[caption id=“attachment_1633” align=“alignright” width=“377” caption=“Promo Artwork for DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album”][/caption]

I bet when DJ Danger Mouse was mixing down John Lennon’s ephemeral finger picking from “Julia” over Jay- Z’s evocative lyrical stylings on “Moment of Clarity”, he never thought a day would come when the two musical behemoths would actually duke it out on the music charts. Alas, that week has come (or gone, really).

A day apart from each other, Jay-Z released his 3rd Blueprint album (aptly titled The Blueprint 3) while The Beatles entire catalog was re-released in varying forms. Fully remastered over a four year period which you can read (a tiny bit) about here, all 13 studio albums plus the Past Masters Vols. were unleashed separately as well as in mono and stereo box sets. That’s a whole load of familiar albums to compete for listeners dollars. Still depending on how you count, Jay-Z hit the top of the charts by moving 476,000 units in the first week.

Back to that counting thing. If you include everything that Apple Corp. let loose last week, The Beatles moved a whopping 1.1 million units. More than twice as many discs for only 15 times as much content! Because the albums are re-releases, the only items eligible for the music charts were the box sets, which sport brand new SKU#s. Believe it or not, baby boomers and audiophiles shelled out en masse, bringing the stereo set to the 15 spot, selling 26,000 of the gigantic collection. Even the more obscure mono set made it number 40 with 12,000 collectors investing in aural purity.

So what does any of this mean? Well, the boys from Liverpool may be the greatest rock band of all time, but that doesn’t make the longevity of their relevance a given. Youngsters today are growing up with parents who think Bon Jovi is classic rock. An entire generation is growing up without the legend of The Beatles. In other words, the music doesn’t actually sell itself. It needs help from people like Julie Taymor and her “controversial” Across the Universe. Whichever side of the blasphemy aisle you may find yourself on, that film got tweenage girls singing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” while hanging out by their lockers. Mix that with the prepubescents noodling on Beatles: Rock Band and you see that they can stay relevant as long as the music is allowed to grow with the times.

And then there’s DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, that genius bit of artistry that set off a flurry of Frankenstein tracks (aka “mashups”) a few years ago. Although the album was a copyright lawyer’s nightmare, so much so that it was never released officially, it proved not only the artistic legitimacy of Jay-Z to raps naysayers, but the resiliency of John, George, Paul, and Ringo’s music in an era when seemingly anyone can be a rock star. As time goes on, we can only imagine what artists will think of next to do with the amazing palette that is the music of The Beatles.

For now, Jay-Z is still the king.

All the data for this article  comes from [this Variety article.](http://www. variety.com/article/VR1118008710.html?categoryid=16&cs=1&nid=2562)

The following is an interview conducted and composed by friend of the candler blog, Daniel Kremer. Dan is a filmmaker with a knack for cinematic criticism and historical deconstruction. His ConFluence Film Blog is definitely worth a read. Mr. Kremer asked that I repost the article here, and I have to thank him for it. Any access granted to the mind of Henry Jaglom is wholly welcome among candler readers. [Dan originally posted this a few days ago on his own website](http://confluencefilmblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/two-well-oiled- machines-exclusive.html)__. It’s a long one, so I’ve split it into a few pages, don’t miss the controls at the bottom.

Once upon a time, long long ago—but, on the other hand, not really long ago at all—there existed an extraordinary, well-oiled machine. Created by the finest hands in all the land of Germany and ultimately an invention of great luster and beauty, the wondrous well-oiled machine was dubbed the Keller-Elektro- Mechanik Flatbed, and those who grew to know it and love it called it the Kem. This well-oiled machine turned a world on its ear and made the lives of those who used it all the easier. It swept all lands, impressing artisans known and unknown with the exhilarating quality of its facility. One day, however, great wizards from the yonderland of the Valley of Silicon fashioned a grease- lightning fast well-oiled machine that began sweeping the land, usurping the quickness, luster and beauty of the once-great Kem. Once again, the world was turned on its ear.

[](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sqx2dvvYrrI/AAAAAAAAAec /cHKzTYsj-rc/s1600-h/KEM.jpg)

Okay, so not so much of a fairy-tale. My apologies for the botched conceit. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter at hand is still in there. The Kem, this so-called well-oiled machine, really did turn the world of film editing on its ear when filmmakers began using it in the late 1960’s in larger and larger volume. The Kem one-upped the Moviola, more or less trumping all other editing methods with the facility of its use—and when computer software became increasingly sophisticated, the well-oiled machine that was once so super- sophisticated went the way of the dodo. Despite this, there were still those who remained admirably committed, contriving to hang on for as long as they feasibly could. One of these filmmakers, and perhaps the last one to completely let go, is the one who many cineastes would call the independent’s independent, writer-director Henry Jaglom, who is very much like a well-oiled machine himself (considering the fact that he is working on five projects simultaneously).

Prodigious and prolific are two words that leap to mind when you consider Henry, and these are two of the qualities I personally admire most about him. He is currently hard at work promoting his latest release Irene in Time, editing his upcoming film Queen of the Lot (a sequel to 2006’s Hollywood Dreams), producing and seeing to the editing of the filmed version of his play Always But Not Forever(adapted from his 1985 film), writing and re- writing a new play entitled_Just 45 Minutes from Broadway_ and planning to shoot his next feature film. Each of these projects star actress Tanna Frederick, who made her debut in his Hollywood Dreams.

[](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sqx3UOcKq0I/AAAAAAAAAek /Ws_eR7lYAzg/s1600-h/HJOW.jpg)

I had the privilege of meeting and getting to know Henry personally in 2006 and, even prior to that, we had been e-mail pen pals (beginning in 2004-ish), writing back and forth about films old, new, domestic, foreign, you name it…and, of course, about filmmaking as well. We have continued our correspondence and have known each other for these years now. In the summer of 2008, I was given the unique opportunity in being invited into Henry’s editing room to watch him work on his latest film. Immediately, what struck me as I entered the editing room was, “Okay, where ya hidin’ the computer here, Henry?” Even though I was aware he still edited on a flatbed, it didn’t really hit me until I walked into an editing room furnished with several celluloid- filled bins and, of course, the well-oiled Kem, complete with pieces of memorabilia hanging on the wall. He switched on his 8-plate Kem and started working diligently on the ending of his film. For a reasonable portion of the day, I watched him physically splice, cut, paste, wind, rewind and do all manner of things to his 35mm film elements—in a sense, watching both well- oiled machines at work. He would present me his guest, and his assistant editor Simone Boudriot with options and versions of the ending, only to, like a brim-hatted jack-rabbit, reposition those elements yet again in an almost lightning-fast way to present us with another version. This was a true sight to see.

