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Infinity Pool (2023)
Beautiful Visuals, Lackluster Story
Brandon Cronenberg's third feature film, Infinity Pool is a macabre orgy of gore, lust, psychedelics, and Freudian psychology. James (Alexander Skarsgard), a failed author and narcissist, and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are on vacation on a remote island, in a country with a zero-tolerance policy on crime. Their trip is quickly turned on its head after meeting Gabi (Mia Goth) and her husband Alban (Jalil Lespert). The couples take a forbidden trip outside of the resort compound, and after a day of drinking and a case of vehicular manslaughter, James finds himself in jail. He is sentenced to death but presented with an alternative available to only the wealthy, a doppelganger will be created to carry out the sentence in your place. This experience opens James' eyes to a world of sadomasochistic pleasures and a release from the banalities of his repetitive life.
While Mia Goth and Alexandar Skarsgard give outstanding performances, and Karim Hussain's beautifully fluid cinematography creates a surreal dreamscape, Infinity Pool leaves something to be desired. While it seems, Brandon has refined his skills as a visual artist since his debut with Antiviral, his story writing seems to have remained stagnant. Infinity Pool relies on its fast cuts and sensually lit drug sequences to keep the viewer invested. At times this works, there are brilliant moments of gross-out body horror, relying on the natural discomfort with prolonged on-screen nudity (akin to David Cronenberg's bathhouse scene in Eastern Promises). However, it feels as though Brandon Cronenberg overestimates how much those scenes add to the story. The themes presented end up underdeveloped, merely planting the seed in the viewer's mind, then leaving it to dry and wither into nothing.
Whatever Cronenberg was trying to convey was certainly lost on me. This does not, however, take away from what an enjoyable film this was to watch. The human body is put on display in both a sensual and disgusting fashion, entertaining in killing oneself, and devoting oneself solely to pleasure. Infinity Pool is erotic, disturbing, and beautiful to watch.
Big Daddy (1999)
Going out of the 90s with a bang!
Adam Sandler's 1999 film, Big Daddy, tells the story of Sonny Koufax (Adam Sandler), a law school dropout, living in comfort on the settlement money he had earned a year prior (due to an altercation with a taxicab). Life is drastically changed for Sonny when a boy named Julian (Cole Sprouse, Dylan Sprouse) is dropped at his door. The child turns out to be the illegitimate son of Sonny's roommate Kevin Garrity (Jon Stewart) who is away on business in China. In a convoluted scheme to prove he is responsible to his girlfriend, Sonny decides to pose as Kevin to social services, caring for the child himself.
Sonny begins by allowing Julian to make his own decisions such as picking his clothing, what he eats, when he sleeps, etc. While this parenting method makes Julian happy, it quickly unravels once he is enrolled in school. The teacher quickly complains about Julian's lack of progress, personal hygiene, fashion sense, and tendency to relieve himself on the walls or in potted plants. Finally grasping the severity of the situation, Sonny makes a change with the aide of Layla (Joey Lauren Adams) in raising Julian. The hard work put into both Julian's development and Sonny's maturing as an adult is soon tested when social services begin to ask questions regarding Sonny's true identity.
While Big Daddy did not perform as well with critics as its preceding films (Roger Ebert gave the film one and a half stars out of four), it is a turning point in Sandler's career. Once known for his raunchy, nonsensical, and abrasive comedy, we now see a softer side to Sandler's character. We see a man who wants to change, a man who deep down craves responsibility and leaves behind his younger years of partying for something more meaningful.
The film also serves as, what I believe to be, a very important part of modern history in the terms of Hollywood's transition in accepting the LGBT community. Peter Dante and Allen Covert play two guys who were a part of Sonny's law school friend group. They, later on, discover their sexuality and are now in a relationship. While occasionally taking shots at their expense (in a good-hearted fashion) and Jonathan Loughran's character expressing visible discomfort, the film shows us men that are willing to at least try to understand. Sonny at one point explains to Layla "Nothing really changed, we just watch a different kind of porno now." This line drives across the main theme of love the film presents. In a notoriously misogynistic, prejudiced industry, we have one of the world's most popular comedians exclaiming it doesn't matter who you love, and that acceptance and caring are learned virtues that can be attained as long as you're willing to be open-minded.
At times the jumps from humour to sentimentality can be jarring but I feel it works in favour of the film. The transition of emotions is messy, but so is raising a child. It's messy, chaotic, confusing, and overwhelming. Sometimes things don't make sense but things will work out if you persist in your love for your child, partner, or friend.
Overall one of my favourites of Sandler's 90s movie run, ranking close to Billy Maddison. Sandler in his earlier years is obsessed with the theme of having to grow up and he has somewhat manifested this theme in his own life. We all know and love the goofy SNL era of Adam Sandler, many of us even love his raunchy later-in-life comedies like Grown Ups (mostly for nostalgia's sake), and we get to see him as a mature actor now in films like Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems.
