Like It's 1999

by Kevin Powers

Two weekends ago, before March Madness took hold and at the beginning of my latest conquest of AMC's The Walking Dead, I watched two movies that have proven themselves formative in my passion for the movies. Both released in 1999 and both dealing with teenage casts, these two films stand out in the list of my favorites from high school and still today. They are vastly different, yet near and dear to me in many ways.

Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel The Virgin Suicides, is one of those films that will live in me forever. Its sounds and images forever embedded in the pantheon of my movie memory. It opens perfectly as such, a combination of moving image and music. Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) standing in the middle of a sun-drenched suburban elm-lined street finishing a lollipop, the first notes of the beautiful, modern movie score by French band, Air. The camera continues its track down that street. Men water their lawns. City workers mark elm trees to be cut down. Small set details depict the 1970s teenage girls' bedroom. Water drips from a tap. My love for music, movies, and Kirsten Dunst (my high school fantasy) all coming together.

Thus begins Sofia Coppola's lesson in adaptation of good literature. The narrator (Giovanni Ribisi) begins the voiceover that will run throughout the movie, it is Euginides' beautifully simple prose: "Cecilia was the first to go." Coppola's camera hovers over a young girl in a bathtub of bloody water. The mood and tone is set. This is a modern movie set in the 1970s about troubled youth, but it is not at all what I, or anyone else having not read the book at the time, thought it would be.

There are five Lisbon sisters, their wimp father, Mr. Lisbon (James Woods), "our math teacher," their mother, Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner), and the boys, all the boys, the neighborhood boys, infatuated by their beauty and what it represents to them. That young, intelligent, sensitive boys often spend more time daydreaming and crushing instead of acting out their emotions is not lost on Coppola or Eugenides. And that is the beauty of this film.

Trapped by their extremely overbearing mother, Mrs. Lisbon, the five blond, teenage beauties of this particular Detroit suburb circa 1975 have little contact with males their own age, especially outside of school. It is summer, and the Lisbon's decide, after Cecilia attempts suicide, they will throw their daughters a party. The neighborhood boys are all invited, each receiving meticulously detailed and glittering invitations. We see them passing to each of their hands. They show up awkwardly to the party, not knowing how to approach what they see as unattainable. They can barely even talk to the girls. Todd Rundgren's "A Dream Goes On Forever" and The Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" play underneath. A noise is heard from outside, Cecilia has succeeded in suicide. The party is over.

After the tragedy, the remaining girls return to their private Catholic school. The boys watch them from afar. Try to talk to them and not. Taking the Eugenides' novel a step further, Coppola interweaves mockumentary-style interviews. In one scene, one of the neighborhood boys, Tim Weiner (Jonathan Tucker), looks out the window in class sees Lux Lisbon out on the lawn, some loser boy whispers in her ear, and Tim says to his buddy, "He made her laugh. I've never heard him say anything remotely intelligent." Perfect. For boys like me, just like Tim, we foolishly thought that intelligence and sensitivity would win over the beauties. Oh, how that is not the case when you're sixteen.

Enter Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett in a horribly bad wig), tall and lanky, star athlete, king of the ladies and the sexual conquest. Avoiding the principal, he ducks into the nearest classroom and sees her, Lux Lisbon. She ignores him. Her parents would never allow her to date. He comes over to "watch the tube." He gets in his car. Heart's "Crazy On You" on the soundtrack in one of the best matches between image and sound ever. He is as infatuated as the other boys. He will ask her to "Homecoming," the big dance. We see an adult trip in an interview remembering how much he loved her. He has aged poorly, a recovering alcoholic in a treatment facility. What happens with the boys and the girls leading up to and at the dance is just brilliant. So matter-of-fact.  I won't spoil anymore plot. It's too crazy to.

When I watched The Virgin Suicides on DVD for the first time back in 2000 (age 16), I was that neighborhood boy in infatuation. As I revisited this film many times as I grew into an adult, the greatness of this film became something more to me. This is a simple narrative not about a group of beautiful, trapped sisters but about the boys that loved them. Sofia Coppola took a really good debut novel and turned it into perfect debut film. It opens and closes with his prose and that score by Air. It was the first perfect new movie I saw as an budding adult.

