Tag Archives: Romantic Comedy

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CAPSULE: ARTOIS THE GOAT (2009)

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DIRECTED BY: Cliff Bogart, Kyle Bogart

FEATURING: Mark Scheibmeir, Sydney Andrews, Stephen Taylor Fry

PLOT: Virgil, unhappy with his job as an assistant to a taste-tester in a flavor synthesis lab

Artois the Goat (2009)

and struggling with the pressures of a long-distance relationship with his fiancée, risks throwing everything away to dedicate himself to making a perfect goat cheese.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST:  Despite dream sequences and comic departures from reality, “weird” is too strong a word to use for this ever so slightly exotic concoction.  “Recommended” is also too strong a word, unless you add the modifier “mildly.”

COMMENTS: Artois the Goat is a film that captures all the thrills, excitement and romance of cheesemaking: milking the goats, separating the curds from the whey, aging the final product.  You might think there’s not a lot of thrills and romance in making artisanal goat cheese, but be assured that the Bogart brothers milk the subject for all it’s worth.  (That’s the closest I’m going to come to making a cheesy pun about this movie).  Actually, since the film is about following your passion, it could have just as easily been built around beer brewing, dollhouse building, or cannabis cultivation; but none of those other crafts would produce quite the same blend of snobbishness and ridiculousness as a film about cheesemaking, or appeal as deeply to the Food Channel demographic.  Quips aside, the cheesecrafting side of the film is somewhat educational and engaging, appealing to a certain “how do they make that stuff anyway?” fascination.  The thrust of the story is Virgil’s transition from a timid young adult who can’t commit to either a career or a woman to a fully-functioning adult who gets both.  Like its bespectacled hero (who sleeps in a bed surrounded by walls of books but is never seen reading anything but cheesemaking manuals), the movie is bookish without being intellectual.  It’s set in a world of smart, responsible, confused postgraduates who are neither hipsters nor yuppies, burnouts nor successes.  They have the education and taste to recognize the good life, but not the courage to seize it.  These twee characters and their sub-existential crises are a bit cloying, but thankfully, the movie frequently sets aside reality for Continue reading CAPSULE: ARTOIS THE GOAT (2009) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has been promoted onto the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies of All Time.  Comments on this initial review are closed. Please leave any comments about the movie on the official Certified Weird entry.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Edgar Wright

FEATURING: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman

PLOT: Slacker bassist Scott Pilgrim must defeat seven evil exes in order to win the girl of his dreams.

Still from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST:  An alternate reality comedy that at times feels like something Monty Python would have come up with if they’d been raised on video games and graphic novels instead of “The Goon Show” and Oscar Wilde, Scott Pilgrim has substantial cult movie potential.  The movie dispenses with logic scene by fractured scene, but probably its weirdest joke is casting Michael Cera as an action hero.  It’s shiny surface sheen is fascinating, but at heart it’s a conventional coming-of-age tale for the PlayStation set; despite it’s comic leaps of illogic, it’s weird-ish, at best.

