Post by klep on Nov 25, 2019 7:42:01 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/25: Joe Versus the Volcano
HANKSGIVING!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Joe Versus the Volcano: A Fable in Three Meg Ryans
I. Meg the First
Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) works in the most soul-sucking factory in the known universe. He has a clerical job in a grey-green and flickering basement, where the light is always awful and his boss, Mr. Waturi (Dan Hedaya) is constantly on the phone repeating inane nonsense in irritated tones. Joe constantly feels sick, but doctors are unable to find anything that is wrong with him. He suspects at least part of the problem may be the horrible light of the tomb-like office, and he brings in a cheerful lamp. Which he is forbidden, of course, to keep there.
One of his coworkers there, the only bright spot in his life, is the vacuous DeDe (Meg Ryan), who seems too good for the life they're trapped in. Joe is incapable of telling her this, however, and one day, he finally finds a doctor who will tell him something is wrong with him—Dr. Ellison (Robert Stack) tells him he has an incurable brain cloud which will kill him, and he should go out and live what life he has left. So he tells off Waturi and asks DeDe out. She accepts, but upon finding out Joe is dying, she is uncomfortable and walks away.
2. Meg the Second
The next day, wealthy industrialist Samuel Harvey Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges) tells Joe he's heard about the whole brain cloud thing and offers him a proposition—he needs a rare mineral that is only available on the island of Waponi Woo, and the natives need someone willing to sacrifice someone to their volcano god. If Joe will do it, he promises Joe that the last three weeks of his life will be spent in incredible luxury. Joe accepts. He spends a day and night in Manhattan, receiving sober mentorship from limo driver Marshall (Ossie Davis), then goes to Los Angeles where he is to take ship to Waponi Woo.
When he is there, he meets Angelica (Meg Ryan again), one of Graynamore's daughters. Her father, she informs Joe, says she's a flibbertigibbet. Her father is not wrong. Joe, who has been brought out of himself some by Marshall, spends a little time wooing Angelica, but she is a flibbertigibbet and he is still Joe, and there's no future in it even without his brain cloud and volcano sacrifice and so forth. Angelica is fundamentally broken; she has no response to that.
3. Meg the Third
Angelica's mysteriously identical half-sister, Patricia (guess who!), is to sail Joe to Waponi Woo in exchange for title to her father's yacht, the Tweedledee. Joe and his beautiful set of steamer trunks are loaded onto the yacht. He and Patricia start to connect, really connect, on the voyage, and then there is a storm. Joe saves Patricia's life; the yacht sinks. The steamer trunks do not, and Joe makes a raft out of them. Patricia is unconscious for a couple of days, and Joe feeds her most of their fresh water as they float. In those days alone with an unresponsive Patricia and his own thoughts, Joe finally wakes up. Unfortunately, they drift ashore . . . on Waponi Woo, and Joe is a man of his word.
It is, to be honest, an amazing performance from Ryan. Honestly her best. It was a tough year—Kathy Bates won Best Actress for Misery that year—but I really think the Academy should've found a slot in the nominees for her. DeDe, Angelica, and Patricia are wildly different women and yet somehow all the same woman, and more than a woman—they are representatives of Life. They are what Joe needs and doesn't know he needs.
DeDe is . . . normal. Flighty. Not terribly bright. But a woman that a man leading Joe's initial life might well marry. She manages to work in that catacomb every day without wanting to kill herself—or, presumably, Waturi—and doesn't even seem to see how awful the whole thing is. It's just an ordinary life.
Angelica, meanwhile, is what someone who has long been trapped might see as freedom. At least on the surface. She leads a freespirited, casual life of restaurants and shopping, and it's only as Joe gets to know her that he is able to see what's underneath and learn that she isn't shallow but that everything under the surface is untouchable and dark. She won't look at it and doesn't want anyone else to, either.
And so there is Patricia, who is freer than Angelica in that she is aware of where she is trapped. She faces it, resents it, works around it. She leads the best life she can in spite of the limitations of life. Her father owns the yacht, but she is still free to sail it. That is a compromise she makes, and she is aware of that compromise, and she has made her choices.
And it is when Joe must save her that he finds that he actually wants to live. I don't know if this is the first Tom Hanks movie I saw, but it's certianly one of the first—I am old enough to have seen it relatively new, when he was still thought of as purely a comedic actor. I don't know why; this is not purely a comedic performance. He'd get a great deal of praise for how he handled the pathos of the next character he'd play in a movie with Ryan, Sam Baldwin of Sleepless in Seattle. Joe is one of the last films he made before he started being Serious Actor Tom Hanks; this was three years before Philadelphia. But every moment where Joe opens up about himself is one of those moments where you could see Oscar Winner Tom Hanks in his abilities, which admittedly are there to see when Uncle Ned was drinking the Keatons' vanilla extract.
The movie has a deeply stacked cast—it's the first place I saw Nathan Lane, in the bits on Waponi Woo that never entirely gel. Ossie Davis is a bit Magical Negro but at the same time refuses to be, which is itself an interesting balancing act. But its core is two amazing performances, one from Tom Hanks and one from Meg Ryan that is really three amazing performances. It remains the best of their movies together.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/2: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
OBSCURE MOVIE WEEK!
For Obscure Movie Week we're taking a look at this experimental short by Todd Haynes at the beginning of his career. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story explores the final 17 years of Karen Carpenter's life and is difficult to watch thanks to a copyright suit over its unauthorized soundtrack. Fortunately, the internet is magic and it can be found at www.dailymotion.com/video/x363le1. Join us next week for our discussion!
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/26: Jojo Rabbit
This podcast pairing concludes with a look at Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit, a film about a young Nazi youth and his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler. Come join us Wednesday for our discussion of this newest satire of the Third Reich! Jojo Rabbit is still in theaters.
