Mongol
Another fabulous movie I saw last weekend, but for very different reasons from WALL-E. Surprisingly, WALL-E I loved as a serious aesthetic experience, and Mongol I loved for its campiness, which for me is an academic interest. The remarkable thing about Mongol is that it is NOT "so bad it's good." Most of it is very high quality, and it's only parts that are incongruous or over the top - and yet, these parts enhance rather than mar. The violence, the soundtrack, and the odd structure (cyclical, not linear, so that you end thinking, nothing happened!) would normally detract from the cohesiveness of the world (the fourth wall?), but I suppose the whole thing is so stylized that it heightens the experience instead. Or, it may be the case that you can't go wrong with over-the-top violence? It's true that lots of movie audiences love blood, but somehow I doubt it's a free pass to fine art... After all, I recently saw a god-awful rendition of camp, Paris, When It Sizzles, starring Audrey Hepburn. Man, that was a steaming pile of poo - and it had some similar elements of camp as Mongol: the odd structure (repetitive/revisionary, though not cyclical), the deliberate play on genre conventions, inappropriate emotions. Yet, it was just "so bad, it's bad." I wonder why that is.
There were some great recurring themes in Mongol, some of which coincided with several themes throughout the weekend. Here's tentative record of this weekend's themes:
1a. "Wha' happened?"
1b. "I don't THINK so!"
2. Surf rock
3. Family Guy, esp. Quagmire:
"It's Quagmire, it's Quagmire
You never really know what he's gonna do next
It's Quagmire, it's Quagmire
Giggity giggity giggity giggity let's have sex!"
4. Robot love --> gender inversions --> feminism
5. Bland people
6. Dogs
7. Caffeine withdrawl
8. Not going to bars
9. Enlightened despotism
10. Crossword puzzles
11. Ghetto kids
12. Skanky people
13. The wrath of the reggae god (Jah)
14. Barack Obama
15. Mad dashes to public restrooms (and turds on a self-cleaning floor)
16. Spread of Islam --> trade routes
17. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle paradigm:
Leonardo - the leader
Raphael - cool but rude
Donatello - does machines
Michaelangelo - the party animal
18. The Joey Ramone disease
There were some great recurring themes in Mongol, some of which coincided with several themes throughout the weekend. Here's tentative record of this weekend's themes:
1a. "Wha' happened?"
1b. "I don't THINK so!"
2. Surf rock
3. Family Guy, esp. Quagmire:
"It's Quagmire, it's Quagmire
You never really know what he's gonna do next
It's Quagmire, it's Quagmire
Giggity giggity giggity giggity let's have sex!"
4. Robot love --> gender inversions --> feminism
5. Bland people
6. Dogs
7. Caffeine withdrawl
8. Not going to bars
9. Enlightened despotism
10. Crossword puzzles
11. Ghetto kids
12. Skanky people
13. The wrath of the reggae god (Jah)
14. Barack Obama
15. Mad dashes to public restrooms (and turds on a self-cleaning floor)
16. Spread of Islam --> trade routes
17. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle paradigm:
Leonardo - the leader
Raphael - cool but rude
Donatello - does machines
Michaelangelo - the party animal
18. The Joey Ramone disease
posted by Rex at 12:30 AM
3 Comments:
my sister loves enlightened despotism. She thinks Singapore is pretty awesome because it's basically run by the one guy. Elissa saw Mongol and she thought it was like, kind of slow. But DO NOT go see Wanted. There is not even camp value in that mess. So horrid.
It's true that Mongol was slow. Wanted I knew would be bad when it was praised by a friend with the exact opposite taste in music as me. Not opposite on the good spectrum either, like the Ingmar Bergman fan; opposite on the bad spectrum, like,
Me: "I don't know about Wanted. I have never seen an Angelina Jolie movie I liked. Granted, I haven't seen stuff like Girl, Interrupted..."
Friend: "You didn't like Mr. and Mrs. Smith?"
Me: "That was EXACTLY the movie I was thinking of when I was skeptical about Angelina Jolie!"
Good list of the weekend themes, Rex. If I can remember any, I'll add them.
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