Film Review--Nobel Son

Nobel Son
directed by Randall Miller
written by Jody Savin, Randall Miller
starring Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Danny DeVito, Brian Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku



OK, this is either a work of pure and lasting genius or it’s complete schlock and deserves to fall flat on its pock marked face and dragged down a gravel road. Either way, it leaves something akin to an impact on the viewer and that’s really all a film can ask for.

The plot as far as there is one is so highly convoluted and ridiculous that one ends up laughing at the sheer ludicrousness of it all. It involves a poor bastard named Barkley Michaelson (Greenberg) who is attempting to write his PhD thesis on cannibalism. He’s a true believer and one can easily imagine him dragging a wee lass into the bushes and making a stew out of her entrails. His dad Eli (Rickman) has just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is heading out overseas to retrieve it along with his wife Sarah (Steenburgen) and Barkley. Unfortunately Barkley gets sidetracked after meeting a complete wack job named City Hall (Dushku) with whom he manages to sleep with. He rushes home in a cab and finds his parents gone. He is whacked across the head with a bat and soon finds himself bound, gagged and with a bag over his head. Thus begins Barkley’s epic adventure that leads absolutely nowhere. Maybe to hell.



Eli Michaelson is a complete prick who imagines himself to be something of a genius. He screws his students at every opportunity and seems hardly to have been able to keep his trousers zipped for much of his career. His attitude is utter contempt for his lessors and most of his colleagues so his little award is perceived by most to have been undeserving. His pomposity is greeted with disdain and his overall character is highly dubious at best. Barkley loathes him because he failed to follow in the great man’s footsteps and is reminded of his failure on a daily basis.

Barkley’s captor turns out to be the rather ingenious Thaddeus James (Hatosy) who has a penchant for removing the thumbs of those he accosts. He claims to have been the illegitimate spawn of his mother and Eli who was his father’s best friend and the true genius behind the formulas that spurred the work that won Eli the Nobel Prize. He’s pissed and wants Eli to pay for his father’s subsequent suicide. Soon, he and Barkley undertake a scheme to make the aging profligate pay for his many misdeeds. Up until this point the story maintains a certain gritty logic. It breezes by with tremendous energy and each scene is jacked up for maximum potency. It’s all sex and giddy violence and moments of grand, eloquent angst. But quickly everything turns and the film seems to get caught up in the intricate web it has created for itself.

From this point on the film just gets nuttier and less comprehensible. Suffice to say the scheme works and the two men split the haul and everything is back to normal. Well, it would be but the creators of this film insist on plying us with little doses of poison mixed well into the most vile yet effective energy drink known to man. We don’t know whether to be sick or buzzed out of our skulls.

The film is vibrant and exceedingly vivid. It looks like a great night out with that hot stripper whose daddy used to make her play a most despairing game when she was a little girl. There is a spoken word club where all the poems are about excrement, abuse, disease and other fun topics destined to be gathered together in some ode to dissolution scrap book. The reference to cannibalism, rape, murder, and other forensic niceties provide the film with quite a few laughs. The tenacity of these poets is a hilarious sendup of the type of thing that ought to be left in journals and not be broadcast to the world. The sickly ooze of these scenes coats the narrative and creates an atmosphere of degradation and torment that is played for big laughs and it mostly works to that end.

So, events conspire neatly and lead to a final showdown where some of the energy is drained from the film. Thaddeus’s brilliance for mayhem is sucked out of the film and replaced with the devious machinations of the much less vital Barkley who concocts yet another wholly destructive scheme that lacks the comic brutality of the first one. It’s all very strange and off kilter at first but becomes more generic as the film moves forward. The film works best when Thaddeus is working his magic and once he slips into obscurity it loses its direction slightly. The character of Barkley just isn’t fascinating enough and anything he does lacks even a semblance of viability.

At one point City Hall’s artwork is examined and the opinion expressed is that it comes from a disturbed mind. She certainly possesses a quirky derangement that is felt from the moment she appears on screen. She is the tortured poet/artist who has succumbed to mythologizing her own excrement and all the filth and despair she can fling at passerby. She is in many ways a satire of the scared little school girl reading Ann Sexton in the dark and carving ancient symbols along the inside of her thigh. She wears her damage so clearly on her vest until it just grinds itself into self-parody and she simple withers away. City Hall celebrates her agony because she so desperately craves validation for her martyrdom. She is so typical of a certain type who insists that the world actually cares about their petty concerns regarding the litany of torments they have experienced in their sad little lives.

There are many implausible moments scattered throughout this film but they somehow do not get in the way of the overall trajectory. Sure, they are absurd and fallacious but they are presented with such cool certainty that it’s easy to overlook them and wait for the next oddball sequence to manifest itself. The energy of the picture carries it most of the way through although as mentioned it does manage to stumble over its own cleverness. Everything just doesn’t add up in the end although the end does possess a certain logic but just not in accordance with the film as a whole.

The performances in this film are a mixed bag. Mary Steenburgen is tough, vital and wholly capable in this film. Her character is the backbone of the piece and the only one who seems stable. Alan Rickman is a delight to watch throughout this film. His annoyances at everything are truly delectable and nobody is as good as Rickman at walking around as if he is perpetually smelling something completely foul. Rickman plays the ass better than anyone these days and has managed to create two world class snobs in both this film and this year’s “Bottle Shock.” Brian Greenberg lacks star quality and can’t quite carry the film in the scenes when he is the central agitator. He’s too bland and ineffectual and his character’s plight doesn’t much matter in the end. Danny DeVito has a small but effective turn as a former OCD sufferer who still twitches and seems confused by his own shadow. His character truly is a little man struggling to make sense of the world as he interprets it. Shawn Hatosy is the real breakout performer here. Despite all we learn about his character he still comes off as exceedingly sympathetic and worth getting behind. Thaddeus possesses the skills and intellect that are infinitely watchable and it is a shame that the film shifts to Barkley in the second half. Eliza Dushku plays mad quite effortlessly and she definitely brings a sexy breath of fresh air into the proceedings. She injects the film with much needed erotic appeal and her frenzied sexuality perfectly accentuates the tone of the film.

