BEFORE: I like to say that I don't take suggestions for what movies to watch and then post about, but when you think about it, nothing could be further from the truth. Both of my bosses attend Academy screenings, and if they should see a film and then talk about it or blog about it (with me typing it) and I make a mental note to see that film based on their review, isn't that a suggestion? I read Entertainment Weekly and the Daily News (Sunday only) and if they give a film a great review and I later see it, isn't THAT a suggestion? Hollywood releases a new Marvel or Star Wars film and tells me I need to see it, am I not taking their suggestion when I plan to see those?
Anyway, I'd seen the posters for this film on the subway, maybe I made a mental note to investigate it, but when my BFF Andy came to stay with us for couple days in mid-April, he mentioned the film and said it was really good, so I added it to my Netflix queue on his recommendation alone. Then when I saw the cast list, I immediately realized a place it could fit into the list, what with my "Avengers: Infinity War" review expected at a certain point.
Originally I was going to go straight from "I Saw the Light" to "Infinity War", to allow two actors to carry over. OK, so this spoils that plan a little bit, but with a break coming up in my schedule, adding a film or two will help turn a week-long break into a five-day break, and that's easier for me to take. Of course, now I realize that if I had linked from "The Post" to "Kodachrome", then I could have flipped this film and yesterday's, and two actors could still carry over into "Avengers". Oh, well, as long as the chain is maintained, I can't be too picky. Elizabeth Olsen carries over from "I Saw the Light".
THE PLOT: Set during the final days of the photo development system known as Kodachrome, a father and son hit the road in order to reach a Kansas photo lab before it closes its doors for good.
AFTER: Ugh, there could have been a New York Times connection too, with "The Post" mentioning the Times' coverage of the Pentagon Papers, and the fact that this film was inspired by a Times article about the closing of the last Kodachrome lab in 2010. Too late, the die is cast. But this also works as a potential Father's Day film - I know we just had Mothers Day last weekend, but I already had three or films on my schedule about dying or aging fathers, so let's just roll with it, and call this Father's Day Film #1 (of 5?). Sure, there was a bit about a daughter admiring/hating/reconnecting with her father in "One True Thing", but that film was really more about the mother's illness. I'm moving on to fathers now...
If I've got a major complaint about this film, it's that it was a bit predictable. The "Road Trip" format of the film has been done before, in everything from "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and "Rain Man" right up to "Sideways", "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Due Date". (By extension, even "The Lord of the Rings" movies qualify...) And to a certain degree, they're all the same - different people or differing family members are forced to spend time together in a vehicle, and things are bound to start off badly, and go downhill from there. I think maybe it goes all the way back to "It Happened One Night" in 1934, possibly further. So once they started out on the road together - father, son and nurse - I could have told you that it wasn't going to go well, but probably ultimately there would be some kind of connection formed, because in movies at least, spending time together on the road and having shared experiences leads to understanding. Whereas in the real world, it could just as easily only remind these people why they hated each other in the first place.
And the main question we have (other than why these people hated each other in the first place) is: What's on those four rolls of film, that haven't been developed in decades? (I think there might be a NITPICK POINT over whether these rolls of film could have been properly processed after several decades, but I'll have to check on that.) Well, I took a guess near the beginning of the film, and it turned out I was right - which didn't necessarily lessen the impact of the reveal, it just means that there was a somewhat obvious direction to take this story, and that's where it went.
We sort of get an idea about what went wrong between the father and the son, decades ago - the details leak out over the course of the trip. And many other issues from the past resurface as well. What we end up with are three people who are simultaneously defensive, broken and also quite vulnerable. That's a difficult balance of emotions to achieve, but I think these actors were (generally speaking) up to the task. Sudeikis was essentially playing the same character he played in "We're the Millers", which is half average nice guy and half emotionless lunkhead, but that combination just happens to work here. I was also trying to figure out if there was some kind of relationship between the father and the nurse, other than the professional one. I think the film would work either way, but they never really get around to saying whether there was or not - perhaps it's up to the viewer. It might have made things a little more complicated, and sometimes complicated is good. The relationships are just like the trip, if we're going to get somewhere, it's boring if it's too easy.