Festen (1998)
Dogma #1
Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film, The Celebration, is a film that balances two of storytelling's most fundamental themes, comedy, and tragedy. The film is a glimpse into the lives of a horrifically dysfunctional Klingenfeld family who, on the sixtieth birthday of their patriarch Helge (Henning Moritzen), see their comfortable, carefree, bourgeois lifestyle tainted by an evening of relived trauma, revelation, and betrayal.
The film follows the three children of Helge, the eldest son Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), a restaurant owner in Paris and the black sheep of his family, his younger brother Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen), a sleazy drunk, desperate to live up to his father's expectations and their sister, the well-travelled, caring, and progressive, Helene (Paprika Steen). The children, as well as a horde of guests comprised of friends and family, have gathered at one of Helge's Danish countryside hotels to celebrate his birthday. What is expected to be a lavish evening of cocktails, tuxedoes, and excessive amounts of food quickly devolves. Christian proposes a toast to his father, the man of the hour, and gives him a choice between two small envelopes, one yellow, and the other green. Helge makes his choice and his fate is sealed as Christian announces he's selected "The Speech of Truth". What follows is the revealing of decades of family secrets rooted in Helge's oppressive sexual deviancy.
The Celebration is humourous, tragic, thought-provoking, sensitive, and dark. It is a film that contains the rarity of men being vulnerable on screen, rather than misogynistic, testosterone-fuelled, agents of sex and chaos. But it is also a film that shows that evil man is capable of inflicting on those they're supposed to care for most.
While the story is filled with the melodramatic tones of a chamber drama, the actor's performances bring a sense of urgency and reality to the situation. Ulrich Thomsen plays quite possibly one of the most sympathetic male roles in cinematic history. While we don't know every detail of the children's upbringing, it is easy to feel what Christan and his siblings had to endure all while conforming to the bourgeois lifestyle they were born into; being restricted by the shackles of the expectation to look the part of their social class. The actor's on-screen chemistry is undeniable with Larsen and Thomsen lovingly insulting each other in a fashion only brothers could.
The film was the first official entry in the "Dogme 95" manifesto, put together by fellow Danish director Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg himself. The manifesto outlines a variety of restrictions on the making of the film including having only diegetic sound, only natural lighting, etc. While many of these restrictions can make the final product seem amateurish and clunky, they work in favour of The Celebration. The low-key, intimate, cinematography from Anthony Dod Mantle evokes a feeling that we are not supposed to be viewing this film; that what we are viewing is the home video of one tragic night in a family's history. This feeling is brought on by the film only containing handheld shots as well as the now nostalgic quality created by the distortion of early digital technology.
While many viewers cannot relate to the experience of growing up in the high-end, bourgeois, environment the Klingenfeld children did, Mogens Rukov and Thomas Vinterberg do a masterful job at writing a variety of characters who could be related to by anyone from any walk of life.
Chasing Amy (1997)
Somewhat in Defence of Chasing Amy
Chasing Amy follows comic book artist, Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), his best friend and partner, Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), and the alluringly modern and sexually liberated, Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams). Holden and Banky are the successful creators of the "Bluntman and Chronic" comic book starring Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) with a cartoon deal in the works. They are both introduced to Alyssa after helping their friend, Hooper X (Dwight Ewell) with a rather elaborate publicity stunt. Holden immediately takes to Alyssa, and she soon invites him out to a club. It's then revealed, after she performs an intimate ballad, that Alyssa is gay. This shatters Banky's worldview and crushes Holdens dreams of being with her. However, fuelled by a misguided lust, Holden continues to pursue Alyssa, putting strain on his and Banky's relationship.
On my first viewing, I resented this film. It felt as though Kevin Smith had a surface understanding of sexuality and experimenting but chose to run full force as if he were an expert on the topic. However, after having some time to digest, read the essay included in the criterion release, and re-watch the film through a new lens, I can see the merit of Chasing Amy. Is it a flawed film? Definitely. Are the performances good? Joey Lauren Adams' is. Does it have any value? Absolutely!
The film is, to Kevin Smith's admittance, pseudo-biographical about his relationship with the film's co-star, Joey Lauren Adams, with Holden being a "generous" self-insert. It's clear through Smith's essay that he feels regret his reaction to Adams's sexual past and has since learned from it. This revelation, however, is poorly portrayed. Holden is self-centred, shallow, misguided, and misogynistic, believing he can "change" a girl who has told him she's gay. While this doesn't end up being the full truth, it doesn't change the fact that Holden was motivated by lust, not love, regardless of what he might say. He mistakes friendship for romance at every turn, even when firm boundaries are set for him. Even after making a highly inappropriate offer and having the situation explained to him clearly, Holden refuses to learn. However, the film does make some interesting remarks (mostly provided by Alyssa and Silent Bob) but unfortunately seems to contradict itself at every turn.
After the critical failure of Mallrats (1995), Smith said he wanted to make an honest film and he succeeded in that. Yet, Holden's lack of accountability and sense of entitlement creates an entirely detestable and slightly disturbed protagonist. Perhaps Smith is apprehensive to show the world his softer side and admit he's changed for the better, or maybe at the time he hadn't learned his lesson. Either way, the film is an interesting expression of guilt, wrapped up in a 16mm package and signed with Joey Lauren Adams's sweet raspy voice.