Beasts of the Southern Wild

Just look at that face.

The cynical amongst my vast international readership might suggest Mrs. Curmudgeon and I would be suckers for pretty much any movie featuring a beautiful African-American girl with (let's be honest) unruly hair who has issues caused by being abandoned by her mother and father. Nonetheless, Beasts of the Southern Wild is, objectively, astonishing.

I won't try to summarize the plot because, while it appears to have one, it really can't be summarized in any way other than the way the curmudgelings summarize movie plots, by exhaustively recounting, scene-by-scene and line by line, everything that occurs. I had read and listened to any number of reviews and interviews with the director before we saw the movie, and I was utterly unprepared for anything that happened. (I should, however, insert a spoiler alert here; I'm a critic, not a reviewer.)

It's easier to jump straight from plot to symbol and archetype: Beasts of the Southern Wild is a consideration of the end of the world executed through a metaphorical account of how New Orleans and the Gulf Coast came through hurricanes Katrina and Rita seven years ago. And yes, it is audacious as all get out.

It works because of Quvenzhané Wallis, who, as Hushpuppy, delivers the most astonishing big-screen debut since Amy Adams in Junebug. The kid doesn't just carry the movie, she is the movie. According to the director, Benh Zeitlin, she rewrote her lines before each day's shooting, which makes me really hope she's responsible for "Kids who got no mommy and daddy have to live in the woods and eat grass and steal underpants." So true, and here's hoping the Adoption Exchange puts that on a bumpersticker.

By turning our attention the residents of the Bathtub, an mythical outpost south of a flood-control levee on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, the film runs the risk of coming off as a patronizing celebration of the noble savage. It escapes this by Court 13's approach to film-making, which is so collaborative it allows a six year-old to write her own lines. The company is comprised of Louisiana locals who had major input into the final product. Moreover, Hushpuppy's father, Wink, is hardly romanticized: his care for his daughter could be generously called "competent" only by a severely delusional hippie, and he also happens to be a violent drunk who is in the process of drinking himself to death. Hushpuppy is the movie's only hero.

Beyond that, Beasts of the Southern Wild is about far more than, well, the southern wild. The bayous are menaced not just by storms, but also by aurochs, prehistoric beasts who ate cave babies and are released from icy suspended animation by the melting of the polar ice caps. (Don't worry: this is all covered in the opening scenes.) The aurochs menace and destroy everything and everyone, not just the Bathtub, so the viewer cannot safely distance himself from the threats facing Hushpuppy and her neighbors.

While I don't think this movie is a celebration of people who make some pretty foolish choices and live a rather sordid lifestyle, it does claim that they, and by metaphorical extension, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, exist and have a story, and that story should be heard. In that sense, it is a profoundly humanistic film in the sense that it defiantly recognizes that even the lowest of men are created in the image of God and, as such and even if only as such, deserve our recognition. Hushpuppy doesn't summarize the plot, but she does summarize the film when she says at its end, "Future scientists will know there was Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the Bathtub."

Incomparable Days

Peter Leithart shares a quote from Thomas Oden describing the pastor's great privilege in participating in signal events in the lives of believers. I'm glad to be reminded of these blessings, but a little disappointed the reminder came from a Methodist. Presbyterians and Reformed spill a great deal of ink on the importance of preaching, all of which I agree with, and all of which I'm pretty sure never needs be said again, it having been said over and over again. Just once, I'd like to hear someone from our team talk about the one event which, Mrs. Curmudgeon regularly notes, always gets me at least a little choked up during the liturgy: baptism.

To lead God's people in worship, Lord's Day in and Lord's Day out: incomparable indeed.

They are going to break my heart (again)

 Mrs. Curmudgeon and I saw a teaser for Man of Steel, the latest attempt at a Superman movie, last month. Principal photography has been completed and a release date in June 2013 has already been set. It's produced by Christopher Nolan, a bona-fide film genius, but directed by Zack Snyder, whose frenetic style was perfectly suited to bring 300 to the screen, but turned Watchmen rather flat.

