January 14, 2004 - 10:11 PM

Big Fish, Sassy Girl

My cousin Carol was back in town for a couple days. It was a spur-of-the-moment visit that we semi-planned last week. I guess she's been getting restless in Vegas; in February, she plans to fly to Mexico for 2 weeks or so.

We didn't really coordinate when she was going to arrive until Monday night, and had nothing on the docket other than a trip to Universal Studios to tour the studio theme park. But there she was at the Burbank Airport at 3 pm on Tuesday. Since Universal closes at 6 PM, and the LA Zoo at Griffith Park (which she was also keen on seeing) closes at 5, we decided to go see the new Tim Burton movie Big Fish. Carol is a big-ass Tim Burton fan and has been ravenously chomping at the bit to devour this movie, but for some strange reason, it's not playing at the theaters in Las Vegas yet.

Being that she was visiting L.A., I decided to treat her to one of the nicer movie going experiences in town. Rather than catch a showing at the Galleria in Sherman Oaks, which has the very nice Pacific Theaters with all stadium seating, but is still fairly generic, I took her to The Arclight in Hollywood. Tickets are hefty ($11), but the theater is dang sweet. They have a cafe in the lobby where they serve food and alcohol (although you can't take the alcohol with you into the movie); the tickets are all reserved seating so you don't have to worry about getting unsavory seats to a popular showing if you buy your tickets online in advance; the seats and armrests are extra wide and comfy; and the usher welcomes you and introduces the movie right before the lights go down for the trailers (no commericals!).

We had beers before our movie, which I think was a mistake, especially with all the water imagery liberally splashed throughout by Burton. My bladder was burbling halfway through, and I had to do a bit of fidgeting to tame it until the credits rolled. But it was worth it. Good movie. Carol got teary-eyed, I was a little misty myself. I think Ewan McGregor is aces (Carol's fairly lukewarm on him, even though she's liked him in Moulin Rouge, Star Wars, and this); Albert Finney was top notch; and Helena Bonham-Carter was delightful. All three of these United Kingdomers hid their accents quite well under a southern drawl, especially Helena.

I wasn't totally convinced by the way the script had Albert Finney's lifestory told through flashbacks and stories. I mean, I loved the fantastical imagination involved in the actual stories and the way they were brought to life, but the fairly linear way that they were woven into the overall movie seemed kinda unimaginative and, well, lazy. Albert Finney would start telling someone a story, or his son (Billy Crudup) would be remembering one of the stories, and we'd get to see the story played out. All the stories were about Albert Finney's life, and every one, except for the very first story about the Big Fish, was told chronologically. Now, if Finney had said, "this is my life story," and had then proceeded to tell Billy everything step-by-step, that woulda been kosher with me. But each tall-tale was related to different people by different people at different times in the movie for different reasons, and yet somehow, miraculously, they all managed to tell the lifestory successively, so that the next storytelling fell neatly in line after the previous one. Maybe there was an executive decision by the filmmakers to do the linear chronology in order to keep it simple for the audience (since we all know that those mooks don't think that the general audience can keep track of which pant leg to put on first, much less what's going on in a complicated movie). To be honest, it actually played out sorta like Forrest Gump that way...but I would have expected something more peculiar and head-twisting than that from Tim Burton.

On the other hand, Carol and I watched a Korean screwball romantic comedy whose title loosely translates to "My Sassy Girl" later that night at Tony's apartment with him and Supremely Excellent With a Fantastic New Haircut Margaret. This movie was crazy and quirky and funny and made very intelligent use of non-linear storytelling a few times. I couldn't do the film justice by trying to explain how the story goes, but it's basically the story of a boy and a girl and the very strange relationship that they have. The first 3rd of the movie is total screwball comedy with outlandish behavior and situations that make you go "what the fu..!?" with a surprised laugh. The second 3rd tones it down a bit, allowing the characters' emotions to really resonate as a contrast to the surrounding absurdities. By the final 3rd, you're fully invested in their relationship as it plays out with minimal wackiness. When things come around full circle at the end, it feels right, as opposed to Big Fish, where things felt a little forced.

Maybe it was the foreign flavor of My Sassy Girl that allowed it to work it's magic on me better than Big Fish did. I mentioned to Tony that if it were made into an Americanized movie, it would probably be an awful, sappy generic romantic comedy that would send even the most softened women running from the theater in search of salt and vinegar french fries. And I've thought about the same thing with the movie Amelie, or any of the Trois Coleurs trilogy, or Wong Kar-Wai's films (Chunking Express, In the Mood For Love): all clever, touching, twisty, hyper-real romance movies that just couldn't be made in the U.S. Lost in Translation comes close to being the exception, but it wasn't quite in that area of "I've been up for 34 hours and am feeling kinda detached yet more in touch with anything than ever before wheee" strange that the others occupy.

The last good contemporary American studio film that tied all those elements into some sort of screwbally whole for me was A Life Less Ordinary featuring...Ewan McGregor. Actually, that movie was done by Danny Boyle, the guy who did Trainspotting, so that probably explains the "foreign" feel of it. Still, I'm confused by the lack of appreciation for that movie, or even lack of acknowledgment of the existence of, that movie in the general public. My friend Mark took me to a sneak preview of it back in '97, and I distinctly remember us being 2 of the very few who came out busting a gut from the hilarity; mostly there was grumbling about how bad and unrealistic (duh!) it was. If you haven't seen it, and you don't mind surreal strangeness (think Raising Arizona), I highly suggest you rent A Life Less Ordinary. Then, report back to me.

*********

A quick recap of what else Carol and I did. After Big Fish, we had sushi at Iroha (appropriate, no?). Back to my apartment where she gave me an electric toothbrush as a Christmas present. We then watched some of The Two Towers DVD with the writers' commentary, then switched over to some Sports Night episodes, which she had never heard of. She seemed to like the stories, and got caught up in the Sorkin quick patter, although she was tired from having only 2 hours of sleep the night before and couldn't quite keep up with what was going on. Let's be honest, though- even when one is fully alert, it's nearly impossible to keep up with Aaron Sorkin's dialogue the first time through. Probably because he writes it while high on crack or something.

Tony got in from a weekend of work in Florida that night, so we went to his apartment and ate pizza and watched My Sassy Girl, came back to my place afterwards, and crashed. Today (Wednesday), we went to Universal, rode a bunch of the rides, did the backlot tram tour (and saw some of the filming for Princess Diaries 2, but did not see Julie Andrews with whom I share a birthday), tried to find a certain Billabong t-shirt that Carol's been craving for a year, and were tempted to see Return of the King at the Imax there. Unfortunately, the only showing was at 9:30 PM, and Carol had to take a 9 PM flight from LAX. We did manage to stop at Chili My Soul for dinner before fighting through traffic on the 405 to get to the airport.

Dude, can I tell you how stoked I would be to see LOTR:ROTK at the IMAX? Or the Arclight Cineramadome? Anyone wanna go with me?

Now Listening To : Danny Elfman-Music for Darkened Theater Vol. 1
Random Thought : You are all so tasty. Tasty like a fox!

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