268. Clerks

Song - Money For Nothing (Dire Straits)

Movie: Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)

Towards the end, Dante (Brian O'Halloran) laments that he finds it really hard to change what's bothering him as he is "not the type of person who'll disrupt things just to shit comfortably." In a movie that almost entirely consists of entertaingly long-winded asides and digressions, that's one of the few lines of dialogue that expresses a concrete idea simply. I would have enjoyed Clerks a lot even without it, but it does add some depth to it, highlighting that Kevin Smith has actually been building towards something, with more thought and subtlety than he's let on. O'Halloran deserves some credit here too. He is obviously not some great actor, and hasn't done anything of note outside of Smith's orbit, but he does get Dante's vibe of half-arsed nonchalance exactly right. He hates his job as an inconvenience store clerk, and hates himself for feeling that way, resulting in many failed attempts to find the exact midpoint between having a professional demeanor and a cool indifference. 

Smith was still working in the store he shot Clerks in, an origin story that has helped him become successful enough to never have to worry about shitting comfortably, or about disrupting things. I hadn't seen Clerks before, but I was a fan of Chasing Amy and Dogma, and even found Jersey Girl quite charming. It's quite unfortunate that Smith has since become way too invested in essentially making fan fiction out of his own material, especially because it risks clouding his earlier work. His eagerness to be seen as the ultimate fanboy is at odds with his work on Clerks, which never feels like it's made by someone who has no reference points beyond geekdom. Aside from one scene that discusses Star Wars (and even then, the primary subject is not the movie itself, but an absurd hypothetical dilemma involving independent contractors), there are barely any nods to popular culture here. Most of the jokes, dialogues and situations in the film are just (well thought out) comic exaggerations that would be recognisable to anyone who's ever been either a clerk (or has had any other shitty side job) or a somewhat lost 22-year old. And the opening scene (that has a brilliant punch line just when you think it has ended) made me laugh a lot. 

Now to bring up the elephant in the room, yes, Kevin Smith is obviously not the director with the greatest visual sense in the world. It is here sometimes fairly obvious that he has no idea what to do with a camera beyond turning it on and pointing in the general direction of someone speaking, preferably without moving around too much. There is a hockey scene that contains so many close ups of roller skates and hockey sticks it's unclear whether it was filmed like that to achieve an artsy look, or whether it was intended as a parody of artsy depictions of sports. It doesn't work as either and its visual incoherence is mostly just baffling.  Having said that, Smith has found lots of ways to make his visual limitations work in his favor. Apart from using cuts for comic effect really well, he also knows how to get the most out of static shots, probably most notably in the scene where Dante and his ex reunite, allowing us to see them work through their feelings in great detail. Another good example (that sets up the one scene of the film that's a bit tasteless and needlessly humiliating) comes when an older customer asks to use the staff bathroom, and once approved keeps reappearing into the frame with perfect timing and increasingly outreagous requests. 

For my money though, the best shot of the film features Randal (Jeff Anderson), Dante's neighbouring video store clerk (who has much less trouble walking around with an air of cool indifference) ridiculing a client who is asking for film advice. They are filmed from inside the video store; through its windows we see Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) hang around on the block as they usually do. When the disappointed client leaves, we see a confrontation between her and the two layabouts. As tbe camera remaisn still inside the store, we see it all happening from behind and with the sound muffed. It's the best example of how the corner on which our two clerks work is shown from many different perspectives and viewpoints, creating a nice sense of the overall atmosphere of the place, turning the movie into a snapshot of street life.  

267. 25th Hour

Song - Overcome (Live)

Movie: 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

"This life came so close to never happening..." Few contemporaries, in any field, have done as much to highlight America's racial and social injustices as Spike Lee, but what makes him such a great filmmaker is his understanding that societal structures can't entirely account for human folly. Do the Right Thing! leaves no doubt about how race and class shape its Brooklyn neighborhood and create power hierarchies and tension, but, without ever losing that context, Lee depicsts Raheem's death and the ensuing destruction of Sal's pizzeria as the result of a series of choices made by humans acting out of love, anger, desire, chagrin, playfulness, irrationality, and a sense of community. Lee has criticised audiences for failing to understand why Mookie threw the trash can into Sal's pizzeria, and even if you set aside political considerations, it's easy to see why such an audience response might irk Lee. Cause he does the work, and never forgets to consider Sal's feelings about that faithful night. It all came so close to not happening, and you can sense why Sal may feel that it never should have happened. 