I go back and forth on this: will Nolan's maturity balance out Snyder's Red Bull addiction? Will the excellent supporting cast make Superman more credible? Will I get my hopes up yet again only to have them dashed?

Actually, the last isn't really a question. Yes, I will get all wound up, and yes, I will surely be disappointed because it is simply not possible to put an actual human being in Superman's costume and make me believe he's the real deal. Can't be done: it's a law of physics. I know this so well that it's become my rule of thumb for evaluating all superhero movies. (Captain America walks a very fine line; if they don't do something with his costume before his next movie, I won't be able to look directly at the screen.) And yet I keep wishing and hoping. I can't help myself.

Dear Hollywood,

  Please stop making Superman movies. My poor heart just can't take it.

yours,

 the Presbyterian Curmudgeon

Don't drive at night in Norway

A Norwegian driver who tried to avoid crashing into a moose hit a bear instead, a wildlife official said.

 This is why so many Norwegians moved to the American midwest over the last couple centuries: lots of ruminants, but not so many bears.

A little trouble staying on message

Note to my neurotypical readers: we're looking at the text, not the faces. Specifically:

 

Wicked and Delicious

In this essay which appeared on All Things Considered on August 13, D.W. Gibson perfectly expresses my own childhood shock, and then delight, when I first discovered Roald Dahl's fiction for older readers in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents omnibus. 

My mother was always surpised he wrote children's books.

The Dark Knight Returns

Since we so rarely get the opportunity to take advantage of the curmudgelings' grandparents, Mrs. Curmudgeon and I left them in their maternal grands' tender care whilst in Janesville, Wisconsin, a couple weeks ago in order to see The Dark Knight Rises for approximate two-thirds the cost of a screening in the Mile-High City. A few scenes paid homage to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which clearly was a major influence on Christopher Nolan's entire Batman trilogy.

Then Elvis Mitchell did something very interesting. His The Treatment, in which he interviews mostly film-makers, is the latest addition to my regular line-up of podcasts. His interview of Christopher Nolan was prefaced by mentions of the movie theatre massacre here in Aurora. Then, without additional comment, he followed up that interview on The Dark Knight Returns by re-releasing earlier Nolan interviews on Batman Begins and Memento. My guess is Elvis Mitchell wanted to do his bit to remind us all that Christopher Nolan is an interesting film-maker whose word deserves notice on its own merits, which is very true. Listening to those interviews reminded me of my pressing need to see Memento again soon, and sparked an interest in watching the entire Batman trilogy once it's released on DVD. (Ideally, in one sitting!)

Since I don't have the time to do that, I took advantage of a nasty cold to, for the umpteenth time, read Frank Miller's The Dark Knigh Returns. I don't know how much my carefully-preserved first edition set might fetch on the open market, but I will never sell it. Miller's work fascinates not simply because it created the current definitive interpretation of this iconic character, nor because it changed the entire trajectory of superhero comics in these United States for at least two decades, but because of how he did it.

In collaboration with colorist Lynn Varley, Miller uses almost-cartoonish forms to make the Batman's physical presence dominate every frame, elevating him to mythic status. As a storyteller, he achieves the same effect by beginning his story ten years after the Batman's retirement. Hence, he's able, within the confines of the narrative, to begin with a mythical character rather than having to lift him to that status himself. He gets all the work done before his story begins so he can concentrate on the story itself, which faithfully reveals the person, good and bad, who would become the Batman in the first place.

The Dark Knight Returns is far from perfect (within six panels, the same character is referred to as both "Lois Lane" and "Lana Lang"), but its energy and impact continue to astound. While I like Christopher Nolan's Batman, Frank Miller's is the one which continues to fascinate me.

Oh. And Superman is in it, too.

The dog of my life

One day last summer, while sitting... in the veterinarian's waiting room, Ian had noticed a particularly sweet-faced golden retriever. "Nice dog," he had told the owner, and the owner–a middle-aged woman–had smiled and said, "Yes, I've had a good number in my day, but this one: this is the dog of my life. You know how that is?"

He knew, all right.

-from Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler