Twists and Turns
Video offerings from
Lovell Mahan-Moutaw

A Couch with a View

I should have known it from the start. As with The Sixth Sense (there was no hope that Unbreakable would not be compared), M. Night Shyamalan gave it all away in the first few minutes. If you were paying attention, and had watched a few interviews with Shyamalan after the breakthrough of The Sixth Sense, you could have figured it out. With both of those things under my belt, I still didn't figure it out until moments before.

It seems Shyamalan has a penchant for the twist. If done well, as with The Sixth Sense (and perhaps better with David Fincher's Fight Club), knowing the twist doesn't take away from the film after repeat viewings. There are so many hints and clues throughout the film that you could watch it again and again with enjoyment - even reveling in your own stupidity that you didn't catch on.

Unbreakable is the story of David and Elijah (Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson). David has never been hurt, has never remembered being sick. Elijah has spent his while life in sickness and pain with an odd condition that renders his bones easily breakable. In order to bolster the flagging spirits of her breakable son, known to his classmates as "Mr. Glass," Elijah's mother gets him involved with comic books. Elijah grows up practically obsessed with them, making a study of the good and the evil portrayed in them and making a fortune out of the artwork involved in creating them.

David, on the other hand, is a simple man whose one great act in life seems to have been turning his back on a football career for the love of the woman who would become his wife. He is a security guard at a college. His marriage is in trouble. He is considering leaving Philadelphia and moving to New York, away from his wife and child. When we are introduced to Elijah, we feel he is strong-willed and smart. When we are introduced to David we feel he is weak and perhaps even a bit of a low-life.

Bruce Willis plays David as if he were Clint Eastwood playing David. He talks in a strangely ineffective whisper and attempts to look downtrodden. He cannot quite pull it off and was miscast, I'm assuming, out of Shyamalan's loyalty. Samuel L. Jackson, on the other hand, gives Elijah personality with his big eyes, wild hair, commanding voice and bizarre clothes.

I liked Unreakable. I liked it a lot, more than I expected I would. I must say that it was slow in parts, even painfully slow. But it made up for this in the final thirty minutes. Shyamalan has a talent for the spooky, the quick and effective scare. He imbues his work with atmosphere. Everything means something - the colors, the costumes - he does not rely simply on the story and the acting but pays attention to every little detail. I admire that greatly. He used a trick that he used in The Sixth Sense and if you knew what it was you should have figured it out. I knew what it was and I still didn't figure it out, because Shyamalan added some new components. I have yet to figure those out.

Shyamalan has a talent also for coaxing heartbreaking performances out of children. Spencer Treat Clark (also seen in Gladiator as Lucius) portrays Willis' son, and does so beautifully. I love the way Shyamalan endeavors to put some real feeling between the characters in a family. The husband and wife in The Sixth Sense were great but the real beauty lay in the relationship between the mother and the son. The same can be said for Unbreakable's fragile family of Clark, Willis and an almost unidentifiable Robin Wright Penn as Willis's wife.

As for the twist, well, it certainly wasn't the shock I received during the twist of The Sixth Sense. Maybe that's because I figured it out moments before. I should have, of course, known earlier. It was nevertheless cool. It was cool in that geeky comic book sort of way. It was cool in that way that you look at the geeky comic book guys and wonder why they are such geeks and then realize how bright they are, how interesting they are and how totally awesome the artwork is on their walls. It is cool in that way that seems anti-cool but is really cool because what you think is cool is actually conformity and what is really cool is something else.

I know practically nothing at all about the life of Oscar Wilde, or at least I didn't. I knew he was a writer and I knew he was a wit. His story is a terrible tragedy. He married a woman he "loved," yet after a couple of kids with the wife, he was introduced to who he really was (a homosexual) by his wife's cousin.Shortly thereafter, he met Lord Alfred Douglas, better known as Bosie, and fell head over heels in love with him. Bosie was a selfish, horrible young man. In his way he loved Wilde, but his way is the kind you want to run from like you're being chased by a rabid rottweiler. Bosie's father, who mistreated him, his brother and mother, decided to take on Wilde - and Wilde, ill-advisedly, took on Bosie's father. Wilde ended up doing two years of hard labor for being homosexual.