I knew Tracy Flick. We all did in school. She's that girl who gets up at the crack of dawn to bake cupcakes for the voters as the SGA election season begins at Carver High School. This Carver High School is in Omaha, Nebraska. As she sets up her signature booth, her U.S. Government teacher, Mr. McAllister runs laps on the track around the football field. He showers. Puts on his tie, and makes a well-planned mess in the teacher's lounge. We are introduced for the first time to Alexander Payne's style. Simple, normal, perfect. The movie is Election.

Alexander Payne went on from there to make some of my favorite movies (Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska). But this one, his first hit, is my favorite. This is simply due to the fact that I was there at that age in that time and place. I identify with it. As I said, I knew Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the ambitious over-achiever. And part of me wanted to be Mr. McAllister, Teacher of the Year, favorite teacher of many. I mean, I became a public school teacher.

Election is generally referred to as a political satire, and it is. The political spectrum in microcosm...a high school SGA presidential election. Flick is the front-runner and unopposed. But McAllister can't stand her. She's that kid who bounces as she raises her hand while the teacher scours for someone else to call on. She also just had an affair with Mr. McAllister's best friend and former co-worker, Dave Novotny (Mark Harelik). Bitter about his friend and stuck in a boring marriage to Diane (Molly Hagan), McAllister enlists injured, dumb, star-athlete and simpleton, Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), to run against Tracy. In a series of twists, Paul's adopted sister, Tammy (Jessica Campbell), decides to run as well. All hell breaks loose, and Tracy's dreams may just get shattered.

Adapted from a novel by Tom Perotta, Election is funny and, at times, shocking. Alexander Payne's style is part of its charm. He is just so matter-of-fact towards his characters. Often, people feel as though Payne is making fun of these salt-of-the-earth types. He is not. He loves them, so we love them. Consider a scene where the camera follows Mr. McAllister down to the basement. He opens a chest filled with old blankets, removes a false-bottom to reveal stacks of porn videos. He puts one on. Its the classic football-player (played by a forty-year-old man) and cheerleader (late twenties) scene. He sips his Pepsi and hears Tracy in his head. "Coke is by far the world's leading soft drink." Cut from the porn vid to a close-up of McAllister's face as he sips. A ding is heard on the soundtrack. "Paul," he says. Cut to footage of a skier wiping out on a steep mountain. Now, a new character is introduced and the voiceover narration (at this point only heard from McCallister and Flick) shifts to Paul, who broke his leg at a skiing trip losing any hope of playing football again.

All told, this film contains four different narrators shifting about throughout the movie. This is my favorite thing about this movie. In another scene, the night before the election, each of the four main characters say a prayer in voice over. The camera hovers above each one lying in bed, and we hear all of their shallow, desperate prayers. Simple people with simple lives and simple prayers. It is the funniest scene in the film. And Election is one of my favorite films, from then and now.

The year 1999 was a great year for movies. Alan Ball and Sam Mendes took home Oscars for the great American Beauty. Frank Darabont (developer of AMC's The Walking Dead) released his second feature and Stephen King adaptation The Green Mile. I was a sophomore in high school. I fell in love with Kirsten Dunst in my head and crushed on a girl named Amanda in real life. I worshipped Steven Spielberg and had watched all of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather movies. But something different happened that year. I began to appreciate smaller, more personal films, including The Virgin Suicides and Election and began to understand cinema as an art form. I never knew that smaller, independent films existed. I fell in love.  

Take Me Back to the Start: A Look at HBO's True Detective

by Kevin Powers

grit·ty \ˈgri-tē\ adjective  : having strong qualities of uncompromising realism <a gritty novel>

(See also: HBO’s True Detective)

Well, what you've all heard is true, especially those of you who haven't seen it, True Detective is the most important piece of television since The Sopranos. So much so that it has given us a newish concept: The Anthology Series. That is, McConaughey and Harrelson will not do a second season. A second season will happen with different actors in a different place at a different time. This was a "finite thing" as McConaughey told Rolling Stone in a post-Best Actor Win interview. (By the way, you can expect a post-Emmy for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series interview and statue in his Texas home come Emmy time. This is his finest work, even finer than that in Dallas Buyers Club. Who would've thought? Matthew "they stay the same age" McConaughey is one of the finest dramatic actors of his generation.) What a world all this opens up to HBO, to TV fans, to film fans, to true crime fans, to life itself. True Detective is just that good.

