Wes Is More! Pretension Pollutes the New York Film Festival
Hold your nose, fellow citizens! For some reason, talented indie directing trio Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach and Todd Haynes are each presenting stinkers this year. Somebody bring me a poultice!
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On the Town
Darjeeling Is Limited
There are good movies, bad movies, honorable failures, good movies that indifferent audiences turn into flops and bad movies that smart publicists and ham actors turn into hits with bookings on Jay Leno. I usually welcome them all. But if there is one kind of movie I cannot stand, it’s the pretentious, rotten, incomprehensible stinker: the uber-swill nobody understands that always gets financed by some chowderhead who hopes to attract enough self-deluded critics to fill a quote ad (and usually does). These movies are a disgrace, and the New York Film Festival is currently offering not one, but three. Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, Noah Baumbach’s noxious Margot at the Wedding and Todd Haynes’ sub-mental I’m Not There (talk about title as self-prophecy!) are enough to drive sane moviegoers back to Roy Rogers on Trigger and Sonja Henie on ice skates.
In the dismal Darjeeling Limited, three moronic siblings who haven’t spoken to each other in years (obviously fearing brain damage) set off across India on a train with a never-quite-convincing plan to bond again and find their mother (Anjelica Huston in a gray wig, looking like Judge Roy Bean) who has run away from home to become a nun in the Himalayas. The goopy brothers are played by three actors with mystery careers. Francis (Owen Wilson, a Wes Anderson regular with a voice like a dial tone who never fails to put me to sleep) is bad enough when you have to listen. It’s worse when his ears and head are wrapped in bandages. Bossing the others around, telling them what to eat and making all the rules because he’s the oldest, he insists they must use the experience as a spiritual journey and say yes to everything, which is not much of a task if they said yes to this script. Jack (Jason Schwartzman, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and star of the ghastly and pretentious I Heart Huckabees, who played a retarded Louis XVI in the laughable Marie Antoinette, which was more or less directed by his cousin Sofia, and unfortunately looks like a slobbering asylum inmate) sleeps with everyone he meets and wanders through the desert barefoot, which is impossible, not to mention illogical. Peter (Adrien Brody) is a hollow-eyed spook who, for no reason, brings a deadly cobra onboard and gets them all thrown off the train in the middle of nowhere with a broken printer, a laminating machine and 11 pieces of antique Vuitton luggage. Bill Murray does a cameo as a man who keeps missing the train. They’re all consumed by Indian music borrowed from the soundtracks of films by Satyajit Ray and horrible pop songs by the Kinks. Nothing ever happens, despite a great deal of pointless flap about that cobra, an endless array of over-the-counter painkillers, Indian cough syrup, pepper spray and the freaked-out mother from hell. When they reach the convent, she tucks them in and disappears from the movie, making Anjelica Huston the luckiest member of the cast.
With more style than substance, the story is so thin it evaporates like a puff from a hookah. It’s really hard to decide which actor is the most obnoxious. The character quirks are never successfully integrated into any kind of narrative. Nobody has a motive for anything. Like Mr. Anderson’s previous duds, The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, it wants to be a comedy, shaking its butt at every historic concept that word implies and trying to make you care about its off-the-wall characters at the same time. Nothing wrong with that ambition, except that it is never remotely funny and the characters are as transparent as Saran Wrap. Mr. Anderson’s approach to filmmaking is from the same brain-dead school inhabited by Charlie Kaufman screenplays and the head-scratching direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze and David O. Russell: Throw incoherent ingredients in the air, talk all of your Hollywood friends into joining the frolic and let the pieces fall all over the place with the camera turning. They all seem to be making it up as they go along, between visits to the catering truck. Mr. Anderson’s co-writers are Jason Schwartzman and his cousin Roman, who is Sofia Coppola’s brother. It all smacks of incest, and sinks in a puddle of sluggish superficiality. High time Mr. Anderson, 38, grew out of this childish phase and used his word processor to achieve some kind of script indicative of what you might call a maturity of vision.