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
Joe Versus the Volcano: A Fable in Three Meg Ryans
I. Meg the First
Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) works in the most soul-sucking factory in the known universe. He has a clerical job in a grey-green and flickering basement, where the light is always awful and his boss, Mr. Waturi (Dan Hedaya) is constantly on the phone repeating inane nonsense in irritated tones. Joe constantly feels sick, but doctors are unable to find anything that is wrong with him. He suspects at least part of the problem may be the horrible light of the tomb-like office, and he brings in a cheerful lamp. Which he is forbidden, of course, to keep there.
One of his coworkers there, the only bright spot in his life, is the vacuous DeDe (Meg Ryan), who seems too good for the life they're trapped in. Joe is incapable of telling her this, however, and one day, he finally finds a doctor who will tell him something is wrong with him—Dr. Ellison (Robert Stack) tells him he has an incurable brain cloud which will kill him, and he should go out and live what life he has left. So he tells off Waturi and asks DeDe out. She accepts, but upon finding out Joe is dying, she is uncomfortable and walks away.
2. Meg the Second
The next day, wealthy industrialist Samuel Harvey Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges) tells Joe he's heard about the whole brain cloud thing and offers him a proposition—he needs a rare mineral that is only available on the island of Waponi Woo, and the natives need someone willing to sacrifice someone to their volcano god. If Joe will do it, he promises Joe that the last three weeks of his life will be spent in incredible luxury. Joe accepts. He spends a day and night in Manhattan, receiving sober mentorship from limo driver Marshall (Ossie Davis), then goes to Los Angeles where he is to take ship to Waponi Woo.
When he is there, he meets Angelica (Meg Ryan again), one of Graynamore's daughters. Her father, she informs Joe, says she's a flibbertigibbet. Her father is not wrong. Joe, who has been brought out of himself some by Marshall, spends a little time wooing Angelica, but she is a flibbertigibbet and he is still Joe, and there's no future in it even without his brain cloud and volcano sacrifice and so forth. Angelica is fundamentally broken; she has no response to that.
3. Meg the Third
Angelica's mysteriously identical half-sister, Patricia (guess who!), is to sail Joe to Waponi Woo in exchange for title to her father's yacht, the Tweedledee. Joe and his beautiful set of steamer trunks are loaded onto the yacht. He and Patricia start to connect, really connect, on the voyage, and then there is a storm. Joe saves Patricia's life; the yacht sinks. The steamer trunks do not, and Joe makes a raft out of them. Patricia is unconscious for a couple of days, and Joe feeds her most of their fresh water as they float. In those days alone with an unresponsive Patricia and his own thoughts, Joe finally wakes up. Unfortunately, they drift ashore . . . on Waponi Woo, and Joe is a man of his word.
It is, to be honest, an amazing performance from Ryan. Honestly her best. It was a tough year—Kathy Bates won Best Actress for Misery that year—but I really think the Academy should've found a slot in the nominees for her. DeDe, Angelica, and Patricia are wildly different women and yet somehow all the same woman, and more than a woman—they are representatives of Life. They are what Joe needs and doesn't know he needs.
DeDe is . . . normal. Flighty. Not terribly bright. But a woman that a man leading Joe's initial life might well marry. She manages to work in that catacomb every day without wanting to kill herself—or, presumably, Waturi—and doesn't even seem to see how awful the whole thing is. It's just an ordinary life.
Angelica, meanwhile, is what someone who has long been trapped might see as freedom. At least on the surface. She leads a freespirited, casual life of restaurants and shopping, and it's only as Joe gets to know her that he is able to see what's underneath and learn that she isn't shallow but that everything under the surface is untouchable and dark. She won't look at it and doesn't want anyone else to, either.
And so there is Patricia, who is freer than Angelica in that she is aware of where she is trapped. She faces it, resents it, works around it. She leads the best life she can in spite of the limitations of life. Her father owns the yacht, but she is still free to sail it. That is a compromise she makes, and she is aware of that compromise, and she has made her choices.
And it is when Joe must save her that he finds that he actually wants to live. I don't know if this is the first Tom Hanks movie I saw, but it's certianly one of the first—I am old enough to have seen it relatively new, when he was still thought of as purely a comedic actor. I don't know why; this is not purely a comedic performance. He'd get a great deal of praise for how he handled the pathos of the next character he'd play in a movie with Ryan, Sam Baldwin of Sleepless in Seattle. Joe is one of the last films he made before he started being Serious Actor Tom Hanks; this was three years before Philadelphia. But every moment where Joe opens up about himself is one of those moments where you could see Oscar Winner Tom Hanks in his abilities, which admittedly are there to see when Uncle Ned was drinking the Keatons' vanilla extract.
The movie has a deeply stacked cast—it's the first place I saw Nathan Lane, in the bits on Waponi Woo that never entirely gel. Ossie Davis is a bit Magical Negro but at the same time refuses to be, which is itself an interesting balancing act. But its core is two amazing performances, one from Tom Hanks and one from Meg Ryan that is really three amazing performances. It remains the best of their movies together.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/2: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
OBSCURE MOVIE WEEK!
For Obscure Movie Week we're taking a look at this experimental short by Todd Haynes at the beginning of his career. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story explores the final 17 years of Karen Carpenter's life and is difficult to watch thanks to a copyright suit over its unauthorized soundtrack. Fortunately, the internet is magic and it can be found at www.dailymotion.com/video/x363le1. Join us next week for our discussion!
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/26: Jojo Rabbit
This podcast pairing concludes with a look at Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit, a film about a young Nazi youth and his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler. Come join us Wednesday for our discussion of this newest satire of the Third Reich! Jojo Rabbit is still in theaters.