Do two posts make you a blogger?

"I hear that guy's ass has its own congressman!"

The following are some escaped thoughts on random things/movie news. You might call them musings, much like Tracy Jordan's column in Ebony.

What I’m Watching

I have a pile of things I’ve been meaning to watch (“MST3K” Gamera box set, I’ve neglected you so!), but I’ve spent a lot of time this week watching random episodes of my NBC  favorites (“Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” “The Office”) on Netflix. Don’t worry. There will definitely be a “Parks and Recreation” post before the fourth season premieres September 22, which is still much too far away for my liking.

I also broke out season seven of “The Simpsons”, easily one of its best seasons. There’s not an unfunny episode in the bunch and it’s chock full of some true classics (“King Size Homer,” “Bart Sells His Soul,” “The Day the Violence Died”).

What I’m Not Watching

I know this is said so much every year that it has lost all meaning, but it’s really been a crappy year at the movies. Unfortunately, judging by what’s coming out in the next few weeks, it doesn’t look like that’s going to change. Aside from this weekend’s Guillermo del Toro produced remake of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” there’s all of one wide release that I have the slightest interest in seeing until early October. Only Nicholas Winding Refn’s Cannes darling “Drive” (September 16), a stylish action drama with Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Christina Hendricks, looks promising. I was interested in Steven Soderbergh’s ensemble viral plague drama “Contagion” (September 9) until I saw its trailer.

George Lucas screws with something in “Phantom Menace,” world remains indifferent

The six “Star Wars” adventures (the three good ones and the rest) make their Blu-ray debuts in late September with some new bonus features, including previously unseen deleted scenes. As George Lucas is wont to do, he’s “improved” the films for release on a new format, ditching puppetry in favor of more beautiful CGI. This time around, the Yoda puppet featured in some scenes of 1999’s “The Phantom Menace” has been replaced by a digital creation matching the character’s look in the later prequel episodes. It’s certainly an effort, but no amount of CG “fixes” can make “The Phantom Menace” a decent movie. Never one to be deterred, I’m sure Lucas is already planning how Industrial Light and Magic will replace Ian McDiarmid for the next home media release in 2025 (when movies will be released via clouds of hallucination-inducing vapors).

New Pixar films announced at D23

The biggest news of Disney’s recent D23 expo was the announcement of two new, currently untitled Pixar releases: “The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs” (November 27, 2013) and “The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind” (May 30, 2014).

Bob Peterson, who co-directed 2009’s “Up,” and Peter Sohn, director of the short “Partly Cloudy,” will direct the dinosaur project. Peterson’s fellow “Up” codirector Pete Docter and “Dug’s Special Mission” short director Ronnie del Carmen will handle the film about the mind. Little information about these projects was announced, but the tremendous talents behind them make me extremely hopeful.

While I’m sure these projects were greenlighted before this summer’s “Cars 2” proved sequelitis affects even Pixar, it’s great to see the studio make a return to original storytelling. 

"The Help": Don't confuse it with the Beatles movie!

Movie Review:

"The Help" (2011, dir. Tate Taylor)

It’s become a tradition over the last few years for studios to counterprogram big budget action films in the dwindling days of summer with adaptations of books your mom probably likes (2009’s “Julie and Julia,” 2010’s “Eat Pray Love”).

This year, we get “The Help,” an adaptation of Kathryn Stackett’s bestseller about the plight of African-American maids in early 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi and the progressive white writer who helps tell their stories.

Directed and adapted by Stackett’s friend, first time director Tate Taylor, “The Help” is a fairly glossy Hollywood drama full of underwritten characters and a flabby plot. While some of the performances are quite solid, “The Help” is fundamentally too shallow.

The film is told from the point of view and infrequent voiceover of Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), a middle aged maid who has raised numerous white children while suffering institutionalized discrimination. Reeling from the death of her adult son, Aibileen is caring for the neglected toddler daughter of the meek, depressed housewife Elizabeth (Ahna O’Reilly). Things start to change when recent college graduate Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone), an aspiring journalist from a well-heeled family, approaches Aibileen for help with a household cleaning column she’s been hired to write. This innocuous request turns into something more when the Skeeter asks for stories on life as a black domestic for a book. As the project takes off, Aibileen’s best friend Minny (Octavia Jackson) joins, recounting some of her own experiences as a maid. The women are acutely aware they are placing not only their livelihoods, but their lives at risk by telling their stories.

Skeeter is between two worlds, longing for a career while remaining part of an upper class social circle of racist Southern belles. Among these is the film’s main antagonist, Skeeter’s friend and Minny’s former employer, Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), a villain so broad she needs a mustache to twirl. Hilly also serves as one of the film’s main sources of comedy as she endures the indignity of having toilets placed on her lawn and eats a shit-laced revenge pie (not kidding, I have also trademarked this phrase for future endeavors). The capable Howard thankfully plays the character with a minimum amount of scenery chewing.

There is no dearth of great actresses in this cast. Jessica Chastain, luminous as the mother in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” is a welcome presence, even if she’s playing the underwritten role of Celia Foote, a clueless but gentle housewife shunned by Hilly’s crew. Spencer, who played such roles as Women in Elevator in “Being John Malkovich” and Bank Coworker #1 in “Drag Me to Hell,” delivers a breakout performance as a character who finds moments of levity in some horrific situations. Her scenes with Chastain and Davis are easily some of the film’s highpoints. She’s clearly a versatile performer and hopefully this leads to some better roles.

The film's greatest asset is Davis’ heartbreaking performance. It truly deserves a better movie. Unlike many of “The Help’s” characters, Aibileen never feels broadly drawn and this is due to Davis’ immense skill. Her portrayal feels as natural and lived-in as any I’ve seen in a recent studio movie. Stone, ostensibly the co-lead, doesn’t necessarily deliver a bad performance, but her character is so flat and relatively uninteresting that it’s irritating when the story focuses on her and not Davis.

At 146 minutes, “The Help” meanders almost from the very beginning and flat out drags once it enters its third hour. While tightening things up by ditching some characters and subplots wouldn’t have solved all of the film’s problems, it would have at helped.

One of the main controversies surrounding “The Help” is the question of whether a story of black oppression during such a shameful, recent period in history should rightfully be told by white filmmakers while black writers and directors remain so marginalized by the industry. Additionally, many critics have derided the film as reinforcing the trope of the white savior.

“The Help” may not be willfully trying to reinforce stereotypes but it’s definitely ignorant. It has a tendency to shift to the less affecting exploits of its white characters. Sadly, I think this is a consequence of the idea that white filmgoers are reluctant to see a film about the black experience unless it’s told largely through the eyes of a white character. This signals a problem, not only in studio filmmaking, but in our culture.

While I’d like to say any piece of mass entertainment that brings up hard issues our society only reluctantly discusses deserves to exist, “The Help” botches its handling of those ideas so severely that it doesn't provide anything to the conversation.

Marc’s Grade: C-

Back and no worse for wear

Hi.

I've always enjoyed writing. I'm also deeply in love with movies and television programs. As for books, they can go to hell! All snobby and erudite like they know something I don't! Just kidding. Sort of. Books are okay. I've got nothin' against books. Anyway, back on track. "They" (Who? The Red Squad?) always say "write what you know" and what I know is pop culture. After a long, unintended hiatus from writing, I've decided to give it one of those old-fashioned tries and begin blogging on pop culture once again.

While movies and TV are definitely my main interests under the pop culture umbrella, I definitely won't be limiting myself to those mediums. So stick around. Hopefully, you'll like what I write, or at least find it interesting. If not, then you're probably part of the Red Squad.