What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Title: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, John C. Reily, Crispin Glover, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates

Review:

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film that talks about how life can be strange, beautiful and tragic all rolled into one and how sometimes there’s not much we can do about it. Sometimes, those are the cards we are dealt and what’s left for us to do is just try and survive as best we can through it while we are trying to make sense of it all. In this film we meet Gilbert Grape, a young man who’s lost his father, has an obese mother, two bitchy sisters and a mentally challenged brother called Arnie; so Gilbert doesn’t exactly enjoy a happy family life. It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, in fact; he is portrayed as someone who loves his entire family even though they sometimes drive him nuts. He’s the kind of guy who’ll take care of everyone else before taking care of himself. He forgets to make himself happy, but this is not entirely his fault, his brother Arnie takes up a lot of his time, Arnie needs Gilbert to survive. So in a way, Gilbert is kind of like a male version of Amelie (2004), you remember that one? That’s the French film about a girl named Amelie, she would help everyone, but always forgot to make herself happy. She didn’t even have time to find love, until she made time for it. This film follows a similar structure. Gilbert is the ultimate do gooder.

This is the kind of film that’s all about small town life. The film takes place in a fictional town called ‘Endora’. Gilbert is always complaining, saying how much he wants to leave Endora because not a whole lot happens there. If you ask me, I’d love to live there; the whole place is kind of like a paradise? The entire film was beautifully shot in Texas, and honestly, it made me want to live there, it’s that kind of film, its locations are so beautiful, you’ll wish you were there. But of course, the main character takes it for granted. I guess Gilbert wants out of Endora because to him, Endora is well, the name of the town says it all, it's End-ora. I guess Endora is representative of the quintessential dead end town. We always want what we don’t got, the fat want to be skinny, the poor want to be rich, the rich want to know about common people…and Gilbert wants out of Endora. I understand Gilbert though, I mean, here he is, in the prime of his youth and he is working in a local supermarket that’s on the brink of closing down.

When Gilbert goes back home, he goes to a dysfunctional family, now here is the true reason for Gilbert’s unhappiness. He finds himself trapped with taking care of his mother and his mentally challenged brother Arnie, masterfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Now here’s something you need to know about this movie, this is one of DiCaprio’s finest performances. It’s not an easy thing to play a mentally challenged individual, when done wrong, it can go horribly wrong.  An example of this is Sean Penn in I Am Sam (2001) a movie I despise because to me Sean Penn didn’t really sell me the performance; to me it looked like Penn simply playing 'stupid', not a convincing performance at all. But DiCaprio’s Arnie? Now we are talking! Now here’s a convincing performance! To be honest, when this film first came out in 1993, DiCaprio was just getting started in his career and I didn’t know who the hell he was yet. I actually thought they had used a mentally challenged actor to do this performance, it is that convincing!

DiCaprio did extensive research for his performance, which is why it comes off as so believable; he actually spent some time in a home for mentally challenged teenagers. DiCaprio’s performance did not go unnoticed; he was nominated for many awards that year, he was even nominated for an Academy Award in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. Sadly, DiCaprio’s nomination was one of those times when an actor should have won the Oscar but didn’t. You know, like that year in which Ellen Burstyn was nominated for her amazing performance in Requiem for a Dream (2000) but ended up losing to Julia Roberts for her performance in Erin Brockovich (2000)? And you’re left saying “whaaaat?!” Well, that year, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for playing Arnie, but lost to Tommy Lee Jones for his performance in The Fugitive (1993), can you believe it? One look at DiCaprio on What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, it’s one of his best performances ever, truly memorable, he got me to feel for Arnie. I doubt you even remember Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but after seeing Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, I doubt you’ll forget the performance. The chemistry between Arnie and Gilbert is great, loved seeing  Depp and DiCaprio performing together.

But then again all the performances on this film are outstanding in my book. Darlene Cates, the actress they chose to play Gilbert’s obese mother, she was chosen after Peter Hodges, the author of the book the film is based on saw Cates appearance in an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael show. The show’s theme was “Too Heavy to Leave Their House”. Hodges saw a tape of the show and immediately offered the role of Bonnie Grape to Mrs. Cates, who accepted. Now this was not an easy role to accept because it’s a role that would address her real life obesity and the way that people react to it. There are many scenes where Momma goes out on the street and people stare at her or make fun of her as if she was some sort of freak. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to film these scenes. To me, this actress is a brave soul for recognizing her problem and not being afraid to address it through her performance. Depp himself apologized to the actress after filming some of his lines. So my hats off to this fine actress, she actually got to me; she was completely vulnerable and honest in her performance and that calls for appreciation.

