THE SUPERBAD PUFFY CHAIR SOLD TO A RAPPER
2 Comments Published by BklynTAG on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 12:02 PM.Is it possible for me to care about a movie featuring adolescent-acting white males? Do my race, sex, and age limit the types of films I can enjoy?
The much hyped film SUPERBAD is number one at the box office for the second week. Some reviewers are talking instant comedy classic. It was produced by Judd Apatow, who produced and directed the two comedy hits KNOCKED UP and 40-YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN.
I saw KNOCKED UP. I thought it ok. To me it was a film aimed at pleasing a white male audience and to that end it shorted the development of the female character. I could believe the basic scenario: A beautiful, ambitious career woman has just been promoted to being an on-air TV interviewer and in a drunken celebratory stupor, sleeps one time with a grungy, chubby, happy slacker – and then finds out she is “KNOCKED UP”. I could not believe though, at least as it was scripted, that she would immediately be open to trying to have a committed sexual relationship with the happy slacker, just because he’s the father of her baby. The job of this ambitious career woman was ditched out of sight and mind from the audience for most of the film. Then at the end, PRESTO! Her job reappears and her employers finally notice her now kicking, watermelon-size belly. And of course, rather than harming her career, her pregnancy lands her a dream job. (The film’s disclaimer should be: No pregnant career woman was hurt in the course of making this film.) I didn’t leave the film KNOCKED UP “all touched”. It was ok. (Want to hear from another black sister – check out the KNOCKED UP review at http://www.3blackchicks.com )
Can I care about a film featuring an adolescent-acting white male? Do I want to? Actually one of my all time favorite films is about an adolescent-acting, slacker white male. More on that film later.
A couple of weekends ago, I happen to read in the New York Times Magazine an interview with Jonah Hill, the 23yrs old actor, who plays the chubby member of the 17 year old, white male trio in SUPERBAD. Jonah Hill seems intelligent and grounded. But what perked my interest was his answer to the question, “What do you think is the best film that disappeared overnight?” His answer was THE PUFFY CHAIR.
Well, what a coincidence. A DVD copy of THE PUFFY CHAIR was lying by my TV set. In fact, it had been lying there, unwatched for weeks and weeks. I love the Brooklyn Public Library. I can renew by phone indefinitely, unless someone else requests the item. I had been browsing the library shelves for DVD’s and couldn’t find a fifth film I wanted to watch to complete my stack. Then I saw THE PUFFY CHAIR. I had read about it from different movie reviewers and in indie film magazines. They all said good things about the film. But I just wasn’t in a hurry to see a white guy slacker film. Indeed, Jonah Hill describes the film as being about “a man who drives cross-country to bring his dad a puffy chair he had as a kid and that he found on eBay.” Driving with him is the girlfriend he didn’t want to take along, and his even slacker-slacker brother. Of course, on THE PUFFY CHAIR DVD jacket cover, there is the mandatory slacker-hero-picture of a white guy making an unmanly wild dash in his underwear.
IRREVERSIBLE HOLDS MY RECORD FOR LONGEST UNWATCHED DVD
So, it was taking me a while to get in the mood to watch THE PUFFY CHAIR. Though it certainly hadn’t yet broken my record for longest unwatched DVD sitting by my TV. That record dates back a couple of years ago, and belongs to the French film IRREVERSIBLE. I had rented IRREVERSIBLE through NetFlix, after hearing reviews that it was a well made film -- but sickening to watch. It was said to feature a brutally believable rape scene and a pulverizing fight scene. On top of that, it was being compared to the film MEMENTO – which I had found interesting concept-wise but boring character-wise – because both films had storylines that actually open at the end of the story. Then the scenes play out going back in time, until you actually get to the beginning of the story – at the end of the film.
Well, I just couldn’t seem to get my mood to match all that IRREVERSIBLE promised. Yet somehow I felt it would be a major personal defeat if I sent the film back unwatched. So IRREVERSIBLE sat unwatched by my TV for maybe 4 months. It held a permanent spot on my NetFlix list of three films that I could have out. Ultimately – though I can’t remember what mood I was in that was finally right – I did watch IRREVERSIBLE. It is an amazing film. Disturbing, yes. But it is also a layered study of intimate relationships, where your perspective of who is what changes, as the film precedes back to earlier times in the characters lives. And at the end of the film – which is the story’s beginning – there is a moment of devastating happiness. Devastating because you, the viewer, know the future is a hell hole.