Overall, this film is confusing, strange, and kinetic throughout and it manages to confound and irritate at every turn. It is a flawed film but the flaws are administered with charm and wit so they don’t much manage by the end. The character of Thaddeus is so fun to watch that one is let down when his ingenuity takes a backseat to the uninspired maneuverings of Barkley. The film seems to hurry too fast to wind itself up and much of the early glamor and speed is washed away.

Film Review--Australia

Australia
directed by Baz Luhrmann
written by Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Richard Flanagan
starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Bryan Brown, Brandon Walters, David Wenham, David Gulpilil, Essie Davis, Sandy Gore, Bruce Spence, Wah Yuen

In the end it’s merely an overswept tear-jerker that uses ancient tricks to manipulate its audience into feeling cut and dried emotions that never quite pan out. Still, there are wide vistas, gorgeous photography and performances that don’t make a person cringe due to their blind excesses.

Australia is a massive undertaking both in terms of its length and its desired scope. It clearly wants to be an important film that delves into uncomfortable areas in order to extract a story that is poignant and worth telling. Indeed, it’s the story that ultimately fails this film that is basically a whisper away from being significant and possibly even great. Still, it’s wildly entertaining and doesn’t exactly feel like two hours and forty five minutes. It’s just that it’s sprawling where it should be economical. It makes to many grand gestures that by this stage in the game are decidedly cliche and come across as contrived.

Again, this should have been a film worth talking about. Strangely it’s a film that reveals its flaws more clearly the further away from it one gets. At first it is true that the overarching and melodious intentions of the film manage to get through. It does manipulate the viewer into being taken in by the great romance of the thing. But once the fairy dust evaporates the film reveals itself to be just another grand experiment that doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

The story involves two lives that intersect against the gorgeous backdrop of outback Australia. Certainly the cinematography by Mandy Walker is lush and hypnotic. It works as a picture postcard that will most likely lead to increased tourism throughout the area much like “Crocodile Dundee” did in the 80's. Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) is a English socialite who travels to Australia in order sell her husband’s cattle station. When she arrives she is informed that her husband has been murdered and is told that an aboriginal has committed the nefarious deed. Most of the territory is owned by the tyrannical King Carney (Brown) who is attempting to forge a monopoly in order to secure a lucrative deal with the military. Ashley meets the hard scrabbled totemic Drover (Jackman) and convinces him to run her cattle to Darwin for sale. They assemble a rag-tag group and the resultant drive is fraught with complications that are directly linked to the unscrupulous machinations of a man named Fletcher (Wenham) whom Ashley has fired for being cruel to the young aboriginal boy Nullah (Walters).

Nullah evokes deeply concealed maternal instincts in Ashley. She becomes overly protective of him to the point that she flatly refuses to allow him to go on the ceremonial walkabout. The story meanders for a while and never seems to get to where it intends to go. After the cattle run it gradually fades into a standard romance that is so benign and pedestrian that it lacks the obvious punch the film makers were going for when they constructed it. What is left is a weeper about the sorry state of the relations between the aboriginal population and the government and polite society who treat them as second hand citizens. The film makes a clear point to demonize these practices and never fails to illustrate how precious and magical the indigenous peoples are. These are the types that appear in all the mythologically solvent textbooks that always portray the aboriginals as simple superstitious folks who rely on their supernatural skills to manipulate events to their favor. This is made readily apparent in the form of Nullah’s grandfather King George (Gulpilil) who never speaks but shows up from time to time as something of a guiding mystical spirit who is in touch with the elements and who sings hypnotic, repetitive songs to steer the course of events in a specific direction. There are moments in this film where the magical aspects of the story are indeed transforming and create a legitimate sense of mystery in the viewer. Nullah’s relationship with his seemingly ancient grandfather is a case in point.

The big romance evolves from initial contempt through a hard fought physical connection forged from difficult work, and straight through the necessary carnal pull that exists between these characters. In many ways the romantic aspects get in the way of the rest of the story. They are so hackneyed and deliberate that they lose their power to sway or inform. There is even a scene in the rain where the two primaries kiss and it’s a sign that this film is tapping the mine of classic screen romances a little too strongly. Granted the sexual chemistry between Mr. Jackman and Ms. Kidman is extraordinary. They sell the raw intensity of their relationship effectively and the result is enjoyable if not slightly regrettable.

The story is in essence a tone poem to the glorious Northern Territory. It evokes a land of charm ane elusiveness that is not much more provocative that a typical travel brochure. Indeed, the entire film seems to be nothing more than propaganda put forth by an Australian film company with designs to create a loving portrait of the area.

The conflicts in this film arise out of direct competition, excessive greed, an a policy designed specifically to breed the black out of the aboriginal population. Fletcher is portrayed as a heartless fiend who always appears accompanied by minor chords that inform the viewer that he is a man who cannot be trusted. His blind ambition gains him absolute control of Carney’s properties but he is not satisfied with what he has. He’s cruel, meanspirited and violent. The film portrays him as something of a demonic figure who possesses no human qualities until the very end when everything goes soft and even his character is slightly redeemed. It’s all in a simple facial expression but it proves that he is capable of exhibiting actual emotion regarding a tremendous personal loss.

The performances in this film all seem to work rather well in the overall context of the film. Nicole Kidman plays the tightly woven ice queen effectively. Kidman plays a special prize, a difficult aristocratic woman who can only be tamed by a hard man who is none too removed from the outback himself. Hugh Jackman is certainly physically viable in this film and he manages to convey his character’s tenacity and forthrightness. Brandon Walters captures the energy and inquisitiveness of his character and allows the audience to remain intrigued and follow his course. David Wenham has a sinister look in his eye for the duration of the film. He sells his character’s essential corruption through gestures and movements. There isn’t a single moment until the very end when the audience isn’t aware of just how we are supposed to read this particular character. David Gulpilil’s presence is felt throughout the film. Even when he is not on the screen one is afflicted by the way his character is employed. King George means the old ways, spirits, and ancient wisdom.


Overall, this film is mostly captivating to a certain extent but doesn’t move beyond a generic, standard story that is riddled with cliches. There is a sensuality to the film that comes from the performances by the two lead actors. In the final analysis the film just isn’t emotionally satisfying enough. One doesn’t feel the threats presented on screen and they come off as mere window dressing. The story should be vital, necessary and consumed with as much passion as it puts into the key romantic relationship in the film. There is a great film here but it’s barred from emerging by a series of obstacles that never allow it the chance to flourish as it ought to. Ultimately, it’s just a sappy love story and a tale of maternal longing that pretentiously tries to make serious comments about racism. It could have taken place anywhere.

