Altered States (1980)

Title: Altered States (1980)

Director: Ken Russell

Cast: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Drew Barrymore

I wish Paddy Chayevsky had written more films; sadly he died shortly after Altered States was released. I enjoy his writing because there’s always this depth in themes that I don’t get from many screenwriters in Hollywood. His screenplays spoke of intelligent, relevant themes. By way of an example, he wrote Network (1976), which I still consider to be one of the most controversial anti-system films around, very subversive, very critical of society. Now you pair Chayevsky’s writing with an equally good director like Sidney Lumet and the result is nothing short of brilliant, Network is a film I love, it’s like a thunderbolt of truth, highly recommend checking it out. Altered States is also a good example of the kind of writing Chayefsky was good at, brainy stuff with intelligent characters searching for the ultimate truths about God and the origin of man. Can’t get any deeper than that! So how did Chayefsky’s writing pair with a surrealist director like Ken Russell?

In Altered States we meet Eddie Jessup, a scientist experimenting with isolation tanks, hallucinatory drugs and an attempt to regress to a more primal state of existence, namely, Eddie Jessup wants to connect with his inner caveman! You see Eddie thinks that hidden within our DNA are the past experiences of our ancestors and that we could reconnect with those ancestors somehow. This idea is not all together alien to me because Frank Herbert played with similar themes in his Dune novels; the idea that we all have somehow, the lives of our ancestors hidden within us, in our minds, in our DNA and that we could, if we wanted to, reconnect with that collective knowledge and experience. Of course it’s all trippy as hell and many would call it hippy mumbo jumbo, but in my opinion it makes an interesting premise for a sci-fi film, and in the case of Altered States one that explores some very interesting themes. 

Like for example, where did we really come from? Who was the first human being? Who is God? Should we even ponder such questions? The character of Eddie Jessup is a very intelligent one, he is always questioning everything and he’s never afraid of exploring his psychological boundaries. Brainy people tend to wonder with their curiosity into mental territories that most would find terrifying and this is the type of theme that Altered States explores. At the center of the film is the kind of character that likes to poke around existential matters, so existential, so in depth that others around him can’t take it. Similar characters have appeared in films like Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998), a film centered around a mathematician looking to decipher the mysteries of the universe through math equations; ultimately that films message is don’t break your head trying to find answers to questions that have no answers. It might just drive you mad. I think Altered States is this kind of film, it’s main character, Eddie Jessup is always pondering the edges of human knowledge, he dives deep into the pool of the unknown. When he comes back from these depths, is he the same guy? Or is he changed somehow?

The film was based on a novel written by Paddy Chayevsky; he even wrote the screenplay himself, which is a good thing in my book. Even though according to director Ken Russell the dialog on the film is almost word for word Chayevsky’s novel and screenplay, Chayevsky was never happy with the resulting film. He thought it was too loud; he didn’t like the overall tone of the film, which is at times overtly dramatic, especially when it comes to William Hurt’s performance as Eddie Jessup, which some might consider a bit over the top, I personally enjoyed it. I mean here’s a guy trying to face god in his experiments! It is my humble opinion that Ken Russell was actually the perfect director for such a surreal and introspective film because his films are always filled with religious iconography, proof of this are films like Gothic (1986) and Lair of the White Worm (1988); two very surreal and nightmarish films. Since the main character in Altered States always ends up thinking about god and the origins of man, Russell exploited this angle of the story and used it to infuse Altered States with his trade mark religious imagery, which translates to lots of crosses, goats, bibles, crucifixions, images of hell, snakes, the whole shebang. So be ready for an onslaught of surreal biblical nightmares. Visually speaking, the film is a complete delight, so many awesome images and colors. By the way, this was also one of the first films to deal with computer generated imagery. But my point is Ken Russell goes all out with some truly special dream sequences, they are one fo the many highlights of the film. 

It’s this awesome mixture of intelligence and art that makes Altered States worth revisiting. Chayevsky commented that while many saw Altered States as him going into more surreal territory, he always thought of the book as a love story, because it’s about this guy who goes after confronting all the darkness and the nothingness, what brings him back is love. Love once again, is what keeps us sane.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Whip It (2009)

Title: Whip It (2009)

Director: Drew Barrymore

Writer: Shauna Cross, based on her book Derby Girl

Starring: Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Marica Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, Eve, Zoe Bell, Bruce Dern

Review:

Kathryn Bigelow, Penelope Spheeris, Amy Heckerling, Sofia Coppola, Sarah Polly, Asia Argento, Nora Ephron, Jodie Foster, Rachel Talalay. What do these names have in common? They are all women. Some of them are actors…and all of them are film directors! 2010 proved to be quite a year for the female director. Kathryn Bigelow, the director of The Hurt Locker (2009) swept the Oscars, taking home two of the most coveted awards, best film of the year, and more importantly, director of the year. This was an important win not only for Bigelow as a director, but for Bigelow as a woman. No woman had won the best director award before; this was a historical first for women and the film community in general.