THE PUFFY CHAIR’S DARK HAH-HAH-HAH!
So, back to the unwatched DVD now by my TV set. Propelled by Jonah Hill’s declaration of respect, it felt that the one moment in time that I would ever want to watch THE PUFFY CHAIR had arrived. I watched it. I loved it. It’s not a “KNOCKED UP” film. It’s a very real film. We all know the charming loser, with a short temper and a quick apology, and the ever suffering woman who loves him (or thinks she does – and why?) There is no PRESTO! moment. The white dude and the chick have confusions maybe never solved. The bruises they give each other are visible and hurting, and leave permanent damage.
And it’s funny. I mean yeah, THE PUFFY CHAIR has true HAH-HAH-HAH! moments – in a harmonious mix with the dark and sad. The ordinary can be unbelievably funny (and a little scary) when people go to extremes. Paying at a motel for one person while trying to sneak in three. Going to war to get that delivery that was “Promised today! NOT tomorrow! (Damnit!)”. It’s in these little life moments that we fall apart and show our true colors. Those of us who will brave looking at our own colors, might have some hope for the future. THE PUFFY CHAIR was a reminder to me that it doesn’t matter if the characters and their life situations are foreign to you. A truly good film shows people in their humanness, transcending culture and location and skin color and sex and age (did I leave anything out).
BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS - LOST & FOUND FILMS
For several years Brooklyn Young Filmmakers operated a film club for working-class adults and teens. We viewed first run films at BAM and films on DVD at our office. Indie and foreign films – the types of films that make you think and make you question yourself and society – are usually not marketed to working-class people (….maybe some people don’t want us thinking and questioning – you think). If we are going to be moving out of our ruts, we need to be seeing the kinds of films that push us and send us stumbling out into the unknown. We recorded our wonderfully twisty and multi-directional film club discussions. Some of the discussions I have turned into written film commentaries. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will shortly be putting up BYFC Lost & Found Films on our website – film commentaries on films available now on DVD that we think you should check out. We’ll post in the blog when our Lost & Found goes up. THE PUFFY CHAIR is the type of film I would show to a group of working-class adults and teens to generate an in-depth, thought-altering discussion about life, relationships, and being working class – and about being an artist not able to make art, so instead fucking up survival.
HOW DO WORKING-CLASS ARTISTS SURVIVE?
Yeah, the loser in THE PUFFY CHAIR is also a musician who has stopped making music. Do some people, because of their personal DNA, need to be expressive? Need to make art – to survive as human beings? How do working-class artists survive? Most artists (including filmmakers) are working-class, surviving economically from year-to-year, if not month-to-month. How are they able to survive emotionally in the face of such economic uncertainty? The New York Times in its Sunday, August 26th edition ran an article by Campbell Robertson, “What? And Leave Show Business?” which focuses on five working-class theater actors and how they survive. (To read the article go to http://www.nytimes.com/ and put into the search box: 8/26/2007 Theater - Campbell Robertson)
“MUMBLECORE” FILMS AS ROLE MODEL FOR RAPPERS
Another coincidence. Right after I viewed THE PUFFY CHAIR, I started seeing the film mentioned in articles about “Mumblecore” films, which is a name given to a new strain of low-low budget films made by white male directors. Mumblecore films are low cost (in the low thousands), with low production values (we can shoot in the parking lot or in my apartment), and dialogue that almost seems improvised. The cast are friends of the director, some with acting experience and some without. The storylines hinge less on major plot points, and more on talkative slacker-like characters who are being pushed over the edge by the build up of mundane crises. Because these films are being made cheaply, they don’t need big distribution deals to make a profit, many of the films are doing well in DVD releases. The IFC Theater just ran a “Mumblecore” film festival. (Just google “Mumblecore films” to find articles written about it.)