The Squid and the Wail
Margot at the Wedding provides ample evidence of just how low Noah Baumbach has sunk. The Squid and the Whale showed great promise, but this excruciating piece of ranting, empty-headed nothingness rings an alarm bell. Despite the presence of Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, it’s so bad it’s dumbfounding. Ms. Kidman, plain and brunet and scowling throughout, plays Margot, a dyspeptic New York writer who travels to the wedding of her pregnant sister Pauline (a washed-out Ms. Leigh) and a weird, fat, chain-smoking creep named Malcolm (the repulsive Jack Black) who spends all of his time writing protest letters to newspapers and magazines. Since the opening shots of a stark-naked Jack Black rutting like a barnyard pig will turn countless numbers of moviegoers away, it’s best to be prepared before you buy a ticket. In the next scene, you have to endure the agony of Jack Black inspecting his scrotum in the mirror. What follows is 92 minutes of screaming, pouting, weeping and vomiting in an ugly home-movie style that could set movies back decades. The Squid and the Whale was funny and touching because it showed dysfunctional adults from the point of view of adolescents. But there is nothing funny about a movie in which absolutely everyone is dysfunctional regardless of age or gender. Margot at the Wedding is about a wagonload of miserable neurotics who babble endlessly about nothing, saying things like “I left a piece of skin in a movie house once, so it could watch movies all its life.” They despise everybody, especially themselves, without ever being even vaguely interesting. When the two women were girls, Margot sprinkled Pauline with paprika and shoved her into an oven. This is believable psychological motivation for adult rage? Ms. Leigh poops in her pants and Ms. Kidman says, “It happens to everyone, not just babies.” This is fresh writing? Well, why should I be surprised? Mr. Baumbach also co-authored Wes Anderson’s loathsome 2004 fiasco The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Next Page >
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I'm Not There has garnished only praise. This is the first bad review I have read. Blanchett is already getting Oscar buzz. I have not seen I'm Not There yet but I plan on seeing it at the NY Film Fest in a few weeks.
I found your review of "I'm not there" interesting after most of the other positive ones I've read but I then found it meaningless when you said: "Your reaction will depend hugely on whether you see anything deep in Dylan’s music (I don’t)"......
Thank you Rex Reed for bravely stating your well honed opinions! That is what I love about your reviews, you do not kiss ass to celebrities. I have seen movies and avoided others based on your well written and extremely enjoyable critiques, and have been pleased with those decisions. You have the knowledge to back up your opinions. Keep writing in your fantastic way, and BTW I saw the previews to the movie with Schwartzman etc and it looked horrible horrible horrible.
This is scary stuff. What with the new ownership of the Observer, I am surprised the paper has continued to provide a forum for the rantings and ravings of a bitter, possibly senile and hopelessly out of touch antique like Reed. Gratuitous ad hominem attacks on the physical attractiveness of a movie's cast are offensive enough. As is Reed's frequent racism (http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0515,jumpcuts,62915,20.html). But looking beyond those two faults, how are readers who don't qualify for senior citizen discounts at the box office supposed to identify with a critic who, in one review, dismisses the entire bodies of work of five directors often and rightfully heralded as the future of Hollywood by reviewers who have held on to their hair and their relevance?
This is scary stuff. What with the new ownership of the Observer, I am surprised the paper has continued to provide a forum for the rantings and ravings of a bitter, possibly senile and hopelessly out of touch antique like Reed. Gratuitous ad hominem attacks on the physical attractiveness of a movie's cast are offensive enough. As is Reed's frequent racism (http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0515,jumpcuts,62915,20.html). But looking beyond those two faults, how are readers who don't qualify for senior citizen discounts at the box office supposed to identify with a critic who, in one review, dismisses the entire bodies of work of five directors often and rightfully heralded as the future of Hollywood by reviewers who have held on to their hair and their relevance?
