Tortured Entertainment

Being a resident of a nation that tortures, my mind often wanders to torture in popular entertainment. And thoughts of torture naturally lead to thoughts of television.

The TV Set is a movie that chronicles the process of making a television show from script to audition to pilot to premiere. It is also a lesson in torture.

The premise is that David Duchovny's character has a brother who committed suicide, and Mr. Duchovny believes the best way to honor the memory of his dearly departed is to pitch his personal life as a television situation comedy.

The film then chronicles how Duchovny's personal dramedy/character study slowly gets transformed into a full-on situation comedy complete with catch phrases and fart jokes. It then gets "funny" when Duchovny's character begins to suffer physical maladies brought on by the stress of having his home movies slowly and methodically turned into a Saturday Night Live sketch.

The idea of submitting something intimate as mass-consumption art is fundamentally a bad idea, but this avenue of thought is never considered or explored. Instead, the film asks us to root for Duchovny as he endures and suffers. It also asks us to laugh at his suffering - to both feel his torture and laugh all the way through the tears.

I assume that the film is striving for an absurdist comedy along the lines of the brilliant Brazil, but the stakes just are not as high or as interesting. While Brazil questioned issues about human rights, government authority, and mental stability, The TV Set tries to show you how much work and effort goes into an 'Everyone Loves Raymond' episode. It seems like a lot of sweat over a mere narcotic diversion.

At times, particularly when Duchovny is hobbling around on crutches, I thought that maybe the filmmakers were striving for a dark comedy where none of the characters are sympathetic and the humor comes from seeing horrible people do horrible things to each other until everyone is dead and gone, in a sense getting their comeuppance. But this doesn't really work, either, because the story is structured around you rooting for the little guy with the big dream and then chuckling at the horror when he realizes that the big personal intimate dream doesn't penetrate a particular demographic.

It also hurts the film that the main character is also the most pathetic. The "villain" of the piece, Sigourney Weaver, not only has the funniest and most quotable lines, she is the only person in the entire production who genuinely enjoys her work. Yes, she is supposed to be the source of all evil, but she single-handedly commands the only bright and funny moments in an otherwise dreary comedy.

Ultimately, the film comes up short because it is not as subversive, intelligent, or satirical as it could be. If it were really daring, it would have made the Sigourney Weaver character the focus of the film all the while actively encouraging the audience to root for her and her sassy attitude as she slowly, methodically, and single-handedly dismantles entire swaths of people to achieve her dreams of a larger market share. Because we are in a nation that tortures, we should be relating to the people with the power, not the victims.

All He Needs is a Shelf of Bowling Trophies...

I was going through some blogs of film criticism and saw a number of surprisingly positive comments about 'Death Proof' - the Quentin Tarantino half of the 'Grindhouse' double feature.

So much of 'Grindhouse' evaporated from my mind mere days after seeing it (if there was any sign that a film should be dismissed, this is it), but when I try to summon up an image from it, this is what I get:

Quentin Tarantino as a bartender, a woman under each arm, weighing about 30 pounds more than the last time I saw him. And he's prattling on about the greatness of 70s cinema. And, accompanying that image, this revelation...

Quentin Tarantino is that creepy relative. You know, that uncle or cousin you can't really believe is related to you, but still, there he is at every family gathering. He sits in the corner and yammers on obsessively about some not totally geeky, but still a little odd topic. Say, maybe, bowling.

Yes, Tarantino is the bachelor uncle obsessed with bowling and he has a shelf of bowling trophies that he cares a little too much about. His entire life is a wreck, but on League Night, he is King of the Universe.

This was something of an "a-ha" moment for me.