LAFF 2008: Day 5
Choke: Two sex addicts walk into a strip club…
I might be stating the obvious here, but something has come into clearer focus for me these past few days: Beware of reviews from film festivals. They’re not to be trusted. Environment, expectations and state of mind are all mutable, they all have an impact on a reviewer’s reaction to a movie and a film festival is a kind of pressure cooker that tends to magnify those variables beyond ordinary proportion.
Even before a movie plays, dangerous levels of anticipation surround some of these screenings, particularly the premieres that have not yet been seen by many people. Also, everyone seems to be looking for the big hit and the big flop rather than judging each movie on its own terms.
Consider also that multiple movies are being watched each day, which means multiple lines and plenty of travel from A to B depending on the festival logistics. Factor in travel time and hotel living for out-of-towners plus short review turn-around times for everyone and it’s not hard to imagine a level of exhaustion not necessarily conducive to fair and well reasoned reviews. The result for reviews coming out of film festivals I think is a tendency toward over-exaggeration or underestimation.
Even at a relatively modest film festival taking place in my own backyard, I can understand all of these effects to one degree or another and I can only imagine that a Sundance or a Cannes is even more intense in every way, particularly when they’re just one of many festivals some of these journalists attend every year.
The point is, when it comes to festival coverage, don’t always believe the hype. Having said that, here’s some more hype…
Choke comes along with its own raft of expectations. Fans of author Chuck Palahniuk in general will have their demands and fans of Fight Club specifically will certainly have their hopes and dreams. I can’t speak to the Palahniuk crowd other than to say the author himself claims to be happy with the adaptation. To the others: Choke is not Fight Club. It’s as simple as that. There are thematic similarities to be sure, but Choke is an altogether scruffier and rougher around the edges adventure than the glossier and more precise Fincher film. They’re both blackly comic satires about men in the modern age, but they’re different films. Choke might not be as sharp or ambitious as Fight Club, but it’s also less heavy handed, offering more laughs than sneers.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. More important than what Choke isn’t, here’s what Choke is: Sam Rockwell plays Victor, sex addict, scam artist and historical theme park employee. By day, he dresses up as a character from Colonial America and tries to keep from getting fired. At night he goes to 12-step meetings, but they invariably end in a toilet or closet with Victor vigorously banging the bruised hooker he also happens to sponsor. For kicks, he goes to restaurants and forces himself to choke on food in the hope that someone will rescue him. Ostensibly he’s seeking to create a bond with these good Samaritans that will encourage them to send him money in the future in the hope they can recapture the good feeling of their original heroism. At the same time, he also seems to thrive on the feelings that moment of rescue invariably engenders. It fills a void inside him.
Basically, Victor is an utter mess, fueled by self loathing and heading downward in a terminal spiral. Leading the way is his mother, Angelica Huston. A lifetime of drug abuse has left her brain addled and she doesn’t even recognize Victor when he comes to visit her at the rest home. She’s deteriorating fast, but Victor needs her to hang on long enough to tell him who his real father is.
If you can’t see how this territory could be mined for laughs, you probably won’t like Choke very much, but consider me one who enjoyed it quite a bit. Sam Rockwell especially is in rare form. I can’t think of another actor who could sink so low yet still come across as likeable and sympathetic. He does nothing to outwardly soften his character, yet he’s oddly charming.
Writer/director/actor Clark Gregg apparently worked on the screenplay for 7 years trying to get his adaptation of the Palahniuk novel just right. I’m not sure he was completely successful, but I’m willing to call it close enough. There are a number of subplots that go into describing the character of Victor and oddly enough, the subplot that lends the film its title feels the most underdeveloped, almost to the point of being tacked on. Obviously, Gregg had to make choices of what to keep and what to exclude from the novel and he had to decide what to emphasize, but it seems odd the choking angle didn’t fit in better.
Imperfections aside, Choke works. It’s sick and it’s funny and it features a couple of terrific performances from Angelica Huston and Sam Rockwell. Kelly Macdonald is also good as Huston’s off-kilter doctor who Victor naturally wants to nail. (Summer Previews)
A million miles away from Choke is Barry Jenkins’ fascinating indie Medicine for Melancholy, the story of two African-Americans who spend the day together following a drunken one-night stand. The thing is, I was never very self-conscious about my race until I moved to Los Angeles. Growing up in Seattle, I was mainly surrounded by other white people so it was never an issue. These days it’s a little easier to imagine what it might be like to grow up in a city where only 7 percent of the population shares the color of your skin. That’s the situation for Micah who lives in San Francisco. He tends to define himself by his blackness and he seems fascinated and a little disturbed by Joanne who does not.
They’re wary of each other in the beginning. He’s open and friendly, but she’s colder and more defensive. Through circumstances (she leaves her wallet in the cab they share, he tracks her down to give it back) they end up spending the day and another night together, getting to know each other and figuring out if simply being the same color is enough of a commonality to form a real romance.
