Ladies and Gentlemen...

...I've traveled over half the internet to be here tonight. I couldn't get away sooner because my new film and photo blog was coming in at Blogspot and I had to see about it. That blog is now flowing at two to three posts a week and it's paying me an income of zero dollars a week. I have two others blogging, The Invisible Edge and Cinema Styles and I am one of sixteen blogging in harmony at The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club. So, ladies and gentlemen... if I say I'm a blog man you will agree. I do my own blogging.

I'm a family man- I run a family blog. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Lapper. We offer you the bond of family that very few blog men can understand. I'm fixed like few other blogs in this field. I have a string of posts all ready to go. I can load a screengrab into my photoshop and have a new banner up in a day. I have connections so I can get bad puns for the banner tagline; such things go by friendship in a rush like this. And this is why I can guarantee to start posting again regularly this week now that Christmas is over and I've put up this post to back my word. I assure you, whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there...

... okay, so I'm exaggerating. Of course they'll be there. We'll all be there. And Oscar will be there, that Golden Boy who throws his weight around Hollywood once a year, starting now and finishing up just weeks before Spring. Last year the man in the picture, Daniel Day-Lewis, took home the Best Actor Oscar and Javier Bardem took home the Supporting Actor Oscar (and don't we all already know who's taking home that award this year?). Here are two other former Best Actor and Supporting Actor winners... when they were boys. And they are?

Future Best Actor



Future Best Supporting Actor (pictured here with his sister)

It's Official: The Damn Thing's Ubiquitous

Old Jonathan Lapper's daughter was only six years old. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate (to borrow a phrase from Charles Dickens).

So on Saturday I had to drive the six year old Little Miss Lapper and her six year old friend to her soccer game. It's a fascinating weekly event in which six year olds wander aimlessly in circles and oblong formations attempting to kick a ball with some sense of purpose. Occasionally, if the planets are aligned correctly and the universe engages in a brief quantum flux, the ball rolls into one of the goals. The planets do not align correctly often.

On this past Saturday we arrived to find the game had been cancelled due to the muddy field from the previous day's rain. Being the responsible and resourceful father that I am I decided the perfect alternative to a vigorous and healthy workout on the soccer field was a trip to the ice cream shop. Besides, I had a hankering for a malted. So I packed up the two little ham balls into the car and drove across town to a nice little locally owned ice cream shop for a bit of creamery delight.

The six years olds confirmed their age by ordering the oddest combination of flavors and toppings available. Maybe I'm too unimaginative but in my book gummy bears don't go with Dulce de Leche flavored ice cream very well. But who am I to judge? I got my malted, paid and we all took a seat.

Upon sitting down it wasn't long before Little Miss Lapper inquired as to the deliciousness of my malted. I told her it was indeed delicious. She (and this should be no surprise to anyone with children) immediately wanted some. I gave her the malted for a taste. She took it in both hands, as children are want to do, and that's when it happened. She looked me squarely in the eyes, furrowed her brow and said:

"I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!"

"Wow," I thought, "it's official. That goddamn line is now known by every human being on the planet."

Now obviously, movies are discussed quite a bit in my household and if I may brag for a moment, the Little Miss Lapper, at the tender young age of six, can identify by face or name most of the big stars of the thirties and forties, which places her far ahead of most casual moviegoing adults. She loves "old movies", as she says, and indeed The Awful Truth is one of her favorites, with the scene of the cat holding back the door against Cary Grant guaranteed to crack her up every time. And it's not just classics but older movies in general. Last year for a playdate she wanted to bring a DVD and picked Murder Ahoy with Margaret Rutherford. Not wanting her to face the rejection of this choice we explained that other children might not appreciate Miss Marple on the same level that she does. But at home we've watched all four of Rutherford's Marple series many times over. Margaret Rutherford fascinates the Little Miss Lapper.