Once a close personal friend of Orson Welles, and the last one to hear from him the night before the morning the movie legend died, Henry has carved a more than respectable existence for himself being the independent’s independent. He has never willfully directed a film for the studio system and helms films made his way and his way only. His distribution process is another fascinating aspect of his operation, also running like a well-oiled machine—all in all, a practical (and inspirational) business model for independent filmmaking. His company, Rainbow International Releasing, distributes the Monty Python films here in the United States.

[](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sq7U1AS8qGI/AA AAAAAAAes/bhUetSKdPxc/s1600-h/Henry+and+Ron.jpg)

Henry with co-editor Ron Vignone, photo credit: Tanna Frederick

The Jaglom way of working is a very singular way of working in that, ostensibly much the way Cassavetes made films, everything is written in detail beforehand and then, when shooting, the actors will take the reins and fulfill the intentions of the written scenes without adhering so strictly to anything written prior. He then, alone as writer, director _and_editor, finds the film in the editing room. It was with this knowledge that I was curious to see how Henry coped with having to switch to editing on a computer after decades of working on a flatbed and being initially resistant to the prospect of working any other way. Also, for the first time ever, he is working on Final Cut Pro not just with himself but also with a co-editor, filmmaker Ron Vignone (director of Say I Do and the upcoming documentary The Back Nine).

When I asked Vignone recently how Henry was enjoying working for the first time on Final Cut Pro, his response was simply, “Dan, he’s loving it! He’s having a blast!” Needless to say, I was quite surprised and started asking Ron more questions. So, eventually, I decided to schedule an interview with Henry to explore this subject. I found myself quite curious to hear what he had to say about the digital revolution and how it has affected his workflow as someone long-acclimated to a certain way of working.

DK: Let’s start simple and point-blank. It would seem you’ve been resistant to personally using computer editing systems since their inception. What ultimately led to the decision to change over?
HJ: You know, I remember when I was in London shooting Déjà Vu, [Monty Python alumnus] Terry Jones took me in to edit something with him. He showed me how computer editing was done and assured me that I’d love it. My feeling then was that I never would, because I couldn’t learn the technology and would somehow miss my whole laborious process—and I am amazed in working with Ron Vignone to say that this is not at all the case. Watching Ron edit a movie version of what he filmed of my play Always But Not Forever was really revelatory. I know it wouldn’t have worked without someone who can do it as amazingly well as Ron can, who is wonderfully skilled and inventive and who has very similar tastes to my own, which is easy for me. And you know personally how difficult I can be on occasion and to be around all the time, particularly in the editing room. Ron is quite simply, really brilliant as an editor, yet open to my needs and my specific, idiosyncratic creative energy. So far I haven’t been tempted to edit a single thing on my own though I had an important and complex dinner scene transferred to 35mm so that I could work on it while he was doing other stuff yet haven’t ever sat down at my editing table where the spools are still left on it to do a single cut myself. I thought this would be a big adjustment, but it really wasn’t. I now wish I had actually listened to Terry Jones back in — what was it — ‘95 maybe.
**DK: Can you talk about having been among the first filmmakers to have used the Kem for editing? **
HJ: Orson absolutely insisted that I use it. He told me then that editors would resist the Kem because it was so simple to use that filmmakers would learn how to do it themselves and would not want the editors to come in and edit in their place, and he was right. He always said, and I agree, that filmmakers and directors should edit their films themselves. You really and truly gain an intimacy with the material that you almost always lose when someone else comes in to do it in your place. To me, it’s like a painter calling someone in and telling him what colors to use on the canvas. In 1971, on my first film, when the editor assigned to me by BBS Productions for my film A Safe Place [with Tuesday Weld, Jack Nicholson and Orson Welles] fell asleep one day under some drug influence, I took over and found that I really loved editing and that it was essential for me, and no one else, to do it in the future.
[](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sq7YPZZUKRI/AAAAA AAAAe8/IxtKy5TygPY/s1600-h/Safe+Place.jpg)**DK: So this guy who they hired to edit really fell asleep under the influence while at the actual editing table? Doesn’t sound like a very productive working relationship. **

HJ: I remember his name was Howard Awk or Alk, he was famous at the time in certain hip circles for having made or edited a film with Bob Dylan. He was a friend of Dylan’s, a graduate of the Second City and had been hired by Bert, from whom I had gotten the Kem. He got high, it seemed, a lot. So it was just when this guy fell asleep at the Kem a couple of times that I decided that he was no-go, and then somehow I convinced Bert [Schneider] to let edit it myself, and so I hand-edited my next—what was it?—14 or 15 films. And it seemed to me that, with my way of working and not having each scene shot over and over again with different coverage and different angles and whatnot, and with so much improvisation, no one else could possibly put it together except me. In all reality, I write my films in the editing room. I always go into a project with a script, but it is never ever used verbatim, so the actors fulfill the intentions of the written scene without my imposing any rigid directions on them. Then, later in the editing room, I in a sense rewrite the scene with the emotional reality that the actors give me. So with that in mind, the fact that I am finding the movie in the editing process is the reason that I was the only one who could edit my films.
DK: I agree. It is your process, and that’s just it.
HJ: I also remember when I was directing A Safe Place, we were shooting a scene and I was telling them what shot I wanted, and everyone in the camera department and continuity kept on telling me, “You can’t do that! It’s not gonna cut!” And I kept trying to convince them that it would, and it got to the point where I became so frustrated, I went over to Orson, kvetched a bit and asked his advice. He told me, “Tell them it’s a dream sequence.” At first, I was confused because it wasn’t a dream sequence, but he told me that if you told people you were shooting a dream sequence, they would put aside any resistance towards your wishes and that they would do whatever you want. So I went back and told the cameraman that it was a dream sequence we were shooting, and he told me, “Well, why didn’t you say so? I can put the camera over here and do all kinds of crazy things.” [laughing] So, basically, no one else could see the vision I had for the edited product, so that was just more evidence that I was the only one who could do it.

