Tag Archives: cutting-room floor

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Is ‘Boyhood’ Over Yet, Papa Smurf?

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613When you’re watching a movie and start thinking that a Robert Bresson film is faster than what you’re currently viewing, you know that’s not a good sign.

That’s what I thought about Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s tedious, overly praised exercise in navel-gazing that takes us through 12 years of a young man’s life. And oh, what a long, uninteresting ride it is, lasting approximately three hours … at least one of which could’ve ended up on the cutting-room floor. Plus, it has two of my least-favorite performers in it: Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke. All of these ingredients add up to a pretentious whole, which is reflected in the flick’s general, all-encompassing title.

There’s a difference between something that’s deliberately paced and something that’s just plain slow. Boyhood is slow, and the dialogue doesn’t drive it; instead, it cuts the flow, makes it wallow in narcissistic pseudo-introspection. The characters aren’t intriguing. The plot isn’t involving. Yes, the concept is unusual, but in practice, it doesn’t work … at least, not in this movie. And it’s not like it hasn’t been done before; Michael Apted’s Seven Up! series followed the lives of people from childhood to adulthood, and so Linklater’s conceit isn’t unique or, for that matter, so innovative.

I’ve watched longer films that felt like they took no time at all. Never one of my favorite directors, Linklater has shown with Boyhood that if a simple subject is extended over the period of a decade in movie time, it can feel like a millennium for the filmgoer. Not an exciting prospect from a cinematic perspective … and certainly one that I don’t want to repeat.

If I live that long.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: The Long Cinematic Torture of ‘Inherent Vice’

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613I knew Inherent Vice was going to be a big, sloppy movie. I just didn’t know how much.

And I didn’t know it was going to be awful, either.

Boy, was this a plodding film. The Paul Thomas Anderson-directed (and -written, based in the novel by Thomas Pynchon) story of a dope-addled P.I. out to uncover various uninteresting mysteries in 1970 California, Inherent Vice isn’t nearly as funny as it thinks it is. And it’s more pretentious, to boot. Plus, there’s the addition of some bland narration, which suggests that the film doesn’t trust its audience to make its own judgments.

That’s a problem. Good movies have faith in their viewers. They coax people along, encourage them. Bad movies hold their audiences at bay, alienate them. And that’s exactly how I felt while watching Inherent Vice.

Much of this movie should’ve ended up on the cutting-room floor; there are all kinds of little idiosyncratic bits that purportedly suggest character development but ultimately fail in providing solid context. What results is a tedious mess. Too bad, because it could’ve been so much better.

I like Pynchon, but I think Inherent Vice, as a movie, doesn’t succeed. There’s originality here, but it’s not enough to carry it. For such a tiresome picture, it feels strangely rushed. That’s just another reason not to like it. Oh, well.