But There Will Be Blood? I saw it in the theater. I still don't have it on DVD. And yet there she was, quoting Daniel Plainview to me at the local ice cream shop. Amazing.

What is it about certain movie lines that they are immortalized almost instantly? Why do some lines become ubiquitous while others go unnoticed? Casablanca is famous for it's wealth of quotable lines from "shocked, Shocked!" and "hill of beans" to "here's looking at you kid" and "round up the usual suspects." Hell, it's got so many memorable lines people even remember lines that weren't there ("Play it again, Sam"). In keeping with the classic Hollywood film theme of this comparison, Citizen Kane has a screenplay filled with great lines as well, including one of my favorites, "You know Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich I might have been a really great man." But what's the one Kane line that everyone knows? "Rosebud."

I don't have the answer for why some lines become immortal while others do not. Some are understandable. For instance, "May the Force be with you" is not only a simple statement along the lines of "Good Luck" or "Break a Leg", it also has the fortune of being spoken in a film seen more times by more people than most other films in history. Same goes for "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Outside of the obvious advantages of that line (spoken by Clark Gable, appearing in generationally popular movie) there's also the context: It's being said to someone who connives and schemes by someone who is, to quote an old internet joke, just so tired of all her shit. It provides the audience with a "finally!" moment that they love.

So is it context that makes a line immortal? The context of the milkshake scene in There Will Be Blood could certainly fall into the same category as the Gone With the Wind line in the simplest of comparisons in that one character is telling another character off, a character the audience has been waiting to see get told off. Only in There Will Be Blood the character doing the telling off, Daniel Plainview, is decidedly less likable than Gable's Rhett Butler. But what about those famous lines that have practically no context like "Yeah Baby!" from Austin Powers that people started saying because they didn't know how to be witty or clever on their own. Or "I'm the King of the World!" from Titanic? It's not a particularly deep line or containing any kind of clever play on words but for whatever reason it became famous. A seemingly coke-addled James Cameron even yelled it out when he won one of his many Oscars that night, acknowledging it's ubiquity.

Is it quality? Doubtful. There are many lines from many a bad film that are utterly immortalized. But quality films do seem to have the advantage. More people know "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" from The Godfather than "muzzled by army brass" from Plan Nine from Outer Space (or it's almost orgasmic description of Solaranite, one of my favorite scientific explanation movie moments in film history) but Plan Nine does have its share of famous lines nonetheless.

The thing with immortal movie lines is you never know which ones are going to become immortalized and which ones aren't. So maybe it's the mood of the country or the world at any given time. I've often thought that despite its cleverness as a line, one of the reasons that "We're gonna need a bigger boat" caught on so well was due to the sinking ship feeling all over the world in 1975. Gas shortages, meat and sugar prices shooting up, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Watergate, the drawn out end of the war in Vietnam, recession and so on and so on. It was a mess and nobody had the answer. But in that movie, Jaws, Chief Brody saw the problem and addressed it succinctly, honestly and appropriately. I think everyone in the seventies felt like we needed a bigger boat.

So what's the zeitgeist now? Why is the milkshake line so ubiquitous? Is it because it uses the word "milkshake?" Seriously, is that why? If he had said "water" instead would it have stuck? I don't think it would have so the wording definitely goes a long way in explaining its popularity.

Or is it the internet? It seems more movies have memorable lines now than ever before if only because we can watch clips from them over and over at our leisure. And that goes for television shows too. Most people can quote episodes of The Simpsons or South Park liberally and with ease so maybe it's just the access we have now. Maybe if There Will Be Blood was released in 1957 the line would've disappeared without a trace.