Too many contemporary filmmakers wanting to dip their toes in social criticism fail to give their individual characters the humanity Spike Lee provides, resulting in films that are angry about the system without showing how that system actually affects real recognisable people, making their characters merely artificial symbols of a struggle.  It wouldn't hurt either to put in an effort to see political/social adversaries as actual people with feelings, ideas and hopes worth exploring, which finally brings us to 25th Hour, a film that makes you care deeply about the inner lives and personal struggles of two douchebags (you can easily imagine Barry Pepper's character play a racist cop in another Spike Lee movie) and a cowardly privileged professor who would love to be able to fall in love with his student, without feeling guilt over it. 

The main douchebag is Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), a semi-professional crack dealer who got caught and is now spending his last 24 hours as a free man with his two best childhood friends, Wall Street trader Frank (Barry Pepper) and high school professor Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his dad (Brian Cox) and his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson).  Each of these people approach the day with a huge lump in their troath that they can't quite express, partly because it's hard to put into words such a monumental change that will forever alter their lives, partly becuase they all have their own individual hangups. Luckily, there is Terence Blanchard, whose score plays as if its composed by that lump in their throats, expressing their confused sadness and apprehension of the incomprehensible magnitude of the coming void in ther lives. The score adds an almost mythical dimension to the film, that's even further progressed by Lee setting it in the direct aftermath of 9/11 with Pepper's apartment even looking directly at the site where the Twin Towers used to be. 

If I would be forced to choose, I'd say that this is my favorite original film music, but 25th Hour also contains two scenes of similar greatness The first one comes early when after seeing 'Fuck You' scribbled on a bathroom mirror, Monty responds by disparaging just about every single meaningful ethnic and social group in New York, with each of them appearing in a montage that works as a love letter to the diversity and resilience of the city following the terrorist attacks. An additional nice Spike Lee touch is that he adds a small dash of surrealism to the scene by having Norton's reflection come off as much angrier than the actual Monty standing in more quiet resignation in front of the mirror, knowing that he can't really blame 'the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair" or the "uptown brothers who don't pass the ball, never play defense and take five steps on every lay-up" for all his troubles. Some of these people we'll see again in the film's ending scene, when his dad drives him to prison and tempts him with an alternate life. He could take the wrong turn, drive out of New York, all the way into the west where in some faraway desert town Monty could build a new life. It's a scene of great melodramatic magnificence that (admittedly featuring some absolutely godawful make-up work) culminates with the words that open this piece, so effective because they are equally devastating in the context of both the alternate reality imagined for Monty and his actual reality. They serve also as a wonderfull expresion of the feelings of anger, love and disappointment Cox has towards his son. And again the scene works as a love letter, in this case to the vastness and the possibility of America, making it only more tragic that out of all the choices Monty's had, he decided to be a mediocre crack dealer barely ever traversing beyond the familiarity of his neighborhood. 

It's notable though that it's mostly the others who dwell on what could have been. Norton regrets getting caught, and is pissed off about it, but he doesn't exactly regret his life choices. Though outwardly he presents himself as wanting to make amends, his final night of freedom is mostly about living the kind of life he did when all went well. He enjoys being able to get a private room with his friends and lover in a big nightclub where he can say cleverly sounding stupid things like "Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends", and succesfully pretend that he understands the ethical misgivings of his friend who's in love with a student, while secretly judging him for being a weakling who can't act. What makes Lee great is that he is never (explicitly) judgemental about all this. He understands the allure of this life, and he sympathises with Monty's regret that he has to abandon it. The film looks at the situation from the closured view of Monty and his friends, and finds itself on their same confused emotional wavelength. Lee makes sure to film even the most meaningless, dumb or nonsenical act in a way that feels almost epical and eternal. In the process, the film also becomes a great dramatic depiction of the kind of friendship that was comically presented in The Big Lebowski, with Hofman's Jacob in the role of Donny.

