Movie Suggestion: Christmas Vacation

My suggestion for our movie is Christmas Vacation.

Ok, ok, so I know it's April; nowhere near Christmas.

But this movie can be watched year round! 

For those who haven't seen the movie, it tells the tale of family man Clark Griswold and his plan to have a good ol' fashioned family Christmas. Despite all his efforts, everything starts to go awry, and before you know it, the redneck cousins have shown up, the in-laws are taking over the house, the Christmas tree is burned down, the boss is kidnapped, and SWAT team is in the living room.

The Griswold family reminds me somewhat of the Wolff family. For one thing, they are an average middle class family. They don't really want for anything, but Clark, played by Chevy Chase, just wants a little slice of the good life. He puts a down payment on a pool , but the problem is the family does not have the money and is counting on Clark's Christmas bonus to cover it. However, without warning his employees, the boss has decided to cut the Christmas bonuses this year. The boss also reminds me of Krugeur, in appearance (I pretty much pictured Clark's boss when I read the play) and behavior because of his stinginess. Instead of stealing from the boss, however, Cousin Eddy's misunderstands Clark's comments to mean he want to steal the boss from his home on Christmas Eve. The movie shows the differences between people who have a whole lot and those that are only average.

I feel like the movie is also a comment on society and how wrapped up in the superficial part of Christmas. Everyone gets wrapped up in buying presents and spending a lot of money, when it should really be all about family.

So although it isn't quite Christmas yet, I think that this would be a hysterical movie to watch for entertainment and an interesting movie to try and dissect for the purposes of our class.

 

Movie Suggestion: Easy A

One of my favourite movies of all time, starring my personal girl-crush Emma Stone, is Easy A. This is the story of a young high school woman who spreads a rumor that she's promiscuous, and gains an inordinate amount of popularity because of it. When things start to spiral out of control, she takes matters into her own hands to clear up everyone's misconceptions.

Bonus: it's hilarious.

(vid: source)

But what does it have to do with our class, and why is it even worth watching?

Lysistrata

In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the women use their seductive skills to sexually frustrate the men, and the lack of consummation eventually gets the women what they want. Easy A shows echoes of this concept. Olive, the main character, starts to use the rumor working against her to help the less fortunate. She pretends to have sex with them, but for a price.

Well that's the most awkward screencap I've ever seen.

(vid: source)

The Misanthrope

The connection to Molière's The Misanthrope is less about characterization, and more about wordsmithing. The style of writing used in The Misanthrope was downright poetic. In Easy A, there is an obvious love for words among Olive and her family. They delight in language itself, and find a way to turn this delight into something entirely comic.

"Tallywacker?"

(vid: source)

The Venetian Twins

In The Venetian Twins, Goldini used a method called "breaking the fourth wall" that allows the characters to speak directly to the audience. Not only is Easy A broken up into bite-sized segments (or what I would call "acts"), these segment breaks are a direct result of Olive narrating her situation directly to the audience.

YouTube didn't have the scene, so here's a snake in a tiny hat.

(pic: source)

There are a lot of elements to Easy A that relate back to previous texts we've analyzed in class (as seen above). But beyond that, this film masters a tongue-in-cheek humor that is subtle and elevated, and all the more hilarious because of it. Every line is crafted, and if you listen carefully enough, you'll find something to laugh at come every turn.

Movie Suggestion: Clueless

Watch a movie less fabulous than this one? As if!!!

Clueless is a beautiful hilarious movie about the misadventures of Cher, a popular high school girl. She along with her bestie, Dion, take a new, awkward girl under their wings and try to elevate her to be part of the elite. Here is a trailer for the movie:

This movie can be related to many of the ideas we have discussed in class. First, the movie can be thought to take place in a green world. In this green world, Cher  loses her title of the most popular girl in school and her friend goes after the boy she likes. In the end, of course, all things return to normal and things can continue in the real world. Part of this solution is appropriate pairings. Like in The Venetian Twins, this could not be a truly happy or comedic movie if the couples at the end were wrong. I won't spoil who get with who, but suffice it to say that class statuses are upheld and bad characters do not get with good characters.
Another tie in to class topics (one that I only thought of after this class) is the character Ms. Geist. She is a comedic character in the same way that someone falling over a rug is funny. She is scatter brained, can't keep her stockings tear free, and usually can be found with lipstick smeared on her teeth. I think it would be beneficial to discuss her character in terms of what we have learned in class thus far.
Other topics that could be potentially discussed in class are the use of sex to manipulate characters (Ms. Geist and Mr. Hall) and the comedic archetypes and their respective roles in contributing to the comedic in this movie.