And this technological advantage of the internet and DVDs has helped out smaller movies immeasurably. The ability to watch the movie on DVD or online again and again has helped movies that would've fallen down the memory hole just a couple of decades before become cult classics. Take The Big Lebowski. It had a lukewarm reception in the theatres during it's opening run. It got mixed reviews and seemed destined to be one of the lesser known Coen brothers' films. Then it was released on video and took on a brand new second life as a cult classic. With its release on DVD it became even easier to go to favorite scenes over and over. And the price didn't hurt either. The Big Lebowski was one of the first DVDs I ever bought, partially because I liked the movie and partially because it's price point was around seven bucks. Today its fans (and most cinephiles in general) can quote the movie endlessly even though many of the quotes are only funny within the context of the film and don't stand out as anything special on their own. The line on the phone, for instance, when the Dude tells Walter that, no, he didn't think the kid was about to crack, is hilarious, but only if you've sat through the astonishing homework interrogation scene before it.

So will there be more out of context quoting of 'R' rated movies by six year olds in the future? Almost assuredly. We have entered the golden age of movie quoting, aided by technology, that allows moviegoers the world over to connect with each other on the basis of shared knowledge. In this case, shared knowledge of movie or television dialogue. When people unfamiliar with each other can recite a scene from a favorite movie together or knowingly laugh when the other says, " I don't roll on Shabbos!" we've entered a new age; the age of quote conversations, as I like to call them. I've had many quote conversations with people I would have otherwise had nothing to say to. Usually it ends there, but sometimes it goes further and who knows, with all these quote conversations going on, some of them may end up as the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I think I heard that in a movie somewhere.

The OSCARS!

Best Picture - No Country For Old Men

Best Director - Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)

Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

Best Actress - Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)

Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)

Best Supporting Actress - Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Best Original Screenplay - Diablo Cody (Juno)

Best Adapted Screenplay - The Coens (No Country For Old Men)

* I wrote this on December 13th before there were even nominees: "But this early on I'd lay my money on Marion Cotillard. Why? Because lately the Academy loves honoring actors playing real people. Of the last eight Best Actress Oscars, starting with Hillary Swank winning for Boys Don't Cry, six have been for portrayals of real people. Only Swank in Million Dollar Baby and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball were playing fictional characters." Holy Crap! Someone give me a special award.

*I also wrote this just two days ago, "So the fact that I think There Will Be Blood will win Best Picture almost certainly means it will not." So I kinda got that one right too. Sorta. Otherwise, as usual my predictions blew. I was disappointed that No End in Sight did not win Best Documentary and that In the Shadow of the Moon wasn't even nominated.

* Roger Deakens split the vote all by himself. There Will Be Blood has the bigger, epic look that the cinematography branch loves giving Oscars to. I thought it looked magnificent but I would have preferred to see Deakens win for No Country For Old Men.

Musically speaking I'm very glad that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won for Falling Slowly from Once. I thought Once was a terrific simple little movie. As for Musical Score I couldn't help recall Johnny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood which was played briefly when it won its Oscars. It's another controversial aspect of the film with many people feeling it was, like Daniel Day Lewis' performance, too "big" and intrusive but I found its dissonance with the images on the screen to be quite captivating and the other nominees just felt blasé. I wish it hadn't been disqualified.

* There has of course been a lot of back and forth over Daniel Day Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood. Personally, as you all know, I love a big over the top performance by a great actor. Big over the top performances by mediocre actors are insufferable but by great ones they're pretty damn entertaining and I was pretty damn entertained by Lewis. I'm glad he won.

* First double win for Director since Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise for West Side Story, 1961.

*Finally Best Picture. I'll make it short and sweet: They picked the right movie.

No Way Out

There are two annually televised mega-events that my wife never, ever watches and that I never, ever miss. The kids always watch them with me so she's the odd one out. Although only for these two occasions. The rest of the year we both avoid television with a passion, but not for the pretentious reasons most people who avoid tv give. We never watch tv because of two things: The time trap (as I call it) and commercials. I have nothing against tv shows I just don't like my schedule being controlled by them ("I'd love to do that with you on Tuesday night but my show's on at 9:00 and I can't miss it."). That's the time trap. The other is the commercials. I like watching everything uninterrupted which is why I do watch tv, but I watch it after everyone else has already seen it, on DVD. Or I record it and watch it after it's aired so I can blitz the commercials. For instance, I've watched The Simpsons since it began in the late eighties but I don't know if I have ever seen even one episode during it's actual air time. So I see the big shows like everyone else, I just do so at the conclusion of the season when I can watch them without commercials and as quickly or slowly as I choose. That's why TIVO wouldn't really help me because I like to watch the whole season at once, so to speak.