DK: You’re working very closely with a co-editor, Ron Vignone, for the first time. How would you describe that working dynamic, considering the fact that you edited your own films by yourself from the beginning of your career?
HJ: It’s been easy and terrific! Ron knows all my work and my taste so well. He was always at my side during the writing of _Queen of the Lot_and during the whole shooting of it as well. Seeing Ron do what he did on Always convinced me to try this new system out, and working with him on that scene at the end of Irene in Time further convinced me, and now I am completely sold and spoiled, letting him do all the complex first roughs while I finish re-writes on my new play and work on my Jewish history book. If it weren’t for Ron, I’d be sitting at my Kem for endless hours, going over to the shelves to take out reel after endless reel, putting each one on my flatbed and looking, cutting, rewinding, looking, cutting, rewinding, looking, cutting…for hundreds of hours.
DK: What have you learned about yourself and about your process as a result of this shift, and your adoption of using new filmmaking technology, if anything? Have you also learned anything about your process from working with a co-editor for the first time? Did anything surprise you?
HJ: I really haven’t learned much directly as a result of the change of process. I was definitely quite surprised at how much faster it is, and how much easier.
DK: I recall years ago now how you marveled at watching a two-minute short film of mine online, and your telling me how lucky I was to be coming of age as a filmmaker in the age of the Internet, when distribution was easy and turnaround time was so fast. Do you wish that you yourself had come of age as a filmmaker during the digital filmmaking revolution considering its advantages in the realm of production and distribution?
HJ: No, not at all. I like everything having been exactly as it was, and I’ve never wished retroactively for things to have been different. That is science fiction and it doesn’t interest me, nor do I find it constructive to think about how things could have been different, because each film I have made is a perfect representation of who I was at the time it was made. So how could I possibly want it to be any other way?
[](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sq_ZaLI1jJI/AAAA AAAAAfE/YEv1ZLcVk9c/s1600-h/HenryJaglom.jpg)DK: On a very general basis, what do you think of the phenomenon—that Joe Schmo from Oatmeal, Nebraska can access a digital camera very easily, pick it up and make a film on his own with very little resources and very little money? The digital revolution has furthered opened the door to regional filmmaking, which excites me as a filmmaker. However, do you think this new accessibility has opened the flood- gates for products of a decidedly lesser quality? How does that make you feel as a filmmaker?

HJ: I am happy for everyone who now gets a chance who wouldn’t have in the past. I think this is really and truly great. It’s the best thing that could have happened, and I am not really at all concerned with a perceived loss of collective quality of work.
DK: Were you initially amazed at the immediate results inherent in computer editing (e.g. that you can color correct without going to a chemical color-timer or that you can fade, mix audio, dissolve or superimpose titles onto images without optical printing)? Were there any other surprising revelations that you discovered when you chose to adapt to the new technology?
HJ: No real surprise there. I did know all this, but who doesn’t know this? It’s so out there now, it seems like. That’s what is so amazing!
DK: Considering the way you work and your artistic process, have you found it easier or more difficult to edit improvised scenes with the new system?
HJ: Both really. I remember Orson watching me edit improvisational acting one day when I was putting together Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?, him sitting behind me and smoking his Monte Cristo and being utterly fascinated as I made it up as I went along, amazed when I took a bit of someone’s dialogue out of one mouth and put it in another, or taking just syllables here and words there and as a result re-writing whole scenes, changing whole sentences and making several actors look as if they were saying things that they never actually said. But I am enjoying watching Ron edit the scenes and then showing it to me and then working on it with him, and so on, like I guess more traditional directors do, and the speed with which all this can be done amazes and delights me, what would have taken me weeks can be done in one sitting. It’s liberating.
DK: To quote your mentor Orson Welles, “I believe it is possible to spoil a young filmmaker with too much privilege, too much money and too much comfort so that he does not learn one of the main arts of directing, which is the ability to walk away from something.” Do you think that it is in turn possible to spoil young filmmakers with the advantages of the digital format?
HJ: I don’t know where you got this quote, but Orson said thousands of things, whatever came to his mind at the moment he said, and never seriously thought about this. Don’t take what you read seriously, people say all sorts of things. And I don’t believe something like this can spoil a young filmmaker. Quite the contrary, it opens up the form for people. I have always encouraged the growth of digital filmmaking for all it allows young and beginning filmmakers, but have just never been interested in working within it myself, until now.
DK: I know a few people who feel that way, that computer editing spoils you to the point where you can’t think and consider fully what you’re doing because it is so fast that you want to do it and the next minute, it’s done…no extended thought process that one would get from winding, cutting, splicing, watching.
HJ: I do understand what you’re saying. I just think that the more open the medium and the form is, the more interesting the results are ultimately going to be.
[](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sq_2cmyQGB I/AAAAAAAAAfM/jkT0mqps3ZA/s1600-h/Directing-Jaglom1.jpg)DK: In any case, do you see your beginning to use editing software as a gateway for you to in the future shoot digitally on HD, or are you faithfully committed in sickness or health to shooting in 35mm?

HJ: I really have no commitment to anything like that now. But who knows? It could go either way, I don’t know yet. At various points throughout my editing process, I screen the films in rough cut form. I would always have to take the work-print to the lab and get it transferred at various stages to a DVD. Another perk is that this new process cuts down on that expense as well, and you can make DVDs at various points without that hassle. So the more I am seeing the various perks of doing things digitally, the more I become open to further changes.
DK: Does 35mm editing still have any advantages over digital editing?
HJ: One thing I can say is that I no longer feel like an artisan, like I used to—the feeling of what it is to work with your hands. One of the best things about working in film on a Kem and on any flatbed is feeling the film between your fingers on the editing table and watching light pass through the actual elements when you’re editing. There’s just nothing like it. So, if there is anything I miss, it is that. I am not so sure you can feel anything even akin to that when you edit on a computer. It’s just very different.
[](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YCHkHffSqS8/Sq_3f6nDKTI/AAAAAAA AAfc/JiL_ZBPVTs4/s1600-h/47549380.jpg)DK: On a lighter note, I remember you saying that you intended to make a film for every letter of the alphabet (i.e. A for Always But Not Forever, B for Babyfever, C for _Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? , D for Déjà Vu, E for Eating, F for_Festival in Cannes, etc). Is this still a goal and do you think the quickness of computer editing can facilitate that goal?