The "anthology" set-up allows for a full story to unfold. Yes, that silly plot diagram they taught you in middle school (see Figure A). All of its parts get filled in. The exposition, the rising actions, the shocking climaxes of episodes 4-6 (the three greatest TV episodes ever made), the falling action, the slow denouement in which a little light is finally brought into the darkness...literally. It is a sight to behold. It will be talked about for years. It will never be matched unless writer-creator Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Fukunaga somehow outdo themselves in a second season. I was upset when this past Sunday night came and went without more. The story is over, but I want more.

Figure A.

I've decided to start at the end, discussing (lightly) each episode one at a time framed with its title and a quote from Rust Cohle (McConaughey). His now-famous soliloquies are, after all, one of the greatest aspects of this show's wonder. So, here it is:

Form and Void - "Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning."

Two middle-aged detectives have found their man after 17 years. They are both injured, nearly fatally. They look into the night sky speckled with tiny bits of light, stars, Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), and Cohle finally spills it. He is tortured by a tragic past (now 25 years gone). And he let's out with it. The Yellow King is no more. The sadness is lifted if only a little. The denouement.

At first, I felt unsatisfied. Like it was too easy. Too "light" if you will. But perhaps that's the way of things. When you journey so long and hard into torture and pain and tragedy, darkness, the end must have at least a touch of light.

After You've Gone - "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at."

That Rust Cohle is such a great detective is not lost on him, or anyone else. The fact is that it's the year 2012, and he hasn't been official police for 10 years. At this point, neither has Marty. He left the Louisiana State Police CID Unit as well for the private detection world. A bit easier to stomach than being the murder police. After all these years apart, Hart lets Cohle back into his life (not really by choice, but sort of), and the hunt begins again. Cohle knows that the "man with the scars" did it. And he knows what was done. He also knows that it goes all the way to the top, to the State House, where a man named Tuttle sits, his long line of relatives into some high cultish religious stuff. It all has to do with young children, ceremonial religious sacrifice, etc. It is "deep and dark" as Cohle says previously. There is a videotape. Its contents can only be guessed at. It plays two times. Both times, it makes grown men cry and scream. The clues are all in place thanks to some shifty work at the CID offices. The falling action.

Haunted Houses - "Without me, there is no you."

2002. The falling out. Two detectives, working cases together for 7 years. Cohle knows he's the best, better than Marty. He keeps thinking that maybe back in 1995, they didn't get their guy after all. He keeps hearing about "The Yellow King." A "man with scars." He remembers things that aren't working out. He remembers the victims' names, Dora Lange, Marie Fontaineau, etc. He sees their faces. He is obsessed. One of the more shocking twists in this or any other television show is found in this episode, perhaps the darkest of the season. Hart and Cohle finally have it out. Cohle has already quit. He disappears.

If it seems as if I'm telling you too much, that's the beauty of True Detective. I could never say enough. I haven't even hinted at anything.

The Secret Fate of All Life - "So Death created Time to grow the things that it would kill."

2012. Two middle-aged detectives sit in separate rooms being questioned about what they know about a man named Reggie Ledoux, a man they pegged as the murderer they were after, the killer of Dora Lange, and possibly others.

1995. The scene of the crime. The man Hart and Cohle have been looking for is found way out in the sticks. He is a meth cook, who also dabbles in LSD. A bad man. The victims all have these two drugs in their system. This is their guy. This is the most shockingly unexpected and violent thing I've seen on television.

The middle of this episode (right in the middle of our middle school plot diagram) is our climax. Then, this show frees itself from time altogether for the next episode and a half. It is one of the most astounding things I've ever seen. If I remember correctly, I sat with my mouth gaped open, my eyes glued to the screen, and did not move a muscle for the last 30 minutes of this episode.

Who Goes There - "So, enough with the self-improvement-penance-hand-wringing shit. Let's go to work."

2012. Two middle-aged detectives sit in separate rooms being questioned about what they know about the case so far. The murder of Dora Lange. The procedural.

