The Knack ...and How To Get It

As comic book nerds, most of us think of director Richard Lester as the guy who took over directing Superman II after Richard Donner was fired, and then Superman III, the one with Richard Pryor in it more than Superman. As music nerds, most of us remember Richard Lester as the director of The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night and Help!, two of the greatest and most important rock and roll films of all time. Besides those two distinctly different sets of movies, Richard Lester's talents are not very often recognized, at least in the states.

1965's The Knack ...and How to Get It was Lester at his best, riding high between Beatles films. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Though it's based on a play, you can tell that this was the more personal film he got to make after the huge success of A Hard Day's Night.

The Knack ...and How to Get It is a playful exploration of the lives and sexual politics of young people in London in the 60's. It follows Colin, a young schoolteacher in London, who has difficulty talking to women, and opens the movie expressing his sexual frustration by imagining beautiful women lined up outside the bedroom door of his housemate, Tolen, a womanizing drummer who refuses to acknowledge that he has a first name. Timid Colin asks Tolen for help with the ladies. Tolen's philosophy is all about aggression and dominance. Rounding out the trio of guys is Tom, the third lodger in Colin's house, who wears all white, paints everything in the house white, and acts as a neutral third party to all the action. Into their life comes Nancy, a young woman, fresh off the bus to London and looking for the YWCA. Nancy and Colin begin to hit it off, while Tolen uses his mystique to go in for the kill.

Richard Lester brings his signature style from the Beatles movies to The Knack. His scenes are loaded with spirited back-and-forths between the characters, while simultaneously loading his backgrounds with fun little visual gags. Colin addresses the camera, and we sometimes hear the voices of disapproving older people commenting on the action. There's a fantastic sequence where Colin, Tom, and Nancy all go to the dump to get a bigger bed for Colin. They take an old metal bed on wheels and roll it across town, back to his house.

The most fun part of The Knack ...and How To Get It is definitely all the sexual innuendo. Lester mischievously pushes a lot of boundaries, and there are even some jokes in it that I couldn't imagine being deemed appropriate even today. Towards the end, Nancy figures out how to turn the tables on the power play between these two guys, and how she does it is hilarious and even a little bit shocking for our modern sensibilities.

One last thing I noticed: Hey, I think this movie is an influence on one of my favorite directors and frequent namedrop in this blog, Edgar Wright! I was reminded many times in this movie of his TV Show, Spaced (20-somethings in London in the late 90's) and his most recent film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (20-somethings in Toronto in the nows). Wright shares Lester's visual wit, and penchant for layering his scenes with background gags aplenty. Both Wright's and Lester's movies sort of inhabit a zany hyper-reality. Nobody breaks out into kung-fu battles in The Knack, but it wouldn't have felt too out of place if they had, you know?

Update: This came in on Twitter not long after I posted the link to this blog:

I was right! Thanks, Edgar Wright! Love your work!

This movie is a whole lot of fun. If you're a fan of clever comedies and the groovy style of the British Invasion era, like I very much am, you should definitely seek this out. It's currently on Netflix Instant, so get to it!

Submarine

Submarine is the feature debut of writer/director/comedian Richard Ayoade, a coming of age film set in Wales in the 1980's. It follows Oliver Tate, an intelligent, quirky, unpopular teen on a mission to keep his parents from splitting up while at the same time navigating the waters of young romance.

Oliver is very much in the tradition of young protagonists that present themselves as smarter and more mature, but in reality have a lot of growing up to do yet. There's more than a little of Bud Cort's Harold of Harold and Maude, and Jason Schwartzman's Max Fischer of Rushmore fame in Oliver, as well as a direct reference to The Catcher in the Rye.

At the opening of the movie, we learn that Oliver has a crush on Jordana, a mischievous classmate. In his narration, he rationalizes it by saying she too is reasonably unpopular, and the very act of the two of them getting together would raise his status. He finds his in with her by tormenting an overweight girl with her. This leads to their tumultuous affair, in which Jordana calls all the shots, and they do such things for fun as burn off Oliver's leg hairs with matches.

