Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Page 2 of 2

Go Baby Go

Published on January 10, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Hello there, dear reader. I’ve put off doing this entry since last night, probably because I have actual events I am obliged to tell you about, and you know how I hate that. I like to ramble, pontificate, extrapolate, and muse, I can’t stand it when the dictating of important events is required. Still, there are events which must be discussed, so let’s get on with them.

First off, this is the first entry from our new iMac! May I say, I am overwhelmingly pleased. Corelyn keeps touching the screen, then getting flustered when I scold her for this, but other than that everything seems good. Many of you may know that my wife has a curious affliction: she can’t control the rolling of her eyes. Even when she intends to bite her tongue, her ocular region tends to force her to involuntarily betray herself. It’s sad for her, eye-rolling is a powerful gesture in our culture, and not a wise thing to have no control over, but that’s how it is. Anyway, when I say “flustered,” I just mean that little accidental motion happens Then I notice it and, like most people who receive this gesture, get increasingly defensive. Then Corelyn reacts as if she has done nothing, because her conscious memory does not recall doing anything to antagonize me, and so forth. Tis the perfect storm.

She should not touch the screen. Are you with me, dear reader? No touchy!

Moving right along.

The bigger news is that I attended orientation for the USC School of Cinema-Television! It was amazing. Seriously, I spent the entire orientation utterly blown away. You’ve probably been to orientations for things before, I’m sure you can imagine the format: some people talk to you, hand out pieces of paper you have to sign, tell you about the program, etc. So, instead of listing off what happened, let me throw some bullet-points of highlights that stood out to me:

-The professors I met were all, without exception, charming and literate. I’ve never seen a faculty without a healthy contingent of weird, anti-social, strangely dressed professors before, but here it was. It was almost funny to see such a well-adjusted and classy bunch of instructors in a decidedly artsy graduate program.

-The work is going to be intense. One of my professors told me he saw a cinema grad student walking across campus take a face plant into the grass from sheer exhaustion. Apparently, the kid stayed there for an hour.

-Most of my classes will, in fact, be in the brand-new George Lucas building (which is actually split into the Lucas and Spielberg Buildings). We are the first class to use this facility, and there is nothing like it in the world. To call it massive and gorgeous does not do it justice. You have to see this thing to believe it.

-There looks to be around 30-50 grad students in my class with me, almost entirely around my age from the looks of it.

-Student projects at USC are given access to Screen Actors Guild performers, who work for free thanks to a contract we have with them. We can also use whoever else we want. This agreement is so iron-clad that the impending strike will have no impact on it.

-USC was the first film school ever created, and it remains the best. This thing is Harvard on steroids for the film world.

-USC students are known for going out into the professional world clumped together, remaining close with the friends and contacts they made during their education. It’s known as the “USC Mafia” in the industry.

It’s hard to describe how special you feel when you’re getting inducted into this program. The level of resources, the expertise at your fingertips, the tools you’re going to be given access to, are just overwhelming. This place is the best of the best, you just can’t go any higher. I remember walking around the Lucas Building for the first time, secretly reviewing the essays I sent in for admissions, wondering what part of them made someone think I deserved to be set loose in this place.

All false humility aside, though, I have an enormous sense of belonging here. I’ve never been in an atmosphere where I felt my creative resources might be legitimately taxed, even pushed to a new height, but here that is finally possible. With experts all around me as my professors, and students with the same passion I have, we might actually have ourselves a ball game here.

Pre-Pubescent Nosferatu

Published on January 3, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Review: “Let the Right One In”

Rating: 90%

The fourth wall, as they say in theater, is one of cinema’s most consistent problems. Many skillfully shot pictures fall short of their potential because the audience, huddled down in padded seats with soda and popcorn, doesn’t jump into the screen with the characters. We remain coolly observant, scornful of every choice our protagonist makes and desensitized to the emotional journey they’re going through. In my opinion, this is why people shout at the TV when watching horror movies, insisting that they’d never be so stupid, even though it is documented fact that life-or-death situations create panicky, illogical judgment in almost everyone.

What is that mysterious thing that happens sometimes, that moment where we stop watching a movie and begin to live it? I’m not sure anyone knows, except that we can tell when it has struck us. When a movie bridges the chasm between itself and its audience, when it sucks you into its world, all the little things we usually nitpick to death stop mattering; dialogue can be cheesy, pacing can go awry, characters can contradict themselves, and who cares? When the magic happens, it happens.

