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Entries categorized as “The Fourth Wall” 62 results
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Blue Valentine
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2010 film Blue Valentine.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Cassondra Branderhorst.
Kevin:
Early on in Blue Valentine, the image that came to mind was that of an oscilloscope. What happens when you have a pair of harmonic waves that are just slightly misaligned? Over time, small differences can magnify into huge disconnects, where the two may find themselves moving in opposite directions.
In the Hollywood of yesteryear, the story of Cindy (Michelle Williams in an Oscar-nominated performance) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) would have all the trappings of a romantic comedy. There's the meet-cute (while visiting residents of a senior home), the disparate backgrounds (she's a college student, he's a high-school dropout who works for a moving company), the winsome impromptu first date (where his ukulele serenade wins her over), and even a jealous ex (played in rather creepy fashion by Mike Vogel) to boot.
In Blue Valentine, however, these elements are relayed via a series of flashbacks and comprise only half of the tale. The present day has us checking up on their marriage, five years in... and clearly, the honeymoon has long worn off. Cindy can't fathom why Dean seems content with menial work; he can't understand why the charming disposition she fell in love with no longer seems good enough for her today.
Matters reach a breaking point when Dean -- over Cindy's objections -- plans an evening for the two of them at a hotel with "theme" suites, which in their case is ominously titled "The Future." (Picture the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.) Relations are frosty before they've even arrived. Cindy is exhausted and also on call for her job as a nurse, and there's additional tension in the air after she mentions that she bumped into the aforementioned ex at a liquor store on the way there. The ex's opening salvo: Have you been faithful to your husband? Ouch.
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Music In Movies
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the use of music in movies.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
The one-two trumpet punches of Rocky. The orchestral explosion when the Star Wars logo hits the screen. The menacing, oh-so-cool guitar riff hallmarking the entrance of 007.
Can't imagine these films or characters without their tagline anthems, can you? Strip away the Indiana Jones theme from the titular character? Might as well take the poor guy's fedora and bullwhip as well.
Of course, the power of music in film goes well beyond rousing heroic scores. There are the sweeping strings that seemed to punctuate many Hollywood romances of yesteryear, and more recently, much ink has been spilled over the role of music in horror tales, as discordance can ramp up tension even more than the sight of a rusty machete.
To say nothing of diegetic sound* -- maybe it's not such a great idea to play a crackly Joanna Newsom record ("Sprout and the Bean" in The Strangers) when you're alone and worried about a home invasion?
[* This refers to music that's audible to the characters in the film, like when someone flips on a car radio while cruising around, or, in the case of Rachel Getting Married, when TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe sings at his own wedding on screen.]
The 2016 documentary SCORE! is a great primer on the subject, but as this is a CHIRP production, perhaps we should also explore a tangential avenue and talk about the intersection of cinema and independent music?
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Clarence:
By most measures, Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is an average person just trying to get by. Her laundromat business is a headache, her marriage to her beta-male husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) has lost its magic, and her relationship with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is strained to the breaking point.
But she can’t imagine how big her problems are going to get. One day while sitting in an IRS office trying to unravel a tax issue, her husband pops up out of nowhere and asks for her help to save the universe.
Actually, not her exact husband, but a different version of him from an alternate reality, and not just this universe, but the multiple universes that make up the totality of existence.
It turns out that Jobu Tupaki, an alternate version of Evelyn’s daughter, has gained enormous power and is in a really bad (as in, reality-erasing) mood, and this version of Evelyn is the only one who might be able to stop her from ending things for everyone.
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: The Spanish Prisoner
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 1997 film The Spanish Prisoner.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
The Big Con. It's long been a favorite cinema staple of mine. You can't sleepwalk through Big Con films -- you gotta keep your eyes and ears peeled at all times, and definitely, absolutely trust no one. As an added bonus, the Everyman protagonists of these tales are usually in the dark as much as the audiences, making them the perfect proxy. We're attached at the hip and invested from the get-go.
In David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner, Joe Ross (Campbell Scott, whose muted temperament is the perfect fit for this sort of role) has created a "Process." Manifested as a notebook of charts and formulas, it's a classic MacGuffin -- we have no idea what it exactly involves, except that it's worth astronomical sums of money to the company which employs him... or to anyone else who winds up getting a hold of it.
While on the island of St. Estèphe to discuss the Process with company investors, Ross rubs elbows with new secretary Susan Ricci (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's real-life wife) and wealthy traveler Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), the latter of whom eases himself into Joe's world by giving him a package to "deliver to his sister in New York." Worried it might be something illegal, Joe opens the package -- which is revealed to be an innocuous 1930s book about tennis.
Right around this time, relations between Joe and his employers turn frosty, and he starts to fret about not receiving fair compensation. Jimmy (having reconnected in the Big Apple) suggests enlisting outside legal counsel. Can he trust him? What about Susan? And later there's an FBI team (headed by Ed O' Neill) involved in the case as well. But are they actually federal agents? Just when exactly does the con stop... or is it still going when the credits start rolling?
Kevin Fullam writesThe Fourth Wall: Nomadland
Welcome to The Fourth Wall, CHIRP's e-conversation on cinema. This week's subject is the 2020 Oscar-winning film Nomadland.
This edition is written by CHIRP Radio volunteers Kevin Fullam and Clarence Ewing.
Kevin:
When you grow up with all the trappings of middle-class suburbia, it's hard to imagine a Shadow America out there, roaming the land. Poor neighborhoods? Sure. The homeless? Absolutely. But not three million transients (according to the BBC) who shuttle from town to town across our country, living out of their vehicles and subsisting on odd jobs along the way.
While you'd never describe these drifters as wealthy, they're largely not indigent either. And for the most part, their decisions to eschew the conventions of modern living don't seem to be born out of financial calamity. Theirs is a conscious lifestyle choice. Who are these people? What drives them? This is the backdrop of director Chloé Zhao's Nomadland, based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Jessica Bruder.
Like The Rider, Zhao's previous film, Nomadland might as well be cinéma vérité as it follows the life of Fern (Frances McDormand) while she travels the country in her rickety van. Outside of an intertitle which explains the collapse of her Nevada hometown following a mine closure, the exposition is minimal, and much of the film revolves around Fern's survival. Today's work might be at an Amazon distribution center, while next month's employer could be a state park. After that? Perhaps a gig as a line cook.
All the while, her van needs upkeep. Rinse. Repeat. Fern ain't the loquacious type, and her backstory is parceled out in dribs and drabs. Eventually you learn that she lost her husband right around the time when the town went under, which might account for her steely, detached disposition.