Meanwhile, back at home, Oliver's parents are in a quiet crisis. His father (Noah Taylor), has quit taking his antidepressants and his mother (Sally Hawkins) has recently reconnected with a former lover, now neighbor, (Paddy Considine), a bemulleted New Age mystic. Oliver sees the writing on the wall and begins scheming to keep them together.

That's all I'll say about the story. Craig Roberts, who plays Oliver Tate is fantastic, as is Yasmin Paige, who plays Jordana. The rest of the cast is damn good too. I'm always happy to see Noah Taylor in things.

There are plenty of awkward moments to laugh at too. His parents are not the best parents, but they love Oliver nonetheless. A great moment in awkward parenting comes when Oliver's dad, learning he has a girlfriend, gives him a mix tape of love songs. He also well-meaningly includes some good breakup songs on the tape, for the inevitable.

Stylistically, it's not unlike Wes Anderson's films, but much more organic. I think Ayoade is drawing from the same French filmmakers' styles as Anderson, not just knocking off Anderson. Tate imagines himself as the protagonist of a French New Wave picture.

There are a couple moments in which director Richard Ayoade's previous television work shows through. He directed Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, one of my favorite British shows ever made. In Darkplace, Ayoade played a character who was a terrible actor. A running gag in the show was watching him never being able to figure out what to do with his hands. There's a great bit in Submarine with that gag, too.

Submarine is a very funny, moving, dark-ish comedy for you to go see, especially if you need a breather from all the explosions and superheroes coming out this time of year. You should all check your local showtimes.

The Tree of Life

Oh hell. How am I supposed to review Terrence Malick's Tree of Life? I don't feel qualified.

Tree of life is writer/director Terrence Malick's fifth film in 40 years. You see, it's a big deal, because Terrence Malick is the Punxatawny Phil of cinema. Every once in a while, he'll come out of his hole, with a mesmerizing new picture, see his shadow, and go back into hiding again, sometimes for as long as two decades. Every new Malick film is a true event. Tree of Life is no different. A couple weeks ago, it grabbed the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, their top honor. They're showing it on most of the screens at our local art house theater.

What is Tree of Life about? Why, it's about Life, the Universe and Everything. The above poster about sums it up. I think it might even leave some stuff out. It is not a narrative story, or even a story in the traditional sense. It's more like Terrence Malick looking back on his life and his youth, and contemplating God and the universe, and then committing it all vividly to film. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything that feels so much like someone's memory. It free-associates from one scene to the next, glimpsing sometimes only a moment, sometimes an image, sometimes something hazy or surreal.

I don't think it's 100% necessary that you are able to comprehend everything that Malick lays out for you to digest. It's a meal of many courses. What I took from the movie, more than anything else, was a whole ton of self-reflection. Malick captures with complete accuracy so many moments and emotions that only a child could experience and feel. I found myself thinking of childhood experiences that I haven't thought about in ages. Remember when the concept of boundaries was explained to you? Don't play there, that's the neighbor's yard. Don't go past this line. Remember how big your yard seemed to be, or how you would pick up snatches of your parents' world? I think I felt, or remembered feeling, just about every emotion we as humans have been assigned over the course of this film.

As expected with Terrence Malick, the cinematography is jaw-dropping. The man shoots like no other. In addition to the sprawling landscapes and nature you see in his other films, we get a glimpse at what the beginnings of the earth were like, focused through Malick's prism, and we also get our first view of an urban landscape from him. It's all beautiful. We also get some dinosaurs! There are DINOSAURS in a Terrence Malick film!

The Tree of Life may not be a film for everyone, but it is a film that I feel everyone can relate to on some level if they give it a shot. The emotions at its core are universal. It's almost 2 1/2 hours long, though, and there's not much plot for the viewer to hang their hat on, so I could see the more popcorn-driven audiences drifting. My wife heard a guy near her snoring. For me, though, it was a true experience, one best appreciated on the largest screen available.