266. Fatal Attraction

Song: Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)

Movie: Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)

Well, that explains Jacob's Ladder! I saw that a long time ago and was surprised by how relentlessly terryfing it was. I felt it was out of character for Adrian Lyne, who seemed to mostly specialise in what you could call elevated sexploitation, not that there is anything wrong with that - I greatly enjoyed Unfaithful and 9 1/2 Weeks! Turns out Fatal Attraction is much more interested in being a thriller, in the most literal sense of the word, and one that would make a great case study in film classes on the use of negative and external spaces. At a certain point you get the sense that there is danger lurking behind every piece of furniture and every corner of the screen. You just admire how much Lyne enjoys playing around with the audience, making ordinary objects and spaces seem ominous by pointing the camera just a fraction too long at them. Often times nothing actually happens, but that misdirection only makes the film more effectivly stressful. You never know what's coming. 

I may have mentioned before here that I am not the biggest fan of Glenn Close, which doesn't even have that much to do with her acting choices. I think her natural disposition just makes every single character she plays more dour and pitiful by default. That makes her a rather perfect fit for this role, in which she plays a steely businesswoman who is barely able to hold together her professional demeanor in public. Her playful flirty confidence is a front for a lonely woman with fear of abandonment who is unable to make meaningful connections to people. It's quite fitting that while she works for the kind of Manhattan corporation that was the symbol of victory in the 1980's, she lives in an apartment in a questionable meat district. Lyne shoots this place as if he wants to reference every single experssionistic horror film he's seen, and fills it with burning fires, in case you don't get the metaphor that it is hell. There is nothing wrong with good pulp, and Fatal Atraction is really good pulp. 

Apparently many of the actors were disappointed by the decision to change the ending of the film. In the original ending Glenn Close, who spends most of the film stalking Michael Douglas and his family after a one-night stand, claiming she is carrying his child, would have commited suicide staged in such a way to succesfully frame Douglas as the killer. That ending was deemed too bleak by test audiences, so it was reshot, leading to a deliciously over the top climax that kills Glenn Close. Goes to show that sometimes the commercial choice is also the correct artistic one. Because it would be a betrayal of Close' performance to have her 'win'. The whole point of her character is that all her actions are essentially a powerless cry for meaningfullness, and a futile attempt to be the kind of woman she presents hersefl to be, and her peers expect her to be. From that perspective, the current ending is also far bleaker than the original one. 

265. Assa

Song - Wind of Change (Scorpions)

Movie: Assa (Sergey Solovyov, 1987)

For a long time this is the kind of euphorically wonderful film that teeters on the brink of absurd, darkly funny surrealism, without ever crossing the border into full-blown fantasy. Many lesser films do make that cross, losing much of their strangeness and eccentricity in the process. Assa goes the opposite way, eventually becoming a somewhat predictable tragic youth romance. It's still good, but it's dissapointing to see a movie that was so confidently balancing so many different ideas, tones, moods, styles, and feelings go into such a conventional direction. Thankfully, Solovyov takes the long way round and though it is always evident that he is building towards some sort of plot, the first half of the film feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes set agains the Soviet rock scene. We meet a band and their lead singer, a girl who gets infuatuated with the lead singer, an older gangster who is threatened by this infatuation, an alcoholic who is lying about his status as a Major, and a dwarf theatre actor, who is portrayed as an adult, but made up to look like a teen. 

In the film's first half Solovyov is mostly interested in showing how these characters cross each other's paths, often set to a soundtrack of (really great!) Russian rock, without bothering too much with how interactions are logically connected. The film can switch in an instant between the deeply weird and the effortlessly cool and scenes of great melancholy and romance are followed by moments of dumb goofy fun. It may not make much narrative sense, but you always feel it makes emotional sense, getting the exact mood Solovyov is going for. He sets the tone pretty much from the opening when a guy enters a stereotypically Communist-looking restaurant theatrically telling a story about Noah's Ark, only for the camera to pan to the left to reveal that the music we thought were hearing non-diegetically was actually the result of a bunch of flamboyant rock stars preparing their act. It's odd to see the musicians share a same space as the sad looking chairs and tables we saw just before, and there is no real connection between the rock stage and the story about Noah, but Solovyov makes the moment work perfectly, just as he does throughout the film. At one point the gangster starts reading a book about the assassination of the Russian emperor Paul I, and the film starts cutting between the main story in contemporary Soviet Union and the assassination plot, told as a historical costume drama, in 1801 St. Petersburg. Another highlight is the interrogation of the fake Major, who tells a bizarre monologue about how Yuri Gagarin inspired him, while on the soundtrack we hear incessantly arrhythmical guitar sounds contributing to the nervously funny mood of the scene. 

