AFI Fest’s biggest scheduling dilemma this year was THE ROAD versus BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. On the one hand, an acclaimed novel brought to life and starring Lord of the Rings guy. On the other, an insane German director and bugfuck actor in a name-only remake apparently about total insanity.
I’d have been fine either way. But THE ROAD was a gala, and BAD LIEUTENANT not. So when I got the email saying I was in for the gala, that was my choice made. At 4pm that day, I heard there were still tix aplenty for crazy Nic Cage.
At 6:45 or so, I headed into the big theater for THE ROAD. By 7, the alleged starting time, the Grauman’s was maybe half-full. Over the course of the next half-hour, a voice over the P.A. would tell us to take our seats at least three times. By 7:30, the place was nearly full (blame, perhaps, the fact that THE ROAD had many previous premieres and press screenings, though I had never been able to get into any prior showings before they filled up). And then we get the revelation that, prior to the film, David Poland is gonna interview Viggo Mortensen.
I like David – he was one of the first LA Media types to give me any recognition at all. But he can also be very condescending, and he started off with some stuff about how so many people he meets go “Viggo…Ooooh!” This includes an anecdote about how he just met Eva Mendes, who said that very thing. But he makes it sound bad. Not that I’d say “Viggo…Ooooh!” but I have no problem with ladies or gay guys who do. Hell, I just saw Christina Ricci get very naked in a movie, and I was all “BOIIIIING!” Just don’t hate me for that. It’s how people are, y’know.
I could make a joke about David’s chest hair, and he could nip that in the bud if he were to button his shirt all the way up. Maybe we should both take the high road. That said, Poland being Poland insisted on discussing the final moments in some detail, prior to us seeing it. It may be that the book is so well-read that I shouldn’t object, but I do find that when folks like DP who see this way in advance start talking, they forget, that NONE OF US WATCHING has had that same privilege.
We get a montage about Viggo, with its own Lord of the Rings subsection. Then David interviews him for a while, and Viggo is damn near inaudible. Best part was when he talked about how he adopted the horse in HIDALGO, an otherwise forgettable flick.
I take a bathroom break after the interview. Then THE ROAD begins, after director John Hillcoat says some stuff that I mostly miss due to washing piss off my hands.
THE ROAD…I haven’t read the book, and this is a huge qualifier. I also never watched the trailers. I suggest those of you who want to be unpsoiled not even look at IMDB, because then you’ll be going “When is so-and-so gonna show up?” and that person might not show up till very late in the game.
I will say that Robert Duvall is in it, under a lot of make-up…but he still does that chuckling-mid-sentence thing that has become a lazy tic for him, and I suspect no director has the balls to tell him to stop, but they should. Just like when George Clooney used to always look at the ground and bounce his head up and down, but Soderbergh told him to cut that shit out.
For those who don’t know, THE ROAD is about an unnamed father and son in a future that appears to be – but isn’t specified as – post-nuclear winter. Skies are gray, all animals and plants are dead, and food is scarce (the companies that paid for product placement in this movie are getting their money’s worth – every time the characters come across some last remnant of food or drink, it is made to look like the BEST THING ON EARTH – certainly the most colorful thing — and that includes Cheetos and Vitamin Water). Also, since this is a movie, coughing blood is a symptom of EVERY TERMINAL DISEASE THAT EVER EXISTED.
I imagine that folks like Dr. Ted Baehr will, at some point, try to make the case that THE ROAD is a “heroic Christian allegory” or somesuch, base don the fact that characters in it mention God, angels, and an afterlife where they might meet again. Also, the lead characters seek sanctuary in a church at one point.
But that is reaching.
To me, this movie quite effectively sums up, metaphorically, the atheist/hopeless worldview I hold. Life is depicted as nasty, brutal, arbitrary, and short, with little joy…but the few moments of love and bliss you can seize make it worthwhile. This is how I see the world. Father and son have hope that once they reach the coast, things will improve. They have very little evidence of this…just a sliver of hope.
Just to clarify: I am not HAPPY that I see things this way…I just don’t buy the more cheerful variations. Maybe I need more pills. I think this view also resonates in a recession, where it is hard to see the end of bad times ahead, but you have to keep that hope going, the fire inside as they refer to it here.