Drew Barrymore being her own hero

And The Hurt Locker certainly deserved it! It was a great war film. Bigelow had the guts to go and film this movie on freaking location in Jordan, East Asia! But going back to Bigelow’s win as best director, I was personally extremely glad she got it because the film industry is an industry dominated mostly by males. And it shouldn’t be that way. Art needs to have equal representation from both male and females. They each have their own unique way of seeing things. A film made by a woman can be instantly recognizable and set apart from films directed by men. Case in point: Whip It, actress/producer and now director Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut.

Whip It is the story of Bliss Cavendar a teenager who doesn’t exactly know what she wants to do with her life. She is still a teenager, still in school, but she is looking for something that fills her up, something better then the beauty pageants that her mother makes her participate in. Bliss is looking for excitement and speed. Soon, while buying some clothes in a store, she bumps into two roller girls who are passing out flyers for their upcoming roller derby game. Bliss attends the game, she likes what she sees and before you know it she’s participating in the try outs for the team. Will Bliss’s tight ass mom allow her to participate? Will she try to control Bliss’s life? Or will Bliss make up her own mind about things?

So basically, this is one of those movies in which the character is fighting to stay true to herself, stay true to what she loves and makes her happy. The 80’s were filled with movies with a similar theme to this one, where the parents are stuck up tight asses, and the upcoming youngster wants to go against that. The parents want to decide and control the young person’s life, and the youngster will have none of that. Sorry mom and dad, but its time I did things my own way, you’ll survive don’t worry! Ill pay for my wins and looses along the way! It’s my life after all, not yours. I remember Tom Cruise playing a similar role in Risky Business (1983). Breakin’ and Footloose ( both released in 1984) played along with these themes as well. So you can add Whip It to that list of movies, where teenagers say “hell no!” to parents manipulating their lives.

The thing about Whip It is that it didn’t commit the same mistake that a lot of 80’s films of this kind made. The films from the 80’s always made the parents out to be ‘villains’ whom the teenagers always out smarted and ended up making fun off and disrespecting. On this film Marcia Gay Harden plays the role of the uptight mom who wants to control every step that Bliss takes. She is kind of hateful through out the film, trying to make Bliss become the next beauty queen U.S.A., but we also get to see why she feels this way, where she is coming from and why she feels the way she does. Bliss does lie to her at one point to do what she loves (Roller derby!) but then she comes clean and is honest with her mother, explaining to her that this is what she wants to do now, and that it’s an important part of her life. That even though she is not doing what her mom wants her to do with her life, she still loves, admires and respects her for everything she has done for her. The father, played by Bruce Dern is kind of like the middle ground, he loves his daughter to death, but at the same time, its daughter vs. daughter at one point, and he is stuck in the middle. He plays the role of the understanding father, who tries to make mom understand that this is more than just a game for their daughter. She means to take Roller Derby seriously!

Speaking of the game, my hats go down to Drew Barrymore for directing the Roller derby sequences with such aplomb. I mean, when the game gets going, and things start to heat up between the two Roller Derby teams, the camera is right smack in the middle of the action. I liked how Barrymore directed the action sequences, getting in there with the girls. You almost feel as if you are wearing your own pair of skates, going along with the girls. The girls by the way, are a tough group of chicks. Tomboyish and rough in nature, yet retaining their sexiness, amplifying their hotness by ten fold! By the way, all you guys out there, these girls skate on mini skirts. Just sayin’.

Some of the scenes in which the Hurl Scouts (as the girls Derby team is called) start playing the game were filmed with real life roller derby girls from the Detroit area, so that adds a whole lot of credibility to the action sequences. The cast of actresses playing the Hurl Scouts is composed of a couple of tough chicks like Juliette Lewis, who has a constant mean face on her, she plays the ‘villain’ of the group, though I wouldn’t really call her a villain. She’s just a 36 year old player trying to keep her place in the game. She adds a level of competitiveness to the game. Real life stunt woman Zoe Bell, who is best known for doing stunts on Quentin Tarantino movies (she doubled for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and played one of the main characters in Death Proof), plays one of the tough as nails girls of the team. To be honest, its Ellen Page who doesn’t seem to fit very well in the middle of all the tough babes on this movie. Page has a fragile demeanor, she doesn’t look tomboyish or rough at all, but that actually works in favor of the film, because she goes into the team none the less.

Zoe Belle in action!

This movie is one of those movies were mostly happy things happen. There is not a lot of room for sadness on this one, Page wants to be a part of the team, and she does. Nothing stops her, it’s like she drops everything to do what she loves, and she makes it. There is a moment around the last half of the movie where its non stop happiness going on, everything works for everybody, and everyone ends up happy. Drew Barrymore was certainly shooting for a film with a positive light vibe to it, and she achieved it. Though that doesn’t mean the girls win the #1 spot like in every other sports film. I enjoyed the fact that this movie promotes the happiness of “being number 2”, cause coming in second place is just as great.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5

 

Director and Actress getting close and personal