sort of Strindberg-ish tragic love triangle, the 2003 drama, written and directed by and starring Tommy Wiseau, has come to be celebrated as one of the most memorably bad movies of all time, and not without reason, and there’s a level at which it must be seen to be understood.

I would say that it’s especially important if you plan to see The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s new film about the conception and making of The Room. But I’m not sure that’s the case—the friend with whom I saw The Disaster Artist enjoyed it immensely without having seen The Room.

The jaw-dropping dreadfulness of The Room derives not from ineptitude or economic deprivation (it was professionally produced, with a budget in the millions) but from Wiseau’s seeming lack of understanding of the basics of how human beings normally behave and converse. It was like he fell to earth from another planet where the people have Eastern European accents but no other customs in common with earthlings. My favorite line in the film (it’s not referenced in The Disaster Artist) comes when Wiseau, as the hero, compliments his girlfriend on the surprise party she’s thrown him: “You invited all my friends! Good thinking!”

According to Greg Sestero, the model and aspiring actor who co-starred in The Room, and from whose like-titled memoir The Disaster Artist was adapted, Wiseau was a mysterious figure. His clothing and hairstyle suggested an Anne Rice vampire, and despite his accent and Tarzan-like syntax he claimed he was from New Orleans, and was opaque about everything else from his age to his apparently bottomless wealth. His work in the San Francisco acting class where he and Sestero met was tortured and incoherent, but also uninhibited in a way that Sestoro couldn’t help but admire.

The script, by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, traces Sestero’s strange but mutually supportive friendship with Wiseau which, along with professional frustration, gave rise to The Room. James Franco directs, with skill and comic clarity, but more importantly—way more importantly—he plays Wiseau. Man, does he play Wiseau. He plays the crap out of him.

Going in, I thought the movie might be at a disadvantage with me. First of all, while I was amazed, fascinated and convulsed by The Room when I saw it, I’ve never felt any strong inclination to see it again. It didn’t become the bad-movie favorite for me that it did for many others (The Disaster Artist opens with talking heads of some famous fans). I laughed hard at it, it’s almost impossible not to, but I didn’t feel altogether good about my laughter. Beneath Wiseau’s incompetence you can sense real pain, and also a streak of misogyny, that can make the movie a little poignant, and a little unsavory.

Secondly, I’ve never been able to work up much enthusiasm for James Franco. He’s been in a number of good movies and I found him effective in some of them, often when his character wasn’t particularly likable to begin with. But he takes the role of Wiseau to a different level, or perhaps it takes him to a different level. It’s one of those cases of a character seeming to take over and possess an actor.

It’s a superb impersonation, but it goes beyond that—Franco’s Wiseau is mesmerizing and scary and hilarious and sad and maddening and lovable in a way that the real Wiseau, onscreen in The Room, is not. Of course, much of the comedy in The Disaster Artist derives from other people’s baffled reaction to Wiseau’s antics, and chief among these reactors is Dave Franco (brother of James), who’s excellent as Sestero, with his perplexed yet touchingly protective manner toward Wiseau. The cast also includes such notables as Zac Efron, Megan Mullally, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Jacki Weaver and Seth Rogen, mostly in smaller turns.

On the whole, The Disaster Artist is a triumph, small and improbable but definite. Like Tim Burton’s 1994 Ed Wood, it’s the story an artist of passion and vision but no talent, told by artists with passion and vision and plenty of talent.

(INTER)VIEW TO A KILL(ING)

The day after Christmas I was turned away, twice, from sold-out shows at the Harkins Valley Art Theatre in Tempe. The film that was packing them in was, of course, The Interview, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s lowbrow farce involving a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

As you’ve possibly heard, a massive hack of Sony and hints of terrorist reprisals, both thought to have originated from North Korea, resulted in the decision, both by the studio and many theater chains, to cancel the movie’s Christmas Day release. For a couple of days it looked like The Interview might become a “lost” movie, but then Sony reconsidered, releasing the picture both to theaters and to video-on-demand. Perhaps with a thought to the safety of other audiences in the multiplexes, Harkins opened the film only at the chain’s one remaining free-standing single-screen house.