There is a reason why the best known nuclear winter movies ran on TV first (THREADS, THE DAY AFTER) – people don’t want to pay to be that depressed. This movie is not quite that hopeless, but nonetheless may be too much of a downer for the masses. As Preston Sturges well knew, people want entertainment and laughter in days like these.
Anyway, as father and son journey to the coast, there are occasional flashbacks to the moments immediately following the unseen global catastrophe/nuclear war (or whatever) with Charlize Theron as Viggo’s wife, who quickly loses hope, after an immediate post-apocalypse birth. I suspect these scenes were increased to make her salary worth it, though I also will say that Charlize in her sparkly dress (which stood out, because everyone else there was male and wearing black) sat through the whole movie and did not duck out early as most celebrities do…she seems proud of this, and she should be. It’s not a very flattering role, so I support her for owning it.
A nit-picker might ask how the boy, born post-apocalypse, has such perfectly straight, white teeth. It’s not as bad a question as the one regarding the girl in THREADS, born post-war yet still having evident dental fillings. Perhaps the spawn of Viggo and Charlize would be genetically perfect. Or the fact that he never got to have junk food might keep those teeth safe.
Viggo shows his ass again, just so you know.
I have been accused of hating on child actors. I don’t think that’s true overall; I just hate overly precious, self-conscious child actors like Freddie Highmore in FINDING NEVERLAND. This year, though, kids rule. Max Records was fantastic in WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Spike Jonze’s unconventional ways of directing him might have helped, but his hilarious deadpanning at Comic-Con makes me believe in him too), and Kodi Smit-McPhee, despite an idiotically spelled first name (not to worry; Cate Blanchett is guilty of that too), is quite impressive here.
Overall, THE ROAD is a horror movie in the truest sense – it is about the horror of humanity, the horror of our legacy, the horror of what we might become. The story is quite episodic, but there are great moments of suspense throughout.
And here is one big caveat about the viewing experience: The movie is extremely quiet. And in the Grauman’s, not five minutes went by without audible sounds of coughing, and squeaky shifting in seats. I’m not just talking one annoying mystery cougher. I’m talking lots of different people. In a Michael Bay movie, they would have been drowned out. In THE ROAD, you hear all.
This is becoming a new pet peeve right up there with seat-kicking. People think that because coughing is an involuntary reaction, that it’s okay. Well, vomiting is often an involuntary reaction, and it isn’t okay if I puke a few seats away from you.
First off, a lot of coughing is psychological. And in this particular movie, ash is always falling from the sky. So get a drink, of water at least.
As for coughing that isn’t psychological: if you cannot stop or muffle yourself, don’t go to the movies. I remember MUNICH being ruined for me a few years ago because a wet hacking cough guy went off every two minutes, like clockwork.
Coughing is annoying all around. It may annoy you to have a cough, but sure as shit also annoys everyone else around you if you are in an audience for something quiet. BE AWARE.
Movie over, I went back to the lounge, which had become the default location for after-parties. I wasn’t sure my name was on the list, but it was. And I was delighted to see Clu and John Gulager in attendance. Anxious for food, they were purloining some appetizers from the Dimension table…I figure the makers of FEAST are entitled, but I wasn’t gonna do that.
SPOILER discussion in the next paragraph…skip it if you don’t know how THE ROAD ends…
Still here? Okay, well the only reason I’m doing this is because Clu had a very funny comment on the ending. In the film, as in the book, the boy hooks up with a new family. In the movie, however, they have a dog. Clu said he didn’t know why they hadn’t eaten the dog yet, and would have liked the last shot to be of the boy licking his lips when he sees it.
SPOILER OVER! You’re safe now. Proceed.
For this party, the Audi lounge upstairs was also opened up…so with my green wristband on, I took off my press lanyard and hid it in my pocket, lest the previous security meathead be looking for round 2 of “NO PRESS.” Sadly the bar upstairs had not reloaded on scotch. But I tried mixing Absolut Appeach with a little bit of Absolut Raspberri and Coke to make a peach melba drink…and it turned out pretty well.
Scott Foundas was there in a hideous sweater from a long-lost decade. He knows how to dress sometimes, but just not at all on other occasions. Dude needs a ZOMBIELAND hat. Anyway, Audi lounge stayed open till 1.
I forget how I got home, but it wasn’t by driving.
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