cathyr19355 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cathyr19355) wrote2005-11-29 11:07 pm
cathyr19355) wrote2005-11-29 11:07 pm
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Belated Thanksgiving report
Tonight is rainy and windy out, and nothing much is happening, so it's as good a time as any to talk about how I spent my Thanksgiving, since I was too busy at the time to do so.
Thursday at noon Eric and I convened, with most of the rest of his siblings and his niece and nephew, at his mother's home for a traditional Thanksgiving turkey with the trimmings. After dinner, we watched a nature photographer named Austin Stevens wrestle with extremely poisonous snakes for awhile. Later on, Eric and I seized control of the remote (something that almost never happens at these family get-togethers) and found a station that was showing James Bond films all day. We caught the tail end of "For Your Eyes Only" and watched all of "A View to a Kill," which was so unbelievably bad that it was absolutely fascinating.
During the Bond marathon, we saw a TV ad for John Cusack's new movie, "The Ice Harvest". Since it was still early and I didn't have to go to work the next day, we decided to go see it. The commercial we had seen suggested that it might be another black comedy like "Grosse Pointe Blank", which is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Unfortunately, the greatest resemblance between "Ice Harvest" and "Grosse Pointe Blank" was the protagonist's wardrobe.
In "Ice Harvest", Cusack plays a mob lawyer in Wichita, Kansas, who has finally decided to take the ultimate risk; he's stolen about $2 million from his boss. Oh, the weather forecast is for freezing rain all night, and it's Christmas Eve. Sounds kinda like the setup for "Grosse Pointe Blank," right? Except most of the funny is missing. The dilemmas Cusack's character, Charlie, finds himself in as he tries to stay alive till Christmas morning so he can abscond safely (hopefully with the cash, which he mistakenly entrusts to his co-conspirator at the beginning of the movie) are all too grimly real to be funny.
Despite this serious misstep, though, the film remains watchable, largely because Cusack manages to make Charlie into such a likeable character. Even though he's participated in as much crime as anybody else attached to the Wichita mob, he still has a desire to do good things for people, and that desire keeps fighting his fear and his cynicism and trying to emerge. Worse, it's clear that Charlie is bright, maybe brighter than all the other people around him. He keeps figuring out who's going to double-cross him next even though he spends the entire movie drinking (and driving around Wichita in the freezing rain--yes, he nearly manages to crash his car, in addition to his other troubles).
Another reason I liked the movie was the fact that it had enough depth of plot and character to have subthemes. Aside from the obvious subthemes of deceit and betrayal, and wrestling with one's past, there's a theme I think of as "Where are the mammoths?" Dave Barry once claimed that men look so lost nowadays because they evolved to hunt in packs to bring down really big mammals such as mammoths. Now, there are no such challenges for men, so they spend their time looking around and wondering, subsconsciously, "Where are the mammoths?" Charlie's best friend Roy, who has made nearly as big a mess of his life as Charlie has of his, actually comes close to saying as much. Roy complains at one point that there's nothing left for men in today's world other than to seek "money and pussy." Though in light of the fact that Roy and Charlie have both been unhappily married to the same woman, maybe the quest for pussy isn't really worth so much either. At any rate, Charlie and Roy are the only major characters still left alive by sunup, and they drive off into the new day.... to start a new life, one hopes.
Eric really liked the movie. I think he was seduced by the excellence of the script, and of the performances, particularly Cusack's. He saw the ending as a happy ending, because Charlie finally gets what he really wanted--"a chance to start over, to reinvent himself." I'm not sure whether I believe that or not. But the picture has stayed with me, which is more than I can say for the usual Thanksgiving movie fare.
Overall, I recommend seeing this picture. You won't have to negotiate long lines to see it; the movie's gotten crappy reviews, probably from critics who hoped for another "Grosse Pointe Blank." It's odd and it's interesting, and it's well done, even if it isn't laugh-out-loud funny (though it does have its comic moments). Okay, go ahead and wait for the video. But do see it.
Thursday at noon Eric and I convened, with most of the rest of his siblings and his niece and nephew, at his mother's home for a traditional Thanksgiving turkey with the trimmings. After dinner, we watched a nature photographer named Austin Stevens wrestle with extremely poisonous snakes for awhile. Later on, Eric and I seized control of the remote (something that almost never happens at these family get-togethers) and found a station that was showing James Bond films all day. We caught the tail end of "For Your Eyes Only" and watched all of "A View to a Kill," which was so unbelievably bad that it was absolutely fascinating.
During the Bond marathon, we saw a TV ad for John Cusack's new movie, "The Ice Harvest". Since it was still early and I didn't have to go to work the next day, we decided to go see it. The commercial we had seen suggested that it might be another black comedy like "Grosse Pointe Blank", which is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Unfortunately, the greatest resemblance between "Ice Harvest" and "Grosse Pointe Blank" was the protagonist's wardrobe.
In "Ice Harvest", Cusack plays a mob lawyer in Wichita, Kansas, who has finally decided to take the ultimate risk; he's stolen about $2 million from his boss. Oh, the weather forecast is for freezing rain all night, and it's Christmas Eve. Sounds kinda like the setup for "Grosse Pointe Blank," right? Except most of the funny is missing. The dilemmas Cusack's character, Charlie, finds himself in as he tries to stay alive till Christmas morning so he can abscond safely (hopefully with the cash, which he mistakenly entrusts to his co-conspirator at the beginning of the movie) are all too grimly real to be funny.
Despite this serious misstep, though, the film remains watchable, largely because Cusack manages to make Charlie into such a likeable character. Even though he's participated in as much crime as anybody else attached to the Wichita mob, he still has a desire to do good things for people, and that desire keeps fighting his fear and his cynicism and trying to emerge. Worse, it's clear that Charlie is bright, maybe brighter than all the other people around him. He keeps figuring out who's going to double-cross him next even though he spends the entire movie drinking (and driving around Wichita in the freezing rain--yes, he nearly manages to crash his car, in addition to his other troubles).
Another reason I liked the movie was the fact that it had enough depth of plot and character to have subthemes. Aside from the obvious subthemes of deceit and betrayal, and wrestling with one's past, there's a theme I think of as "Where are the mammoths?" Dave Barry once claimed that men look so lost nowadays because they evolved to hunt in packs to bring down really big mammals such as mammoths. Now, there are no such challenges for men, so they spend their time looking around and wondering, subsconsciously, "Where are the mammoths?" Charlie's best friend Roy, who has made nearly as big a mess of his life as Charlie has of his, actually comes close to saying as much. Roy complains at one point that there's nothing left for men in today's world other than to seek "money and pussy." Though in light of the fact that Roy and Charlie have both been unhappily married to the same woman, maybe the quest for pussy isn't really worth so much either. At any rate, Charlie and Roy are the only major characters still left alive by sunup, and they drive off into the new day.... to start a new life, one hopes.
Eric really liked the movie. I think he was seduced by the excellence of the script, and of the performances, particularly Cusack's. He saw the ending as a happy ending, because Charlie finally gets what he really wanted--"a chance to start over, to reinvent himself." I'm not sure whether I believe that or not. But the picture has stayed with me, which is more than I can say for the usual Thanksgiving movie fare.
Overall, I recommend seeing this picture. You won't have to negotiate long lines to see it; the movie's gotten crappy reviews, probably from critics who hoped for another "Grosse Pointe Blank." It's odd and it's interesting, and it's well done, even if it isn't laugh-out-loud funny (though it does have its comic moments). Okay, go ahead and wait for the video. But do see it.
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