HJ: [laughing] Yes, it’s still a goal…if I live long enough to see to it. Editing on a computer is quick, so we shall see.
DK: A great teacher of mine once said, “If one studies history, one should begin at the beginning. Therefore, filmmakers just starting out should learn how to shoot on film elements before moving onto video in order to understand the roots of filmmaking.” Do you think fledgling filmmakers should first, or at some point, learn how to shoot and edit on film with a flatbed to understand from hence and whence we came?
HJ: There are no rules, and I believe anyone who preaches rules is missing something really valuable. Everyone is different and should approach making films in any way he or she thinks is best, most importantly no one should listen to anyone else who tells them that there is a right and wrong way to do things….just do them and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. That is the best advice I can give…to not let anyone tell you, “No, you can’t.” And the digital age makes that more possible for people, in my belief. I’ve made a career out of telling people, “Yes I can!” If I can make that “Yes I can” happen from editing on 35mm, they can make it happen with the new ways made available!
IRENE IN TIME is playing at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theater in Los Angeles. Henry’s play JUST 45 MINUTES FROM BROADWAYpremieres at Edgemar Center on October 1.

On May 29, 2009, “The Tonight Show”, as an institution, aired its last episode from Burbank California. The sets were broken down and the latest iteration of the late night show moved to Universal City under the tutelage of Conan O’Brien. As had been decided earlier, however, the one relic that would not budge was Jay Leno, the eponymous host of NBC’s newest daily program, “The Jay Leno Show”. After a violet blitzkrieg of summer advertisements, the show premiered last night looking, unfortunately, all-too familiar.

As his former show waned, Mr. Leno only let on a few details about what the new 10pm program would look like. One tidbit was that there would be no desk for him to prop up behind as that was the calling card of The Tonight Show. Apparently, the desk was the only casualty. Mr. Leno now sits in a chair, fully exposed, opposite his guests as they blab on about their personal lives. Whoa, revolutionary.

I had pretty high hopes for “The Jay Leno Show”.  You may remember [I praised Conan for his work in the 11:30 space](http://www.candlerblog.com/2009/06/02 /opinion-tonight-show-is-safe-with-conan/), where he is doing exactly what Jay was. The trouble is this whole time slot issue. At 10:00 I want something different that what I want at 11:30, and I really thought Jay could deliver. Nix the monologue, maybe, and do round table jokes about topics of the day. Throw in more sketches, perhaps, that evoke more of an SNL daily. I thought maybe the format of the show would change in a manner that really would force us to reconsider what we expect at 10:00. It hasn’t happened yet.

While I believe that Jay is a real sweetheart, I’ve never found him all that funny. Unaware of the back story, as a kid I found it odd that the gap-toothed hilarious guy on after Johnny Carson didn’t get his job. He has a talented slew of writers who keep things fresh, but his delivery has always been stilted, in my opinion. He doesn’t sell me the punchline; he kinda just lobs it at the wall and sees what sticks.

The premiere’s major moment was an unplanned sit-down interview with Kanye West, who was performing with Jay-Z and Rhianna. Mr. West apologized for an outburst at MTV’s Video Music Awards the night before in which he took the mic from Taylor Swift as she was accepting an award. What transpired was a few minutes of televised horse-shit, schlock, cheap puffery. Call it what you will, it was still what a slimy studio pimp might call “good TV”. After an apology of sorts, Jay asked Kanye what his deceased mother would say about his actions. A hardball question, indeed, but one that has no purpose except to get Mr. West welled up inside and act like a person instead of the inflated celebrity we see all the time. It was very low of Mr. Leno, towards both Mr. West and Ms. Swift, whose moment of glory was once again been overblown by hip-pop’s shining star.

I’m sure that Mr. Leno does not forget his interview with a scandalized Hugh Grant back in 1995. The episode propelled him over Letterman in the late night ratings. Trying to strike oil twice? This isn’t the way to do it. While Leno may be the talk of the town for confronting a pop headline, he will still have to bring the funny every night in order to stay relevant. I give it 3 months before NBC, who ousted deal-maker Ben Silverman, gets wise to the situation and brings some drama back at 10:00.

As the explody, franchise-licious summer wanes and awards-chasing fare creeps up on us, it is nice to know that movies like Extract still get made amidst our modern state of Hollywood sameness. Simple, funny and only lewd enough to make your grandma shudder, Mike Judge’s new film is a formulaic comedy for the set who think they are over formulaic comedy.

Jason Bateman, who in my opinion is often the saving grace of otherwise clunky films (see: Juno, The Kingdom, Hancock; one can only hope for C__ouples Retreat), plays Joel, a sexually frustrated owner of a flavor extract manufacturing plant. Having invented a better way to make concentrated flavors (the film’s eponymous extract), he has found a way to turn a decent enough profit to get a big house, a fast car and a big TV for his wife to watch while he wanks away in the bathroom. Seemingly idyllic, everything from the annoying neighbor to his nagging employees make Joel long for his bartending days, when life was simple.

Extract is billed as something of a follow-up to Mr. Judge’s eminently quotable 1999 Office Space, though a closer inspection reveals that it is the exact opposite. Interestingly, both films are particularly poignant for their respective decades. Office Space offered up laughs in many directions, but none so bittersweet as those that criticised our society’s move to what productivity gurus call “knowledge work”. This nefarious by-product of the Silicon Valley revolution brought us into a world of meetings, reports, networking and note-taking, all towards intangible ends. Take the character of Milton Waddams, who spends the better part of the film looking for his stapler; in a world in which you buy and sell nothing/knowledge, that physical object became a source of pride.

Our current economic situation has signaled a return to the tangible (for further reading, Matthew B. Crawford wrote an eloquent piece for the New York Times Magazine earlier this year stating as much) and so has Mike Judge. In Extract, our hero is an inventor whose product can be held, touched and put to use (albeit once vaporized). He is not Corporate America, he is Small Business America. Of course, when the suits at General Mills come calling with an offer to buy, he desires a piece of that corporate pie, but who wouldn’t? As the deal of his dreams falls into place, an accident and a panhandled lawsuit threaten to muck up the works, forming the overall conflict of the film.

Coming along for the ride are a milquetoast (but shapely) Mila Kunis, a comedically on-point Ben Affleck, and a surprising miss for Kristen Wiig. The actress side-steps her usual tone of restrained cynicism to fill the role of a quietly bitchy wife. In fairness, the script doesn’t offer her much in the way of character depth, but there is something missing. Still a comedian, she seems to be gravitating towards more legit acting fare; with some more time I’m sure she will make the jump. Surprisingly, Mr. Affleck crackles. As a barkeep/drug-pusher, every moment he is on screen is a moment to savor. Ms. Kunis, on the other hand, is just fine, and I mean that in both the physically affirmative and usefully indifferent sense. Any young thing could have filled her flip flops.