Except for these two events, because they're live and dammit, commercials or not, I have to see the outcome right then and there. The two events are the Super Bowl and the Oscars. Hopefully, I'll enjoy the Oscars a hell of a lot more than I enjoyed the Super Bowl this year. If you know who my team has been since childhood you understand why this year's Super Bowl sucked sausages for me.

So Sunday night it's me and the kids and the Hollywood All-Stars. And don't expect any predictions because I suck at them. I am notoriously bad at calling the Oscars. Almost every Best Picture prediction I have ever made has been wrong. But I'm excellent at predicting them after the first ten awards have been handed out and you can clearly see what everyone has been voting for. So the fact that I think There Will Be Blood will win Best Picture almost certainly means it will not. But who cares? There will be dip, there will be chips, there will be beer and soda and larditudinous amounts of snacks and candy and ice cream and hot fudge. And there will be moaning and groaning at people winning something that could be once in a lifetime and spending their 45 seconds in the limelight listing names instead of telling us all what it means to them. There will be forehead slapping at "comedic" moments so awkward you wonder how anyone ever thought it would play at all. There will be excitement for the big awards and shock at the one or two upsets of the evening. And there will be montages. And yes, I love those damn montages.* And then it will all be over and I'll be back to watching television on DVD or online for another year. Until the next two events happen again and the cycle renews itself.

But for now I watch. I watch it live. There's no escape. No surrender. No way out.

*****

*I promise, no more cliched There Will Be... references ever again. Just had to do it one more time.

And in the End...

***Warning: Big stinking spoilers throughout. Read at your own risk.***

Roger Ebert wrote this recently in his positive review of There Will Be Blood concerning the ending: "Those who hate the ending, and there may be many, might be asked to dictate a different one. Something bittersweet, perhaps? Grandly tragic? Only madness can supply a termination for this story."

The ending of There Will Be Blood is indeed insane. I laughed throughout. I don't know if that offends Paul Thomas Anderson or if he intended people to laugh at the ending but I was not laughing in a mocking, condescending way. It was more of a "giddy with delight" kind of laughter. If you haven't seen the film and don't want it spoiled for you then stop reading now. If you don't care about spoilers, read on. To sum it up quickly and cleanly, the movie follows the life of Daniel Plainview and his selfish, megalomaniacal descent into madness. He is a cold businessman who hates people and takes offense where none was intended. He has dealings with Eli Sunday, an evangelist who uses Plainview's success to build his church. All of this is told in a sweeping manner among the dust strewn wastelands of the oil fields. Then suddenly, after two and a half hours of slow burn, we are jettisoned sixteen years forward, Eli comes to see Daniel in his mansion, Daniel humiliates Eli, chases him around his bowling alley and clubs him to death with a bowling pin. Daniel's butler walks in, presumably to collect Daniel's breakfast tray, and Daniel says, referring to the breakfast tray and his meeting with Eli, "I'm finished." The End.

Okay, let's be frank: That's crazy. And to many viewers it is a disconcerting and bizarre way to end the movie. But I enjoyed it (obviously - I've since watched the closing scene on YouTube several times and just laugh and laugh when I see it - Paul Thomas Anderson hates me right now). It's even funnier than Dirk Diggler wagging his rubber dick in front of the mirror. The truth is I usually like understated films. If you look at what I've reviewed on Unseen Images (Luck of Ginger Coffey, So Big, Walkabout) you can get a good idea of what I prefer in a movie, and it's usually not something like There Will Be Blood. But occasionally I like something big and sloppy and messy and this movie is as equally full of flaws as it is ambition. But the real point is the ending.

