The Astronaut Farmer (2006)

Dear Polish Brothers,

Vigorously did I defend your Northfork (2003); I thought scenes in it were poetic and haunting. I found the way it undercut itself to be quite hilarious at times, and frequently poignant at others. That's some fast food. On the whole, those that I shared it with mocked me enormously¹.

So I guess it was inevitable that I would be crushed by the soppy-reality that is The Astronaut Farmer, a movie with a heart so genuine you can't help but wait for the punch-line. And it's not about a loon, see. It's about a guy who has actually built a rocket in his barn. A great, beautiful, pristine looking rocket. A throw-away scene with a reporter walking around a "rocket graveyard" states that this is how Charlie Farmer² got all of the parts for his rocketship. See, even garbage has worth.

I guess I should mention I only got as far as Bruce Willis showing up before I had to turn it off. There was an extended hoe-down scene which was making me feel good enough, but then CF had to go and buy the ride, and then ride it during magic hour alone with his daughter—her hands spread up like wings—and then Bruce Willis shows up and you think he's going to be all, "Charlie, Space is great! But you gotta stop acting all crazy!" But instead of getting on with it, he launches into this soliloquy in a whisper I thought (until now) reserved for M. Night Shyamalan projects. I don't know if he turns on Charlie, but I suspect he does. Only to stare in admiration as he goes up into the sky at the end of the film.

Is this what happens when the personal turns political?  Northfork was imbued with a cultural perspicuity that carried along all the other weird stuff.  The dog on stilts? We didn't need to know what it meant³. But here, it's so corrupted. Remember (in Northfork) that close-up of James Woods' weathered face and he just says "What're you talking about Willis?" It's the cinematic equivalent of that Chinatown My-Daughter-My-Sister slap. And I don't care what anyone says, it was a moment where a movie demanded my attention in a completely surreal way. There was absolutely nothing in the realm of Northfork that made that one comment as completely bizarre as it actually was. If I had to guess, the character was named Willis specifically for that scene.

And yet in The Astronaut Farmer: corruption! While we have to endure [Bruce] Willis' monologue-to-the-stars,  you see CF's eyes twinkling and tinkling with such emphatic joy you'd think the man was going to start pissing tears out of them. Only to be set back. Only to triumph. Only to achieve your dreams. What a truly American story.  

And if you don't think we're talking about America here, look to the exchange between CF and the Mysterious Government Types (who drive Cadillacs!) about WMDs. ("Sir, if I was building a weapon of mass destruction, you wouldn't be able to find it.") But it would be different, wouldn't it Charlie--since you'd actually have it? Yes, even these days it's worth it to dream the impossible dream. 

Please, Brothers Polish. Subvert something other than our cynicism? You're just making me more cynical.

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1. My co-worker Steve made the mistake of watching the director's commentary on the DVD, which regrettably led him to the assumption that the Polish Bros. were David Lynch-with-an-explanation-for-everything. We got some great footage of Nick Nolte here. He'd broken a shoe-lace earlier in the day, and you can really see the grief in his eye lines as he delivers this monologue. Just breathtaking.

2. Can we please stop it with the destiny-type names. Okay, sure he was an astrophysicist before the farm started going asunder, but even still. I'm divining some from-the-cutting-room-floor dialogue: M'pa was a farmer! I'm a farmer! We always been Farmers!

3. Lumbering humanity soullessly and precariously into the future? Gee, thanks Director's Commentary!

Beaches (1988)

i saw "Beaches" last night. mayim bialik's presence in it was a bit of a surprise--i remember her from blossom, and little else. alas, here she's a young bette midler who has already mastered her jazz hands technique and smokes. 

disney just announced an embargo on smoking in all of their films, so if there's a follow-up where mayim plays an alternaverse version of bette, she'll have kicked the habit. she could be available - she shows up in a feature on the dvd called "Mayim Remembering Beaches." 

anyway, she doesn't get lung cancer and die. rather, it's her friend--hillary whitney, who concocts the mysterious movie disease. i know she's supposed to be a wasp, but couldn't they have toned down her name a little?

why is this movie is so revered within the gay community. maybe it isn't, and that's my own dated perception? a little fellow named james in eau claire tried to make me watch it on several occasions, but i finally won out with "the English Patient." 

now that i've seen "Beaches", i have to say it played out more or less like clockwork, and that was a little disappointing. i occasionally become overwhelmed by drama in movies, books and life and so i was expecting (hoping for) something that resonated on some sort of impressionable/human (that is to say, emotional) level. but really, apart from the scene where the cat scampers over to the collapsed hillary whitney, there wasn't much there. they fight for the same guy, they marry and have troubled relationships but the friendship sustains them through all of that. then one dies. yeah, talk about being marked for death from the beginning. 

except without the villian named screwface. oh well. you can't have everything.