1995. In which Hart and Cohle catch wind of the involvement of a Texas biker gang into the meth game. Hart's marriage to Maggie (Michele Monaghan) is on the rocks. Cohle decides to go undercover. Hart will be the getaway driver. Cohle gets in with Ginger, one of the biker thugs. They go to rob a stash house in a black gang-ridden housing project. He is coked out of his mind. He is intense. The final 7 minutes is one unbroken shot in and out of houses and across yards and streets with gunshots to the heads, blood aplenty. It is the most technically sound sequence ever shot for television, and recent film history period, for that matter. It put this show on the radar of cinephiles and TV fans alike. It is glorious.

The Locked Room  - (see below)

2012. Two middle-aged detectives sit in separate rooms being questioned about what they know about the murder investigation of a woman named Dora Lange. Rust Cohle is pony-tailed, mustachioed. He looks rough. He takes long drags from his Camel Blues. He drinks Lone Star tall-boys, cuts the empty cans, and makes standing stick figures. He is haunted. He says, "To realize that all your life, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain, it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it."

1995. The camera glides over a small grassy hill. It slowly zooms in to reveal a man shirtless in his underwear wearing a gas mask. That shot from all the previews you've seen for months as you watched Boardwalk Empire has finally come. And True Detective has truly begun. The rising action begins.

Seeing Things - "I can't say the job made me this way. More like me being this way made me right for the job."

2012. Two middle-aged detectives sit in separate rooms being questioned about what they know about the murder of a woman named Dora Lange. Marty Hart wears a suit in his interview. He is mostly asked questions about who Rust Cohle was as a person. Hart only knows him as a great detective and an enigma.

1995. Two young detectives chase leads based around symbolic wooden stick figures found here and there. Deer antlers, creepy stuff. Newly partnered together, they have a hard time getting along. Hart is the straight family man with a younger woman on the side. Cohle is a tortured soul. He is philosophical. He has problems with drugs and alcohol. He gets to know Hart's family, a wife and two daughters. He likes them. Hart doesn't trust Cohle around his wife and kids. Maggie, Hart's wife, has a soft spot for Rust. He needs love in his life, a woman perhaps. The two find a strange piece of graffiti on an abandoned church wall. Cohle sees visions, has hallucinations. The mood is set. The exposition continues.

The Long Bright Dark - "I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law."

2012. Two middle-aged detectives sit in separate rooms being questioned about what they know about a murdered woman named Dora Lange found posed on her knees in front of an old live oak. She has deer antlers on her head. Two younger detectives question Cohle and Hart separately. They have the pictures, the case files. They have a new murder that suggests some similarities to Dora Lange.

1995. Two young detectives recently partnered together share an uncomfortably silent ride to a crime scene. This new detective to the Louisiana State Police CID, Rust Cohle, is odd. He makes Marty Hart uncomfortable. They find the body. This odd new detective keeps a notebook, a full large notebook. The other detectives at the station-house find this strange, they find him strange. They make fun of him. He doesn't take notes. He draws pictures, very detailed pictures.



From the moment the opening credit sequence begins with the haunting song "Far From Any Road" by The Handsome Family, you are hooked. This show is Southern Gothic Literature to the max. It is true crime like you've never seen. It is literary. It sticks in your mind and possesses your soul. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Best Picture

by Kevin Powers

Since I got pulled away from my computer to entertain guests for our 3rd Annual Oscar Party at The Homestead aka Amanda's and my house. in old Clinton, Tennessee, I was unable to give a breakdown of each Best Picture nominee. 

It's too late now, but I will say that all of these movies were original and beautiful in their own ways. I regret not writing about 12 Years a Slave, so I will when it comes to Blu-Ray...I promise, to you and my mother and myself. 

How about a ranked list with small notes instead of a full-on breakdown? Yes. That's what it shall be...

9. British Comedian Co-writes an Oscar Drama

The only one I haven't seen, and, after the ceremony last night, I really want to. Too bad this film's distributors didn't make it look as good as the Oscar telecast did. I mean, I love Steve Coogan. He's awesome...and hilarious. This movie just didn't seem like it would be very good to me. I'll see it eventually. 

8. Young Somali Man Takes Down Hanks

Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips is a fine action movie, and, as it turned out, a powerful study of the harsh realities of lives led by desperate men. Tom Hanks and newcomer Barkhad Abdi delivered superb performances.

7. Dudes Who Diet Together Win Together

Dallas Buyers Club is a simple, powerful character study based on real-life Texan and AIDS victim Ron Woodruff. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto took home statues last night and deserved them. They also both delivered beautiful acceptance speeches.

