The language of personal ads

Coming up with movie titles that sound straight out of personal ads is by no means some hallowed Hollywood tradition. In fact, in canvasing my brain on the topic, the only one I could immediately think of was Single White Female -- and in truth, that's just the elongated form of the personal ad notation SWF, which indicates the demographic of the type of roommate the poster is seeking.

Speaking of seeking ...

The year 2012 has featured two such movie titles: Safety Not Guaranteed, which we saw about a month ago, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which we watched last night as kind of a belated doomsday theme movie. (The world hadn't ended and it was already December 22nd in many parts of the world, but we thought it was a good theme viewing anyway -- we still had a couple hours of December 21st left here in Los Angeles.)

With Safety Not Guaranteed, the title is literally an extraction from a personal ad. Those three words are the caveat given to the reader should he or she choose to undertake the ad's offer of traveling back in time with the poster. "If you die, it's on you."

With Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, it's only an encapsulation of the film's themes, using the language we usually associate with such ads. "Seek" is just about the most common verb used in personal ads, as in "SWF seeks same." It's interesting, in a way, that normal people can even comprehend these ads, since the fact that they charge by the word requires heavy reliance on shortcuts in logic. It's kind of like reading those ridiculous Variety headlines: "Sticks nix hick pix."

And actually, there's a third example that I haven't seen yet: For a Good Time, Call ... This might be more likely to be scrawled on a bathroom stall wall than appear in the personals, but I'm sure it could appear there too, and I'm sure it originally appeared there before gravitating to this more unsavory medium.

The thing that's weird about this sudden "trend" is that it comes at a time when people don't really use personal ads the way they once did. In fact, you could argue that the target audience of all three films is more accustomed to transacting this type of business on Craigslist, where there's no premium on the words used and the poster can actually type out complete sentences (if they're capable of writing one).

Why, then? Well, it could just be another case of everything that's old being new again. Our reaction to the way technology has taken over our lives is to willfully go back to a time when it hadn't. There's something very quaint about placing a personal add. If they'd shown Mark Duplass actually composing his advert for a daring time-traveling companion, the scene probably would have depicted him hard at work on a clunky old typewriter.

It's appropriate, as well, that the two movies I've seen both deal with a central romantic relationship, even though the thing both titles are overtly requesting is only friendship or partnership. It seems that the most classical way to use a personal ad is to seek (there's that word again) out a love interest. Neither of these scenarios involve that on the surface, though of course that's what materializes.

I just wished I liked either of these movies better.

Both are terrific in concept. The idea of investigating a crackpot who thinks he can travel back in time, in order to write a quirky newspaper piece about him, is rich with potential -- it creates the necessary conflict by having the reporter hold back a key piece of information from the crackpot the whole time she's growing closer and closer to him. And with Seeking, when was the last time you saw someone try to do a romantic comedy that was set during the final weeks of planet Earth? Answer: Never, and I always loving seeing them attempt to do things I've never seen before.  

But the execution is wanting in rather significant ways. The resolution of Safety Not Guaranteed is too much of a departure from the kind of movie it seemed to me they were making, and that narrative gets sidetracked by a B story that's given nearly as much weight as the A story even though it comes out of nowhere and doesn't deserve such emphasis. And with Seeking, the perfect seriocomic tone is established in the first half-hour before being abandoned for a mix of dreary and schmaltzy, and the plot elements become unforgivably slapdash. Plus, the laughs die off a good week before the people do.

So I feel like placing my own personal ad:

"Seeking a good movie inspired by a personal ad."

Maybe For a Good Time, Call ... will respond. 

A John Carter length nap

Alas, my attempts to see a movie in the theater on vacation last week were foiled.

It shouldn't have been so hard. The trip included a total of nine nights, seven of which were spent in easy range of numerous movie theaters. I totally could have gone out to a late movie once my family had gone to bed, even if the plan for my wife and me to go to a movie together never transpired.

But it just didn't work out, in part because I had targeted a specific night late in the trip to do it, and that night ended up seeming like the wrong night when it finally arrived. Of course, the theater in Portland where I wanted to see Seeking a Friend for the End of the World didn't make it any easier on us -- it was playing the movie, but only at 3:15 in the afternoon. Only two weeks into its run? Shame. We could have seen it at another theater, but that was the one we had targeted for its cuteness and proximity to Portland's Old Port district, where we hoped to get a drink afterward.