COMMENTS:  With its role-playing game quest to defeat seven escalating opponents (right up to the final “boss” battle) and it’s onscreen scoring system (defeated enemies turn into piles of coins as a digital score rises from their corpses), Scott Pilgrim becomes the first film in history to use the video game as a metaphor for growing up.  The movie milks maximum mileage from this conceit: when Scott goes to the bathroom, we watch a pop-up pee meter go from full to empty so we can stay informed on the condition of his bladder.  The viewer is stuffed inside a video game console, treated to constant text updates on the characters’ status.  But even beyond that basic technique, director Edgar Wright piles on the artificiality and stylization whenever an idea crosses his mind: multicolored valentines bloom from young lovers locked lips at first kiss, 1960s Batman-style “KAPOWS!” accompany fight scenes, and when a character’s profanity is bleeped out on the soundtrack a black bar also appears over her mouth.  The bent humor sports a pop-absurdist tone; this is the only movies where a villain sets up a duel to the death by email, then brings his own Bollywood backup singers to the fight.  Sometimes Wright’s choices become overly referential and fall flat, as when one expository scene is announced by the “Seinfeld” theme song, but you have to admire his willingness to try absolutely anything, and there are more hits than misses in the mix.  The film moves almost too fast at times, with dream scenes emerging back into reality with no warning (there’s little difference between the two states anyway), and jarring leaps forward in time.  But Wright embraces the short-attention span aesthetic and makes one of the cornerstones of the film; it’s neither a satirical jab at youth culture nor an unconscious adoption of its rhythms, but a stylistic choice that works in the context of the zeitgeist he’s trying to evoke.  The fast-cut style is also necessary to fit in all the film’s teeming ideas:  Scott Pilgrim is delightfully overstuffed, a real bargain for your matinee dollar.  There are six big, comic fight scenes, multiple romantic subplots and back stories,  a Battle of the Bands, and so many quirky supporting characters you almost need a scorecard to keep up.  Besides everyboy Pilgrim, there’s cool love interest Ramona Flowers (whose shifting dye jobs call to mind Kate Winslett’s Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), jailbait romantic rival Knives Chow, wisecracking gay roommate Wallace Wells, Scott’s band-mates in the awkwardly named “Sex Bob-omb,” evil exes who’ve become Hollywood action stars or Vegan bass players… and even with that list I’ve still omitted somebody‘s favorite of the dozens of significant characters.  The film is anarchic and ramshackle in spirit, but it’s actually tightly controlled and easy to follow and connect with.  With it’s ADD edits, it’s geeky embrace of everything pop culture and willful ignorance of any other type of culture, and its amiable twenty-somethings who act like John Hughes’ teenagers of an earlier era, Scott Pilgrim suggests either that the onset of adulthood is slipping ever closer to 30, or that the film is aimed at a demographic aged much younger than its protagonists.  I prefer to believe the latter; and, like the aforementioned Mr. Hughes’ film, the movie’s innocence about love and the easy answers about life’s big lessons creates a nostalgic crossover appeal for adults, even if they don’t get every NES video game system reference.

Edgar Wright’s previous two films were cultish genre spoofs: the zombie film parody Shaun of the Dead and the cop burlesque Hot Fuzz.  Scott Pilgrim sees Wright stretching his talents with a far more baroque, but equally hilarious, approach.  With Scott Pilgrim Wright’s no longer exaggerating the conventions of an existing genres to ridiculous lengths; he’s inventing an entirely new genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The style is Sega surrealism, the narrative strategy 30% Bunuel and 70% Bally.”–Andy Klein, Brand X Daily (contemporaneous)

Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)

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366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

The second submission in the June review writing contest: by “SG Eric”.

DIRECTOR: Hal Ashby

FEATURING: Bud Cort,

PLOT: Twenty-something rich kid unfulfilled with his life stages fake suicides to peeve his uppity mother and ultimately finds meaning in life when he meets carefree 89-year-old Maude.

Still from Harold and Maude (1971)

WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: The May-December romance theme is taken to the extreme by romantically entangling (yes, I mean sexually) a very young man with a very old lady.  Considered taboo by most people, the film makes a plea that the perversion is justified because these two odd souls truly do make a bona fide connection with each other, regardless of age or what society deems as acceptable.

COMMENTS:  First off, I’ll admit that I’m biased when it comes to this film. It has been my all-time favorite for about as long as I can remember. Excepting The Dark Crystal (which just frightened me) it was the first truly “weird” film I encountered as a child.  Like any other kid of my generation, I was enamored by the spectacle that was Star Wars.  Fantasy consumes a child’s existence, and there was no greater escape than those first three films.  I’m guessing around ’84 I first came upon Harold and Maude on HBO.  I was engrossed immediately.  Here was a movie that did not rely on fantasy to hold your attention.  Sure, there is some reality-based whimsy involved.  The humor is dark for sure, some may say morbid, but to a 10-year-old kid watching someone feigning multiple suicides comes off as hilarious.  At least it did for me at the time, and yes it still does.