Filmed on a tiny budget with four people (including the cast of two) using a $5000 camera, Medicine for Melancholy looks surprisingly polished. Jenkins chose a desaturated palette that is almost black and white with only a few traces of color, mostly subtle pinks and yellows, here and there. It’s an interesting choice and it gives the film a very distinct and pleasing look.
Actors Wyatt Cenac and Tracey N. Heggins are excellent, quickly establishing their character types and then slowly and subtly expanding on them as the film progresses. Though the film feels scripted and a little too anxious to make a point at times, other moments have an almost documentary like reality and on balance these are the ones that shine through. (Narrative Competition)
Choke will be released in September. Medicine for Melancholy was picked up for distribution by IFC a day or two before the LA Film Festival opened and it’s scheduled for simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in 2009.
Filed under: Film Festivals
Related Posts: - Picking the Peanuts out of Sundance
- LAFF 2008: Day 1
- LAFF 2008: Day 8
- LAFF 2008: Day 10 - Part 1
- Weekend Forecast: 9/25/08
Still pretty ambivalent about Choke as I was annoyed enough by the novel to stop reading it halfway through, but I admit my annoyance was fairly personal and indistinct from the book. The Sam Rockwell factor is hard to ignore though.
Medicine for Melancholy sounds really interesting though. I’m curious enough to see it now.
I saw the picture and for a split second I thought we were going to get a post about what Craig does when he’s not watching movies.
Gosh, wish I wasn’t headed out the door as I can’t wait to read this.
Be right back in about six or seven hours!
I agree with joel, Palahniuk is hit or miss. Fight Club was great but so many his others were awful. And Rockwell’s great as a character actor, but as a lead? Jury’s still out.
I have mixed feelings about CHOKE, but this position is difficult to sustain after reading this great review.
As to MELANCHOLY, that looks like a real find. It’s great that they are both planned for release in the fall/winter.
I love that comment in the lead-in about ignoring the hype, and then saying and “and here’s more hype.” Good one!!!! Another passionate report.
Craig, thanks for filling us in on LAFF’s most worthy efforts. You deserve some kind of award for this, honey.
I’ll have to think of something worthy to bestow on you…
I was a big fan fan of FIGHT CLUB. But I must admit that I’ve never read any of Chuck Palahniuk’s books.
I saw a trailer recently for Choke and actually laughed out loud several times. Sam Rockwell is rather cool.
He is playing a scumbag (that much was clear) but there’s an enormous difference between portraying a charming fascinating scumbag (as in a character that you can’t look away from onscreen, rather like a car wreck) and…just a normal garden variety scumbag.
Otherwise it’s just like watching scumbags off screen. The vast majority of scumbags in reality don’t usually have a lot of positive traits (even to be used as manipulation) and you wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
But I do worship the ground ANJELICA HUSTON walks on. Plus, even though I found NCFOM the MOST OVERRATED FILM of this entire new century, I do look forward to seeing what KELLY MacDONALD has up her sleeve since her most excellent performance as Carla Jean.
Looks rough but rather intriguing.
So we shall see…
“Beware of reviews from film festivals.”
I love the fact that you put this in your review with little or no sarcasm. Too true, by the way. I just want to point out that I like Sam Rockwell, but I’m a little uncertain about him carrying this film although he was great in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
From reading your review Craig, it almost sounds like the movie may diverge from the film a bit, which might make it work better for me. We shall see.
Except my festival reviews, coz mine are not as big as crazy as LAFF, and I watch them on screeners….jokes, your coverage is beyond anything I think I have ever really seen from anyone else in terms of film fest. coverage, so Kudos to you man. You are the man.
So “Choke” is awesome? Thought so, but I am very, very glad you said so :) 2/7/08, can’t wait.
Terrific job yet again, Craig. I’m very glad to hear all of that about Choke.
Rockwell is one of the most interestingly idiosyncratic, subtly overpowering actors out there right now.
I thought Palahniak was cool for about ten minutes in college-when I was the target audience, and I’ve read several of the books, but it’s hypocritical, pandering hipster crap, and all of the books (that I’ve read) are exactly the same.
Rockwell is a wonderful, interesting actor-a true character actor, who has a habit of stealing the screen from whoever else happens to be inhabiting it with him. That’s enough to see CHOKE for me (one of the books I read of his, can’t remember much.)
I’m in for both.
And I definitely understand the festival review skews. Seeing so many movies at once, perspective is sometimes lost. You can go from a terrible movie into a mediocre movie that actually looks like a Best Picture nomination in comparison. The opposite can also be true. I found that I wasn’t totally blown away by The Edge of Heaven because I had just seen Dry Season, but I probably would have had a very different reaction to Heaven had I seen it alone outside of the festival.
That being said, I think most of the festival movies I saw still hold up, like OSS.
Back to Choke, I think my expectations are fairly low for this even though I consider Fight Club one of top 25 movies of the 90’s. As you said, they’re not the same, so why expect them to be.