When Wednesday night the 4th clearly wasn't going to work out, I mentally scrambled to see if I could make the next night work out, but the rain on Wednesday night conspired against me, as the city of Portland shifted its fireworks display (which we were supposed to attend) ahead by one day. I ended up glad I had never mentioned it at all, so as not to make my family think I'd been conspiring to see a movie for part of our limited time together. (See here and here for fuller discussions of why I love seeing movies while out of town.)

My last play was for Saturday night, the night before our departure. We were staying in my sister's intimate loft apartment near Boston's Logan Airport, and there was an idea that my sister and I might need to clear out while my wife stayed home and tried to get our son to sleep -- especially important given that we had to get up before 5 to leave for our 7:05 flight. But when we didn't get home from dinner until well after 9, it was clear that this opportunity would also go by the boards.

Well, thank goodness for having to rouse our son so early. As a result, I somehow got to watch an entire 132-minute movie, without interruption, on our flight home.

After our trials on the flight over, I didn't think I'd have a shot at watching even one of those in-flight 30-minute sitcoms. Our son is still under two, so he qualifies as a "lap infant," meaning we don't need to buy a seat for him. Great savings, but it made for a terrible quality of travel. He spent the first three hours of that flight wriggling and kicking and trying to make life miserable for everyone around him. Fortunately, we succeeded to the extent that he only really made it miserable for us. My wife hilariously attempted to watch the in-flight movie, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, despite our son pulling out her earphones every two minutes. (Or "Journey 2: Mystery Island," as the flight attendant had called it.) Me, I can't even wade into a movie if I know that kind of nonsense is awaiting me.

But my son was considerably more docile at the start of this flight home. He still had more sleeping to do. In fact, I began to stress out when he had already gotten himself into a comfortable sleeping position, torso on my wife's lap and legs on mine, but the movie had not yet started. I needed those two things to align perfectly if I wanted any shot at getting through a whole movie.

I figured I had a better shot at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which I guessed would be about 100 minutes (looking it up now, I see it's actually 123). That was the movie they had announced we'd be seeing. When the Walt Disney logo and an image of Mars were the first two things to appear on screen, I knew we weren't in India anymore.

The first thing that bummed me out about John Carter starting was that I wanted to watch it on a big screen. I knew it wasn't supposed to be good, but I thought our new home TV would be a good place to take in its Martian vistas, which promised to be the best thing about the movie.

The second was that I knew it was about 2 hours and 20 minutes long. And I figured there would be almost no way the little sleeping cherub in our laps would still be either cherubic or sleeping 2 hours and 20 minutes from now.

Well, it couldn't have worked out much better. There were a few twitches and small awakenings, and even a retraction of his legs off my own. But it was only just before the credits were set to roll that my son returned to the waking world, and it was a groggy return uncharacterized by lunges at our headphones.

The movie itself? I liked it fine. Yes, it has all the problems everyone says it has, but I applauded its ambition, and also the visual whimsy Andrew Stanton clearly tried to bring to it. There were some pretty successful attempts at humor, like the scene in which Bryan Cranston is interrogating Taylor Kitsch, and dutifully progresses through the same speech despite being repeatedly interrupted by Kitsch's escape attempts. Each time Kitsch head butts Cranston or dives through a nearby window, the scene picks back up in a new location, with Kitsch newly recaptured, and Cranston picking up where he left off in the speech. That kind of thing really worked -- but the movie needed a lot more of it.

Now that I'm back, I need to get out to the movies big time. It's been nearly a month since my last theatrical screening: Prometheus, way back on June 12th.

However, I may target Beasts of the Southern Wild, and just save Seeking a Friend for DVD -- an unfortunate outcome, since I really wanted to support it by seeing it in the theater.

So my wife and I will probably have that date to see Seeking a Friend, in the end. It'll just be on our couch sometime this October.

Everything's a mashup

When, according to some folks, pop music became stale and needed to be revitalized, along came mashups. Mashups took two very different songs, possibly even from different genres, and combined them to forge something thrilling and new.

