Perhaps I should’ve seen Devil Wears Prada before viewing September Issue, although I’ve heard the documentary is something of a belated spin-control response to DWP, and attempt to set the record straight with an all access pass behind the scenes at the managing editorial offices for the long standing and trend setting / validating institution that is Vogue  Magazine, more precisely, to perhaps debunk Meryl Streep’s fictionalized portrayal of Chief Editor and Resident Warrior Queen Anna Wintour.

Although, I hadn’t, and perhaps that lack of preparatory bias has allowed me to instead compare and contrast what ended up in the documentary and what ended up on its nearly as full to the inseam accompanying Special Features disc.

The documentary is something of a whirlwind, and frankly, I would have appreciated and enjoyed seeing far more of how meetings and discussions turned out instead of feeling like the benevolent cameraman Bob with his sacred belly and his cohorts were cutting together a succession of highlight reels. That said, the documentary does do a solid job of introducing us to the key players on Anna’s team, and further demonstrating that where Anna might be the brains, cold and calculating, Grace Coddington is the Heart, artistic and impassioned, while others make up the liver, spleen, and even the soul, pardon the pun. And though I would have liked more fly on the wall, and less perception that folks were playing shy or nice in front of the invasive documentarians’ cameras, I do think the film succeeds describing the organism that governs a far larger organism of the magazine that in turn feeds and feeds off of the even larger organic structure of popular culture, tastes, and trying to make some marketable sense of the general popular lack of either.

Like most everything I’ve learned in life about art, illustration, photography, architecture, and even World War 2; I first learned about high fashion by indirect exposure while perusing my Mom’s discarded issues of Vogue because I’d noticed a collision between sheer fabrics and a general late 70′s – early 80′s models’ aversion to bras. While my interests in art, fashion, illustration, design, and everything else have developed, broadened, matured, enriched and informed my personal and professional life, there is no getting around the fact that pretty much everything I know started with the simple quest of a boy hoping to catch a view of a boob.

And that’s a decent analogy to the companion DVD, the Special Features disk that is a pancake stack of clips and outtakes that make the experience richer, deeper, and far more enlightening. The documentary shows you a crafted perspective on who runs the show. The second disc alternately demonstrates more about who the people are, and how their respective processes work. More meat and potatoes, if you will.

Take for instance Andre Leon Talley. In the documentary portion, he’s proffered to an the uninitiated audience that is I as a flamboyant, vain, out of shape Prada poster child. A stereotype standing well over 6 feet tall and weighing in at well over 300 carrots of gold and diamonds. Almost didn’t watch his section on the second disc, and what a mistake I almost made! The second disc, meat and potatoes remember, demonstrates a man with a lot of layers, history, and personae he can turn on an off as needed to survive and excel at his job. The documentary used him as a distraction, perhaps, or to lighten the mood, a boob to look at if you will, and yet there is so much more to the man, and vicariously through seeing his visit to a fashion school, to Paris with the documentary crew, and assisting with setting up high end exotic antiques at a specialty shop you discover that like him or not, he shouldn’t be dismissed as a loud mouthpiece for the nigh immortal elven queen, even if sometimes that is another role he has to play.

The real takeaway for me though is through Grace’s segments. She’s damn amazing, and the way she draws every dress and outfit she sees blows me away. Thinking she must have books floating around for this stuff, found that she does, however, a bit pricey for my video game designer’s salary, can’t even afford back issues of Vogue on those wages. She does have another tome more within my mercantile allowance, a sort of high fashion equivalent to the “Hang In There” kitten poster, really.

And I would be remiss not to mention how impressed, awed even, by Anna and Grace as both of them have massive routines, deal with metric tons of stuff and no-nonsense, and are both past the age most folks retire. Grace, born 1941, seems to handle her age with a vibrancy that speaks to an inner fire as brilliant as her out of control signature red mane. Anna, born 1949, is according to reports typically up at 6 am for tennis and to bed by 10 pm daily, never stays for more than the first 20 minutes of any party, and eats protein exclusively for lunches. By protein I did not mean kittens or babies, though I’ve found a few blogs that might have you believe so, she’s got quite a reputation turns out.

As a child I simply adored the planet of the apes films, even the mercifully short lived TV series, and sometimes thought the chimpanzee doctor lady had it going on, yet found the inflexibility of her upper lip somewhat disconcerting. There were moments when Anna spoke to people, especially when she had her corrective sunglasses on, that her quest to remain forever young combined with her stiff upper lip reminded me of the chimpanzee lady’s facial makeup. Maybe that’s just me.

Any rate, though a bit light on expose, the documentary, especially factoring in the second disc, is quite illuminating, and I’m looking forward to Devil Wears Prada’s potentially biased or skewed (or generous depending on who’s blog you read) portrayal of Anna Wintour, one of the most powerful women in fashion today.

Micmacs, a new film from the wonder team of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant (though where was Marc Caro?), is visually delicious, delightfully quirky, and deceptively loaded. OK, that constitutes sort of a pun, sorry.