In many ways, _Extract _is a film about that oft told American dream. the idea that your personal ingenuity will raise you to the ranks of wealth and power. The catch here is that with those implied bits of happiness come a truckload of despair. The higher that Joel gets, the sadder his life becomes. There is a very clear lesson here, drawing on Mr. Judge’s penchant for classical plot conventions. (I should note that there is one evil little unresolved plot point that should leave a bad taste in your mouth). The laughs aren’t constant but they are consistent. What more do I need to ask for from a tight comedy such as this?

A cooking, blogging biopic is about the least interesting way I could imagine spending a muggy summer afternoon. And yet, there I found myself, utterly mystified by Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, the story of two women who are seemingly redeemed through the power of food alchemy. Featuring the second delightful pairing of Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci, the film is a phenomenal take on the art of writing. In terms of scope, Ms. Ephron has pulled off a monumental feet by taking the most boring thing in the world, sitting down and putting pen to paper, mouse to blog, and pulling together a solid narrative with thought-provoking implications.

Let’s start with those memorable performances. Mr. Tucci has long been regarded as one of the finest (and fewest) character actors working today. Consistently winning over our hearts with whatever minutes of screen-time he can steal, the secret to his success is his embrace of being a bridesmaid, never a bride. Here, he plays Paul Child the, loving, caring, pencil-thin mustachioed husband to the as-yet famous Julia Child. That role is filled in by Ms. Streep who crackles with energy. Long regarded as one of the finest leading ladies in the biz, another dying breed, the actress seems to wish to be demoted to the status Mr. Tucci enjoys. Her character work is ultimately superb, in many ways out-sizing her front-and-center roles. Though she is technically a lead here, I would argue that she is filling out a supporting role with incredible finesse; Mrs. Child is ultimately a MacGuffin for the modern blogger Julie Powell’s personal redemption.

We find our weathered hero, the aforementioned blogger who is played by Amy Adams, making the move from Brooklyn to Queens in a city brought to it’s knees after te attacks of September 11, 2001. Julie, a onetime proud member of the Cobb salad eating literati, now finds herself answerig calls for the buerecratic organization charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan. Day in and day out, she sits in er cubicle listening to the numerous sob stories that befell New Yorkers in the wake of the attack. Food is her stress reliever. She decries the mere fact that brownie batter will thicken every time she makes it is a relief in a world where nothing is certain. The process, not the result, is her redemption.

Enjoying the finer points of cooking isn’t quite enough for Julie, however. She needs to break back into that crowd she once enjoyed membership in; she needs to show up her skanky, yes skanky, blogging friend. And so an idea is formed, obviously, to cook her way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” over the course of a year, blogging all the way. Meanwhile, in the 1950s, Julia is struggling to find purpose in France where her husband is employed and she is bored. Her search for meaning turns into the cook book in question. And the wheel goes round!

As a blogger, I can attest to the film’s accuracies in the blogging space (cyberspace, information superhighway for you real codgers out there). It’s all there folks: the “me, me, me” problem, the wonder that is a good comments system, the fear your boss will catch you in a lie, and most importantly the unnatural connection between reader and writer. It can be very difficult to put one’s finger on exactly what compels the daily blogger to stick to a game that earns them zero cash. The film hits the nail on the head in this respect. There is even a nod to the fact that the blogger’s printed counterpart, the printed columnist, still wields a mighty sword (at least she did in 2002).

Where the film enters into some deliciously brainy noodling is in the parallels between the times in which our title characters live. Both women live in cities trying to put themselves back together after the ravages of war. Both are afraid of Republicans. This has more to do, I assume, with Ms. Ephron’s political leaning than anything else. For the Childs, the mighty hand of the Republican comes crashing down in the form of Senator Joe McCarthy. For Julie, there is a single line (“a Republican would fire you”) that shows us her lefty-lean. I believe Ms. Ephron assumes her audience will see the jab at President Bush and the Patriot Act, but this may fall flat in places other than liberal hotbeds like New York. Nonetheless, the political subtext is rampant in the film, though it hardly beats you over the head. Only eggs get beaten in Julie & Julia. (chortle)

Finally, the film is about the power that our imagination has to get us out of even the most interminable of ruts. Late in the film, we learn that the “real” Julia Child has learned of Julie’s blog and hates it. This rattles our perception of the woman who gallivants about pretty ol’ Paris with a smile as big as her sizable frame; of course it rattles Julie’s as well. As she comes to terms with being hated by the hero who essentially handed her a career, Julie realizes that the Julia in her mind is more important than the real one; we reach the same conclusion. Julia and Paul Child as they appear in this film are a myth. I don’t care if they are accurate to a T, the truth is that we need legends, sometimes more than a real hero. I could go on and make the case for the mythos that enveloped the nation in the months after the 9/11 attacks, when the film takes place, but that is a completely different post.

As you may be able to tell from this near-thousand word post, Julie & Julia is a multi-faceted piece that has something for everyone. It is important to note that this is far from a chick flick, and there is no rom-com aspect to the film. Julie never gets her hair did to overcome loss; instead she is a liberated woman who expresses her independence in the kitchen, feeding her man.

Though Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 evokes many of the classical elements of science fiction films, the movie that kept coming back to me as I sat through the disturbingly realistic pic was Melvin Van Peebles’ Watermelon Man. That 1970 film, which depicts a white racist waking up one day as a black man, hides a poignant and timely message beneath the glimmering facade of a Hollywood comedy. In much the same way, Mr. Blomkamp relies on familiar sci-fi conventions to get to his many-layered message: if we are not alone in the universe, do we deserve to know who shares it with us?

In an age when digital wizardry has opened up the floodgates to science- fiction pics of all shapes and sizes, the genre seems to have become reliant on the overall wow-factor, each film attempting to out-do the other in terms of creature screentime. I remember a time when films would advertise how many minutes more of digital special effects they had than Jurassic Park. (Brad Silberling’s 1995 Casper, as in the friendly ghost, was particularly fond of this statistic.) The main casualty of this shift has been the presence of a theme and a message. Enter District 9.

Multi-National United (MNU) is a ubiquitous corporation charged with managing the transfer of an alien race known as “prawns” from the makeshift “district 9” to the better controlled area known as “district 10”. Having landed for no known reason two decades ago over Johannesburg, the prawns have become one of the most marginalized group of refugees on the planet. MNU appears to be taking on the impossible by dealing with the safe passage of the prawns, but as you may have guessed, their intentions aren’t quite so pure. They are aliens and they have huge freaking weapons which are linked to their DNA, only a prawn can fire them. For twenty years, MNU has been trying to get a human to fire one of these things. Their opportunity comes when Wikus Van De Merwe, a high-level grunt at MNU, accidentally sprays space-goop in his face and grows a prawn arm.

