Copyright © 1999 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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This week, taking a break from the megaplex, I headed for the video store to look over films that I had missed when they opened earlier this year. As I roved through the store, I accidentally selected two films that, in one way or another, seem to fit better onto the small screen than they would have on the big screen, A Walk on the Moon and eXistenZ.
In fact, Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon feels like a made-for-television movie, although the film's setting is almost as strange for many of us in Worth County as the outlandish cyber-settings of eXistenZ. In New York, many families rent vacation houses for the summer. The stay-at-home spouse and children spend the summer away from the hot grimy city, while the breadwinner works and suffers the misery of summer in New York, joining the family on the weekend. For many Jewish families, the traditional summer escape was in the resorts of the Catskills of northern New York State.
In the summer of 1969, human beings walk on the moon for the first time as other human beings head for a planet called Woodstock. Pearl Kantrowitz (Diane Lane), thirty-one-year-old mother of two, who got pregnant at seventeen, is stuck in such a resort, seeking something more diverting than her mother-in-law (Tovah Feldshuh) and MahJong. The blouse man (Viggo Mortensen), a salesman who travels from resort to resort displaying his wares, his smoldering looks and his uncut locks, seems to be just what she needs to catch up with the sixties while she can.
Before long, she is slipping off to skinny dip under a waterfall, while her fourteen-year-old daughter is experiencing her own sexual awakening. Of course, we all know that something has to happen, and it does, just what a television audience would want. Pearl married early, and as far as she or her husband Marty (Liev Schreiber) can tell, their marriage is happy. But, there is something missing in both their lives. Do you think you're the only one whose dreams didn't come true? Marty asks. He had dreamed of going to college, but because of the early marriage and fatherhood, he is stuck repairing television sets.
I was reminded of American Beauty, in which a middle age man seeks liberty and the pursuit of happiness by pursuing a teenaged cheerleader. This film demonstrates that women can make choices just as bad as men's. This film has a less dramatic ending than American Beauty, but by the time I got through over 100 minutes of it, I welcomed any ending. Especially once Pearl's secret is out, it belabors its points. The film suffers from a basic dishonesty. Pearl does not come across as a romantic heroine making a grand gesture; the film does not end at all sympathetic to her. But, the film seems to take a voyeuristic pleasure in dwelling on the sexual interludes between Pearl and the blouse man. A Walk on the Moon is rated R for sex, nudity, and drug use.
Surprisingly, there is no drug use in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ, although I wonder if he thought up some of the bizarre images in this film under the influence of nothing stronger than iced tea. David Cronenberg has a reputation as a director whose work is all about style. If you take him seriously, you run the risk of being seriously offended, as with 1996's Crash. There is a creepiness underlying his work, from Scanners (1981) to M. Butterfly (1993), not to mention the impossible Naked Lunch (1991).
A sort of poor-fan's Matrix, this film tells the story of Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh, the superstar creator of eXistenZ and other virtual-reality games--or maybe not. A group of anti-virtual-reality terrorists have singled her out--or maybe not. The problem with this film is that Cronenberg shifts back and forth so often from reality to virtual reality that the film becomes virtually tiring--or maybe not. These game-players and game-makers need to get a life, not just make up one. There are times in the plot when there is the feeling that there is nothing for the characters to do--which doesn't make for an exciting film--so let's play a few rounds of eXistenZ (the game) the way bored office workers play solitaire on their computers.
Unlike The Matrix, with its state of the bankroll special effects, Cronenberg's alternative reality looks like it came from a thrift shop that specializes in castoffs from the high school biology lab. Allegra's cyber-biological game controllers, which look like afterbirths, are made from parts of mutated reptiles and amphibians, whose discarded parts are served up as specials in a Chinese restaurant (clearly labeled Chinese Restaurant ). Cronenberg keeps his cameras focussed almost lovingly over strange moments, hay burning in a barn, for instance, and brings a sense of beauty to his absurd still lives.
The dense texture of the film extends to the language. You neuro-surged and blew my pod! Allegra laments. Kiri Vinokur, Yevgeny Nourish, and (my favorite) D'Arcy Nader (close your eyes, say that one aloud, and whom do you think of?) are names of some of the minor characters. So is Gas, a brief role into which Willem Dafoe packs a whole lot of the eccentricity that he brings to a characterization. The film eXistenZ is a 97-minute stylishly violent, elegantly gross panic attack just waiting to happen. Finally, however, there is less here than meets the eye. But, there are some haunting, memorable things put before your eyes while you are waiting. The film is rated R for violence and language.
After taking a break this time, next week, I'll head back to the megaplex to keep you posted on the goings-on there. I had planned to do a video column a few weeks ago to compile a list of videos for Hallowe’en, but About.com's Classic Film guide already had such a good list that I decided not to bother. Since any time is a good time for a good horror movie, you can find his list of Scary Movies at:
http://classicfilm.about.com/entertainment/movies/classicfilm/library/weekly/aa102499.htm
Till we come together to discuss another film, keep your feet dry and your heart full of noble thoughts. If eXistenZ (the game) sounds as if it might be too much for you (I don't like the idea of having a bio-port installed in my spine), here are some games on the Internet that might divert you:
~ Board games, card games, and others:
~ Build a Dinosaur :
http://www.tlc.discovery.com/exp/fossilzone/bonesgame.html
~
Internet Chess :
~ Crossword puzzles – in Finnish, for my goddaughter Maarit:
http://www.math.jyu.fi/~pejuam/Ristikot
~ Dinosaur Network – a variety of games not related to dinosaurs:
http://www.dinosaurnetwork.com/game.htm
~ Electric Games – an amazing assortment of games to download and to play online, but with an amazing number of dead links (most of the games are demos ):
~ Gametropolis – a variety of games:
~ Hangman – All Mixed Up :
http://www.allmixedup.com/cgi-bin/hangman/hangman
~ MahJong – to waste time in the Catskills with the good folks of A Walk on the Moon :
~ Monopoly:
http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~m94_lak/monopol.htm
~ Wild Card Games
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