I would like to see the concept of Mumblecore films introduced to rappers. Ike Jones, a BYFC student and an ex-rapper who I mentioned in my GUNS & PRIDE post, recently told me he knew a lot of rappers who want to make films. He said even when he was rapping, he thought about making films, but there was no way in. Many low-income youth (if not on their way to being sports stars) have seen music as the most creative path towards economic success. Everyone in the hood knows someone, or the sister of someone, who’s made a name in the music world. The means of self-producing and self-distribution are readily available. But even though everyone goes to movies, up until recently no one talked about making films because no one knew anyone in film or understood the process of making films. But now that some major rap stars have become movie stars (Ice-T, Will Smith, Tupac, Queen Latifah, 50 Cent, etc) and there are cheap digital cameras, up and coming rappers are writing scripts and getting their hands on cameras. But Ike says they don’t know what they are doing or what a script really looks like.
Rappers are lovers of The Word. Those who want to depict relationships and community are having trouble breaking through in today’s rap world. I recently watched Dominic Carter of NY1 interview Mele Mel of Grandmaster Flash, which is the first rap group to be inducted into the Rock’N’Roll Hall of Fame. Mele Mel talked about how today too many rappers have a negative focus on gangster life, whereas Grandmaster Flash focused on political awareness and elevating the common people. Maybe the rappers who want to be real about community life might find a new vehicle for THE WORD in scriptwriting. And they would do well not to be studying big budget films, but films in the Mumblecore style that could potentially be self-produced. Ike recently recruited for the next BYFC ‘Intro to Scriptwriting’ Class a couple of rappers from Fort Greene public housing who he knows want to get into filmmaking. It will be interesting to see what they want to do with THE WORD in script form.
WRITING PARTNERS
Back to SUPERBAD. Seth Rogen (25) and Evan Goldberg (24) wrote the script. Seth Rogen is also the star of KNOCKED UP. Before you say, wow, they’re young! And they have a hit film with their first screenplay! You ought to know that the two have been working together on the script for ten years, since they were 14 yrs old and Bar Mitzvahs* buddies. They might only be in their 20’s – but they have worked almost half their lives on one script. How long have you worked on yours?
(*In the Jewish community a celebration is held for youth as they become teens (13). For boys it is called the Bar Mitzvah, and for girls it is the Bat Mitzvah. Many families are invited to the celebration. The Mitzvah circuit is where Seth and Evan met and developed the friendship that became a partnership.)
In the current issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine* there is an article on the writing partners and how they started. New friends, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, wrote their funny jokes down, and then had ideas for scenes and wrote them down. Then they kinda shaped all that into a script – though it didn’t really have a middle or an end nor was it – as they later found out – written in proper script format. So they wrote and re-imagined and re-wrote. They added characters and eventually a middle. Then through Rogen’s acting and comedy writing they met a great mentor, Judd Apatow. Judd taught them how to really hook an audience and make them care about all the jokes and all the scenes by making the characters seem real and multi-dimensional. These now twenty-something young men re-imagined and re-wrote again. It all sounds kind of easy, huh? I think it sounds mad-dog stubborn and like learning how to ride the big wave.
(*Subscribe to Creative Screenwriting’s free email CS DAILY – which is actually a weekly newsletter, go figure – http://www.creativescreenwriting.com/csdaily.html .)
MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE WHITE MALE SLACKER FILM
Now to reveal my all-time favorite white male slacker film --- THE GRADUTE (1967), directed by Mike Nichols and starring Dustin Hoffman. I will do a later post on why I love this film and how it was a cultural breakthrough.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST FILM THAT DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT?
My selection for this honor – BLIND FAITH (1998), directed by Ernest Dickerson
(Look for a BYFC film commentary on BLIND FAITH when we put up our Lost & Found Films section on our website!)
“What do you think is the best film that disappeared overnight?”
The much hyped film SUPERBAD is number one at the box office for the second week. Some reviewers are talking instant comedy classic. It was produced by Judd Apatow, who produced and directed the two comedy hits KNOCKED UP and 40-YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN.