Wikus is a decidedly interesting character. He is a pencil pushing kook who steals our hearts even when he is at his most fascist. His wide-eyed explanations of prawn “population control”, in which a house full of fifty eggs is torched while babies scream and pop, is absolutely endearing. With a lump in your throat, there will still probably be a smile on your face. Just like Jeff Gerber in Watermelon Man, before the accident he is a racist on the extreme end of the spectrum, yet he displays such lively humanity that we can only shake our heads in disappointment. The proper reaction should be to grab a tire-iron and beat the shit out of him.

As his prawnification accelerates, MNU opts to vivisect Wikus in the name of science, but he escapes to district 9 and meets one of the smarter prawns who promises a way to turn him human again. Begin chase film. Stuff blows up and stories get resolved; it’d be better if you just saw the movie than to explain it all. In the end, you will probably have a bad tasted in your mouth. What is so disturbing about District 9 is that it is highly conceivable that everything that occurs in the film would transpire given the opportunity. How do we know? Because we have been doing this to our own kind for thousands of years.

Johannesburg is the setting for the film, and I don’t care how many times Mr. Blomkamp says this film isn’t about apartheid, it is. If they landed over Portland, Oregon the narrative would be completely different. While District 9 is a story about human shortcomings, not specifically South African, the time and place of the film are decidedly significant. For one, the alien race landed while apartheid was still an issue, perhaps their presence brought both sides together against them. For most of the world, there is a question as to what apartheid actually is. In essence, it is the marginalization and dehumanization of an entire race of people. It goes a great deal deeper than acts of violence or forcing someone to the back of a bus (not to minimize American civil rights by any means). It is racism as policy, as a matter of popular belief that seeps into every corner of society. We learn with Wikus how deep that marginalization goes; if you don’t know what that looks like, then perhaps District 9 is worth a look. Stuff blows up a bunch and there’s a ton of alien goop, so you won’t have to spend too much time learning.

The following analysis landed in my inbox this morning. Sunrise Tippeconnie, who recently shared his thoughts on Funny People with the candler blog, is a filmmaker and writer in Oklahoma City.

For me to respond to Basterds, I must first note my reaction of Death Proof, which over time feels more and more like it provides the most revelation about Tarantino and his relationship with the “cinema.” Death Proof describes a world where those that don’t fully comprehend the rules of “cinema” are eliminated (the women in the first half talk about high school movies, are surrounded by cinema clichés, but cannot make it to see the end of the film, while those with knowledge of film’s history and making survive through to “the end.” While Quentin the bartender, perhaps a more “true” image of Tarantino, is balanced out with a stumbling cinematic fake of a doppelganger in Stunt Man Mike, a character that perhaps doesn’t know the trade of filmmaking quite so well as his stunt women targets (and perhaps also fakes his film credits list in hopes of trapping his next victims, a deadly misstep of cinematic naivety in a rule-enforced genre). So, as Death Proof provides cinematic knowledge as survival, Basterds shows another side of the coin, the results of survival through cinema’s naivety: the “Propaganda Film”.

What is most interesting about this setup, is that Tarantino not only addresses that knowledge over cinema is limited, but that such knowledge does not eliminate the realities of the world, despite it’s perversely real effect. Each sequence of _Basterds _recalls quite familiar situations (some of which are, of course, of War and Spaghetti heritage, but also…) from his previous line of features, which I’m positive are the actual six “Basterds” of the title and are the real characters standing at the attention of Aldo Raine. And while we run through scenes we’ve seen before in any of the Tarantino’s oeuvre, our point of view has changed: instead of viewing the “Mexican standoff” from the point of view of the future parent (Beatrix Kiddo) as hero we look at it from the point of view of future parent as “enemy,” a Nazi.

When placed in this new vantage point, suddenly the Allies are not heroes when the father is shot –they have now made his young German son an orphan. Even if this orphan’s father was part of a violent political party, and Beatrix Kiddo was part of an assassination squad, their children were not willing participants in either world. This complicates the protagonist and their place in the “sides” in war, as well as the audience’s relationship with “sides” of narrative: Protagonist vs. Antagonist. What happens if both Protagonist and Antagonist ruthlessly engage in violence for their own cause, harming even those of a future generation that have no stakes in the games at hand.

This implies the actions of the all characters are wrong, no matter what “side” of the Propaganda they find themselves aligned. What happens if there is no one that is right? “The Shoe is on the other foot,” are the words of Nazi Colonel Landa, while sitting at the table of a captured Ally Aldo Raine, yet the approach towards violence is not different –both sides in this picture are out to harm when their needs are not met, and thus perhaps the shoe still fits the other foot. Violence is no good business for anyone in a tragedy, only those for whom business is “booming”, ie.: “cinema.” While we, as audience, initially wish for these characters to enact their rage and vengeance, the film elegantly reminds us such violence is not funny, but horrendous and comes from the real and scary realm of reality (perhaps Tarantino’s strongest directorial talent).

In the end, the final sequence is not just the narrative presentation of a violent Propaganda premiere, it absurdly (and satirically) glorifies what the “winning” characters parade as intolerant: violence through mass elimination. It is the violence that finds survival, and yet simultaneously also suggests a critical analysis (and perhaps a guilty apology) of Tarantino’s violent past. Not bad for a rehash.

Apparently, Melvin Van Peebles’s Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus ItchyFooted Mutha is opening this weekend at Cinema Village in NYC. I caught the flick at Tribeca 2008 and, oh, what a scene it was. Originally posted on the official [Poritsky Blog](http://poritsky.com/blog/2008/05/03/tribeca-2008-confessionsofa-ex- doofus-itchyfooted-mutha/), here is my original review/gut-reaction of this, shall we say, interesting film.

[](http://poritsky.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2008/04/confessionsofa_still01_low.jpg)

“I make films like I make food: if you don’t like it, I’ll just be eating

it all week for leftovers.”

-Melvin Van Peebles, after the premiere of his 2008 film “Confessionsofa

Ex-Doofus Itchy-Footed Mutha”

Perhaps it was because I was sitting in a university auditorium that I was suddenly rocketed back to my film school days while watching the latest film “of” Melvin Van Peebles. Back then, I would have been sniggering through my fingers as the raucous movie veered out of control around every single corner, and when it was all over and the lights went up, I would have over-analyzed the shit out of it and blatantly made fun of my colleague in class.