Film Review--Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York
written and directed by Charlie Kaufman
starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Diane Wiest, Tom Noonan



Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which the word for part of something is used to mean the whole.

Very few films impact me in such a way that I still feel as if I am in the movie long after the final credits roll. Charlie Kaufman has constructed just such a film and the nightmarish images it evokes are still with me.

This is a tone poem about the many vestiges of mortality. Caden Cotard is a successful playwright who stages classic plays in his little theater. He is not particularly satisfied with the limitations he has placed on himself and longs to make more of a direct impact. Salvation comes in the form of a MacArthur genius grant and he uses some of the money to rent a gigantic warehouse space where he plans to create a lasting piece of work. He hires actors and sets about the business of bringing the production to life. He also begins to suffer a series of ailments that gradually break his body down. The work takes time and Caden is in no hurry to bring his vision into fruition.

Caden has trouble with relationships. As the film opens he is married to internationally lauded miniature artist Adele Lack (Keener). The pair have a lovely, strange daughter named Olive (Sadie Goldstein) but cannot make the marriage work. Later Caden hooks up with Claire (Williams) one of his actresses and they have a daughter together whose name Caden can never remember. There are moments during these sequences where it becomes fair to ask if any of this is actually real. Is it truly happening to Caden or is it all in his head? The film is filled with moments that suggest that we are experiencing the fantasies of a solipsist as several times we see Caden appear on the television in cartoons and on movie posters plastered to telephone poles. He appears to be everywhere at least in his own mind and gradually as he breaks down physically he begins to document his life and hires others to act out various scenarios that he has experienced. Soon, it’s difficult to separate his life from what he is creating for the stage. The play becomes a microcosm of New York as seemingly insignificant moments become the subject of intricate investigations during the seemingly endless rehearsals for the production which becomes more inclusive and vast with each passing day. Caden just can’t come to a place where he can sort it all out and bring it to the stage once and for all. Like all lives, there is no set point where it is safe to unveil the confusions and loathings that plague the mind forcing us to face decidedly uncomfortable truths.

The film shows numerous visits to doctors of various types. We are introduced to several scenes where stool becomes significant. Caden’s body gradually begins to revolt and he becomes an old man long before its time. He is unduly afflicted with a secretary named Hazel (Morton) who at the outset openly lusts after Caden. She is the only one who brings any passion out of him and the film is very much their story both together and apart. The trouble between them is achingly poignant and occasionally painful to endure. They are but two drifters who cannot seem to fully connect and the result is a tragedy of the highest order. Caden searches for meaning and finds nothing at the end but despair and loneliness. He is so painfully anguished and longs to do nothing more than to reveal this state and create a work that it expresses it fully and accurately. Like Antonin Artaud he wants to create a theater of cruelty where emotions are displayed in their brutal, naked truths.

There is a rather warped reality playing throughout this film. There are several instances that are just not quite right and prove to be upsetting to any concept of normative reality. Still, the film maintains enough grounding in what is familiar which only makes it all the more surreal in the end. This is the kind of nightmare that continues to come back night after night. One cannot escape because it forces the afflicted into the realization that it is going to die and there is nothing that can be done about it. It’s exceedingly bleak and this film maintains this perspective for its duration.

This is truly a pitch black comedy filled with little funny moments that rather than offsetting the difficult subject matter only prove to intensify its impact. The idea here is that the only response to acute despair is laughter. But this is a fiercely serious film that tackles every grave horror that the imagination can conjure up. As Caden discovers more afflictions his play expands to contain more and more of his existence. His body gives up just as his production begins to take on more of his soul. There is nothing that can be left out; the minutest detail becomes momentous and worthy of being injected into the coarse flesh of the play. Life as it is lived is the substance of Caden’s art and he insists that everything is accounted for.

Another significant aspect of this film is the gut wrenching agony that comes over a person when they experience profound loss. There is much actual death in this film. Parents die, loved ones succumb. The funeral becomes a touchstone that the film goes back to again and again. Caden loses his daughter when she moves with her mother to Germany. He routinely seeks her out throughout the film and his search is anguishing in its purity. His past perpetually plagues him as his life is laid bare for anyone to pick at and devour. His flesh becomes decayed; pustules form and various afflictions take hold of him rendering him increasingly helpless.

Caden meets a man named Sammy Barnathan (Noonan) who claims to have followed him for twenty years. Sammy knows intimacies about Caden that are both disturbing and illuminating. As fiction and reality blur Sammy takes on Caden’s persona and plays him in the rehearsals. However, he also plays Caden outside the constraints of the play and this proves to be troublesome because he is revealing truths that Caden has been unable to face. Sammy becomes the face of Caden if he could only fight through the terrors that have manifested themselves in his bodily malfunctions.

A sexual failure leads to a series of torments that greatly upset the balance in Caden’s mind. He breaks down and cannot complete the deed. It’s not impotence. It’s a terrifying inability to rationalize the taking of this person who means everything in the world to him. He shudders and careens as acute dysphoria washes over him at the precise moment when he ought to have deserved a moment of fully deserved release. He eventually breaks through but only with an actress portraying the one to whom he would pledge his life. His despair resonates throughout the entire film. It’s heartbreaking in its immediacy and mimics his physical breakdown as he becomes aware of the body’s cold edict of betrayal and the utter permanence of death.

The film articulates the idea that we are all merely actors in a cruelly scripted play in which we must perform regardless of our intentions to remove ourselves from the spectacle. Caden is a man who recognizes this cold fact and is compelled to actualize it in the guise of a monumental theater piece that can only be completed when there is nobody left to perform.

This film can be read as a critique on the modern tendency to record every passing thing and pass it off as significant and necessary to the overall edification of the social order. All of the cameras and video recorders that are employed to document our lives have only resulted in disconnect between what actually happens and what is projected through various media. We seem to live in an age where an event is only considered to be real if it is captured and broadcast for a potential audience of millions. The film asks if there is any legitimate difference between what we experience as waking reality and the dream theater that we perpetuate out of a blinding desire to replicate every nuance of existence. Caden is driven to display every facet of his being, to eviscerate himself so that he can clearly demonstrate that he is actually alive because he clearly senses that he is himself a dying man.