I saw KNOCKED UP. I thought it ok. To me it was a film aimed at pleasing a white male audience and to that end it shorted the development of the female character. I could believe the basic scenario: A beautiful, ambitious career woman has just been promoted to being an on-air TV interviewer and in a drunken celebratory stupor, sleeps one time with a grungy, chubby, happy slacker – and then finds out she is “KNOCKED UP”. I could not believe though, at least as it was scripted, that she would immediately be open to trying to have a committed sexual relationship with the happy slacker, just because he’s the father of her baby. The job of this ambitious career woman was ditched out of sight and mind from the audience for most of the film. Then at the end, PRESTO! Her job reappears and her employers finally notice her now kicking, watermelon-size belly. And of course, rather than harming her career, her pregnancy lands her a dream job. (The film’s disclaimer should be: No pregnant career woman was hurt in the course of making this film.) I didn’t leave the film KNOCKED UP “all touched”. It was ok. (Want to hear from another black sister – check out the KNOCKED UP review at http://www.3blackchicks.com )
Can I care about a film featuring an adolescent-acting white male? Do I want to? Actually one of my all time favorite films is about an adolescent-acting, slacker white male. More on that film later.
A couple of weekends ago, I happen to read in the New York Times Magazine an interview with Jonah Hill, the 23yrs old actor, who plays the chubby member of the 17 year old, white male trio in SUPERBAD. Jonah Hill seems intelligent and grounded. But what perked my interest was his answer to the question, “What do you think is the best film that disappeared overnight?” His answer was THE PUFFY CHAIR.
Well, what a coincidence. A DVD copy of THE PUFFY CHAIR was lying by my TV set. In fact, it had been lying there, unwatched for weeks and weeks. I love the Brooklyn Public Library. I can renew by phone indefinitely, unless someone else requests the item. I had been browsing the library shelves for DVD’s and couldn’t find a fifth film I wanted to watch to complete my stack. Then I saw THE PUFFY CHAIR. I had read about it from different movie reviewers and in indie film magazines. They all said good things about the film. But I just wasn’t in a hurry to see a white guy slacker film. Indeed, Jonah Hill describes the film as being about “a man who drives cross-country to bring his dad a puffy chair he had as a kid and that he found on eBay.” Driving with him is the girlfriend he didn’t want to take along, and his even slacker-slacker brother. Of course, on THE PUFFY CHAIR DVD jacket cover, there is the mandatory slacker-hero-picture of a white guy making an unmanly wild dash in his underwear.
IRREVERSIBLE HOLDS MY RECORD FOR LONGEST UNWATCHED DVD
So, it was taking me a while to get in the mood to watch THE PUFFY CHAIR. Though it certainly hadn’t yet broken my record for longest unwatched DVD sitting by my TV. That record dates back a couple of years ago, and belongs to the French film IRREVERSIBLE. I had rented IRREVERSIBLE through NetFlix, after hearing reviews that it was a well made film -- but sickening to watch. It was said to feature a brutally believable rape scene and a pulverizing fight scene. On top of that, it was being compared to the film MEMENTO – which I had found interesting concept-wise but boring character-wise – because both films had storylines that actually open at the end of the story. Then the scenes play out going back in time, until you actually get to the beginning of the story – at the end of the film.
Well, I just couldn’t seem to get my mood to match all that IRREVERSIBLE promised. Yet somehow I felt it would be a major personal defeat if I sent the film back unwatched. So IRREVERSIBLE sat unwatched by my TV for maybe 4 months. It held a permanent spot on my NetFlix list of three films that I could have out. Ultimately – though I can’t remember what mood I was in that was finally right – I did watch IRREVERSIBLE. It is an amazing film. Disturbing, yes. But it is also a layered study of intimate relationships, where your perspective of who is what changes, as the film precedes back to earlier times in the characters lives. And at the end of the film – which is the story’s beginning – there is a moment of devastating happiness. Devastating because you, the viewer, know the future is a hell hole.
THE PUFFY CHAIR’S DARK HAH-HAH-HAH!