The film is as close as you'll ever get to seeing a window into an alternate, better world. It is explicitly made in the context of Gorbatchev's reforms in the Soviet Union and not only a direct expression of the hope that these would lead to a better and more attractive, democratic society, but also an expression of how that society could look. It sees rock music, and the youth counterculture developed with it, as a harbinger of what is possible. It is fully in love with the eccentric independence of its rock stars and their freedom to be who they are without conforming to dominant structures. At the same time, it is not in opposition to the Soviet Union, but it sees it as a country that can give young people the opportunitiy to be cool,interesting, have fun, and fall in love, and that has room for alternative lifestyles and views that are not necessarily aligned with the politically desired culture. 

The most charming scene of the film sees the rock star and his girl dance to a song made on a "Japanese" Yamaha computer.  It's a good example of how the film also sees the Soviet Union as a country that can adjust and become a fully functioning part of the emerging modern globalist world. And yeah, OK, the journey into the new world may meet some bumps along the way. The drummer in the band is portrayed by a white actor in (halfheartedly applied) blackface, but in the history of film there has probably never been a more wholesome or more progressive use of blackface. As one of the characters exclaims, "now there are not just black Mike's and Joe's, but also black 'Vitya's', as Vitya is the son of a Russian mother and an Angolan revolutionary. 

That's some great writing that reminded me of a moment in the 2017 film Ali's Wedding, about a Muslim family in Australia that struggles to be accepted by the white Australians, while also being harassed by the more fundamentalist members of their faith. Ali's Wedding is one of those films that got dumped onto Netflix to be forgotten, but at one point a character desires to move to America, exclaiming that 'In the US we can finally live like Australians." As far as I am concerned, that's one of the lines of the decade, one that like the point about Vitya more forcefully evokes the hope and progress that (American) pluralist multicultural society represents than many western/American films that are explicitly about that. Setting this aside, it's also worth noting that in Assa, the guy in blackface fits the broader ethos of the film. At one point the rock starr tells his girl to wear lensless glasses, "as the suggestion that you see better, will already make you see better." The film knows that the society it depicts doesn't really exist yet, but maybe it can be manifested by a sincere belief in it, and some ingenious acts of creation.  

Alas, now there is Putin. But it's good to know that the spirit behind this movie is still a little bit alive. Most of the songs here are written by Boris Grebenshchikov, who is known as the Godfather of Russian rock, and opposed the invasion of Ukraine. The lead singer is played by Sergey Bugayev, an avant-garde artist who is still working (though mostly in the US and Western Europe). The film ends with a song about how the Russian youths want change with all their hearts and all their minds. It's sung by Viktor Tsoi, a Russian with a Korean father, who was at one point the biggest rock star in the country, but died in a car accident in 1990 at the age of 28. In 2015, he was portrayed in the film Leto by Teo Yoo - the annoying hanger-on in Past Lives. My favorite fact about Tsoi though is that the greatest shorttrack skater in history Viktor An, who first represented Korea and then Russia, chose Viktor as his Russian name in honor of Tsoi. It would be nice if, at some point when the Putins of the world are in the dustbin of history, these will be the Russians more of the world will remember.

264. Bound

Song - Girl (Anouk)

Movie: Bound (Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski, 1996)

I think The Matrix is one of the greatest films of the 90''s, but having seen V for Vendetta and Cloud Atlas it's eeasy to be skeptical of the revisionism surrounding the Matrix sequels. Thankfully, Bound shows The Wachowskis aren't just one-trick ponies, even if their characteristic flourishes sometimes work against the film. Their grandly operatic style, full of slow motion, disorienting zooms and camera moves, and cuts that don't respect temporality and/or physics, is a perfect fit for a film that is all about discovering the vast unreality of our world, but less so for a tense neo-noir that takes place in mostly one location. The apartment in which the film takes place is a bit too much a purely stylistic invention; it sometimes feels as if the camera is creating spaces out of thin air, just to get an interesting shot. As a result no one can fault the film for having a dull look, but you do lose a bit of tension when you make a space appear this fake and contrived. The more characters feel bound by physical limits, the more you fear for their safety. One especially sloppy sequence shows two people leaving the apartment for another place, without showing them getting back and without making any significant visual distinction between the two places, resulting in confusion about how the action is progressing. 

The apartment in question belongs to Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), a middle man for the mafia, whose bosses are much more willing to treat him as a sacrificial lamb if the need arises than he surmises. The dons are not his only problem. His wife Violet (Jennifer Tilly) hsa fallen for Corky (Gina Gershon), an ex-con hired to be a plumber at the apartment next door, and now the two women are conspring to steal maffia money from him. Joe Pantoliano has a lot of fun playing an irrationally confident irritant scheming frantically as he gradually realises how screwed and out of his depth he is. He is contrasted by Tilly and Gershon, giving more exact and distinct performances. Tilly is a confident seductress whose demeanor and actions mask her fear, while her husky vulnerable voice masks her willingness to act on her most dangerous ideas. She confuses not just Caesar, but also Corky - one of the things I liked about the film is how much Gershon emphasises ber skepticism about the choices she makes. She makes a conscious decision to act out of a potentially irrational love, knowing full well that it may be the wroing choice. 

The film makes it easy to root for Violet and Corky. They are smart, sexy and charismatic, but also mostly decent people whose actions are informed by love and self-defense, However, they too are beset with an irrational confidence, bordering on arrogance, that leaves them more out of their depth than they realise. It's key to what makes this film work so well - everyone is constantly making decisions that you can anticipate going wrong, and when they do go wroing, Corky, Caesar and Violet all have to scramble and think fast and hard about their next actions, producing a film of unrelenting tense set-pieces in which everyone is constantly on edge. The few moments of peace mostly happen in bed between Violet and Corky. I complained earlier about how the apartment's interiors lack a coherent sence of place.The opposite is true for the love scenes which pay attention to the tiniest details of body movement. 

263. Desperately Seeking Susan

Song - Susie Q  (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Movie: Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985)

Remember Barbara Loden? After making Wanda, a very good film exposing all her potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses, she never got another opportunity to direct. Such examples should probably inform a bit more (the correct) criticisms of Beyonce's butchering of Jolene. Purely as a piece of music, I actually like Beyonce's version more than Dolly Parton's. but rewriting that song to present yourself as a badass queen who will wreck Jolene is rather pathetic and does indeed highlight that Beyonce is more interestend in being her own brand manager than in being an interesting artist. I have never cared much for her, but it is worth asking whether she would have been as big if she didn't present herself so forcefully as a strong powerful woman. Probably not, but still, Dolly Parton's (who is of course white) career is no slouch despite openly fearing Jolene's competition. 

Anyhow, I've never much cared for Madonna for similar reasons. By the time I got into pop culture, she was already an institution, who seemed mostly interested in highlighting how much of an institution she was. Desperately Seeking Susan, in which she plays Susan, does make you understand how she could have become the biggest star in the world - it is not by projecting indestructible power. Madonna plays a cocky confident woman with a great sense of style, who knows her way around men and always comes off as the most charismatic and assertive person in the room. She is however also poor and on the run from criminals with guns. The police are not her friends and neither are the rich businessmen with expensive home decoration. Her people are her charming aimleslly drifting boyfriend Jim (Robert Joy), movie projectionist Dez (Aidan Quinn) who lives in a half-empty loft above the cinema he works in, desperate housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette, the film's actual lead), and Crystal (Anna Thomson), who is not even able to keep a job as a magician's assistant in a dingy magic club. In other words, Madonna is placed among the vagabonds and misfits of New York and presented as one of them,, always one stroke of bad luck away from the gutter. That makes her coolness and bravado come through more than any context in which she is presented as the effortlessly all-conquering queen of the world. I have mostly registered her songs as background noise, but her appeal here inspired a YoiuTube Madonna session. It appears Vogue, Material Girl (decidedly not a song presenting Madonna as an underdog) and Into the Groove are rather great!