Strangely, Caden insists on avoiding trivial theater by focusing his efforts on creating a work that is consumed with what appear to be trivialities. He states that every person is an actor in their own unique play. There are no trivialities; each action has the potential to trigger both great and disastrous outcomes. A single flick of the wrist might cause a woman to fall headlong down a flight of stairs. A casual remark can lead a person to be apprehended and incarcerated.

Caden sees a therapist named Madeline Gravis who is mighty proud of the scores of self-help books she has written. The film gives us excerpts from these works through voice over narration as Caden attempts to tear through them. At one point Caleb is on a plane reading one of the books and the narrator tells him to look to his right where he sees Madeline. She approaches him seemingly in an effort to seduce him by placing her hand conspicuously on her thigh. Out of frustration she walks away as the narrator plays out the scene and tells Caleb that the book is now finished. He turns the page and it is indeed blank. In the end there are no cheap, glib answers to anyone’s problems. Self-help books perpetrate a sham on anyone foolish enough to buy into their dodgy rhetoric.

The performances in this film are uniformly excellent. Samantha Morton plays both the ravishing sex kitten and the confidant in guises that bring out her ability to fully convey the deeply wounded complexity of her characters. Michelle Williams particularly stands out as the erudite gamine who charms her way into Caden’s arms and bed. Williams is entirely delightful in this role as her bubbly enthusiasm injects a bit of levity into the film. Philip Seymour Hoffman offers a highly conflicted man who is as open as very few characters ever are. His pains, struggles, anguish are all laid bare and it is to Hoffman’s infinite credit that he doesn’t allow his character to succumb to sentimentality. This is one of the great tormented characters in line with Hamlet and Hoffman duly captures the audiences’s heart with his brave performance. Catherine Keener plays a woman who is not particularly anguished over anything whatsoever. Her character has a cast iron alibi and is presented as a true artist who is able to control her subject matter without getting overwhelmed by the fear that she might be leaving something out. Keener captures Adele’s supreme confidence and safety within the confines of her work. Hope Davis is in grand form as the therapist who can’t quite get over herself. She’s captivating and beguiling playing a character who has utterly lost touch with the patients she is supposed to be guiding. Jennifer Jason Leigh has a small role but she embodies Maria’s sprawling lack of boundaries and terrifying lack of propriety.

Overall, this is something of a horror masterpiece. It is looking into the soul and being utterly mortified by what you encounter. The film suggests that the depths of loneliness and despair are unfathomable and that death is the great leveler of all mankind. Life is prone to misfortune and joys are few and passing. It’s a difficult film with many layers but at its core it’s a deeply sad and routinely funny investigation into the infinite struggle mankind must wage against himself in order to obtain even a semblance of peace from all the chatter that otherwise plagues us. Still, the only true salvation comes through intense application of one’s talents to anything that one can bring into the world where once it was not. Art, music, architecture, theater, pornography, etc. are all viable methods of obtaining insight into the heartless beast that is man. Love is proper theater that is elusive and impossible to predict. In many ways this is a film about the incapability of love to live up to its many promises. Life is a tyranny that occasionally offers a respite from its many torments.

Film Review--Four Christmases

Four Christmases
directed by Seth Gordon
written by Matt Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
starring Vince Vaughn, Reece Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw, Jon Favreau, Kristen Chenoweth, Katy Mixon

Get out before you become one of them. In this occasionally amusing but rather generic holiday offering, a self-absorbed couple is forced to dissect their perfect relationship against the backdrop of too much familiarity with the families they are attempting to avoid.

Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) have been together for three years and in that time they have established a great number of ground rules. Chief among these is that they will not rush into marriage and that they will not have children. They are ostensibly happy to merely be together without suffering the improprieties of any excess and unnecessary baggage. When the holidays arrive they attempt to pull another disappearing act by heading off to Fuji but circumstances line up against them and they have no choice but to pay a visit to their various families. Both of their parents are divorced so this means four trips in one long, horrific day. The film sets up these encounters as essentially odious experiences that cause great discontent and leave the pair gasping for air.

The families are presented as oppressive and in possession of too much ammunition to fire at Brad and Kate. Each stop proves to be a grueling exercise in survival. There is nothing remotely charming or endearing about these visits; they are played up for worst case scenario in terms of how they support the fragile egos of the merry couple. Everything that can go wrong does initially as Brad attempts to deal with his Father Howard (Duvall) and his beef mountain brothers Dallas (McGraw) and Denver (Favreau). He’s obviously been on the short end of many physical battles with his brothers who taunt and tease him mercilessly upon his and Kate’s arrival. It’s just an ugly situation where Brad tries to stand up for himself only to be further rebuked by his brothers. Howard just sits on the sideline and laughs to himself because he thinks Brad is a sissy.

Things get progressively worse for Brad and Kate as they start to learn that despite all appearances they don’t necessarily know each other too terribly well. Little things begin to pick at them as they discover new secrets that neither one of them has bothered to share. Brad learns that Kate used to be morbidly obese and went to some kind of fat camp when she was little. Kate discovers that Brad’s real name is Orlando. These facts and some others start to tear into them and each stop on the tour only proves to exacerbate the situation leaving great holes that for a time seem unfixable.

This is an example of how familiarity breeds contempt. There is tremendous tension between the characters and these little get togethers are presented as strained opportunities for family members to make each other feel as wretchedly small as possible. At least this is how Brad and Kate, two outcasts who are not a part of the traditional family holiday experience, are treated whether by accident or on purpose. Most likely their families are perfectly unaware of the buttons they are pushing and the pain they are unleashing. Brad discovers that his old best friend is nailing his mother Paula (Spacek), something that one can understand might scar him for life. Kate’s mother Marilyn (Steenburgen) has given almost everything to a preacher named Phil (Yoakam) and seems to have no time to listen to anything her daughter has to say. Little cruelties build up and each time the wounds get a little deeper and a little more difficult to hide. This is family life stripped of its pretenses and revealed to the world to be something of a callous excuse for people to take out their frustrations on those who are least likely to fight back.