I totally agree with Mr. Reed's denuciations of this pretentious gibberish. If the future of Hollywood is in the hands of smug insufferable hacks like Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufmann, et. al., I'll spend the rest of my life renting DVDs of old Scorsese movies.
These types of movies are the emperor's new wardrobe and I'm waiting for more critics to get wise to how empty and rotten they truly are. First of all, NOBODY WATCHES THEM, save self-satisfied film school hipsters who have to convince themselves that they're experiencing "genius.' A generation from now, the collected ouevre of Jonz/Haynes/Solonz/
P.T. Anderson will be looked upon as bewildering relics of thankfully by-gone era.
If these directors are indeed "often and rightfully heralded as the future of Hollywood" as poor, misguided Billy says then Hollywood has no future. Its fate is quickly becoming that of one of those great parties that went on far too long after all the fun and fascinating people have gone home to bed, leaving only the self-reverential bores trying to keep things going via stunts like pulling their pants down or even worse acts of desperation that these "filmmakers" have all been guilty of. There will always be a few latecomer stragglers like Billy, happy to be involved somehow, confusing attention with talent and cheering them on into the wee hours of the morning but the cops are always called eventually and the cars of the drunks are towed away and impounded.
Hope you have your checkbook handy, Billy. Those impound fees can be murder!
Oh my god, this writer has no taste. What a pompous prick.
When did it become pretentious to bring multilayered works of art to the screen? Anderson, Baumbach, Kaufman, Jonze and PTA are among the few that I've witnessed actually trying to do this as of recently and it's unfortunate that this is considered a "bad thing" by many. Maybe this is something most people don't care about because they don't understand the amount of work that goes into it or they just can't relate. That's fine, not everyone is hard-wired to enjoy thinking about or disecting a film, but Kaufman, Anderson, and PTA, though very different type of writers dedicate years to single projects and stress the finest of details, (because they care, not because they're trying to be pretentious), and that's something to be admired, not written off. If your opinion of these films is actually being swayed by this review you might want to take the time to check out some others (see Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, he can actually relate to people under 60), or just go see them for yourself.
Wait, did he say "horrible pop songs by The Kinks?" Holy hell.
Talk about a pretentious elitist, too bad you never got to make your films Rex.
Rex Reed is a nasty old Queen that obviously hasn't taken a good look in the Mirror. Reality sucks doesn't it queen Rex and so do your looks.
Wonderfully expressed Richard.
Right on target, so direct.
I just saw Margot at the Wedding at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and Reed's review is exactly right. The film is awful.
Anyone born after 1955 will love Margot at the Wedding. Maybe the world it depicts isn't pretty, but it's the one most of us were born into. It's okay to laugh, unless you're like Kidman's Margot... then you'll just be angry. I've never read any of Rex Redd's reviews before, but he strikes me as a regular Ellsworth Toohey.
I am not entirely sure we saw the same film. In fact, Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited" is about three adult brothers, each grieving the enormous loss of their father, who died the previous year. They haven't spoken since - ONE year. Their mother, Anjelica Huston, is also lost in deep grief for her husband and her family, and has escaped into a fantasy world as a nun in the Himalayas. Each character is desparately searching for acceptance, closure, and peace from the recent massive loss and change in their lives. The scenery and detail of India's landscape and culture both create a unique, beautiful, and poetic backdrop to their inner journeys, both separately and together. When they each discard their custom - not "vintage" - Vuitton luggage, their father's luggage, in the last scene, each brother has finally set him free, and reclaimed themselves, and each other. It's a story of transcendence and very poignantly, and beautifully presented. It's too bad you missed it.