Desperately Seeking Susan is a mistaken identity film in which various colorful New Yorkers, led by Roberta, frantically traverse the city streets without ever having the full or the correct information to find what they are looking for. Shenanigans and misunderstandings ensue, and because the audience is always one step ahead of the characters, all of this is often very funny, This the kind of film that I will always like, but for it to be truly great, it needs to either take its surreal absurdity up a notch or have a screenplay that is tight as a rock. As it is, Desperately Seeking Susan finds itself in the unenviable position of being the perfect companion piece to After Hours, without ever being able to measure up to it. It does have though absolutely exceptional costume and set design. One reason its screenplay is not as sharp as it could have been is because it features a lot of scenes which exist mostly to geek at Madonna and her outfits. Madonna released Like A Virgin during filming, and although the film was rewritten to cash in on her success, these scenes do have a purpose beyond just that. The film's fun  comes from putting New Yorkers with different attitudes and of different walks of life together, and Seidelman is clearly interested in how their aesthetics clash and contrast. You may not be surprised to find whose aesthethics are presented as the way of the future, but you may reflect on how long it's been since a mainstream film/tv show presented such a progressive, loving and colorful view of life on the New York streets.

262. Wanda

Song - I Would Stay (Krezip)

Movie: Wanda (Barbara Loden, 1970)

When done right, there are few things in American cinema better than a romanticised outlaws-on-the-run movie. However, folks who can express themselves colorfully, who can present themselves as cool and attractively distinct individuals, and who are crafty enough to be able to conjure a vision of a better life, and to subvert authority in ingeniously nifty ways, aren't the kind of folks that need to become outlaws on the run in the first place. That's more likely to be the fate of people like Wanda (Barbara Loden), who lasts only two days at the sewing factory. She is too slow, according to her boss. We haven't seen her at the job, but the film never even tries to give the impression that he could have been wrong. Wanda is slow, both mentally and physically, and it's no surprise that when she ends up, almost by accident, in cahoots with a petty criminal she goes along for the ride. She lacks the (financial and intellectual) capacity/imagination to make active choices about her life. 

I had been under the impression that this is a film about a woman who, tired of being a submissive housewife, abandons her family for an adventurous life on the road where she can assert her independence. Barbara Loden was married to Elia Kazan, who was by some accounts, patronizing, lealous and dismissive of her ambitions. Despite that. Loden became one of the few women to direct, write and star in an American movie; having read that the film had some autobiographic elements, I expected it to be a reflection of her attitude and intelligence. Moreover, the film is considered a landmark of American feminist cinema, and contemporary American feminist cinema, with some exeptions, doesn't have much room for portrayals of women who are not primarily strong and independent. 

Barbara Loden is quite merciless in depicting how men abuse Wanda. Almost every man we meet uses her for sexual and/or material gain and the film is quite clear-eyed about the societal structures that make such exploitation possible. However, Loden is equally merciless in depicting the intrinsic negative qualities of Wanda, leaving little doubt that independently from whichever patriarchal structures exist, Wanda would be incapable of building a better life for herself. Those two ideas rarley live side by side in (American) movies these days - movies that present themselves as feminist are mostly about celebrating the great succeses of specific women who have overcome the hurdles on their way, but rarely question/depict what happens if you are simply incapable of doing that. Too many people refuse to acknowledge that individuals can fail for their own personal reasons regardless of whether existing societal structures are advantaging or disadvantaging them. 

It's an understatement to say that Loden doesn't depict its society as advantageous. Most of the film takes place in crumbling rural areas, crummy hotelrooms with barely anything beyond a bed, and on lonely highways. Everything looks so drab, grey and plainly unispiring that it almost feels too pessimistic to call it naturalistic. But the faces on display indicate that what we are seeing is indeed as depressing as it seems. Almost everyone in the film looks as broken down, defeated and disheveled as possible. Still, even within this context Loden manages to find moments of humanity, levity and dark self-deprecating humor - if the film was paced a bit faster it could have been a crime comedy. It's ultimately about two people who fumble crimes because they don't realise they are way in over their heads. I quite liked it and it does indeed feel as an indictment of American cinema that this is the only thing Loden got to direct.