So, back to the unwatched DVD now by my TV set. Propelled by Jonah Hill’s declaration of respect, it felt that the one moment in time that I would ever want to watch THE PUFFY CHAIR had arrived. I watched it. I loved it. It’s not a “KNOCKED UP” film. It’s a very real film. We all know the charming loser, with a short temper and a quick apology, and the ever suffering woman who loves him (or thinks she does – and why?) There is no PRESTO! moment. The white dude and the chick have confusions maybe never solved. The bruises they give each other are visible and hurting, and leave permanent damage.
And it’s funny. I mean yeah, THE PUFFY CHAIR has true HAH-HAH-HAH! moments – in a harmonious mix with the dark and sad. The ordinary can be unbelievably funny (and a little scary) when people go to extremes. Paying at a motel for one person while trying to sneak in three. Going to war to get that delivery that was “Promised today! NOT tomorrow! (Damnit!)”. It’s in these little life moments that we fall apart and show our true colors. Those of us who will brave looking at our own colors, might have some hope for the future. THE PUFFY CHAIR was a reminder to me that it doesn’t matter if the characters and their life situations are foreign to you. A truly good film shows people in their humanness, transcending culture and location and skin color and sex and age (did I leave anything out).
BROOKLYN YOUNG FILMMAKERS - LOST & FOUND FILMS
For several years Brooklyn Young Filmmakers operated a film club for working-class adults and teens. We viewed first run films at BAM and films on DVD at our office. Indie and foreign films – the types of films that make you think and make you question yourself and society – are usually not marketed to working-class people (….maybe some people don’t want us thinking and questioning – you think). If we are going to be moving out of our ruts, we need to be seeing the kinds of films that push us and send us stumbling out into the unknown. We recorded our wonderfully twisty and multi-directional film club discussions. Some of the discussions I have turned into written film commentaries. Brooklyn Young Filmmakers will shortly be putting up BYFC Lost & Found Films on our website – film commentaries on films available now on DVD that we think you should check out. We’ll post in the blog when our Lost & Found goes up. THE PUFFY CHAIR is the type of film I would show to a group of working-class adults and teens to generate an in-depth, thought-altering discussion about life, relationships, and being working class – and about being an artist not able to make art, so instead fucking up survival.
HOW DO WORKING-CLASS ARTISTS SURVIVE?
Yeah, the loser in THE PUFFY CHAIR is also a musician who has stopped making music. Do some people, because of their personal DNA, need to be expressive? Need to make art – to survive as human beings? How do working-class artists survive? Most artists (including filmmakers) are working-class, surviving economically from year-to-year, if not month-to-month. How are they able to survive emotionally in the face of such economic uncertainty? The New York Times in its Sunday, August 26th edition ran an article by Campbell Robertson, “What? And Leave Show Business?” which focuses on five working-class theater actors and how they survive. (To read the article go to http://www.nytimes.com/ and put into the search box: 8/26/2007 Theater - Campbell Robertson)
“MUMBLECORE” FILMS AS ROLE MODEL FOR RAPPERS
Another coincidence. Right after I viewed THE PUFFY CHAIR, I started seeing the film mentioned in articles about “Mumblecore” films, which is a name given to a new strain of low-low budget films made by white male directors. Mumblecore films are low cost (in the low thousands), with low production values (we can shoot in the parking lot or in my apartment), and dialogue that almost seems improvised. The cast are friends of the director, some with acting experience and some without. The storylines hinge less on major plot points, and more on talkative slacker-like characters who are being pushed over the edge by the build up of mundane crises. Because these films are being made cheaply, they don’t need big distribution deals to make a profit, many of the films are doing well in DVD releases. The IFC Theater just ran a “Mumblecore” film festival. (Just google “Mumblecore films” to find articles written about it.)