I had skipped the screening, so I decided to go to the Valley Art, but got to the box office too late, for two different shows, to get a ticket. No front row, no standing room. The prescient people who were lining up with pre-ordered tickets were mostly the younger sort one would expect at a movie like this—couples on dates, groups of frat-boy-looking buddies—but people of all ages were represented.

Anyway, I went back Saturday morning and saw the film, with a house that wasn’t full but was still surprisingly crowded for an early matinee. On the way in I was given a pin with a picture of stars Rogen and James Franco. It said “I [picture of a popped kernel of popcorn] FREEDOM! HARKINS THEATRES.”

I was puzzled at first by what this meant: I Pop Freedom? I Snack On Freedom? Slow on the take that I am, it took me a minute to realize that the popcorn kernel was vaguely heart-shaped. I Love Freedom. Indeed I do.

Grateful though I was for the souvenir, however, I declined to pin it on my shirt. Having failed, over the last few years, to take to the streets to demonstrate for or against any of a dozen issues I truly care about, it seemed a little much to congratulate myself for going to a silly comedy.

As for The Interview itself, it’s enjoyable enough of its kind, that kind being the self-consciously raunchy Hangover vein. It goes badly off the rails toward the end, but up until then it has some solid laughs and good performances. Franco plays it pretty broad as the nitwit TV interviewer who scores a sit-down with the tyrant and is pressed into service by the CIA to “take him out.” But Rogen, as Franco’s producer, carries the film with his boyishly commonsensical charm, and Randall Park is excellent as (and much handsomer than) Kim.

After it was over, as we were filing out, I heard an usher thank a middle-aged woman for coming, and she replied, very sincerely, “Thank you for having it. I really appreciate it.” If I had to guess, I’d guess that this lady, and quite a number of others in the audience, wouldn’t have thought of going to this particular movie if North Korea hadn’t told them they wouldn’t if they knew what was good for them.

Certainly I think that in the years since 9/11 fear of terrorism, and exploitation of that fear, and even an odd and carefully cultivated sense that one is being unpatriotic if one doesn’t show enough fear, has led our country into atrocious decisions, including ridiculous and probably futile encumbrances to our travel and recreation. I thought the initial decision to pull The Interview was wrong, for instance.

Having said that, I had sympathy for Sony’s cautious position, and even more so for that of the exhibitors. It’s easy for commentators like me with no real responsibility to decry the cancellation as craven, but if, God forbid, one bomb were to go off in a theatre, you can imagine the invective that would be poured on “Hollywood” for endangering people’s lives for a dumb movie. And if the release, and the packed houses, are a healthy step away from "letting the terrorists win," it’s no more than a baby step.

But I had to wonder if, at bottom, the long lines for The Interview not only weren’t about the movie itself, they weren’t even about politics or patriotism or standing up to terrorism. Maybe they were simply a gesture of early nostalgia for the increasingly gratuitous act of actually going to the movies. At any time this weekend, after all, I and just about anyone else at the Valley Art could have seen The Interview in the comfort of our homes, for a couple bucks less than the price of a ticket, and without the hassle of parking in downtown Tempe. Somehow, though, seeing the film in a gathering of strangers turned the experience from sitting through an average comedy into the kind of shared social experience that makes up many of our best movie memories.

STAY YONGARY

Check out my list, on Topless Robot, of 10 Insults to North Korea You Could Watch Instead of The Interview. The list includes the North Korean giant monster flick Pulgasari, but Pulgie’s been a Monster-of-the-Week twice already, so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …in the interest of international equal time this week let’s acknowledge a South Korean beast, the title character of 1967’s Yongary, Monster From the Deep…

This late-show favorite may be viewed in its entirety, here: