Thursday 17 September 2009

500 Days in a Cinema

It must first be said that 500 Days of Summer is of the romantic comedy genre and as such cannot be taken too seriously, which renders any serious review somewhat obsolete. That being said, it is still vital for any film, of any genre, to do what it does well. 'Slumdog Millionaire', for example, had a very staged and theatre-like, performance feel (dancing at the end anyone?), but having asked the audience to make that leap and accept the format, it then executed the film within those boundaries to great dramatic effect, and quite effortlessly too. 500 Days of Summer, on the other hand, really needs to get over itself and stop trying so desperately hard to impress THE YOUTH.

Throughout the film 500 Days of Summer is absolutely desperate to point out how cool and artistic it is. Oh oh, he's all sad, LOOK, as we freeze frame and make all the world around him turn into a drawing! No, I'm sorry 500 Days.. but if you're asking me to SUDDENLY suspend my disbelief, you have failed. This doesn't happen.
The film contradicts itself. First of all it wants to make us believe that this is some really accurate account of male/female relationships in the 21st Century (which it sometimes does with some very acute observations) and then suddenly it wants to start doing pretty drawings, choreographed dances and strange montages all over the place! It needs to make up it's mind and take us, the audience, from there. It was bad enough that the film seemed to jump from the end of the relationship, to the beginning, to the middle, to about two-fifths of the way, then back up to near the end, then to one third through, then to blah blah blah. My fault really, I simply hadn't realised that I was watching 'Back to the Future IV, Revenge of the Empty Romance'.

I like to think of myself as a fair man (FUCK OFF, I AM) and so I will duly cut this film the slack it deserves. As I said, it does make some astute observations about modern day relationships, which I think the standard romantic comedy of the day might otherwise miss. While someone like Ben Stiller is falling into a plate of spaghetti or something, 500 Days of Summer is more keen on pointing out the nuances of how people interact these days. In addition to this, some bits genuinely were funny. Not laugh out loud funny of course, but there were amusing, clever and smirk-worthy moments, usually at the expense of the main guy, Heath Ledger's Double. In fact, I did laugh out VERY loudly at one point when Heath Ledger 2 was pissed off with Zooey Deschanel (I'll be coming back to her) and he was marching down the stairs really fast and angrily and then these two women just stood right in his way and he really sarcastically made an 'after-you' gesture that cracked me up; I could relate to it with every fibre of my being. Just that bit though. So, kudos to you then, Indie Film Factory (who I can only presume made this film).

This leads me conveniently on to, eeer, a few niggles that I have concerning this film. Small, hardly worth mentioning actually, just...you know...one or two problems that I have with the way the film, uuh...presents itself, yes. Go now and look at the trailer for this film, because it captures quite clearly what I hated about 500 Days of Summer. Go now and watch it, ok? Enjoy. Watch it, and then continue reading this.

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.........ok? Good. Here is my reaction


AAAAAARGH! AAAAAARGH! AAAAAARGH fucking, AAAAAARGH!

I fucking hate indie films [whatever they are] with so much passion nowadays, and this was no exception. 500 Days of Summer's trailer begins with kooky pretty person #1 saying "I love the Smiths", to which the reply from Heath Ledger 2 (a predictably geeky kinda cool, kooky guy), is "You love the Smiths?" - "Yeah I love the Smiths".....yes, yes, we all fucking LOVE the Smiths don't we, because it's old and not really very mainstream and isn't Morrisey a modern day poet and wouldn't it be great one day if he just came round and raped us to the tune of Charming Man? Ooh, ooh, you LOVE the Smiths? Well keep your opinions to your FUCKING self alright!? You're a fucking romantic comedy film alright, NOT SOME FASCIST MTV DICTATOR! "LISTEN TO THIS COOL MUSIC OR BE FORCED TO WORK IN THE MUSIC MINES FOR ALL ETERNITY, DIGGING FOR OBSCURE LPS! Bloody bastards.

Films like 500 Days of Summer are not in the school of keeping their opinions, their likes and dislikes, to themselves, are they? And apparently neither am I, but I don't have a trailer of myself, and I'm not hideously contrived. I don't need another fucking cunt of an indie film shoving it's needlessly obscure-but-not-obscure music taste down my throat! Have iTunes suddenly started making movies now, or is it just a coincidence that every time a film is trying to show a bit of character, it does so by cramming a playlist into your severed ear holes? In perhaps a twist of irony, 500 Days of Summer represents everything wrong with our generation, a big part of which is this empty need for all these people with bland personalities to define themselves through their music tastes? Are most people of my generation reeeally anything more than their likes and dislikes? No, most of them lack any personality whatsoever and are just hideous Frankenstein amalgamations of celebrities, objects, music, art and literature, force fed opinions through a tube leading straight to Market Research Central - hence, 500 Days of Summer - take your medicine dull members of the public... anyway, back to the film I went to see, as I said, the irony is that like the people who probably really enjoyed this film, 500 Days of Summer is a lot less than the sum of it's parts. Perhaps I am doing the film an injustice, because Heath Ledger 2 does observe during the movie that (basically, if I'm remembering correctly) all love is nowadays is a mash-up of what everyone sees on TV and hears in songs and things and that we all just get fed lines from soulless greeting cards...something like that...but maybe 500 Days of Summer is aware of how hideously kitsch it is, and that's why he says it.

But then, IN YET ANOTHER MAD FIT OF IRONY, our generation is the one that tries to be so ironic, that it's not. To quote the hipster olympics (), 500 Days of Summer is "so ironic it's not, so unironic, it is". Haha. Brilliant.
500 Days of Summer makes such a big point of 'not being a typical love story' (thank you contrived narrator voice) that it really is one. It was cliche central, quite on purpose, but to the extent where it was too much. Like when someone pretends to like The X-Factor ironically, but then they really do. It's a plain fact that too many cliches, make your film a cliche.

Also, do you recall in Will Smith's film 'I, Robot' that there were a hideous number of company products everywhere (Converse, Audi, etc) - well, in 500 Days of Summer, say hello to something which 'Juno' laid the foundations for, welcome to the world oooof:

"INDIE PRODUCT PLACEMENT". I have invented this term, and I copyright it.

Yes, if you like to be a cool-kid on the bleck, then you'll love this Joy Division T-Shirt, this Clash t-shirt (that's how we know what music Heath Ledger 2 likes, and THAT'S how we can relate to him, you see?) or perhaps you'd like to purchase this..aha..ironic piece of Ringo Starr memorabilia! EVERYTHING MUST GO! BUY IT NOW SO THAT EVERYONE HAS IT!
And what’s with all these kooky, sweet little acoustic numbers when some girl with a bad voice sings innocently. WHEN DID IT BECOME COOL NOT TO BE ABLE TO SING!? It doesn't matter that she can't sing, because she's genuine, and she sings about holding hands and 'when we used to go and play with sticks' or some unrealistic shit like that never happened because in reality you met the guy in a disgusting bar or somewhere corporate and you got too drunk and he never called you again you stupid bitch. I'm tired of all these specially tailored indie films that look like they have been constructed by a five year old with finger paints - HOW FUN AND ORIGINAL AND KOOKY, THIS CHARACTER GOT ALL THEIR CLOTHES FROM A CHARITY SHOP, yeeeeah, fuck corporations, boooooo! BLOODY BOOOOO, we're all sheep because we're not ourselves and we don't have giant headphones and record players and ornate furniture from your grandmas house and we don't sit and laugh at all the NORMS over our coffee and fucking, CUPCAKES.
The pretentious nature of this film is well illustrated by a guy who tries to chat up the main lady in the film at a bar, while Heath Ledger 2 is right there. Ok, he is clearly a gigantic moron, but the way the two main characters jump on their high horses (despite a punch later in the scene) gets me annoyed. It's such disgusting pandering to an audience that they know is going to be all hip and WAY TOO COOL AND ABOVE THIS MAINSTREAM MORONIC JOCK. It's like some Roman Theatre performance; this businessman jock is performed with SO much exaggeration that it's hard to really believe in this bit role - what we are of course seeing in reality is what US COOL INDIE KIDS think of everyone else that isn't in the know like we are. WHAT AN IDIOT THAT GUY IS...I bet he's never listened to the Smiths before, huh, what a tool.

Bastards. I almost prefer him. I bet he doesn't even HAVE an opinion on what Beatle is the best, because he doesn't care and why should he?

Anyway, for a film which inspired, so, so, so much resentment in me, there were one or two good moments. The final word must go to the two main characters.

Heath Ledger 2, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is ok. He has the most crooked stupid face I've ever seen. He's ok though and plays his role well, despite having some of the most implausible things to say in a film ever outside of sci-fi. His character Tom, we are encourage to sympathise with, and we do, but he's such a whiny twit, and he's always drawing, and he's neurotic and... erm...oh oh...

MOVING ON to...eeeeurgh...possibly the worst thing about the film. Why not just get a piece of wood and drawing pretty eyes on it instead of putting Zoooooooey Deschanel in a film? Gooey Zooey. Who the hell spells their name like that? Anyone who says it as 'Zoe' is a liar. It's a disgustingly 'pretty' name for someone who delivers all her lines as if she has much better things to do, and that's not her character, that's in every film I've seen her in (THREE!).
I know you're supposed to dislike her, but it's not hard to do that without seeing 500 Days of Summer. Zoooooooey is so conceited and fucking, WACKY, that it's hard to ever buy into the romance between her and Heath Ledger 2 because you hate her already straight off the bat. I hate her dress sense, her voice, her acting and most of all her name, which makes her sound like some slimey new fragrance. Don't worry though, she has indie appeal! Listen to her band (yes she 'has' one) I hate it as much as her.

All in all, you could do worst than see 500 Days of Summer, but only by watching Juno 600 times in a row, with to Zooooooey Deschanel. If I were you I would just stop watching all of these sorts of fucking films, because they have been churned out of a satanic chocolate factory somewhere in Hollywood.

2 comments:

  1. "...really needs to get over itself and stop trying so desperately hard to impress THE YOUTH.

    Throughout the film...absolutely desperate to point out how cool and artistic it is."

    Juno anyone?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really well written review that (2012) - much better than many so-called professional ones, and you didn't kill the plot (too much!). Keep it up Chaz :-)

    ReplyDelete

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