Punch Drunk Love & Bowling For Columbine

Do you watch chick-flicks? Are you put in the mood by some sentimental movie? Or is it those strong female-centered movies that make you feel raunchy? Maybe porn the number one rental at your house...

No matter, Gracie & others will help you find the flicks!

My first thought upon watching this was how eerily similar the Adam Sandler character is to myself, as if someone is following me around and stealing my story, but changing a few important details. But then I realize that there’s probably a lot of people like this around; social misfits with some pent up anger that are unable to deal with people, much less communicate with them properly. Luckily, Punch Drunk Love is hardly your normal romantic comedy and I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the mind of Paul Thomas Anderson, writer/director of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Hard Eight.

Punch Drunk Love is Anderson’s fourth film and departure from his Robert Altman-esque film style that features many little stories leading into one big story that were present in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Amazingly, Anderson is incapable of making anything other than flawless films with strong plots, characters, and dialogue. Anderson has once again proved he is his generation’s Scorcese, creating a signature style punctuated by great performances. Adam Sandler can finally be redeemed for all that annoying comedy crap he does. His lead performance as a plunger salesman with a social disorder is uncomfortable, yet sensitive and very real. Somehow, you get the feeling that this is the real Adam Sandler.

Sandler plays Barry Egan, a loner who has trouble fitting into any situation without it becoming a confrontation and is pestered by his seven Jewish sisters into finding a girlfriend. They gossip and make fun of him until he gets so angry that he explodes, but claim to be "helping" him. Emily Watson is a co-worker of one of his sister’s who develops a strange obsession with him after seeing his photo. She is attracted to him regardless of his strange behavior and stories of temper tantrums and he doesn’t seem to mind that she travels a lot for her job. We don’t even necessarily know if there’s a happy ending, but all we know is that’s it’s hopeful, even for those who think life’s not.

My only issue with the film is the message he sends with the subplot of a sex worker as a money-grubbing thief backed by a sleazy character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. After Sandler calls a 1-900 sex line and gives up all his personal information, he is hounded for money from the phone operator and attacked physically for being a “pervert”. Once again the Hollywood stereotype of a sex worker being a deceitful liar is reinforced.

Also watch for comedy genius and “Triumph the Dog “ creator Robert Smigel in a supporting role as Walter the Dentist.

Author/ filmmaker/ personality Michael Moore’s new documentary on gun violence was next up. Much in the same style of his previous documentaries, “Roger and Me” and “The Big One”, Moore pieces together interviews with celebrities and average people, news clips, and video of himself and his camera crew taunting people with often silly questions. The film has received standing ovations in theatres and rave reviews from just about everyone, but what, people of the US, are we going to do about the problem it discusses? Now that’s the hard part.

Early on in the film, Moore interviews the brother of Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, who declares “the pen is mightier that the sword, but to always keep a sword handy in case the pen fails.” The camera is Moore’s sword, and those he wields it at rarely come out unscathed. It’s almost surprising how he’s still able to get interviews with some of his subjects after he taunts them with questions and then tries to tug at their heartstrings with stories of violent tragedies. I love Moore’s work intensely, but I find some fault with the way he goes about his questioning at times. In the end you realize that only the intelligent subjects (such as Dick Clark, who shuts the door on him) are the ones who realize they’re being set up. When he asks a LA cop on the street whether they’re going to make an arrest for the “pollution problem”, you can’t help but cringe a little. This is where Moore gains his detractors, and what makes his efforts flawed. The questions he poses are sometimes TOO silly for anyone to warrant a response.

As in much of his work, Moore finds ties to his beloved Michigan and the problems brewing in the place people where I’m from go for vacation. Guns are a way of life in Michigan, so much so that banks give them away with checking accounts and ammo is sold at the local barbershop. Even Moore himself is a NRA member who won awards for his own marksmanship skills when he was a kid. The gun toting Michigan Militia members who call themselves “concerned citizens” who don’t seem to know what to do about violent crime, but will fight to the end to preserve their Second Amendment rights.

Interestingly, the best quotes of the film come from Marilyn Manson, who took the blame from many of these “concerned citizens” for the shootings at Columbine. He talks about music being the only escape for many tormented teens from the horrors of high school and says he’s not surprised that he became the scapegoat for the shootings. When asked what he would say to the Columbine shooters, he responds, “I wouldn’t say anything. I would listen to what they had to say.”

Moore’s treatment on Canada, which lacks the violence of the US, but not necessarily the guns, will make you want to jump ship and move northward. (Though Vancouver, where he did not film, had a serial murder on the loose until recently) It is a little pathetic how many Americans make fun of Canada when we should be jealous of everything they have that we don't (and will never) - a low crime rate, humane politicians, socialized healthcare, and little poverty. Sure, they talk funny and seem annoyingly happy, but those are the only two things wrong with them. No wonder Americans hate them so much.

A triumphant moment at K-Mart headquarters and an interview with Charlton Heston round out the film, making it triumphant and, in Heston’s case, very damaging. The elderly actor admits he doesn’t really need his guns, but keeps them for “comfort” and to exercise his Second Amendment right. He can’t seem to answer the question of gun violence, but instead makes excuses like “American History has a lot of blood on its hands”, as if that makes it ok. After he makes a complete ass out himself with racist comment and lack of sympathy for a murdered six-year-old, Heston can only walk away from the situation, ashamed, embarrassed, and sick of Moore’s silly questions. That Michael Moore sure knows how to piss people off.

The point of the film is to piss you off, but in such a way that people attempt to make change. Moore wants people to walk out of the theatre and realize what the real problem is and do something about it, like the “concerned citizens” of America and do something about this! How will people change after seeing this? What if the only people who see this are those that already agree with Michael Moore’s mission? Will Charlton Heston apologize? Worse yet, will somebody try to shoot Michael Moore because of this film? There’s just so many damn questions to ask...

Go see it. Support this man's work whether you agree with him or not because he is doing the very least he can do to try to change the world. The rest is up to us.