6. Chiwetel Will NOT Fall Into Despair

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is an absolutely beautifully directed and acted movie. The screenplay for which John Ridley also won last night is just perfect and the performances matched the power of its words, it's story.

5. Sound Mixing and Editing and Sandy Bullock Breathing

Alfonso Cuaron took home Oscars for directing and editing Gravity. This flick truly is a testament to the magic of the cinema taking all the major technical awards with its groundbreaking techniques. Brilliant and exciting and suspenseful, Gravity's images have not left me since I first saw it in IMAX 3D last fall.

4. Futuristic Hipster First to Fall in Love with Computer

Spike Jonze's Her, not Meryl Streep (haha!), is the definition of a filmmaker's fully realized vision, a vision of the future that seems actually real and plausible. It also awards the viewer with love and compassion. This movie cares about its characters and appreciates its audiences' intelligence. 

3. Chubby New Jerseyan with Hairpiece Has Hot Girlfriend and Wife

American Hustle is just a fun movie to watch. The performances are intense and crazy as is the narrative David O. Russell has constructed. I keep thinking about just how much fun I had watching this flick.

2. Quaaludes Think About Making a Comeback

What a joy that Leo and Marty made this movie. It is three hours of dude movie bliss. Loud and raucous and colorful and profane and brilliant. Leo did his best work yet as the real-life corporate slime ball, Jordan Belfort, and, in my opinion, offered a better performance than winner Matthew McConaughey. But I'm sure his time will come...

1. Hopeless Old Coot Thinks He Won the Sweepstakes

Ah, Nebraska! My favorite, as it turns out, of the Best Picture nominees. I think the level of importance with some of the other nominated films knocked it down a bit, but it is important...and simple, which is more my kind of thing. It is about simple people, funny and real people, in a simple place with simple dreams. It is written very simply by Bob Nelson. Understated and beautiful in its black-and-white widescreen cinematography. Perfectly directed by an absolute pro of a storyteller in Alexander Payne. And performed to match by the greats Bruce Dern and June Squibb.

Best Director

by Kevin Powers

These dudes are for real!

David O. Russell - American Hustle

Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity

Alexander Payne - Nebraska

Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave

Martin Scorsese - The Wolf of Wall Street

Powers' Favorite: Alexander Payne

Powers' Prediction: Alfonso Cuaron

In a Leading Role: Part II - The Gentlemen

by Kevin Powers

Now, this race is a good one. It really comes down to just two. Is it Leo, or is it Matthew?

I'm thinking the old weight-loss trick takes it!

Christian Bale in American Hustle

So, we were all wondering what happened to all that weight McConaughey lost. Well, it went into Christian Bale's gut. That thing is epic as is the hairpiece. This is one of Bale's best roles. He transformed himself into the oddly charismatic grifter, Irving Rosenfeld. The intensity of American Hustle's later scenes are where Bale really brings his A-game. Great role for a great actor.

Bruce Dern in Nebraska

I can't begin to tell you how happy it makes me that Bruce Dern got this role. He is an actor you just don't see much of anymore. His last good work was on HBO's Big Love, in which he played the fundamentalist father of the Bill Paxton character. His work here is stern and understated. He truly becomes the quiet, alcoholic old coot on a quest for his publisher's clearinghouse-style fortune. And in the beautiful last scenes of this movie, he was perfect.

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street

Dear Leo,

Oh, Leo, when will you catch a break? You are forty, playing a man in his twenties (for the most part), and your energy is just astounding. I'm so glad you talked Marty into making this movie. It was the best time I had spending three hours since last baseball season. This is my favorite role of the year. I really, really want you take this one, Leo. It's your time...I hope!

Best of luck,

Kevin

Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave

What a powerful performance from a great actor. 12 Years a Slave is a masterful historical drama, and Ejiofor's work matches Steve McQueen's vision to perfection. Playing such an emotional man in an even more emotional situation must have been challenging. I applaud this actor for that alone.

Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Old McConaughey is doing things right now that are just perfrect. He is making small movies for little money and even jumping onto the HBO scene with the impeccable True Detective. His role as AIDS patient Ron Woodruff is without a doubt his best work to date. He will win tonight. I will be OK with that.

Powers' Favorite: Leonardo DiCaprio

Powers' Prediction: Matthew McConaughey