Now, it looks like Hollywood has judged that movies have become stale, and they're trying to do the same thing.

I finally added to the impressive coffers of The Hunger Games last night, and I could have devoted today's post to discussing my thoughts on it. But that's not really what you come here to read. So instead, I want to talk about movie mashups, since I saw trailers for three of them last night. (It helped that I also saw two movies, sneaking into Casa de Mi Padre after Hunger Games finished up.)

It seems like Hollywood is really into reenacting those old Reese's Peanut Butter Cups ads these days. You know the ones -- "Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!" "Hey, you got peanut butter in my chocolate!" If the trailers I saw last night are any indication, cinematic peanut butter is getting mixed with movie chocolate left and right, as unfamiliar genres are shaking hands, placing their faith in each other and hoping for the best.

Let's examine the trailers I saw last night ...

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, directed by Timur Bekmambetov
Basic idea: Before Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States, he fought vampires.
Genres mashed: Historical epic/biopic and vampire movie
Will it work? The trailer looks fun as hell. However, I have come to distrust Bekmambetov since not particularly liking the last four features in which he was involved: Apollo 18 (producer), 9 (producer), Wanted (director) and Day Watch (director). In fact, the thrilling Night Watch is now starting to feel like a distant memory. Perhaps returning to vampires is just what little Timmy Bekmambetov needs to win us back over to his side.

Dark Shadows, directed by Tim Burton
Basic idea: A man cursed to live as a vampire in 1752 wakes up in the 1970s.
Genres mashed: Seventies movie and vampire movie
Will it work? I think this one looks fun too, even though I distrust Burton far more than I distrust Bekmambetov. (Coincidentally, Burton is a producer on Abraham Lincoln.) There's something I like about the anachronistic vampire played by Johnny Depp -- anachronistic both because he's a supernatural creature, and because he lived in a different time -- interfacing with television and listening to Tom Jones. So even though Burton and Depp have worked together more times than any other duo in cinematic history (exaggeration), I'm looking forward to this one in part because it's also a property I was not previously familiar with -- a big change for Burton.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, directed by Lorene Scafaria
Basic idea: Weeks before an asteroid will end life on earth, a man (Steve Carell) seeks out his childhood sweetheart with the help of his neighbor (Keira Knightley).
Genres mashed: Apocalypse movie and romantic comedy
Will it work? I sure hope it does. I love the idea of examining what human beings would do in the end of days from an absurdist, comedic perspective. The trailer is chock full of comedic gold. Example: Carell tells his maid it's not really necessary for her to come back ... ever. But she doesn't seem to understand that concept. The only thing checking my enthusiasm is the fact that Scafaria is primarily associated with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which she wrote. I hated that movie.

The other trailers were all a bit more standard, though I must say, that G.I. Joe: Retaliation trailer filled me with a huge amount of optimism as well.

So three trailers for three mashup movies that look very promising. Is it just that I'm a sucker for trailers in general, and almost every movie seems like it could be good when you just see the trailer? Or are mashups really the way to breathe life back into moribund genres that have been repeatedly picked over? And I know there are more on the horizon ... Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, also written by Abraham Lincoln writer Seth Grahame-Smith, is supposed to be made into a film, even though it's had some problems getting into production.

Or maybe what I'm identifying is not really a true phenomenon. Maybe what I'm seeing is only a variation on the Hollywood mandate to "put an original spin" on such and such reliable cinematic chestnut. Maybe what I'm identifying as mashups are really just injections of creative spirit into tired entities. After all, you could expand this argument outward and say that Hollywood doesn't want to make anything unless it can figure out that small way that a thing is different from similar things that came before. I'm not saying Hollywood wants to take risks -- Hollywood in general is pretty risk averse. I am saying that even the least courageous studio executives realize they can't serve up the exact same dish as they served up last week -- something has to be different. And maybe those "differences" is what I'm describing as "mashups."

In any case, I don't know why I should have any confidence at all given the unqualified failure of last year's big mashup movie. If you want a prototypical example of a movie mashup, look no further than Cowboys and Aliens. It was a western mixed with a movie about aliens. And boy did it stink.

But something tells me that at least one of the three chocolate-peanut butter combos mentioned above will taste pretty sweet.