I know this movie has a huge and dedicated cult following.  Without trying to sound completely snobbish, I hope it stays within that circle.  It deserves to be seen by those who like their cinema offbeat.  I find this movie to be so perfect that I cannot fathom anyone not enjoying it.

Now let’s talk about what makes this movie weird.  The May-December theme is basically a couple who is one-half old and one-half young.  It has been explored many times over in movies, usually in dreadful Hollywood romantic comedies.  Usually, it is the older man falling for the younger girl… yes, tracing a semi-origin to “Lolita,” one of the most popular novels written about the subject, which was made into a couple of “controversial” films.  There are exceptions of good films exploring this theme.  Ghost World (I agree a bit creepy for a couple) or Lost in Translation are good examples, but they never really surpassed plain ol’ sweetness.  What sets Harold and Maude apart, other than the gender-role age discrepancy being reversed, is that they give each other hope and a true purpose for life.

Harold’s mother ceaselessly tries to find a respectable mate through dating services.  Harold wants no part in this shallowness, and bizarre fake suicides are performed to ward each one off.  Upon meeting Maude at funeral services, for which neither one knows the deceased, they hit it off.  Maude takes part in several shenanigans that involuntarily involve Harold.  He starts to see this chaos/anarchy as a means for living and loving.  He tells his mother early on that he has found a companion in Maude and provides evidence with a picture of her.  I believe initially the affair was meant to once again irk his mother, but eventually unfolds to true and devout love.  Of course his mother is aghast and she stops at nothing to prevent the relationship.  Again, the results are nothing short of hilarious.

I have always been fascinated by two people who are linked together and it seems to be a complete mismatch.  The beauty of Harold and Maude is that they are not mismatched at all.  Only the age factor makes it seem that way.  I compare it to seeing a strange couple walking down the aisle of a store.  One is obese and the other is pencil-thin.  It makes you raise and eyebrow and think, “that’s weird.”  Is it?  If they are happy I salute them. Love truly knows no boundaries and it makes this life what it is.  Films like Harold and Maude can show you that love exists, in spades.  It may also tell you to take that spade and dig up that city tree and transplant it in the forest where it belongs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a doggedly eccentric film which some will reject out of hand. Others will find it profoundly moving and life affirming.”–TV Guide

Canonically Weird (The List)

47. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

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“Nothing fixes a thing so intently in the memory as the wish to forget it.”-Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d …”–Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard

Must See

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson

PLOT: A shy introvert named Joel and a kooky gal named Clementine with ever-changing hair colors meet and fall in love.  After a fight Joel tries to reconcile, but discovers Clementine has availed herself of a strange and anachronistic mind-erasing technique to remove all memories of him; in a fit of pique and pain, he decides to undergo the same procedure.  But as Joel begins the erasure process, he realizes he doesn’t want to go through with it, and he travels through the landscapes of his memories to find and hold on to the rapidly vanishing Clementine.

Still from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

BACKGROUND:

  • Charlie Kaufman came up with the idea for this fascinating tale and co-wrote the script with the help of director Michel Gondry and obscure Parisian performance artist Pierre Bismuth.
  • The title is taken from the classic Alexander Pope poem Eloisa to Abelard, which reflects a number of philosophical and emotional touchstones of the film.
  • Before Jim Carrey expressed a desire to play Joel, the likeliest candidate for the part was Nicolas Cage (!)
  • The scene where Mark Ruffalo scares Kirsten Dunst is completely genuine: director Gondry asked that before each take that Ruffalo hide in a different spot to really scare the pants off her!
  • Charlie Kaufman won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress but did not win.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: This bold and invigorating trip into the subconscious has a myriad of off-the-wall images that are sure to stick in your head. From faceless creatures to over-sized environments to entire train stations being drained of its inhabitants due to memory loss, there is a lot of weirdness going on here.  But as far as an indelible image, the one I pick is the simple scene in which Joel remembers when he and Clementine snuggle beneath an old ratty blanket and he consoles her after she recounts an intimate and revealing story about a doll she named after herself as a child.  As the memory seeps out of his head and Clementine’s body disappears, Joel crawls through the ratty blanket of his imagination begging to be able to hold on to this particular memory.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD:  Any film birthed from the madcap imagination of Charlie