Ebert suggests those who don't like it write another ending for it. This is unnecessary as there already is another ending for it, written some thirty four years ago by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. The ending I'm referring to is the ending of The Godfather, Part II.

I have a hunch that many people who don't like the ending of There Will Be Blood were subconsciously hoping for the ending of The Godfather Part II Redux. Daniel Plainview slowly but surely isolates himself from everyone around him and finally rejects his own family (his adopted son). At this point it would be perfectly understandable and fitting if a filmmaker decided the best way to end the story was to have Plainview's son walk out and the camera fades to a day or a week later. The camera then slowly zooms in on a lonely and empty Daniel Plainview staring coldly ahead, his whole life reduced to this, to nothing, to meaninglessness. Slow fade to black and silence as the credits slowly crawl up the screen. After all, there really is little reason or motivation to even bring Eli Sunday back into the story. He's been absent for quite some time at this point and practically forgotten. He never made much of an impact as far as the story arc is concerned in the first place except for providing some juicy embarrassment at the baptism of Daniel. So why not give the movie a tragic dignified ending?

I don't have the answer to that question but I'm glad Anderson didn't. This may sound insulting, but I am vaguely reminded of Kevin Bacon pitching his stark winters tale to the studio executive in The Big Picture until it is finally reduced to Beach Nuts! I have this fantasy where Anderson is pitching the movie and describing Plainview's bitter loneliness in the snow as the camera fades to black. The studio executive stares at him blankly.

Anderson quickly realigns himself and says, "But then Plainview realizes his tragedy and reunites with his son."

Nothing from the studio exec.

"Uh, um, okay maybe Plainview joins forces with Sunday and decides to become a new man."

Still nothing.

"Okay, I got it, Sunday comes by, Plainview goes batshit insane, chases him around the bowling alley hurling bowling balls at him while screaming, 'I am the Third Revelation' then beats Sunday to death with a bowling pin!"

BINGO!

"We'll call it Oil Nuts!"

I think there could have been straighter played, more dignified, more overtly tragic endings to this movie but I don't think there could have been a better one. I have seen many a stoic character study that ends in understated silence. I believe many are excellent (such as The Godfather Part II, although I am not its biggest fan) but every now and then it makes me feel good to know that there is a filmmaker as reckless as Paul Thomas Anderson (rubber dicks, frog downpours, bowling pin clubbings). I have a feeling as he makes more movies he will become more sedate and subdued and learned in the wise ways of constructing a stoic character study in which Burt Reynolds, Marky Mark and the music of E.L.O. have no place. There will be no room for hyper-acted scenes where characters scream phrases like "Drainage Eli!" and "I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!" or biblical plagues in the middle of Los Angeles. There will be more Godfather, Part II and less Apocalypse Now. And certainly no room for One From the Heart.

Perhaps it's because I like understated smaller films that when I see a big drama I want it to just barely graze this side of a train wreck. If I'm going to spend three hours on a character study when I believe most good ones can be done in two, I want some goddamn spectacle. I want some madness. I want the filmmaker to do the equivalent of ordering a bunch of Peruvian natives to haul a 320 ton steamer over a mountain. And dammit, I want Michael Corleone to get off that damn bench, run inside the boathouse, call Tom Hagen a "basket bastard" and then club Al Neri to death with the row boat anchor. I'd drink that milkshake! I'd drink it up.

Oscar Watch Update

I've seen more films now that will be vying for the Oscar and it still comes down to two I think. Those two are No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Granted, there are still many to see from 2007 that I have not seen yet but for now, these two seem like the top Oscar hopefuls.

