Carole Bouquet and André Dussollier in Unforgivable.

2012’s best so far and Sarris remembered

This year, I want to do the Mid-Year Reckoning differently, as a tribute to film critic Andrew Sarris’ recent passing. It was Sarris, during my grad school years at Columbia, who wisely advised that the percentage of good movies has not changed from the old days; now that the output is larger, the significance of sifting out the trash is more important than ever. Sarris’ indispensable work The American Cinema, first published in 1968, used the Nouvelle Vague’s notion of auteurism (cinema authorship) to categorize all Hollywood film history up to that point.

Sarris’ commentary on over 200 directors was an awesome feat, combining scholarship with sharp perception. His extraordinary assessments should still structure anyone’s thinking about movies, American or global.

Because The American Cinema emerged from cinema’s first half-century, it preserves aesthetics and values (pillars from Griffith to Sternberg) that have been lost in the recent years of criticism’s decline, in which media and box-office presence is given importance over the individual visions that Sarris knew were what made cinema an art form. He articulated that belief with idiosyncratic precision that to this day—when both Hollywood and the critical “community” have lost self-respect—is still awesome to read.

Each summer, my mid-year assessment has been a way to keep track of the movie year’s deluge, which, given the dozen or more films that open every week, is more than can be reviewed. Perhaps the reckoning might this time benefit from following Sarris’ model, as a reminder of the standards a film-lover has every right to uphold.

I take great exception to the TV pundit whose memorial to Sarris cited that he “loved movies.” Sarris’ work was greater than any fanboy obsession—everybody “loves” movies, but Sarris turned his interest into teaching, study and personal expression, the things that make criticism valuable, an art in its own right.

With continued respect for Sarris, one of the two critics who have meant the most to me, professionally and personally, I repeat The American Cinema’s first nine top-tobottom categories, citing the work of individual directors. It could help to understand how 2012’s best films so far might ultimately rank in film history or, as Sarris crucially demonstrated, in a personal pantheon rigorous enough to share with the world.

Pantheon Directors
Unforgivable (André Téchiné)—a tumultuous view of private lives as society and society as family.
The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)—examines the linkage of desire and despair to find the value of personal resurrection.

The Far Side of Paradise
Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)—the rare campus comedy genre visits private worlds that reflect the eccentricities we recognize deep down.
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)— compares the innocence of youth and maturity.
Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)—tragedy found in the comedy of hopes squandered by misguided fashions. The Skinny (Patrik-Ian Polk)—clarifies the blur of sex and friendship that gay life faces straight-on.
A Thousand Words (Brian Robbins)—a Hollywood satire so casually profound it scared off the industry and its fans.

Expressive Esoterica
Americano (Mathieu Demy)—an Oedipal odyssey that finds cultural heritage in family legacy.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor)—addresses action movie tropes to satirize the deficiencies of contemporary genre excess.
The Lady (Luc Besson)—eloquently acted political biopic, refined non-comic-book heroism.
The Flowers of War (Zhang Yimou)—common tragedy and possibility, rapturously envisioned.

Fringe Benefits
Detention (Joseph Kahn)—traces moral chaos throughout recent pop history. Chronicle (Jonathan Trank)—youth’s visionary search for meaning.
Wanderlust (David Wain)—audacious mockery of Occupy sentimentality and its outdated hippie heritage.
That’s My Boy (Sean Anders)—empathy, heredity and its discontents.

Joyful Noise (Todd Graff)—the anodyne effects of music and the movie musical.

Less Than Meets the Eye
Roadie (Michael Cuesta)—great performance by Ron Eldard.
The Kid with a Bike (Dardennes brothers)— modern neuroses given fairytale attention.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Timur Bekmambetov)—trash made uncommonly spectacular.

Lightly Likable: Being Flynn, Darling Companion, Man on a Ledge, Where Do We Go Now?

Strained Seriousness: The Turin Horse, Safe, Neil Young Journeys, Magic Mike

Make Way for the Clowns: Ted, The Dictator, Casa de mi Padre

Oddities, One-Shots and Newcomers: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Gerhard Richter Painting, Locked Out, John Carter

To read more from City Arts click here.

Paul Rudd is just as authentic and charming as ever in David Wain’s buddy comedy, Role Models.

Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott) reverse the genre’s expected celebration of crudeness. Introduced as spokesmen for Minotaur Energy Drink, Danny drives the company’s custom Jeep to countless California high schools where he does a promotional pitch in front of sequestered students while Wheeler prances beside him wearing a clownish bull costume. By wrecking the Jeep and losing their inherently humiliating, infantilizing jobs, these white, scruffy guy-guys go on to something better. Unwillingly and under court order, Danny and Wheeler are forced to do community service at Sturdy Wings, a Big Brother–style agency where they mentor a fatherless black kid, foul-mouthed Ronnie Shields (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and a disaffected white kid, adenoidal Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
Taking a page from Adam Sandler’s playbook (the ad campaign cleverly riffs on Sandler’s Big Daddy public urination trope), Role Models goes for heart over Apatow rudeness. The scene where Danny infuriates his fiancée (Elizabeth Banks) establishes his need to man-up—and not as a motivation for rom-com. Instead of coddling obtuse behavior, Role Models humorously works through Danny’s tantrums and Wheeler’s mischief. Not Bad Santas, Danny and Wheeler reject that obscene retread of outdated “subversiveness” and its implicit gender selfishness. They realize the special needs boys have for encouragement, camaraderie and example. Ronnie and Augie don’t become straight-A Boy Scouts, but Danny and Wheeler help socialize them.
You could call this a redemption plot, but it’s actually about acceptance. Buddyhood teaches Danny and Wheeler that being better men means showing concern for others.
Excuse me for laying out Role Models’ virtues so crudely, but these ideas are at risk in contemporary culture: for example, Knocked Up sentimentalized procreation; Anchorman made professionalism juvenile; Superbad made childishness hip-maudlin; Pineapple Express made camaraderie absurd; and Zack and Miri made sexuality crude. But Role Models importantly dramatizes Danny and Wheeler’s social responsibility as their personal obligation.
Role Models accomplishes a small miracle—which has a legacy. Directed by David Wain, who co-wrote the script with Rudd, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling, Role Models recalls virtues from last year’s appealing revue comedy The Ten and the genuinely moving drama Diggers. Through extremes of comic absurdity and sensitive melodrama, both films portrayed men coping with social conventions and individual identity. One of this team’s more significant creations is Sturdy Wings’ director, Sweeney (Jane Lynch), who orients Danny and Wheeler into the roles of “Bigs” guiding “Littles;” it compresses the mentor/disciple relationship into a model of action and its social effect. She dares/threatens them to mature into the friendly exemplars their differently challenged young charges require. Sweeney’s character throws a curveball into the rom-com/slob-com game making it more significant, more credible, than Apatow’s sitcom indulgence.
Wain, Rudd and Marino previously worked together in the comedy troupe Stella. I don’t get their cult film Wet Hot American Summer but admire that they draw amusement from common behavior. Better than preppie smugness, or Saturday Night Live clique-humor, they satirize the American male inner life. Role Models’ Men-to-Boys concept finds its heart in the ways young men desperately go wanting for masculine ideals. Danny and Wheeler’s disconnect over Kiss lyrics reflects Ronnie and Augie’s own boyish solipsisms: sex and Dungeons-and-Dragons. Their private worlds are parodied with light pathos and perfect silliness, converging into a renaissance-fair battle near a fast food joint. When the medieval king (Ken Jeong) tells Danny, “Exit my Burger Hole, boy!” it balances puberty with homosocial satire.
While mocking adolescent male escapism, Wain and co. touch on genuine moral abhorrence about the grind of labor as felt by Danny and Wheeler, two working-class almost-rebels. It’s why they punch each other affectionately and helps them distinguish between being co-workers and friends. That reality simply doesn’t appear in Apatow’s middle-class jokes. Ken Marino acted this class crisis beautifully as the dissatisfied young worker/father in Diggers; it’s a bonus when Marino shows up here daring a parody of macho dumbness. The same authenticity is apparent in Seann William Scott’s best-yet characterization as dedicated sybarite Wheeler. He also grows toward manhood.
Paul Rudd gets his best-yet starring part after traversing the lows and highs of contemporary comedy, from Apatow and Neil LaBute to the richness of Diggers and Role Models. How he does it—bringing bliss even to lousy material like Forgetting Sarah Marshall—is a mystery. Rudd alternates charm and honesty the way Joel McCrea once did, which is probably the gentlemanly secret propelling Role Models. Despite that mutinous smirk, the sparkle in Rudd’s eyes speaks sincerity. He confirms that good movies do more than pander to louts or flatter patriarchy’s ego. Role Models’ sweeter, more mature perspective on manhood and people-hood avoids the Apatow curse.
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Role Models
Directed by David Wain, Running Time: 99 min.
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