“Let the Right One In” is a Swedish-made film, based on a Swedish-made book, and it absolutely achieves the magic. I am not in a position to tell you if the climax was shot well, or if there were continuity mistakes; for all I know, the whole thing was out of focus. I was in this movie, submerged completely, and I just didn’t see it objectively. Research into the plot has revealed that I interpreted one or two elements of what I saw incorrectly, and I don’t care. I saw a movie in that theater, and I saw it the way I saw it, and I don’t care if the director himself tells me my version is wrong. This thing had me, dear reader. If you ask me, that fact alone dwarfs any other consideration when measuring a piece of art’s real value.

So, I should probably tell you what it’s about, and whether you’d like it. It’s the story of a 12-year-old Swedish boy named Oskar, who might be on the fast track to causing another Columbine. He’s a nice kid, but his divorced parents feel miles away from him, bullies hammer him at school, and he’s beginning to act out his rage, stabbing trees in the park and pretending they are unseen aggressors. Into this boy’s world comes Eli, a strange girl of about the same age who, we come to understand very quickly, is a vampire. Oskar is not aware of this, and of course, who would be? The two immediately click, so profoundly that within ten seconds of their first conversation, Eli instructs him that they “cannot be friends.” We can imagine her predicament; we’re sure she’s let people get close to her before, and we have no doubt it didn’t work out well.

But Eli cannot help herself, they both need company. Their friendship, and eventual pre-teen romance, is sweet and gentle, with an undercurrent of real sacrifice considering the kind of self-control this poor vampire girl must exercise at all times. How they affect each other’s lives I will not say, because, of course, the pleasure of a movie is watching such things unspool, but by the time the credits roll, I was convinced I had seen a genuinely unique cinematic offering. Never has such a violent movie been so innocent, so sweet at its core. Rarely has the warmth of love and companionship been so deftly illustrated, and its impossible allure when contrasted with the bleak vacuum of loneliness. And, most of all, rarely has a movie yanked me into itself by the collar so thoroughly. 

“Let the Right One In” takes a big gamble on Eli’s likability; the movie needs it, yet it makes no compromises to get it. She is a very old vampire, she’s been twelve for quite some time now, and while she doesn’t seem to take pleasure in killing, she is aware that it’s necessary for her survival, so she does it. Theoretically, an audience sitting snug behind the fourth wall could scoff at this character, demanding that she kill herself to prevent the future deaths of her many victims, because that is the logical thing to do. But because the film is so engrossing, because we love this girl so much, we are forced to admit that we, like Oskar, don’t want that to happen. Perhaps we’ve learned something about what we would do in such a situation in real life. Perhaps the “logical” decision is, finally, easier said than done.

Fundamentally, “Let the Right One In” is about human nature, and how philosophy and morality can get blacked out by basic needs. Eli is not a killer at heart, but she needs to do it, so she does. Oskar, also, is not an accomplice by his nature, but he cannot bring himself to sacrifice his one treasured connection in this world, so he permits the vampire’s existence. The lesson here is not that intense desire makes wrongdoing okay, quite the opposite: the movie is warning us that human nature will gladly shift its moral universe if the hunger pangs are strong enough. I took a refreshed suspicion of any justifications for my behavior away from the theater.

And, of course, it’s about two young kids falling in love so innocently it nearly hurts. To say that the romance is heartwarming doesn’t come close to describing it, the movie absolutely aches. One scene stands out in my mind: Oskar remarks upon his first meeting Eli that she smells odd, and of course the audience has a guess as to why. Eli does not seem to react, but the next time they meet, she is considerably better-dressed, and she quietly asks Oskar if she still smells bad. As sweet as moments like this are, this movie is always (I do mean “always”) creepy, sometimes ghastly, and the mixing of those two will likely discomfort many, much the same way the blending of comedy and violence puts people off of Coen Brothers movies. This is a perfectly legitimate reaction, not everyone wants to dance this particular tango, but for those of you who do, you will find a rich experience here.

I wish I could give you a sober account of this film, its technical merits, its pacing issues, or anything, but I was simply lost in the thing while it was going on. I will mention that the actress who plays Eli is the finest child actor I’ve ever witnessed, and that the climax, which takes place in a pool, may in fact be the greatest and most intense whooping any character or characters has received in a movie this year. Beyond that, I won’t even try. I absolutely loved “Let the Right One In,” but it was a singular experience for me which I cannot break down for you now. If you’re wondering whether you’ll love it, there’s only one way to find out.