Insightful thoughts on the nature of film festivals and the opinions that come out of them. They certainly have a polarizing effect (anyone remember Gallo and Ebert’s Brown Bunny debacle?).
I admit I’m not that interested in Choke. Palahniuk (had to copy and paste that from your article) is an acquired taste that I have never quite acquired, even with my obsessive love of Fight Club. I think I’ve started at least 3 of his books but never finished one, so I’m with Joel, there. I do like Rockwell, but the self-destructive mish-mash of amoral behavior that appears to constitute the plot is just not my cup of tea. I think I might be a bit of a prude in that respect.
I’ve read Survivor, which has an interesting concept but didn’t really pan out. Never tried Fight Club…I wanted the movie to stand on its own.
Palahniuk is from Portland and he used to do readings where people (fanboys) would literally go into convulsions, faint, and generally freak out in his presence. Kinda bizarre.
Which was the one where the guy has a father who used to do renovations on summer houses, and he would wall up certain rooms and write all kinds of horrid slurs on inside where no one could see them?
I could see Palahniuk fans reacting that way - he engenders an extreme reaction. Either you get him (as in really get him) or you are ambivalent, or at the worst deeply offended.
The only crappy thing about this festival is that I don’t have as much time to mix it up with you guys in the comments section, let alone visit any of you on your own blogs. I’m not complaining. I loathe festival complainers (if you hate it so much, get a real job, jackass), I’m just saying.
Miranda, your kind words allow me to overlook your scorn of a certain best movie of the year from 2007. :) If you like Sam Rockwell and if the trailer made you laugh, Choke might be right up your alley. It not Fight Club, it’s definitely its own thing, but damnit it made me laugh.
As for the rest of you. I have no attachment to Mr. P whatsoever and had very modest expectations of Choke. Rockwell was great. I laughed.
Evan, if you’re feeling prudish, you could probably take a pass on this one, though I have to say it sounds worse on paper than it plays on screen (I was rooting for it to be filthier, but then sometimes I actually embarrass myself…that’s another story). Victor is a degenerate, but he actually wants to get better. And he tries.
Joel. From what Hedwig said about the book, it sounds like the movie is definitely a bit different…at least in terms of focus maybe. Whether that’s for better or for worse, I can’t say. I can only say I liked the movie. Not a festival favorite or anything, but entertaining.
Nick. Those are some kind words. On one hand they make me think you need to read more festival coverage :). But on the other hand I think “The dude is complimenting you. Shut up and take it!” I’ll go with the latter. Thanks.
I guess it’s also that in a book, even a minor subplot can take up a page or thirty/forty. And it’s been a while (haven’t started re-reading yet), so I might not remember the proportions well.
I personally am ambivalent about Mr. P. I actually like his style a lot, it’s terse, very condensed, witty, and crude to the point where it sometime even feels insightful (though it might not be), and is, at the very least, funny, very funny even from time to time (my style could stand being a bit terser, I know).
However (I’m not sure if it’s due to the success of Fight Club or just because he doesn’t know how else to end a story), he has a propensity for ending with a usually quite unnecessary twist. In Fight Club, the twist works, it even adds to the themes of the story and puts it in a different light. However, in Choke it’s utterly pointless, in Invisible Monsters it’s both crassly sensationalist and obvious basically from the beginning and….hm, it turns out that’s all I’ve read of him. If it feels like a formula after just three books, that’s not a good sign, is it?
Still, I look forward to the movie, especially after your recommendation, Craig. And I definitely look forward to the rest of the LAFF coverage!
Somehow the twist worked for me even though I could see it coming almost right away. Maybe BECAUSE I could see it coming, I wasn’t as focused on it.
Oh and also, I walked by Diddy Riese the other day just for you, but it was crowded and I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t stop in. There will be ice cream cookie sandwiches before LAFF is through though….oh yes, there will…
chuck i a big reason i avoided palahniuk is because of his hipster audience.
maybe no 3000 years after the fact i’ll give him a try.ha ha…
yeah want to chocke and medicine sounds like it could be neat. yep i said neat. oh lord…
jeff, i was an extra in the choke strip club scenes. ;)
and i haven’t seen the fight club’ see i’m just so pure and innocnet…. i want someone to a movie thing with this book. :)
http://www.amazon.com/Period-Dennis-Cooper/dp/0802137830/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214420485&sr=1-6
Evan, it’s been like 10 years since I read it but Survivor begins with the lone narrator on a jumbo jet set on auto pilot, telling his life story into the cockpit voice recorder before crashing the plane into the ocean to commit suicide (the movie script is writing itself here).
He goes into homes at estate sales to steal drugs out of medicine cabinets, becomes the leader of some cult, etc. Standard Palahniuk territory.
Don’t recall the father angle.
so towelhead and choke come out within a month of each other interesting. :)
I just saw “Choke,” and really liked it. A little less than I liked the book, but Sam R. was perfect.
[...] other good friend, Craig Kennedy did exactly the same, if you substitute Toronto with LA and “Gomorrah” with “Medicine for Melancholy.” [...]