Some critics noted that it’s lighter on substance than previous works from these creative types, and that’s true, however I wouldn’t consider the film less worthwhile for glossing over a lot of potentially rich minutia when zeroing in so frequently and comedic on much seemingly extraneous microscopic cosmetic detail. I think most comedies delve into the realm of character development through presenting obstacles and predicaments mundane, absurd, or super-sized convoluted just to see how the characters react, leverage, adapt, or fail too. Maybe that describes all drama, the risk of broad sweeping generalizations. This one ticks along smoothly with the protagonist’s gang / family always seemingly balancing between having everything under control while at the same time perpetually on the verge of spinning out of control, much like films I adored growing up like the The Sting or many Jerry Lewis / Dean Martin capers. Remember when Jerry raced a snail? Though fret not, Micmacs has no wince-inducing, “Hey Lady!” moments, just good clean fun with nary a pause to get too deeply intellectually invested and loads of clever beats that illicit a hearty laugh or a healthy tug at the ol’ heart strings.

What I would and could wish for is more and deeper penetration into the psyches of the supporting cavalcade of characters. They really only get enough quirks and novelty to help them read well as functional supporting teammates, yet at the end of the film I felt a lot of the protagonist’s new family remain unresolved. True, that’s life, yet I expect more from the creators of this than I do from say an Adam Sandler movie. For sure, this looked better and had loads of wonderful gags and turns, and without a doubt the evil villains were undeniably evil and made to pay quite deliciously, much like the end of Earnest Goes to Camp or Real Genius, really.

And here’s a trivia question I don’t have an answer for: How many comedic or films otherwise have resolved through exposing a bad guy / entity through playing a recorded snippet of sound, video, or smell for the public at large while the villain(s) & sharks get caught (out) flat footed / finned? I know there’s a bunch, yet I’m drawing a blank thins second.

Any rate, love the film though I would like to see the creators of it, and their esteemed friends, bring forth some more deep, layered, and potentially subversive cinema on par with the films they’ve created or touched, and not just the screenwriting and directing, I mean the aft direction, the cinematography, the wealth of actors that reappear in so many of the films.  Maybe you’ve seen Delicatessen or Amelie. Have you seen any of the other films they’ve been a part of, big or small? Art direction on AccionMutante , blew the load on City of the Lost Children, advised on Ugliest Woman in the World… go read up on these cats and the cats they work with on IMDB and Wiki, trust me, a veritable plethora of fine cinema awaits your drying eyes.

Hot Tub Time Machine,of course the unrated version, did not disappoint, and further, it entertained. However, I have to pause and wonder who, besides me, the target market for this film might have been, and whether that helped or ultimately hurts the potential this film had to have been Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure most excellent instead of Blues Brothers 2000 should’ve been a contender.

Let me clarify my perspective, I grew up with John Cusack leading the way. He’s a touch older than me and via cable access to R-rated cinema he’s always been something of a handy role model, more than Kevin Bacon or Christian Slater even. He, or I should say the characters he portrayed, unwittingly set a bar I never really managed to leap over, though those Savage Steve,  Rob Reiner sorts of films did manage to inform a sort of moral compass I generally tried to adhere to.

John Cusack had my attention from the skillful way he hid a toke without gagging in Class, inspired me to get limber with his athletic skills becoming useful versus a Godzilla costume in One Crazy Summer, and most of all seemed to get my left-handed perspectives  his artistic aspirations in many movies, looking at you, Better Off Dead. We won’t get into my two decade plush man-crush on his sister Joan right now, thank you.

I don’t remember whether I first saw any of his work on Steve’s cable, or Sean’s, my parents hadn’t gotten a color TV yet so probably was Steve’s. Doesn’t matter much except to point out that what made life meaningful during those trepidations teenage years came from friends, peers, social groups, cliques even.  Kids trying to define themselves, maybe they had clear directives from their folks or institutions, or maybe they were simply given room to explore and self-manifest against a solid set of unwavering yet flexibly firm ground rules. I may have spent more time making surrogate families out of friends and clubs and teams and theater groups than I did building solid tiers of infrastructure within my own genetically bound brethren, perhaps because I had them already as solid foundation, perhaps because I took them for granted, perhaps because I’d been a witness to a nasty divorce and decided not to get that close to people obliged to love me so readily again, maybe just because I was doing what all kids must do at some point, ween from the parents and define the cut of their own jib.

All of the above and more I suspect.  Realizing now for not the first time that I owe large debts of gratitude to my peeps from those days, people that could tolerate my myriad brands of bullshit, people I could’ve dropped more concern for, reciprocated some compassion once in a while, afforded some emotional and social support instead of getting so mired with wanting to be liked, be popular, envied maybe, asked out once in a while would be nice. Strangely and at often at odds with my more vanity driven aspirations, I also spent a lot of time preoccupied with not ever wanting to be hated, to be disliked, to the point to cowering like a kicked puppy trying to suck up and compromise repeatedly to win some faux love from the strong types that might’ve felt offended, or threatened, or impatient, or perhaps, worst of all took no notice at all whatsoever.