On its surface, “Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha” resembles the worst of student film stereotypes, replete with sex, knives, confused editing techniques, and above all, a message that it so convoluted and overdone that it has gotten lost among the screen-pollution you witness while watching it. That being said, I’m trying to figure out just why I loved this film.

The story goes like this. Mr. Van Peebles plays the lead role, one can never quite grasp his name, as an old man coming to terms with his life. He sits down in a dark and smoky room and begins his tale of woe for the captive audience. The rest is the story of his life told through flashbacks. His career in the merchant marine, his business venture with an addle-brained cohort, his first and only love, his journey to find solace in the heart of Africa and his subsequent escape from civil war there. All star the 75 year- old Van Peebles at varying stages of life, and all seem to take place in the same era, the current day. For example, you might see the elder filmmaker at school talking to other kids, or running away from home with a tin of money he had saved since he was born. No effort is made to dress up the sets to feel as though they are in a particular period.

While it might help focus the audience if we could have a coherent picture of this man’s history, Mr. Van Peebles’s formal choices, or lack thereof, help drive his character home for us. In other words, to be distracted by the logic that we do not see in this film is foolish. We receive just a clear a picture of our leading man’s life with all the silliness of watching an old man act like a child. It is clear who he is and why he has lived his life the way he has. On top of all of that, as should be clear from the title, he is not a trustworthy narrator. It is conceivable that his tales of intrigue and sexual conquest are but a fabrication created to make it easier for him to sleep at night.

I don’t think I’ve yet made you aware of how silly this movie gets. Here are some bullet points:

• While in the merchant marine, Mr. Van Peebles’s ship captain blows up a rival pirate ship (whose captain is played by the director’s son, Mario Van Peebles) and our hero is showered in gore. Grabbing arms as they land on him, he scratches his back and his crotch with the expected sound effects
• On the same voyage, he spends his leave time seducing little old ladies, making love to them and using their checkbooks
• In an effort to escape the clutches of a dictator in Africa, he runs through the jungle and is encountered by a randy gorilla, whose clutches he narrowly escapes only by pulling on its privates.

You can also expect the film to quickly rush into trippy effects around almost every corner. The picture changes color constantly, there are countless image overlays, and cartoon sound effects are used to hilarious effect throughout. However, this just adds to the charm of the piece. We have become far too hung up on plot in our cinema, so it is nice to see such an interesting (to say the least!) character study.

When the book is closed on Melvin Van Peebles, he will unquestionably be remembered by his 1971 independent hit “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song”. Though he had made higher profile films before that one and has made quite a few since, it is the film that is synonymous with his name and considered the progenitor of the blaxploitation film movement. The incendiary film broke down barriers and opened up opportunities for generations of black filmmakers. Since the 1970s, however, this scruffy suspendered visionary has pulled back from the mainstream. Left to his own devices, he has been making the films he wants to make, for him. One must respect his audacity. If this film ever makes it to DVD, I highly recommend you add it to your queue.

Earlier this week I had the good pleasure of sitting down and chatting with director Andrew Bujalski about his new film, Beeswax. A very humble and quiet person, you’d never expect this kindly character to survive the rigors and torments of the filmmaking process. However, if you are familiar with his previous two films, Funny Ha Ha from 2002 and Mutual Appreciation from 2005, and especially in this new film which opens today, it would become immediately clear that this bespectacled, anxious young man is the perfect candidate to make movies that deal with such emotional introspection. In other words, it is the burden of filmmaking that creates his most evocative work.

I was immediately struck by how quickly our conversation would turn from discussing the characters in his films to talking about himself. It would seem that Bujalski and his creative work are woven together. Beeswax is a story of two twin sisters living in Austin, Texas, one of whom is the co-owner of a vintage clothing store. Jeannie, the wheel-chair bound (hardly bound is more like it) twin who runs the shop, learns early on that there is the possibility of a lawsuit coming from her business partner, Amanda, a close friend who has drifted away towards her fiancée.

Does this legal dispute come from something in real life? Something close to you? It comes from fears that I have. What’s the nightmare version of a daydream? Knock wood, I’ve never been involved in a lawsuit like that. Every time I’ve ever signed a document, I get this terrible anxiety about it because if you look at the language of a contract, it’s not the way that human beings commuicate with one another. It’s written in this other language which is designed…You know, I just watched Nashville again recently and there’s a line where the Hal Phillip Walker trucker is driving around Nashville and he says “The Lord’s job is to do one of two things: to clarify and…” the only word that is coming to mind now is obfuscate. What’s the other word that means obfuscate? Anyway…

I keep hearing the the phrase “legal thriller” being applied to this film. I’ll cop to responsibility on that.

Does that work for you? It works better than other labels people have given me. You know, there’s something a little cheeky about presenting it that way because there are many obvious legal thriller beats that the movie does not hit. When I was writing it, it was certainly in my head, that was a kind of model I conceived of structuring the story. When I go to see those films, I don’t know what was the last one I saw, not just legal thrillers but political thrillers, these films where it’s all about building connections. Somebody is always talking about “well this evil corporation is in bed with this senator” and there’s so much shit that’s happened off screen in those movies. And it’s people trying to figure out what’s hapened off screen and make all the connections. You know that once you’ve made all the connections you’re going to uncover the ultimate evil thing. In a way, that resonates with our experiences to some extent. I think in daily life you find out that things connect in ways that you don’t understand.

Like most people I know, I was a huge fan of “The Wire”. It’s a great delight on “The Wire” to watch, to learn those connections and see how the city works. On a very personal level, I also felt like my life, my experience of life is not just about making the connections but is also about missed connections or incorrect connections. I mean the way that people learn to understand the world around them is not about learning to get it right and see the big picture. It’s about getting it wrong and seeing the little pictures.

For better or worse, I’m addicted to a kind of chaotic worldview in my work. This sort of was my version of a legal thriller. Also, anyone who has ever been in a lawsuit does not find it thrilling in the least.

In Beeswax, adults, or parents, rather, have a power that the main characters don’t. Why? Part of that has to do with this concepton of who has the money. Certainly in my films the people ages 50 and up have the money. I think to some extent that everything I’ve done, although I don’t go into them thinking this way, has been this sort of fear of adulthood. It’s clearly kind of central to all of this stuff. Part of that is anxiety about money and what you have to do to get it and control it. I have such ambivalence about money and I guess I pass that on to my characters. I’m just rambling here because I don’t quite have an answer to your question.