But this is also a film about technology, and how it's used by the different generations. Photography stands out of course, because I also learned how to use a 35mm camera while in film school, and I resisted the advent of digital cameras, because at the time they didn't produce an image nearly as good as the SLRs, but of course that changed. Then not long after I learned how to use a digital camera, suddenly everybody had a camera on their phone. And again, they weren't great at first, but now they're better than ever, and I was forced to relent once again. My mother, on the other hand, still uses a non-phone camera, and I think she still has to take film down to the drugstore and wait three days. Unless that service is no longer available, in which case she's probably just stopped taking pictures, because that's easier than learning how a digital camera works. But this is also reflected in the film when the father rejects the use of a GPS on their trip, preferring to drive with the aid of a fold-out paper map. And I thought my parents were the only ones still using that method...
In the meantime, I work for an animator who still draws on paper with a pencil, although we're now scanning his drawings so they can be colored or composited on a computer. Because the man himself became a cartoonist and animator without computers being part of that process, so the tendency is for him to want to continue that way - plus he never learned to type for any reason, which seems weird in today's world, but the good news is that I get to stay employed because I CAN type quickly, and I have job security from typing all his e-mail responses, blog posts, scripts and book proposals. So now I can say that I "ghost-edited" and typed/corrected two books on animation that he wrote out longhand. (When learning to text on his phone, he once asked me why the letters were not in proper alphabetical order, and I had to explain that those of us who DO know how to type are more comfortable with the QWERTY keyboard, and that set-up transferred over to the phone. Still, I think he wondered why the whole universe of texting couldn't be re-arranged to suit his needs.)
I go through this with my own parents, who had to be dragged (by me) into getting cable TV, even when the local stations stopped transmitting over the airwaves and went all digital, my mother still bought that converter box for her upstairs TV, rather than allowing me to buy them a second cable box. Meanwhile, my father, raised in the age of FREE TV, refused cable for many years, and only relented when I bought it for their house and offered to pay all the bills (so it would still be FREE for him, I guess). They now have a large(r) flatscreen, stereo sound, and all-digital picture, and they love it, but they never would have gotten there on their own. They both have cell phones that they refuse to turn on, except for emergencies, they still have a rotary land-line phone, and my mom still writes letters and not e-mails. I give up.
In some ways, the Kodak Corporation is like a senior citizen, both being notoriously slow to adopt digital technology. Ironically, Kodak introduced the first commercial digital camera in 1991, but didn't promote it heavily to avoid interfering with their own film-based business. (This may be an over-simplification of their corporate strategy, I'm not an expert...) After decades of dragging their feet, the company finally announced a shift to digital in 2003-2004, but it was too little, too late. Before long the company was filing for bankruptcy, and more of its income over the next few years came from filing lawsuits against other camera manufacturers, rather than from selling its own cameras and supplies. All of the resulting corporate re-structuring and re-organization is what caused the decision to drop things like Kodachrome. They're still plugging away to date, but you have to wonder how long they'll be able to stave off the inevitable. How about that, corporations are just like people, after all!
NITPICK POINT #2 - It's great that this famous photographer character was able to connect with so many of his fans, but I found his musings about what photography "means" to be just a little too much. Something about "stopping time" and "committing moments to eternity" came across a little bit like a Kodak commercial - plus I'm not sure that it fit with his personality. It might have been a little more refreshing if he just treated photography like a job, something that he was good at that paid the bills. Maybe he did find some greater meaning in the art of photography - but if that's the case, then I would like to have seen this depicted in some other way than just him obsessively cleaning his camera each night. At another point, he said, "No matter how good something looks, you can't beat the real thing." Umm, he knows that a photo of something isn't the thing itself, right?
Also starring Ed Harris (last seen in "The Human Stain"), Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "Downsizing"), Bruce Greenwood (last seen in "The Post"), Wendy Crewson (last seen in "Room"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Breach"), Gethin Anthony, Bill Lake (last seen in "Pixels"), Bea Santos.
RATING: 6 out of 10 motel rooms
No comments:
Post a Comment