Not all of the relatives are thorny people who prick and poke at will into the soft underbelly that everyone leaves exposed when they are around their family. There are those who genuinely seem to be interested in discovering something about Brad and Kate but mostly they don’t even feign the slightest concern and treat them as something to be tolerated during the holidays. It’s mostly through body language that one discovers the true meaning of Christmas in these various households. There is a grave distance between the various family members and any stab at warmth and inclusion rings false.

The camera work here is mostly pedestrian but it serves the overall purpose of the film. This isn’t a film that requires fancy camera work as it uses obvious tricks to convey the message it is attempting to jam down its audience’s throat. It’s a rather cynical message that comes across as anti-family and exceedingly hostile to the idea that families are whole units that unconditionally love and respect their various components. The film doesn’t do anything particularly novel with its story but it does manage to convey a sense of legitimate despair over the state of the many broken marriages that continue to afflict people long after their parents have split.


This isn’t a cheerful, joyous ode to the monumental ecstasy of traditional family holiday experiences. These aren’t the kind of people one would choose to spend any time with if the option could be avoided. Indeed, the film seems to suggest how families often hold on to specific images of us that are but mere fragments of who we truly are. By confronting their angles on us we are forced to reevaluate who we truly imagine ourselves to be. Kate and Brad are subjected to a great number of inconsistencies in their relationship because they discover that they don’t really know that much about one another. Yet they are exceedingly close and share just about everything that a typical couple would be expected to share. Being subjected to the families digs up some of the less comforting aspects of each of their personalities and they have to scramble to realign themselves.

There are a few moments in the film where a bit less would have sufficed. There is a scene where a bunch of horrible kids are playing in a contraption called the Jump-Jump. Kate is forced to enter where she is battered, beaten and otherwise humiliated by the kids. The scene starts off rather promisingly with ominous music and a conveyance of the tight, enclosed space Kate is about to enter. Arms and fists are flailing as Kate is being pummeled. It’s a bit disturbing but could have been more so with tighter editing.


Kate is able to find herself near the very end as one would expect from a film such as this. She comes to a place of understanding but she does it completely on her own and without much help from her family. She convincingly establishes herself in a strong position and is able to map out something of a future which challenges the validity of everything that has come before. She realizes she is indeed equipped to manage those difficulties she has fled from out of fear and the result is rather winning in its way.

The performances in this film are tailor made for this knotty story of petty conflicts that haunt each of us long after we have left the crib. Vince Vaughn creates a likable character who wants nothing more than to maintain the comfortable lifestyle he has managed for himself. Vaughn is exceedingly personable and warm; he invites the viewer in to share with Brad’s joys and sorrows. Reece Witherspoon is also completely engaging in this role and demonstrates a knack for both subtle and broad humor. She is quite good in this film at reacting to the chaos building up around her character. The heavyweights in this film manage to add a bit of humor to the proceedings. Sissy Spacek and Robert Duvall do quite a lot without doing much of anything at all. Their facial tics and gestures easily capture the confusions of their respective characters. Mary Steenburgen establishes the nuttiness of her character as well as her vulnerability. Marilyn is blissfully engaged on a plane that the rest of the film doesn’t even try to grapple with. Steenburgen gives us a keen insight into the superficial niceties that cause certain people to fall headlong for a particular creed, however creepy and cultish. Jon Voight has few lines but still manages to establish a totemic presence during his few scenes. Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw ham it up as two exceedingly physical behemoths who do little more than establish their joint enormous mass. Katy Mixon has but a few lines but she establishes her character’s limited intellect and penchant for trailer trash delicacies. Kristen Chenoweth is delightfully off kilter in this film and possesses a definite charm throughout.


Overall, this is a passable comedy with some fine performances that pounds a rather unsavory idea into the skulls of the unwitting audience. It’s a film that seems to want it both ways. By pointing out the foibles that make up many a family dynamic it sends the message that families are disturbing creatures best left in cages hundreds if not thousands of miles away where they can harm no one. But it also turns on this idea in the end and softens everything into an easily digestible paste. Still, it does manage to taint the offering with a dash of arsenic which is ultimately redemptive and solidifies the basic structure the film spends much of its time painstakingly building up. Families are cruel. They most often mean no harm but they can’t help but cause grave damage due to their close proximity to their victims. In the lexicon of this film, it’s best to keep to oneself and avoid being subjected to the perceptions of others with pretensions that they know what is best for you in the end.

Film Review--The Transporter

The Transporter
directed by Corey Yuen
written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
starring Jason Statham, Qi Shu, Matt Schulze, François Berléand, Ric Young



Never look in the package. That’s a rule that can never be broken. It’s simple really. You don’t get emotionally involved with the cargo and morality therefore plays no part in the action of delivering the goods. Frank Martin (Statham) always followed this rule. Whenever he would transport something he always remembered to follow the rules which included not knowing the names of the personnel involved. But on one occasion he broke his rule and subsequently invited sheer chaos into his meticulous, properly ordered life.

Frank gets a job delivering a duffle bag to a man living on a massive estate. He does what he is supposed to do but on the trip to the receiver he discovers something that utterly compromises him and puts him in a most distressing position. He gets a flat and while retrieving the proper tools out of the trunk he notices the bag is squirming. After fixing the flat he closes the trunk and seems to shake off what he has seen. But Frank is not a heartless man. In fact he’s quite gentle and terribly kind to people who deserve to be treated in such a manner. So, he looks inside to reveal a young Chinese woman named Lai (Qi Shu). From that point on Frank is in it quite deep and the rest of the film focuses on his attempts to get out of it.

The fight sequences in this film all seem realistic and within the realm of the possible. There are no wires here and no walking up walls. The realism lends itself to a more natural feel to the overall potency of the various maneuvers. The action sequences are filmed with precision and economy in mind. They are well contained within the context of the film and each one has a set purpose. The stunts have a liveliness about them and all manage to express an urgency to what is taking place on screen. There is one particular fight sequence near the end that is ingenious and exceedingly entertaining in its execution and delivery. Many of the stunts, though, seem rather pedestrian as we have seen many of them before. There are odes to James Bond all over the place including gadgets and a specific stunt involving a plane and pin point sky diving.