Dear Rex Reed,
With all due respect you clearly don't know what you are talking about.I'm so glad you commented on how you didn't see anything 'deep' (whatever that means) in Dylan's music, because after reading your review I don't expect you would have the mental capacity to. This film was not made for people like you. My hope is that you are trying to be controversial for the sake of it, to make up for the fact that at the end of the day nobody will ever care what you think about movies. You don't make them, and you don't understand them, but somewhere along the line you spent enough time in school writing dry essays and this type of mindless drivel is a pale attempt at reacting against your own futility. It's not working. I'm Not There is a masterpiece, pure and simple. Get out of your head. It is because of people like you that filmmakers despise critics.
This review of "I'm Not There" was in fact helpful to me on the basis of one statement: Your admission that you don't see anything deep in Bob Dylan's music. There has always been a huge divide between those who do see something deep in Dylan's work and those who don't, and the fact that this divide has transferred intact to this movie tells me that the movie has hit exactly the right note. Those who dislike Dylan may never understand it, but as someone who was raised by parents who listened to Dylan from the beginning, who can't remember a time when I didn't know all the words to songs like "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", and who has always thrilled to the profundity inherent in Dylan's work, I expect to enjoy the movie tremendously. Thanks for the input. :)
I have seen the movie and I haven't read a more honest review of it yet. I love Dylan and I thought this movie was truly awful. Pure directorial masturbation.
The problem with films like Im Not There is that many modern day 'auters' don't know how to tell a story, so they fool us with smoke & mirrors. This film sounds like it's more about it's director than it's subject (or it's audience) It's stunt filmmaking and I agree - give me Scorcese or any of the master storytellers from the 70's.
Charlie Kaufman "brain-dead"? Spike Jonze and P.T. Anderson "making it up as they go along"? Hmmm, someone doesn't get it.
And Billy, most of these directors aren't interested in playing by the conventional storytelling rulebook, so they color outside the lines. Not unlike Scorcese did in the 70's.
I love when people don't understand a piece of art and label it as "pretentious." Perhaps you'd prefer an entry from the Michael Bay collection.
I dismissed Rex Reed many years ago after reading his review of Michael J. Fox's movie Light of Day, in which he compared Joan Jett's complexion to unmixed cement (I kid you not, I'll never forget it). This is film criticism? What, are you writing for Cosmo?
Now I just read his reviews for a good laugh at how ignorant and pretentious the pseudo-intellectual crowd is.
Sounds like you went into this movie not caring or wanting to know about Dylan. Maybe you should have let someone else review this movie, someone who wasn't immediately ready to hate it - this review reeks of poor journalism and faux-intellectualism. Where did you go to journalism school - Bovine University?
The bottom line is that Rex Reed is really not equipped to be reviewing movies like I'm Not There. He obnoxiuosly thumbs his nose at most of pop culture that was created after 1960. Reading the review of the film by A.O. Scott of the Times clearly shows how inadequqte Rex Reed is to the task of reviewing a movie about Bob Dylan. The main problem is that Rex is proud of his ignorance and is dismissive of anything that he doesn't understand.
That said, some of Reed's early reviews and interviews during the 60s are a lot of fun. His interview with Streisand when she was taping her second TV special for CBS is a classic and
when it comes to his take on music of the great American songbook era and cabaret performers of a certain age, there's no one saviver. So I think everyone would be happier if Rex stuck to his beat and left the indie movies alone.
"Sometimes you don’t know who these people are, and at no time do you know what they are doing here in the first place." I think this is kind of humorous, but I don't put the film at fault. I think that in order to understand it, the viewer must have some knowledge of Bob Dylan's life and personality, and of the happenings of the sixties--neither of which, by the way, I think that I have much of, but I think that since this movie is more of a creative interpretation of Bob Dylan as a person than it is his biography, much of the factual stuff about it is referenced but not explained. So I really don't think this means the movie is bad in any way, it's just not a biography.
Have you seen it? If not, you shouldn't form an opinion on it.
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Make peace, not war!
Full heartedly agree with Reed on Baumbach and Anderson. Haynes' film was ok. But Baumbach... oi oi oi! He's gone too far from Kicking and Screaming, but there is still hope for Anderson, if he gets Owen Wilson back as co-writer.