Wilde is the kind of movie that shows us perhaps how far we've come. Yet it feels somewhat like a mirror or guide to how far we still need to go. The thought of someone doing two years of hard labor in prison for his sexual preference makes me ill. The fact that this is a true story makes me sad. It is doubtful that this could happen today - at least in the West. But things like this happen all the time in little ways - perhaps not so public, but just as horrible.

Wilde is played by Stephen Fry, who is very, very tall. Bosie is played by Jude Law, who is very, very good at being gay. Wilde plays like most British period pieces, gorgeous scenery and wonderful costumes andonly just a little slow at parts, but there is always something to look at. There is a glorious voiceover of one of Wilde's fairy tales - the story of a giant who seems to have represented Wilde's view of himself. I loved it when Fry would say something witty...he was hilarious. This movie was quite good, definitely worth a view.

I love Christopher Guest. I love his Nigel Tufnel in This is Spinal Tap. I love his Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman. And now, I love his Harlan Pepper in Best in Show.

Best in Show is another brilliant mockumentary by Guest (or is that Sir Christopher?) the King and Creator of mockumentaries. In This is Spinal Tap, Guest (and Michael McKean, Rob Reiner and Harry Shearer) took on heavy metal rock bands. In Waiting for Guffman, Guest (with Eugene Levy) took on regional theater. In Best in Show, Guest (again with Levy) takes on dog shows.

Best in Show is high comedy with great writing and an ensemble cast that consistently blows you away. Regulars like Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Fred Willard and Parker Posey don't act funny, they are funny - beyond funny. It isn't what they say, it is what they do, what they wear, their facial expressions and their reactions. It is the whole comic package and it is hilarious to behold.

Take Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock's Meg and Hamilton Swan. They open the film completely distraught that their weimerauner is upset at seeing them have sex. They are speaking to a doggie psychologist (or is it a marriage counselor?). They both wear braces and have expensive haircuts. As the movie forges on, we realize they are high strung and neurotic (or is the weimerauner?). Their brilliant interview about how they met ("At Starbuck's - not the same Starbuck's. Starbuck's across the street from each other.") and what they have in common (their comments about catalogues are priceless) is alone worth the price of the rental.

But there is more. Cookie and Gerry Fleck (Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy), she of the "hundreds of old boyfriends" he of the two left feet, literally; Scott Donlan and Stephen Vanderhoof (John Michael Higgins and Michael McKean) the screamingly gay owners of the shi zu; and Sheri Ann and Christy (Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch) the gold digging wife and her "handler" who turn out to be lesbionic. Every couple is somewhat frighteningly like their dog, but we never know if it is the dog that makes the couple or the couple that makes the dog. Harlan Pepper (Guest) is the only solo flier in this crazy outfit and he thinks his hound dog can talk...not really, but still.

I mention as much of the cast as possible because they deserve mention. The actors behave so naturally that you almost forget that they're acting. Guest's Harlan Pepper is the best - how he can do Tufnel's British rock star, St. Clair's flaming gay regional theater director, and then pull off Pepper's good ole boy is beyond me. The man is a master, not just a talented comedic writer but perhaps one of the most talented comedic actors I've ever seen. Levy is good and so is O'Hara, and McKean seems to so enjoy his characters you can't help but have fun with him.

I can't forget to mention Fred Willard, who plays Buck Laughlin, the dog show commentator who has no earthly idea what he's talking about and is highly inappropriate at the best of times. I can't say what my favorite part of the movie is - perhaps it's Sheri Ann talking about how she and her 100 year old husband (he looks it) can always find something "not to talk about." Or when Cookie's ex-lover's (who happens to be a hostage negotiator) son climbs up on the roof of the shed and he tries to talk him down by insulting him. Or when Scott and Stephen discuss packing and how many kimonos Scott needs to take (he takes seven and they are gone for two days). The movie is just plain worth the money. Watch it closely because there is much more going on than you might think.


©2001 Lovell Mahan-Moutaw
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