The story itself comes off as predictable in parts and not particularly inspired in others. The performances of the leads maintain a certain level of excitability throughout and are often the only truly fascinating aspect of the film. Otherwise it’s just a rush to an obvious end that is supposed to justify the carnage that has piled up beforehand. All of the killing and maiming, all of the destruction and mayhem, lead to a final sequence of moral exactitude where the viewer is supposed to suddenly develop empathy. It doesn’t quite seem to work although there definitely is a type of sympathy at play. Frank himself is a sympathetic character. It’s easy to get behind him because despite the fact that he is accessory to criminals he is at heart a decent person who lives in accordance with a strict moral code. He is an upstanding man who happens to be excellent at driving getaway cars so that they actually manage to get away. Jason Statham did most of the driving and stunts in this film and his work in these areas is stellar.

Frank is an exceedingly meticulous person who seems to require a certain amount of order to keep himself on an even keel. In this film his perfectly codified world is shot to hell by the emergence of the girl that he was supposed to have been able to ignore. All he had to do was continue on without worrying whether she lived or she died. But his stringent morality did not allow someone to die and he made the fortuitous mistake of checking up on her. Subsequently he ran afoul of Wall Street (Schulze) and this leads to a series of unpleasant confrontations with Wall Street’s many henchmen. Much of the latter half of the film involves such fights and eventually Lai’s father Mr. Kwai (Young) becomes involved because he is working with Wall Street to do something decidedly horrible that Lai wants to stop. Mr. Kwai has no intentions on foregoing his intentions and a grave battle ultimately ensues. The final fight sequence has a great energy that is mostly played out through Frank’s dexterity and physicality. His moves and ability to elude capture have a ballet like quality to them. This is precisely what separates Jason Statham from most other action starts. He certainly brings a clear athleticism to these scenes but he is also poetic in just how and when he strikes out. There is a definite beauty to what he does and he elevates even the most rudimentary story to a higher level.

There isn’t much complexity to this story as it simply follows the course of one man who routinely finds himself surrounded with thugs he must defeat if he is going to survive. We learn only that Frank is ex-military who was honored at some point and who has been given a pension that he supplements with his fiery, exceedingly dangerous side job. He finds himself in extraordinary circumstances because he fails to live in accordance with the rules he has established to remove himself from the grisly actualities of what the jobs entail. Essentially, he is waylaid by his inquisitive nature and his inability to walk away when faced with a moral dilemma.

Frank is tailed by his old friend Tarconi (Berléand) who has long known about Frank’s activities but has turned a blind eye to them. He instinctively knows this time that Frank is involved with something far more serious and subsequently dangerous. He appears regularly in a sense to warn Frank and eventually allows him the opportunity to go about preventing a potential tragedy on his own terms. Tarconi is in his own way morally a mirror of Frank. They share the same basic moral inclinations; this is actualized by Tarconi’s behavior once he realizes what Frank is up against and the severity of his mission.

The performances in this film bring a decisive humanity to the corrosive elements that are put on the screen. Jason Statham is certainly exceedingly likable as an action hero and his work here helps solidify his reputation as the rare type who elicits tremendous sympathy for his character. There is something charmingly simple about how he is able to create a relatable character who does much more than merely punch and kick his way out of tight scrapes. He possesses a quality that is almost impossible to articulate but is clearly visible once he appears on screen. Qi Shu’s character is a bit more than a pretty damsel in distress but not much more. Lai is often presented as a prop who nevertheless does manage to display a certain tenacity especially at the end. Still, she proves to be important and provides a valuable service to Frank that helps him at a crucial time. Qi Shu plays vulnerable and manages to vacillate between outright hysteria and steely determinism. Matt Schulze is demonic at times and almost a little too intense at others. He readily conveys his character’s penchant for drama and over exaggeration. Schulze portrays Wall Street as a man who is smart in a street sense and who is driven exclusively by appetite and instinct.


Overall, this film comes off as pedestrian but manages to be carried by top notch performances that make it watchable and enjoyable. The characters all have interesting angles and they interact with one another in an entertaining way. There is nothing novel here but in the end it proves itself to be worth looking into. Ultimately the action sequences possess an authenticity that ground the film in a very tightly knit reality. There is a rawness to these sequences that leave an impression long after the final credits have rolled. Jason Statham’s character is charismatic and self-possessed without appearing to be arrogant or cocky in any way. He is very much a man who does a job well and that job happens to involve dealings with shady characters that he knows he does not want any part of. He has trained himself to remain aloof and has managed to do just that until this most recent job. His humanity lets him down for a brief moment and his humanity eventually leads to a display of mesmeric selflessness.

Film Review--Christmas on Mars

Christmas on Mars
directed by Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley, George Salisbury
written by Wayne Coyne
starring Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Steve Burns, Fred Arminsen, Scott Booker, Adam Goldberg, Michael Ivins, Michelle Martin-Coyne, Jimmy Pike, Kliph Scurlock



Alright, this is obviously not meant to be a standard issue cinematic bedbug. It isn’t space, it isn’t even the spaces between words that make up their own coherent language. Indeed, it’s nearly impossible to say exactly what the hell is going on here but it certainly is stimulating to put it mildly.

The brainchild of Oklahoma’s The Flaming Lips and seven years in the making, this is a jarring, mesmeric, lunatic ride into the outer recesses of cosmic mind. As it goes it tells the story of a space station on Mars where everything seems to be breaking down. These men and one woman are facing the very real prospect that it’s all going to end and very soon. One of them, Major Syrtis (Drozd) has started to hallucinate which puts a crimp in his simple plan to put together a Christmas pageant for his fellow space travelers. Unfortunately, his Santa goes mad and promptly offs himself leaving him with the dire task of finding someone to take his place. Meanwhile an odd Martian like creature has wandered into the story and he seems mostly inquisitive and uncommunicative. Soon, Syrtis is leading him off and primping him to become the new Santa.

So, the special effects in this thing are quite astounding. Although there isn’t a clear demonstration of the relationships between buildings so we never really know where we are, the look of the film holds our interests throughout. Mostly it’s a group of men fiddling with knobs and wires and looking off forlornly into the distance. There is a bit of dialog about how mankind was never meant to conquer space which suggests a lamentation over the mission that has left these soldiers of the depths to float about aimlessly. The major plot point here however is the birth of a child which is presented as a major event on Mars since it is to be the first one of its kind. The mother (Martin-Coyne) sits around sexily in her underwear and feeds the fetus from a nifty device coming out of her stomach. Then she beams wildly and the film goes back to show the terminal essence of the crew’s psychological state.