In my first Oscar conjecture I figured Sweeney Todd would make a bigger splash and while I didn't particularly dislike it or particularly like it, none of it has stayed with me and I can't imagine it has any legs going into the nomination process.

I believe NCFOM and TWBB have the best shot at Best Picture. I've just seen TWBB and the objections of some over the music left me shrugging my shoulders. I see no problem with the music being used in an operatic way to propel the story towards its inevitable conclusion. Every note implies that doom is just over the horizon. The title implies it as well. And so there is. And over-acting? No. Bad actors over-act, great actors skillfully play it big. Daniel Day-Lewis plays it big and his Daniel Plainview character is big - and it is mesmerizing to watch.

Others have tried to look at it as an allegory but I don't see it. If so it is the most unfocused allegory I have ever seen and I'm not even sure what it would be (Capitalism destroys Religion? Competing dogmas destroy each other? You got me.) But to understand further I have to talk about the ending and so if you haven't seen it I will begin spoiling NOW.

Eli Sunday (played terrifically by Paul Dano) comes to see Daniel Plainview (the aforementioned scenery engulfing Daniel Day-Lewis). Eli needs help, financial help, and Daniel has the money and power to clear everything up. Daniel makes Eli reveal himself as a fraud and renounce his belief. Earlier in the film, Daniel has to go through a baptism in order to get what he needs from one of Eli's followers. When Daniel is admitting to abandoning his son there are moments of real emotion in his voice as he says before others what he doesn't want to say to himself. Despite his cruel behavior later with his son, I believe that he loved him at one time and losing him later in life drove the final nail in Daniel's coffin of sanity. If not, why bother having the scene of complete and final abandonment of his son in his home take place at all, much less right before the final scene with Eli.

Back to Eli and his humiliation at the hands of Daniel. This is where there is argument amongst viewers as to whether Eli ever believed to begin with. If not, the renouncing of his beliefs is just as empty as Daniel's renouncing of sin at the baptism (with the single exception of the statements relating to his son). So was Eli a fraud all along? I think that depends on the viewer. I think Eli believed and does believe at the moment Daniel begins humiliating him but is desperate enough to renounce anything to get what he needs. Just as Daniel did not want to say he had abandoned his son but said it anyway - he needed that pipeline and nothing was going to stand in his way, certainly not his heart or soul. Both characters are willing to sacrifice integrity and honesty with themselves to get what they need. Beliefs are tossed aside to make way for necessity. If he never believed, there is no point to this humiliation. And if he did believe then we can see just how far he is willing to go to get what he needs.

After the humiliation is successful Daniel tells Eli he won't give him any money for what Eli offers because he, Daniel, has already taken it. In fact, he drank it up. At this point Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano go into hyper-acting overdrive and I must admit (and I hope I don't offend any viewers who found the ending deadly serious) I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I couldn't stop laughing. Not guffawing, just uncontrolled giddy chuckling as I watched these two actors perform a final scene so insane that a viewer probably would have had as much luck guessing this ending as they would have had guessing a movie about lonely people in Los Angeles would end with a frog shower. But my laughter had a joyous quality to it. I was happy that there's someone making movies who doesn't take themselves so goddamned seriously that they can't occasionally say, "Hey, why not end it with Plainview, Sunday, bowling pins, blood and a butler?" Why not indeed? Plainview's crazy, bitter and broken. That's clear in the final scene with his son. So where to take his character from there? To the end of course. The logical end. And then? He's finished. Finished with his tasks, finished with "wrapping up personal business," finished with his son, finished with revenge and finished - as in 'ruined' - because there's a corpse with a bowling pin imprint on the back of his skull laying in the middle of his home bowling alley. He's finished. I wonder what his last line should be?

Spoilers Ended

So there's a quick reaction. I think No Country for Old Men carries more weight to it but There Will Be Blood has the "bigness" that Oscar notices. For now, I'll stick with No Country for my own personal pick and put my money on There Will Be Blood as the Oscar pick.