I relate to that. Some younger people might have a lot of money and lead very boring lives, while your characters have very interesting lives. Certainly it represents a kind of middle class perspective that I wouldn’t expect everybody who watches these movies to understand. It’s where I come from and It’s probably where a lot of people who watch these movies are going to come from. So many people I know, and maybe it’s just because I know a lot of people with “artistic temperaments” (his quotes),aren’t as financially secure as ur parents were at our age. And in other ways. I mean my folks were both in their mid-20s when they had me. They set about having stable careers and being responsible parents. I’ve obviously made very distinct choices. I want to make these films. I know that these films are not going to make me money, and I have no regrets about that. I’m kind of amazed by how much we have been able to get the films seen and it has meant everything in the world for me to be able to do these. There’s also some kind of anxiety about that. Why can’t I just be able to pay for things like my parents did. Why am I still sweating about being able to pay the rent? Aren’t I too old for this shit? I don’t know. A lot of that goes into the film. The adults do seem to be the people who have chosen to be “responsible” within society. But the kids are struggling to be there. If they want to be there or not. And I don’t know if I want to be there or not.

I love that you know what I mean when I say adults even though the main characters are well into a adulthood. Yeah. That’s how I think of it now. Yeah, we’re all adults now, but people my parents’ age will always be adults, really.

Would you want to make the jump to Hollywood? My experience so far has been that selling out is as much, if not more, work than doing what you believe in. What my films have done is they have gotten a certain amount of attention and established some level of credibility, or whatever. What they have not done is make money. If either of those films had grossed a million dollars, then I think selling out would be easier; it would be something that’s handed to you because people trust that the money is going to come back.

I knew going into _Beeswax _that I might be shooting myself in the foot here, career-wise. Which I kind of wanted to do. There was sort of a perverse aspect of choice in that. You know from a social perspective, from a business perspective. You know, there are people who care about the films and might want you to go make another personal film; people who love you personally and want you to do whatever you need to be happy. But most of the world wants you to go make money so that they can be involved and, maybe they can make some money too. And that’s great. But feeling that little bit of pressure, I started to feel that if everyone is expecting me to take it to the next level, then what happens if I don’t do that?

I hate the idea of calling card films. It’s fine and it often works out for people, but it’s also kind of sad when somebody does something that is a surprise hit, and then spend the next five, six or seven years of their lives stuck in Hollywood turnaround. Trying to get something else off the ground.

While we talk about this the name that keeps coming to mind is David Gordon Green. Pineapple Express was a film that I looked at and thought “Well, shit, if I could do a studio movie and have it turn out that funny, that would be great.”

All of your movies have been shot on film. Are you going to stick with film or are they any plans to move to video? ** **I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s so many things I don’t know. This is a question I’ve been answering since 2002 when we finished the first film. Since then, video has evolved so much and it will continue to evolve. It’s hard to put my finger on what video is. That’s one thing that I like about film. I always know what it is. It’s not like some film looks good and other film looks shitty. I mean, films can look shitty, but it’s not because the medium looks shitty. Video is just much harder to get handle on. Will they ever make video that’s a perfect simulacrum of film? Yeah. To some extent they already have. I don’t feel that comfortable with the technology yet. If you’re trying to get video to look exactly like film, it’s a silly thing to do. You might as well just go and shoot on film anyway if you’re using the super high-end stuff. Film just does something realy specific, and really beautiful to me. I just love it. It’s so much time making a film and there’s so much work, it’s unbelievable. To spend years on a film is such a pain, I want look at something that makes me happy with the images every day. I only have real limited experience working on video, but it doesn’t bring me the same joy in every image.

Judd Apatow’s third film, Funny People, is slow, disjointed, and riddled with long breaks between laughs. It is also something close to an American comedy masterpiece. I don’t mean that this is the funniest American film of all time, far from it. Funny People is decidedly a film about people, but the “funny” in the title is less apparent. Sure, the film is full of laughs, but few of the characters are just plain ol’ silly. This calls into question our preconceived definitions of comedy. What makes someone a comedian? What makes the rest of us laugh?

Adam Sandler plays George Simmons, a comedy megastar who tries to get back to his stand up roots after learning he has a terminal illness. Hours after learning of his impending doom, he bombs on open mic night. This spells disaster for the young Ira Wright, played by Seth Rogen, who must follow the dismal act. Ira is forced to face the cooled off crowd with his pile of low- rent jokes, but a couple of cracks at George’s expense gets him noticed by the celebrity, eventually landing him a gig as his personal assistant. Overnight Ira goes from the least successful guy is his apartment of young talents to the right hand man of their childhood hero.

Ira’s roomates, Leo Koenig and Mark Taylor Jackson (played by Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman, respectively) embody the very definition of platonic love, even though they spend the bulk of the movie violently ribbing their couch- dwelling friend. It is obvious that when they all came to Hollywood, they would stick with one another through the bitter end.

Adam Sandler is phenomenal in the lead role; this is truly the performance of his career. His dramatic chops aren’t all that well refined. Try as he might, Mr. Sandler never made the leap from comedy to drama as successfully as, say, Tom Hanks. However, that is precisely what makes him so perfect in this role. George is a man whose spirit has been dampened, beaten down over the years until he only knew how to do one thing: make people laugh at any cost to his pride or his interpersonal relationships. This comedic layer is why a funny behemoth such as Mr. Sandler is required. Anyone could get George’s dramatic overtones right, but a masterful laugh-maker is required to make the comedy work. No one but Sandler could have brought that out as beautifully.

Close to the end of the film, after verbally berating Ira, George takes things below the belt and suggests maybe the young comedian should find something else to do with his life. “Comedy, usually, is for funny people.” It is a massive moment. As audience members, we know how to laugh, but what separates us from the comedians is knowing quite how to evoke that visceral reaction from the masses. In plain English, Mr. Apatow’s film explicitly explains what it is that separates the funny from the not, yet we remain as confused by this dark art as we were before viewing Funny People. That we still laugh for two and a half hours in this moving piece is evidence enough that we are willing to put it on faith that these people are, in fact, quite funny.

Ed. Note: For a more in-depth critique of of Funny People, please read Sunrise Tippeconnie’s posting, [Funny People [or how I learned to stop laughing and love the end]](http://www.candlerblog.com/2009/07/31/funny- people-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-laughing-and-love-the-end/).