The music is really something to hear in this film. It’s mostly low-fi ambient or freakout noise and/or industrial that throbs for the duration of the picture. Some of it is exceedingly jarring and truly hard around the edges. Distortion of visuals and aural elements add to the wacked out aesthetics that make up so much of the film’s content. This isn’t supposed to be a straightforward narrative with easy plot developments and characters who do decidedly predictable things. It’s not supposed to make sense in the traditional manner and in fact, it doesn’t whatsoever. Instead it leaves the impression of the terror of vastness and seeming impossibility. The film suggests that societal walls and limitations prevent most of the population from completely losing their minds. In space there are no such guardrails and the result can be an absolute break with reality. Sytris experiences grave doubt and by looking to deeply into the void, his synapses have snapped and he begins to live in a decidedly alternative universe. He hallucinates a strange being holding a dead baby and it troubles him greatly. He goes to the psychologist (Goldberg) and learns of other hallucinations including a marching band with rather intimate body parts for heads.


The film feel like a strange new drug and it stays with a person long after the final credit has rolled. The crisp black and white is occasionally punctuated with vibrant color that signifies that something extraordinarily significant is being displayed. But it is all about the baby and whether or not it will be born at all. There are several images which portent a grisly end and the entire film seems to present a giddy hope for the new arrival. For all of the space station maintenance that is taking place, there is truly only the belief that the baby will be born and a new spirit of possibility will be ushered in. This is what these people actually need more than anything. They need to believe in something that means something on a colossal scale, something that resonates throughout space and crosses all boundaries of time as well. This baby is exceedingly important for everyone involved and everything is subservient to the urgency with which this pregnancy is monitored.

Some of the astronauts handle their dilemma by shutting down their emotions. Others, sing Christmas carols (Armisen) to remind themselves that Christmas is a real thing that they can rely on to remind themselves of the normalcy of life as it is lived in many parts of the globe. Christmas becomes a great symbol which means hope, continuance, prosperity, and goodwill. It becomes a specter that haunts every facet of this film and is directly tied in with the birth of the child. Is this supposed to be like Jesus considering how he apparently was born from a virgin birth and the baby in this film is hatched outside of the womb entirely? Perhaps there is a link but perhaps not. What matters is that the child is seen as a symbol in and of itself. It means something much grander than its mere existence. It has been imbued with truth, light, and every other elevated sentiment that mankind attaches to things that take on religious significance.

Overall, this film capsizes expectations and thrills the senses with a diabolical potion of strange and unearthly delights. It’s cosmic in scope and asks questions about the nature of existence, mankind’s relationship to space, and the fears and expectations which are transferred to the potentiality of nothingness, the dead silence of eternal space. It’s a poem about madness and the tenuous grip most of us have on our own sanity. Perhaps it’s none of these and merely a nice collection of pretty pictures and loud, visceral sound notes that probably scare a lot of people who have never become intricate with such matters.

Film Review--Thirteen

Thirteen
directed By Catherine Hardwicke
written by Nikki Reed and Catherine Hardwicke
starring Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter, Vanessa Hudgens, Brad Corbet, Jeremy Sisto, Deborah Kara Unger



A young girl discovers the pleasures of a number of illicit behaviors and quickly collapses in on herself while her helpless mother looks on.

As the film opens Tracy Louise Freeland (Wood) and her best friend Evie Zamora (Reed) are huffing and smashing each other in the face. They laughingly bid each other to hit them harder and each blow draws blood which only makes them giggle more. The film backs up four months and Tracy is troubled because she’s not accepted by the cool kids and she so desperately wants to be. She longs specifically to make friends with Evie who seems to be the most popular girl in the school. It is the seventh grade and Tracy is an excellent student who writes stirring poetry. When she finally meets Evie school takes a backseat to every other thrill and life becomes an ornament with nothing inside.

This is in many ways a typical story of dissolute youth. It starts with petty theft, moves on to drug use, and in this case crash lands into acts of self harm that Tracy administers on her arm when things seem to be spinning out of control. Life is drugs, drinking and smoking, staying out late, not doing any homework and failing to the point that she is threatened with being held back. School just doesn’t have the appeal of acid in the park with her friends, blow jobs to black guys, and other assorted acts of mayhem and strict disobedience to the order and the direction society expects her to go. There are many single shots of Tracy alone looking bewildered, hurt, and as if she is thinking terribly hard about what she is supposed to do with her life. The gashes on her arms heal leaving evidence that she at least felt alive for that brief instance when she was tearing into her flesh. She is a smart kid who has discovered a wild course that allows her to experience life in a rush, more fast forward then most people.

Tracy’s Mom Mel is a struggling hairdresser who works out of the home. She is a high school dropout and simply wants to make Tracy’s life as carefree as possible. But when Tracy begins to rebel against her she crumbles slightly. She is a former substance abuser who has invited her boyfriend Brady (Sisto), himself a recovering addict, back into the home. This chagrins Tracy who doesn’t want to see her mom get hurt again. There is much tension in the home which drives Tracy toward the black hole toward which she is heading exceedingly fast. It is she and Evie against the world and the world proves to be winning. Evie admits to having been sexually abused by an Uncle when she was nine and physically abused by her cousin’s, Brooke LaLaine (Unger) boyfriend. She has been living with Brooke for some time but would much rather live with Tracy and Mel.

This is a film that doesn’t necessarily condemn the fast life. Certainly it painstakingly illuminates its drawbacks but there are distinct moments of bliss, however fleeting. Tracy is just like a lot of kids who find themselves down a specific path. There are moments where it appears as if Tracy has gained control of her drug use and perhaps will learn to hide it from herself more effectively. There is a sensuality to this film that perhaps might seem troublesome to some. It depicts children exploring their bodies in ways that make a great many people decidedly uncomfortable. It is difficult to admit that children are sexual beings who are naturally inquisitive and who explore terrain that society deems off limits to those who are perceived to be incapable of fully comprehending the implications of their actions. In this film, there seems to be a link between the use of drugs and the interest in matters of the flesh. Tracy is a good kid who early on is presented as innocent of the machinations of adult social interaction. As the film progresses she becomes more wise to how things are actually done and this knowledge proves to displace her somewhat leaving her gasping and wholly confused.