I would like to see the concept of Mumblecore films introduced to rappers. Ike Jones, a BYFC student and an ex-rapper who I mentioned in my GUNS & PRIDE post, recently told me he knew a lot of rappers who want to make films. He said even when he was rapping, he thought about making films, but there was no way in. Many low-income youth (if not on their way to being sports stars) have seen music as the most creative path towards economic success. Everyone in the hood knows someone, or the sister of someone, who’s made a name in the music world. The means of self-producing and self-distribution are readily available. But even though everyone goes to movies, up until recently no one talked about making films because no one knew anyone in film or understood the process of making films. But now that some major rap stars have become movie stars (Ice-T, Will Smith, Tupac, Queen Latifah, 50 Cent, etc) and there are cheap digital cameras, up and coming rappers are writing scripts and getting their hands on cameras. But Ike says they don’t know what they are doing or what a script really looks like.
Rappers are lovers of The Word. Those who want to depict relationships and community are having trouble breaking through in today’s rap world. I recently watched Dominic Carter of NY1 interview Mele Mel of Grandmaster Flash, which is the first rap group to be inducted into the Rock’N’Roll Hall of Fame. Mele Mel talked about how today too many rappers have a negative focus on gangster life, whereas Grandmaster Flash focused on political awareness and elevating the common people. Maybe the rappers who want to be real about community life might find a new vehicle for THE WORD in scriptwriting. And they would do well not to be studying big budget films, but films in the Mumblecore style that could potentially be self-produced. Ike recently recruited for the next BYFC ‘Intro to Scriptwriting’ Class a couple of rappers from Fort Greene public housing who he knows want to get into filmmaking. It will be interesting to see what they want to do with THE WORD in script form.
WRITING PARTNERS
Back to SUPERBAD. Seth Rogen (25) and Evan Goldberg (24) wrote the script. Seth Rogen is also the star of KNOCKED UP. Before you say, wow, they’re young! And they have a hit film with their first screenplay! You ought to know that the two have been working together on the script for ten years, since they were 14 yrs old and Bar Mitzvahs* buddies. They might only be in their 20’s – but they have worked almost half their lives on one script. How long have you worked on yours?
(*In the Jewish community a celebration is held for youth as they become teens (13). For boys it is called the Bar Mitzvah, and for girls it is the Bat Mitzvah. Many families are invited to the celebration. The Mitzvah circuit is where Seth and Evan met and developed the friendship that became a partnership.)
In the current issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine* there is an article on the writing partners and how they started. New friends, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, wrote their funny jokes down, and then had ideas for scenes and wrote them down. Then they kinda shaped all that into a script – though it didn’t really have a middle or an end nor was it – as they later found out – written in proper script format. So they wrote and re-imagined and re-wrote. They added characters and eventually a middle. Then through Rogen’s acting and comedy writing they met a great mentor, Judd Apatow. Judd taught them how to really hook an audience and make them care about all the jokes and all the scenes by making the characters seem real and multi-dimensional. These now twenty-something young men re-imagined and re-wrote again. It all sounds kind of easy, huh? I think it sounds mad-dog stubborn and like learning how to ride the big wave.
(*Subscribe to Creative Screenwriting’s free email CS DAILY – which is actually a weekly newsletter, go figure – http://www.creativescreenwriting.com/csdaily.html .)
MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE WHITE MALE SLACKER FILM
Now to reveal my all-time favorite white male slacker film --- THE GRADUTE (1967), directed by Mike Nichols and starring Dustin Hoffman. I will do a later post on why I love this film and how it was a cultural breakthrough.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST FILM THAT DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT?
My selection for this honor – BLIND FAITH (1998), directed by Ernest Dickerson
(Look for a BYFC film commentary on BLIND FAITH when we put up our Lost & Found Films section on our website!)
“What do you think is the best film that disappeared overnight?”
OH Snap, finally got on the blog. Man these entries are long LOL :D Now I want to see the puffy chair (maybe I can get the BYFC director to loan it to me).
Not really been following the 40 year old knocked up virgin craze but I have heard from intelligent people that these films have a lot of heart (?!)
I would love to hear what all of you young filmakers think about this trend...
Yeah, the entries are a bit on the chunky size..lol
Haven't seen Knocked Up, but I loved 40 YrOld Virgin & Superbad. I enjoyed male dominated perverse humor (no surprise there). The 40 year old knocked up virgin craze, in my opinion have been far better than many of the "Mumblecore" flicks I've seen of late. Really BAD films that get way too much credit