The film is sprinkled with a great supporting cast. Mary Steenburgen plays the desperate housewife looking for some action with Gilbert. John C. Reilly plays this guy who wants to open up a fast food franchise called “Burger Barn”; he swears it’s the best kind of food. That’s something else the film touches upon, how big businesses are gulping up small ones. Then we have Crispin Glover playing the town mortician, basically, it’s one of those movies that is filled with all these characters that make up the town folk. Finally we have Juliette Lewis playing the role of a girl who travels across the United States on a camper with her grandma. When she and Gilbert meet, sparks fly. She offers him something he’d been missing all his life, a breath of fresh air, some love and understanding. Juliette Lewis glows on this movie. So what we got here is a bitter sweet movie filled with some wonderfully happy moments and some terribly dark ones as well, kind of like life. It’s a film that teaches us to take the good with the bad.

Rating:  5 out of 5

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Title: Natural Born Killers (1994)

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield

Review:

In Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killer’s Mickey and Mallory Knox, the films murderous protagonists are two character’s who have completely rebelled against society, proclaiming it crazy and worthy of being annihilated. They are a product of dysfunctional families that treated them like garbage and let the television set be their baby sitter. In one extremely original flashback sequence we get to see Mallory’s dysfunctional family life as if we were watching an episode of “I Love Lucy” only this time the show is called “I love Mallory”. Brilliant part about this flashback is that we see Mallory’s father (played by Rodney Dangerfield) as a father who abuses Mallory sexually, he talks dirty to her and beats her all the while we hear a laugh track in the background, as if we were watching a sitcom. This scene is just one of many that let’s us know that Natural Born Killer’s is a film that shows us a society that filters everything they experience through the distorted world view of the media and television. Instead of having a loving mother and father, Mallory and Mickey got sexually, physically and verbally abusive ones. It is no surprise that they are simply a result of the world they live in; when it really comes down to it the finger needs to be pointed at society. “These children that come out at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them, I just tried to help them stand up” - Charles Manson

Mickey and Mallory are rebels every step of the way, they are looking for a way to exist in this world without being held down by its laws and regulations. This is a world that fucked them over, so they are fucking it over right back. Everything they do goes against the establishment, they are angry and pissed off, and so they decide to violently show their hatred towards the system. They want something? They take it. Somebody pisses them off too much? They kill them. They need a car? They steal it. One scene let’s us know that Mickey and Mallory are the ultimate rebels: their marriage scene. They are out in the dessert on route 666, when they decide to take a break and stop in the middle of the road, on a bridge. There in the middle of nowhere, with no bride’s maids or witnesses, Mickey and Mallory say their vows to each other and seal the pact with blood, by cutting each others hands and doing a blood pact. Mickey says “By the power invested in me, as God of my world…” No judge was present, no priest had to say any words, and no papers had to be signed, yet you feel that their love and devotion to each other is genuine and true. And so they go out through the rest of the film, doing what they want, when they want and how they want. Nobody tells these two what they have to do and how to do it. As a psychiatrist says in the film at one point: “Mickey and Mallory know the difference between right and wrong. They just don’t give a damn”

The film goes into similar territory visited by films like A Clockwork Orange (1971) in which Stanley Kubrick presented us with a rebel known as Alex De Large; a young man who refused to follow the rules. He would steal, rape and beat anyone he wanted to, just because he could, because he was young and strong. Yet, what Kubrick’s film shows us is that when you don’t play by the rules, the system can and most likely will force you to play by the rules. Another film that plays with the same ideas as Natural Born Killer’s is director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson (2008). A film about an incorrigible  man who does everything the wrong way: intimidating, kicking and punching anyone who doesn’t agree with him. Bronson is a man who was simply “born bad” and he knows it, destined to live a life in jail for being so. Same as Mickey Knox says that he has found his true calling and says that he is a “Natural Born Killer”. These are people who simply see the world as being completely wrong, the rules of society and the way everything moves in the world is upside down to them. The anger they feel towards the world emerges in different ways. Problem is that when you look at society, you can’t help but agree with them to an extent. Yeah, there is an undeniable truth that things are crazy out there in the world, things are ass backwards wrong. Some people simply know how to deal with the craziness better then others.