In conclusion, this movie will be easy to make connections to other works in class and has the added bonus of being hilarious.

Movie Suggestion: The Big Lebowski

The film written and directed by the Coen brothers (No Country for Old Men, Fargo, True Grit, Burn After Reading, O, Brother Where Art Thou, Barton Fink, Raising Arizona) was not a critical success when it first released in 1998. In fact, it wasn't even that well liked by audiences at the time.  Though, as the years went by, it began to steadily gain popularity and it now has a very large and fiercely loyal fan base. This film has inspired conventions, memes, and even its own religion.

The movie stars Coen Brothers veterans Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Peter Stormare, and Philip Seymoure Hoffman.

This film tells the story of the easy-going "Dude" (Bridges) and his quest to get back his stolen rug. But things don't quite go to plan as he gets caught up in a kidnapping conspiracy and a case of mistaken identity. As his life get progressively worse, he enlists the help of his two bowling buddies. One is a tiny, soft-spoken man (Buscemi), and the other is a very religious Vietnam war vet with severe PTSD and is likely to snap at any moment (Goodman). 

I think that this movie is a great choice for our class because of how it parallels The Venetian Twins in the sense of mistaken identity and how it represents Bergson's concept of the inelastic. Almost every character in the movie believes that the "Dude" is a reclusive millionaire, and they refuse to think otherwise. It is this breakdown of communication and unchanging behavior that give the story its push.

Also, I think this would be a good movie selection because it is not the same kind of comedy as the other films that have been suggested so far. It is darker in tone and the humor tends to be more subtle.  I'll admit, it is hard to sell this movie in a few short paragraphs (or even with a trailer) to someone who has not already seen it or is not already a fan of the Coen brothers.  I didn't even really want to watch it years ago, but I did only because I wanted to know why so many other people enjoyed it.  I figured out why: because it's awesome.

Below is a clip from the film where the Dude is telling his friends about what he thinks is really going on in this crazy story when they have an odd interaction with their bowling league rival Jesus.

Movie Suggestion: We're The Millers

Like mentioned in the beginning of the semester, carnivals are times to forget about all realities and societal rules. On stage, every actor puts on a new identity with only one goal, to entertain the audience while having fun.

Very much like the carnival times, We’re the Millers is a movie centered around a family trying to get across the borders of Mexico and back. But wait, they are not there for vacation. Instead, they are there trying to smuggle weed into the United States. They are not a real family either. They are just a made-up family consisting of a drug dealer (David, daddy), a stripper (Rose, mummy), a dorky virgin (Kenny, son) and a run-away girl (Casey, daughter).

It was interesting to watch this family trying to lie their way out of being a fake family while possessing a whole trailer worth of weed. Watching them working their way around each other’s lies and coming up with more lies to cover up for previous lies reminded me of the Broken Jug. Just like how Adam was always busy coming up with lies to cover up his relationship with Eve, the Millers are the exact same chaos of tangling deceptions. In an effort to keep a straight face in front of the public, they became over friendly and even found themselves stuck being friends of another family which made lying and staying on the real goal of smuggling weed even more difficult.

Besides, David’s intentions of smuggling the weed was so that he could pay back his debts and keep his life. Unlike Mrs. Wolff in the Beaver Coat, David has to do what he did in the movie to stay alive, it wasn't an action taken out of the desire for a more luxurious life. It was a crime of necessity instead of greed for wealth. Therefore, I think this would be a good movie to share with the class in continuation of the theme of plays for the past few weeks.