Tracy is a girl who has been damaged by various tumults in her home life. Her father and mother are long split up and initially this proves to be nothing of dramatic consequence to her overall well being. She still excels at school and carries herself with a sense of purpose and meaning. However, the desire for more than the pedestrian drives her onward and makes her susceptible to experiences that threaten to upset the balance she has heretofore maintained. Still, these experiences are intoxicating and open her up to further explorations into avenues that are far more dangerous than what she perceives them to be. Essentially she is on a path that the film suggests is wholly destructive and if she continues she may perhaps become totally lost to any help her mother and other adults might be able to provide. By cutting herself she is expressing a totemic anguish that remains inexplicable to outsiders who have never experienced such a direct, systemized measure of dealing with acute emotional trauma. Tracy becomes numb to her surroundings and the initial ecstasy is replaced by a dull ache for which there seems to be no remedy. By using various implements to draw blood on her flesh she seems to be suggesting that she has found a way to gain control of her agonies at last.

The two women who are featured in this story both have a difficult background that has left them reeling to a certain degree and which suggests a deeper understanding of what each girl is going through. Yet their awareness of some of the edgier behavior seems to be lacking due to the traumas that each of them are experiencing in their own disjointed lives. There is also a lack of stability in the homes which lead to Evie desperately longing to live with Tracy permanently because she feels threatened in living with Brooke.

It is not accurate to state that Evie is entirely responsible for influencing Tracy to behave in such a blatant anti-social manner. Tracy initiates it by stealing the handbag out a fumbling longing to be liked and appreciated by the kind of girl she longs to be. She doesn’t just go along with what Evie suggests and in fact takes her behavior to a level that even Evie balks at. There is an implicit limit to how far Evie will go and Tracy crosses the line and spirals completely out of control. Evie seems capable of handling herself and not succumbing to all the hostility and torment that drives Tracy forward. This is the difference between the two girls. Evie can formalize her behavior so that it doesn’t become self-destructive and Tracy can not. This is often the case with those who cast the initial spell on a person who is not so far along as a social animal willing and capable to sink their teeth in. The more vibrant, dynamic personality has already learned how to control their excesses and by their very nature encourage the others to participate in their fun. Unfortunately, as is the case here, the spellbound person isn’t wholly prepared for the ramifications inherent in certain illicit acts so they end up taking things further than they are prepared for.

There is a supreme sadness to much of this film. Early one the audience gets caught up in the giddy thrills of being young, sexually alluring, and free of all inhibitions. There is an exhilaration to these actions that adults have often forgotten or deliberately pushed into the further recesses of memory. This film captures the irrepressible aspects of being young and willing to try anything for a thrill. There is a real sense of the urgency to keep moving at all costs because that is the speed which thought races at. Everything becomes a blur, distant, unreal. There is an appreciation for anything that accelerates the process and allows a person to keep up with the uncanny speed with which the world seems to be rushing by. In a sense the poetry of pure speed is perceived as the doctrine with which the adult world conducts itself. By deliberately speeding her own thought processes and succumbing to the displaced need to experience life at such a heady pace, Tracy is merely tapping into a very real aspect of life as it is lived in the business and technological sectors of society.

The film presents a type of quiet desperation with which Tracy conducts her life. She clearly wants life to be a series of sensory excitements that trigger specific emotional states that allow her to mask the emotional anguish that is all too familiar. But there is nothing that can ease the pressure she is feeling and nobody save Evie to whom she can turn to. The initial highs are eventually replaced with a sense of being crushed beneath the weight of so much trauma. She can’t understand how her mother could ever relate to the depth of her pain because she is skeptical of everything adults might attempt to say to her. Somehow a large divide develops between Mel and Tracy and each struggle to find ways of bridging the gap and working toward healing. Mel is damaged and has difficulty keeping her own life together so she’s not necessarily the best role model for Tracy in terms of emotional health. There is really no legitimate motivation for Tracy to cease cutting herself as the film doesn’t offer any direct solutions or pat ending in which she is seen to be happy and recovered from all that has afflicted her.

The performances in this film are all outstanding. Evan Rachel Wood gives a tremendously nuanced performance that keeps one highly attuned to Tracy’s struggles straight through to the end. Wood is often emotional but never over dramatic in how she presents her character’s relationships with drugs, self-harm, and just maintaining herself against the tide of so many pressures she feels incapable of mastering. Wood is as present in this film as any actress I have seen in many years. She plays Tracy as both manic and severely distressed with equal intensity. Some of the most powerful shots in the film are simple one shots of Tracy thinking intently about whatever it is that is presently afflicting her. Nikki Reed presents a focused and strangely ambitious character who is in her way quite terrifying at first. Evie casts a great shadow over the first part of the film and Tracy stumbles into it. Reed allows us to see a “bad” girl who is merely putting on a show because it amuses her to do so. She captures the benefits of being young and wholly uninhibited in how many pleasures she is willing to experience. Holly Hunter is dynamic and exceedingly forceful in this film. She presents a woman who feels the floor falling beneath her when she realizes she can no longer contain her own flesh and blood. Hunter possesses fierce energy in this film that is resonate in all aspects of her performance. Jeremy Sisto brings yet another series of complexities to this film. He is well-heeled and quietly intense as his character struggles with his own demons. Deborah Karr Unger is a strong, seductive presence in this film and projects a sort of deeply tragic sense of loss. She is the most wounded character in the film and this is made manifest through her posture and gestures. She is the dark specter at the center of the film and her influence on Evie is destructive at best.

Overall, this film is a captivating, impressive directorial debut. Hardwicke never forces any issues down our throats and handles the difficulties inherent in the story with a sense of grace and temerity. She allows the audience to run with Tracy straight toward a brick wall and she also trusts her actors to make bold decisions in how they convey the various complexities of her characters. Each scene is delicately framed as the various sorrows are unleashed without pretension of sentimentality. There is a dynamism to the film that is a direct product of how much faith is placed in Tracy by the audience as she begins to transform her life. Tracy is the kind of girl whom one wants to meet in ten or twenty years. It is easy to see her madly successful and looking back with bewilderment at the tempestuous teen ager she once was. This film doesn’t offer any outs and this approach is one of its strengths. It makes a suggesting but this can be read in a variety of ways that don’t necessarily bring any closure whatsoever.