Movie Sunday: Get Low

Image from here

What do you mean where have I been? We'll get to that later. It's movie time. Get Low is a strange story, and I'm still not sure whether I like the way the plot progresses. I won't say much more about that, because I think it's either sloppy or really clever, and if it's clever I don't want to ruin it for you.

Anyway, with the acting in this joint it doesn't really matter. I could watch these people for hours. I don't know how Robert Duvall can make a movie anymore without winning an Academy Award. He is simply brilliant in this role, bringing layer after layer of complexity to a character that seems at first to be a simple archetype we all know. And Sissy Spacek keeps up. The scenes of the two of them together are marvelous, and often painful to watch. You can see individual facial muscles twitch or relax as they react to each other and their own internal dialogues. It's the kind of control that surely can't be voluntary, but is undoubtedly purposeful.

Lucas Black (the kid from Sling Blade and American Gothic) may not be the most versatile actor on the planet, but when he finds a character that matches his sensibility, he fills it up. He plays the young idealist Buddy Robinson perfectly, and the intensity of his goodness even penetrates the lifetime of bitterness that Duval's character has steeped himself in. As Duval says at one point in the film, "For every one like me, there's one like you, son. I about forgot that."

Bill Murray rounds out the core cast, in a role that seems made for him. He has become an accomplished dramatic actor, even though I still have trouble believing it sometimes. I'm sure younger people who didn't have to suffer through his years on Saturday Night Live, and didn't see Stripes* multiple times, don't have this problem.

Get Low feels a lot like some of Clint Eastwood's films, Unforgiven and Gran Torino coming specfically to mind. It also reminds me a little of Paper Moon, though I couldn't tell you why. I don't know if we are seeing more of these life retrospective type films because audiences and fimmakers are growing older, or if I'm just noticing them more because I'm not as young as I used to be. It's subject matter that I think was once primarily the domain of playwrights. In fact, this film could easily be done as a play. It reminds me a little of an Edward Albee play I did a scene from many years ago, though the title escapes me at the moment.

If you are looking for car chases and stuff blowing up, this is probably not the right film for you. I noticed several of the IMDB comments were from idiots people who watched it based on good reviews, and found it boring or not funny. One guy complained that the photography was "too pretty for the story." I will agree that it was not particularly funny, but since it's a drama that didn't really bother me.  But if you are in the mood to watch some great acting, I definitely recommend Get Low.

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* I haven't been able to look at a spatula the same since that movie.

Compulsive much?

Image from here

Sometime during my high school years my father's construction company remodeled the four story Arkansas Game and Fish Commission building in Little Rock. My summer job started just in time for one of the final tasks, which was hanging one hundred and ninety-six steel doors in the building. That's almost two hundred doors times three hinges per door times six screws per hinge, which is, well, a lot of screws.

After inspecting the completed remodel, the client insisted that we were not finished because the hinge screws on the doors were oriented in all different directions. Seriously. After a brief but lively argument between the client and my father, I and one other worker were assigned to go through the building and turn one-hundred ninety-six times eighteen screws a quarter turn or less so that the slots on all of them were perfectly vertical. It took two days.

It's funny the sorts of thoughts that wander through one's head while working systematically through a huge empty building with a screwdriver. Thoughts like, "Well, if they all have to be oriented some direction, they might as well be the same." Or a little later, "My, these sure do look nicer like this, all uniform and consistent." Every so often I would find one that was already vertical through sheer chance, and I would celebrate a little.

I guess you see by now where this is going. For many years I made sure that virtually every screw I tightened was oriented in some specific direction. Luckily for me, Henry Phillips' screw head* technology has almost universally replaced the slot head screw in everyday use, and the visual effect with the Phillips head  is not nearly as striking. The one notable exception has been electrical switch and outlet cover plates, which have retained the slotted screws until very recently.  So if you go through my house, you will notice that every screw on every cover is oriented exactly the same. How about yours?

You're welcome.

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* As we all learned in school, the Phillips head screw was actually invented by John P. Thompson, who sold the rights to Phillips. It's always the money guys who get the credit.

Movie Sunday Back Next Week

Sorry, but we've been too tied up with home improvement projects this week to watch movies. Though we did see The King's Speech last night. It was good, even though I couldn't stop looking at Geoffrey Rush's nose. And I think living with Tim Burton is making Helena Bonham Carter even more strange than she was before, in a good way. It's probably doing wonders for him, too.

Okay, so we'll make this week's movie The King's Speech. See it if you haven't. I think it may have won some sort of award.

This will all be worth it when the painting is done.