Much of  my love to give to the cats that indulged me, informed me, rallied me, reality checked me. All my love as well for the cats I didn’t do as much as I could’ve, the ones I took for granted, or used, or kept distance from for fear of negative associations from A crowd I so wanted to be a part of, envied until I could cry, the same cats I largely could give nary a chocolate malt ball about now, all that sell-out stupid compromise for what, so dodge some proverbial Glee slushies? To minimize my silhouette as a viable target with the jock types? Or just because I was so up my own ass with self-doubt, self-loathing, and what all amounts really to an inability to gauge self-worth or to set and pursue and commit too viable goals with confidence, humility, and an earnest will to learn as much from failure as success? Irrelevant now at best, rhetorical at worst.

What does any of this have to do with Hot Tube Time Machine? Effectively everything, as I feel the film could’ve gone further, done more than homage Cusack’s early days with references to 2 dollars and costume cameos, have really dug into the premise that if you could take what you know now and take the helm of who you were back then, you might be able to right wrongs, avoid wrecks, and make good things infinitely better. Its the premise that makes films like Back to the Future, another staple of my formative years, so fetching. Or how about that flick about the dirt biker that somehow ends up being his own grand dad, or something. Maybe that one was just playing in the South. I digress.

Hot Tub Time Machine seems conflicted to me because I grew up with the protagonist, or at least, the actor the character seems specifically written for, and like the protagonist, I’m confronting an adulthood I think could have been different, albeit for radically different reasons. I’m not saying I’m unhappy with where the mid-life milestone passes by outside the Flintstone RV window, however do I think I could’ve wasted far less time, maintained relationships better and more fairly, and maybe have done a few dozen hundred other things differently to make lives better, starting with everyone I care about and ending with my sad sack.

The film is light, glib, occasionally schoolyard gross, and I think that’s playing to the cheap seats, and by cheap seats, I mean kids too young to fully appreciate the magnitude of what this event would actually mean to a trio of middle-aged men, to travel back to what might be subjectively described as your prime years to effectively play your life like a replay with cheat codes written on the inside of your forearm.

I dig the flim, just wish it’d been deeper, more thoughtful, and more inquisitive. Perhaps that sort of breadth and depth might have been possible if the target audience had been more specific, 30-40 somethings welcome and teen to 20 somethings can bugger off, go watch Olsen twins or discover beer and make new TFLNs or something.

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PS Mighty huge thanks to Lara Shannon for a couple of those 80′s snaps, hopefully you’ll not mind my reuse of them for a goofy film review!

Bridled with a beautiful score and a tone similarly playful to The American Astronaut, this eye popping film-stock disloyal romp blows performance anxiety and the fans that empower same into absurdest proportions with delightful art school justifying results.

While perhaps not as revolutionary as Green Porno, as MILF laden as Death Becomes Her, anyone that might feel empathy towards films that transcend yet remain loyal to the trappings of film school grad projects with apparently blackmailed A grade B list talent and / or has a healthy regard for full sized real womanly scaled glass legs filled with sudsy lager should check out this film for at least an offhanded inspiration to Google up some jpgs of Isabella back in her days working for the news, or with David Lynch, or just being awesome in general as an alternative weekend break from the usual lightness of being into unhealthy Juliette Binoche obsessions.

Nothing to do with anything, but She’s Having a Baby is riding the rails on the next channel I surf too after Saddest Music in the World slithers into credits. Couple scenes before the part I remember most, Kevin Bacon’s character getting called out for not knowing what he wants, whether the wife and child and domestic compliance, or wild coke fueled rides on monthly models of the mean. Haunted… When the Minutes Drag. I should feel chills, I remember in 1988 reacting to that scene while having no desire to follow Kevin’s lead, to apply his situations or choices to my own life. And now here I am, balanced on my own glass legs wherein beer swills like golden promise and foamy fun, trying to dance and beginning to feel my heels crack against the hard, gritty surface of the reality that in a day or three I will be a father, I will be holding a newborn to my chest trying to bond as a father and as a care giver and as a worthwhile person instead of the indecisive, self-obsessed, neurotic and narcissistic putz I’ve perfected playing at most of these past 40 years.

And suddenly I fiercely miss John Hughes. Of all the cats in the world I respect or admire, few spring to mind this very instant as the person I might most like a big old sloppy hug from, and maybe a few words of reality check. I’m sad he’s gone, his work gave image and voice to far more of my high school years than I should probably publicly admit. Sure, there was loads of content I didn’t get until years later, doesn’t change the fact that I took it all in, and when it mattered, heeded the cautionary elements quite well, thank you.

And speaking of feeling lost and in need of direction, the next film to traipse across the screen is Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels in Fly Away Home. No wonder I got so emo while talking to my Mom on the phone, clarifying questions about my birth, my brother’s; trying to contextualize my held dear slivers of memory, where and when, a high stakes game where bits I’ve potentially made up to fill in the gaps and subsequently held true for decades can be debunked within seconds by a witness that’d been on the scene.

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