Movie Diary

1) Troll 2 and Best Worst Movie: It's a handy coincidence that Best Worst Movie happened to be showing right around the time we finally got down to watching Troll 2, which is pretty much as terrible as advertised. It bears strong similarities to The Room, in that, often, actors in a scene together could almost have been filmed entirely separately and then spliced digitally next to one another. Not to mention its bizarre vehemently anti-vegetarian content. But Best Worst Movie really transcends its subject matter to become a film about cult/bad movies in general, the people who love them, the nature of acting as a profession (and filmmaking, more broadly), and how politeness works in different areas of the country and the world. It's nearly as quotable as its ostensible subject, too, and it's extremely smart in the way it's put together to create a narrative. A lot of people who make low-budget documentaries don't have this gift. They just sort of film some stuff and slap it together, assuming the content is all they need, but it's not, and it's nice to see someone who knows how to do it. High-concept will only get you so far, and Best Worst Movie knows how to reveal. The moment when, in Margo Prey's house, the viewer becomes cognizant of the weird cat painting on the wall in the background is beautifully followed up on by a shot of more cat art and, finally, by her turning around to get something, upon which you realize she has an airbrushed cat on the back of her shirt. That's talent. It's also a lovely film in that it realizes how small its audience is, and it doesn't make fun of them, but it knows that there are limitations in the world. The cult of Troll 2 is not a large one, and even it is a subset of the world of cult movies, which is also not large. The looks people give George Hardy both after and before the screening in his hometown of Alexander City when they've either realized what an awful movie it is or he's trying, actively, to sell them on the idea that a bad movie can be fun make you realize, once again, that if you like this kind of thing you are by far in the minority. It also shows a kind of rage at the lack of success of the film and the careers of various people involved with it. Realizing your limitations is not fun. Yet for all this pathos, it's a very funny movie and far, far better than it had to be.

2) Babies: It's like an exercise in juxtaposition, a reinvigoration of Eisenstein's theories about film editing. You create the plot and the statements as you watch, based on what gets edited next to what. It's also beautiful. If you're not into babies, you probably wouldn't like it, but I find myself into babies these days. Comparing and contrasting is something parents do constantly, so this is like an hour and a half of that. Also, I might want to live in a yurt.

3) The Ghost Writer: So there's perhaps a bit of subtext about extradition here, due to Polanski's own situation, but that works to the film's advantage, making it richer and more faceted. Ewan McGregor is a marvelous weak coward, and the ambiguity that absolutely every moment has (down to the end, which reinforces a strongly held belief of mine about proper pedestrianism but is otherwise up in the air wrt intentionality and what it means) makes it much more interesting than just a political thriller. There are ghosts everywhere, not just the kind the title first denotes, and there is a real spookiness to the atmosphere of the whole thing, a cold, clammy creeping horribleness that is Polanski's stock in trade.