This film got a lot of criticism for the violence it portrays. According to some critics, the film incites people to violence, to go out there and cause some damage. I don’t agree so much with this idea. Natural Born Killer’s is simply a reflection of the world we live in, it’s a comment on our current society. Before this film came along, there were already real life characters that behaved exactly the same way that Mickey and Mallory did in the film. What Oliver Stone shows us in this film is nothing new, it is a phenomenon that’s been happening in society for ages. Just like he does with practically every film he has ever done, Oliver Stone is simply showing us the messed up world we live in, through a cinematic reflection. Some people just can’t take the truth that’s all. They apparently live life with shutters in front of their eyes if they see this film and can’t see the truth in it. Society does create characters like these. Look at Charles Manson himself! Oliver Stone mentions that this film is partially based on Charles Manson who has often times stated “My father is the system. I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you.” Same thing can be said for Mickey and Mallory.

One of the films main points is that society is bombarded by the media. Television, the internet, newspapers, magazines, billboards, you name it and we are being bombarded by it minute after minute. I mean, you can’t walk two steps without someone trying to sell you something. You can’t even take a piss in a public bathroom without being told what to buy or who to vote for. Now they even have freaking television sets inside of elevators! Some media outlets show violence simply for the ratings they are going to get in return. The film criticizes this through the character of Wayne Gale, a Geraldo Rivera type of television personality who will show anything on television to get some ratings, the more violent the better. Actually, those scenes where Wayne Gale is interviewing Mickey were inspired by Geraldo Rivera's interview to Charles Manson. It’s the kind of sleaze bag ‘journalism’ that proliferated during the 90’s and therefore got criticized a lot, specifically in films. You can see it pop up in various films, the character of the t.v. journalist always getting the negative portrayal, always looking like some sort of vampire thriving on other peoples woes. On this film Mickey and Mallory are presented as children of television, kids who saw way too much of it and were probably raised by it. Mallory’s father is presented as man who drinks beer and smokes cigarettes while watching wrestling in his underwear. Mickey and Mallory’s memories are sitcom infused flashbacks, and finally, their big jailbreak takes place while television cameras are recording the whole event. The media, and its bombardment on our psyche and its influence on how we perceive the world is really felt through this film. So much so that Mickey and Mallory’s final violent statement is aimed at a media mogul! When the media guy pleads for his life Mickey says “You are scum, you did it for the ratings. You don’t give a shit about us or anybody else except yourself”

So yeah, this film was a big controversial thing. The MPAA kept telling Stone to cut out the violence, and Stone was obligated to do so since he was contractually bound to deliver an ‘R’ rated picture. When the film came out it was blamed for quite a few copy cat murders. Yes my friends, some people out there in the real world went out and committed murders, blaming the film for what they did. They stated that they had either seen the film the night before or that they were emulating what they saw on it The big question that pops up for me is: why did so many people connect with this film in a way that would make them want to behave in the exact same way that Mickey and Mallory did in the film? Is it because they feel the same hatred towards the system as Mickey and Mallory did? Did they see Mickey and Mallory as a pitch perfect reflection of themselves? In the end, I am not one of these people that would blame a film or a song for the way people behave. An artist cannot be held responsible for the way somebody will react to his or her art. It is the main reason why all these lawsuits against Stone and his film never pulled through, the first amendment backed Stone up. Plus, what is Oliver Stone doing in this film if not commenting on the way the world already is? Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?

This is precisely the reason why I admire Stone as a filmmaker so much, because he speaks about the way the world is through his films, and most of the time he holds nothing back. Natural Born Killers is like a barrage of information, fast, quick and scattershot, it’s the Oliver Stone way. If you see his films, many of them have that pacing, that frenetic, speeded up sensation, like life is going on in front of you and you better pay attention or you’ll miss something. Natural Born Killers is like a freight train of images, an avalanche of visual information. Stone uses so many styles and formats on this film, he’ll go from black and white, to color, to oversaturation, to shooting in 16mm , to showing projections in the background and he even uses some morphing! I mean, if Mickey and Mallory were breaking all the rules, I’d say that Oliver Stone was right there breaking them with them while making this film.

Final word: Natural Born Killers is a film that needs to be seen more then once. It comments on so many themes, and it encompasses so much that one viewing will simply not be enough for you to absorb everything. Yeah the film is violent, and yeah the main characters are troubled individuals dealing with their own personal demons in an extremely murderous and psychopathic way, but just remember, this film is not made for you to go out there and shoot whoever the hell looks at you the wrong way, its meant for you to learn from it, and see what we should never become: desensitized individuals with no respect or appreciation for human life. This film is there to tell you that not everything the media tells you is true. That the ones behind media don’t care about you, they only care about their ratings, about making their money. It’s here to tell you that maybe you shouldn’t watch television 24 hours a day seven days a week, maybe you should go out there into the world and live your life, go out with a friend, fall in love, have a good time, experience things, grow, care. Just like Mickey says in the film: “The only thing that kills the demon…is love”

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