I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.
I did it once again.
The boys over at ScreenGeeks Radio duped me into participating in another one of their film based Podcasts to which I now submit to you. Of course this has nothing to do with the jealousy I feel by my fellow columnists who are now cranking out original Podcasts of their own but since I have none of the time nor the inclination to mount a project like that all on my own I am happy to ride the capabable coattails of the dudes from Denver.
I really really dig those guys and what they bring to the world of Podcasting about films and every time I do their show I am reminded why I like being about people who like film. I don’t like those who think that they have to exude a erudite sensibility or that being off the wall schtick-y is an appropriate way to gain listenership. Dave, Barry and Josh at ScreenGeeks talk about films in the most relaxed, honest and straightforward manner that it simply gets me to listen every week. I really hate when I’m on, though, as I genuinely hate to hear myself speak and every week I’m on is another week I don’t get to listen to these dudes just having it out with one another. They’re film nerds but they’re the kind of nerds you can respect for having opinions that aren’t neccessarily the party line and that’s why I dig any invitation to come on their program and just chat about flicks.
Oh, and before I let you animals loose this week, Ray Schillaci sent me a link to a trailer for a movie from way far way across the pond called FATSO. It’s remarkably hilarious and even though I don’t understand a word I have to say that I wish I could see this thing right now. Click the link. I swear you’ll dig it…
There’s a moment in Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s “Choke†that defines what kind of man Victor Mancini (played by Sam Rockwell) really is and it comes rather early in the first few moments of the film. He’s a man who loves his mother and, regardless of his other vices, he genuinely wants her to be the woman who is no doubt responsible for his addictions to sex, his inability to be a warm and caring individual to anyone else and for his predilections to take advantage of kind Samaritans.
It’s a difficult and tricky exercise to have a main character that is difficult, nearly impossible come to think of it, to like. Victor is rough around the proverbial edges, those edges poking or jabbing anyone who tries to come close to him, and he is literally a live sexual wire that fixates on anything with breasts. Age is no barrier for this pervert but one of the lessons that come out of watching this film is that even as Victor satisfies his own carnal desires you can’t help but realize that his dalliances with strange women and his need to be loved by strangers who take pity on a man whose own pathos justifies everything he does as acceptable.
Clark Gregg masterfully takes the material given to him and crafts a story that is at once hilariously dark and uproariously unapologetic. Victor takes from the rich in order to take care of his ailing mother who is wasting away in her own mind and, armed with only his ability to swindle, loaf and ensnare women with his beguiling smile and lecherous gaze Sam Rockwell proves yet again why he is a master of his craft; his nuances as an actor here serve him well in creating someone you can’t help but loathe and love at the same time.
Mancini’s friend Denny, played by Brad William Henke, is a strange foil for Victor. While it’s really an easy joke to make, or to take juvenile delight in, about Denny’s compulsive masturbation there is something to be said about the sadness of Denny. He takes Victor’s relentless verbal abuse in stride and anyone else in Denny’s shoes would have taken Victor to task for what is really an unhealthy relationship but yet Denny keeps enduring. His endurance pays off in what is one of the most amusing moments in the movie, Cherry Daquiri’s (Gillian Jacobs) introduction as a stripper with what seems like a woman who has little use for brains but who eventually helps Victor come to understand that while you or I would disapprove of the way he conducts his life the most profound insights can come from anywhere.
Disapproval comes in buckets in CHOKE and what would be a Chuck Palahniuk film if the doctor in charge of taking care of Victor’s mother (Kelly Macdonald) takes Victor on a strange and fantastical journey into the realm of impossibility as the doctor decodes his ailing mother’s diary, written in Italian no less, and lets it be known young Victor could be the result of self-impregnation with what could be the foreskin of Jesus Christ. With Anjelica Huston’s turn as the mother at the center at Victor’s world the two of them feed off each other’s dysfunctional and entropic lives that it isn’t until there’s a break in the link between the two of them that there’s any change. It’s a bizarre relationship that these two knowingly commit themselves to but the point is not that it’s only these two people who have issues but it’s that everyone here has extremely fractured lives. It’s what they do to move beyond their present situations that make the difference in this film.
It’s about this time in the movie, though, when you can’t believe things could get any stranger. However, like water slithering down the street corner, it always finds its lowest level.
The film takes on various sub-plots, some which work well and some that, well, seem a little awkward in a film that depends heavily on us keeping more than a few storylines going. And, therein, lays the problem. A novel works well because it can have many storylines going at any one time; you’ve got pages and pages to deal with various fragments and ideas but, in the case of Lord High Charlie’s (Clark Gregg) comedic relief it’s at once welcomed but woefully under developed.
Gregg’s work as a director and adaptor of Palahniuk’s work here is worthy of the kind of praise that won him accolades at Sundance. It’s deserving in the regard that he took a book that not any studio in their right mind would make as a multimillion dollar production but Gregg’s ability to carry us through the life of Victor Mancini and keep him as abrasive and unrepentant throughout this production is admirable. The movie’s soundtrack compliments the movement and actions on the screen and the sonic choices made are bold enough in that it works well to move the action along.
Some of the choices made, though, with regard to some of the direction gives me pause about praising this film on the whole. What Gregg has in comedic timing he lacks in giving the sense to the viewer that this is a unique world. To compare this work with what David Fincher brought to us with FIGHT CLUB really would be a disservice to CLUB. The direction he gives his players is static, not inspired by any means, and the cinematography lacks the kind of dark sensibilities of everyone involved. We should be feeling these people exist in a world that is not unlike our own but what we’re given instead is a film where it all feels kind of grey.
Overall, the film does deserve to be seen if for no other reason than to see how everyone involved comes through the other side. Clark Gregg has made a film, while not a pitch perfect example of what Palahniuk put to paper, that gives us a reasonable facsimile to the novel.
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