Original trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Kaufman and surreal visualist Michel Gondry has at least a pretty good shot of being kind of different.  But this movie in particular, a film about memories literally being erased from people like they were organic hard drives, really takes Kaufman’s dry strangeness and Gondry’s unhinged wild-eyed wonderment and melds it to a delightful perfection that muses on life while simultaneously compelling us with images of collapsing landscapes and Jim Carrey bathing in a sink.

COMMENTS: Some would say that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie about Continue reading 47. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) →

Capsules

C APSULE: ABSURDISTAN (2008)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Kristyna Malérová, Max Mauff

PLOT: A young couple’s about-to-be-consummated love is threatened when the women of their village organize a sex strike against the lazy townsmen who will not fix the pipe that brings water to the hamlet.

Absurdistan

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Disqualified for false advertising in the title: there’s nothing absurdist in this shamelessly romantic comedy. Still, it’s an offbeat and often beautiful fable that’s kilometers and kilometers away from the competition in this most formulaic of genres. A good date night movie for people who aren’t idiots.

COMMENTS: Absurdistan takes place in a central Asian village, once famed among merchants traveling the Silk Road for its beautiful women and virile menfolk, but now forgotten by the modern world. Unburdened by cell phones, social networking sites and other conveniences of the modern age, the villagers have reverted to simpler ways—which is to say, they think mainly about sex. And as long as the men are getting it, they have little incentive to do anything else, since the women take up the duties of baking, herding, and farming out of necessity. They grow too lazy even to fix the town’s water pipe, preferring enduring drought and living in filth to the unacceptable prospect of working up a good sweat. Although sex in Absurdistan is used as a weapon, overall, the village’s attitude towards the dirty deed is refreshingly frank and seems innocent and healthy compared to our own: its importance is freely acknowledged and respected, and not hidden from the children like a shameful secret. This perspective gives the movie a tastefully lusty charm that’s reminiscent of its inspiration, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata.”

The most unique aspect of Absurdistan is the scarcity of dialogue; background info is given via voiceover, but very few words are actually spoken by the characters (and except for the heroine’s name, no words at all are spoken by the male lead). This is partly due to circumstance; few in the internationally assembled cast could speak properly accented Russian. More importantly, as an artistic choice it gives the film an aura of timelessness and universality. With no verbal exchanges, the comedy is delivered silent-movie style, and isn’t always exactly subtle: there’s a bit where a man stuffs two watermelons into a brassiere in order to infiltrate the women’s camp. None of the gags are gut-busting, but along with the top-notch desert cinematography, exotic music, and assured storytelling, it’s enough to keep the audience well-charmed until the climax.

Director/co-writer Veit Helmer doesn’t skimp on the sentiment—after completing their quest to save the parched village, the young lovers are granted not one but two fairy tale happy endings with heart-melting, magical images. But the hearts and flowers aren’t slopped on simply because the target demographic expects it. In the service of an original, well-told story, Helmer earns the right to be a bit sappy, and we earn the right to enjoy it.

Helmer also helmed 1999’s Tuvalu, which features a similar streamlined storyline with minimal dialogue, but adds experimental film-tinting and more surrealistic touches and absurd humor.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a bizarre yet charming plot, and the overall ensemble insanity — like Amélie meets Dogville, though not as compelling as either — is curiously entertaining.”–Chris Bilton, Eye Weekly