New Directors / New Films: "Happiness Academy"

Have you ever seen a film which mixes documentary with fiction? Hybrid films, films with documentary and fiction parts or at least performed / acted elements have been around for some time. I'm not enough of a documentary expert to know if this is an increasing trend but in the past few years I've seen a few. From my (extremely limited) experience the combo can spark frissons of excitement and thoughtful layers as in Sarah Polley's autobiographical mystery Stories We Tell. The hybrid approach can also be both fascinating and exhausting simultaneously as with Clio Barnard's The Arbor (2010) in which actors lipsynched to recorded interviews from the actual documentary subjects.

At this year's New Directors / New Films festival, which wraps today in NYC, the hybrid technique (genre?) gets another discussable entry via Happiness Academy...

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Open Thread. Fix Your Face! "Look at My Muscles"

Jim Broadbent fixes Katherine Helmond's face in Brazil (1985)This week's banner is going out to Dusty who won the Kidman focused Say What contest. (Last week's "eye roll" was a hit so why not continue?) Dusty chose facial restoration of any kind. Cheeky! Thus I am obliged to pose thusly (see right hand sidebar) and find celebrity photos to accompany my goopiness up top. Hope you enjoy.

But this leads me to three questions.

01. Is this some sort of hint that I need to fix myself? It's true I have been looking worse for the wear (I don't recommend turning 40+)  as stated in the "weight watching" thread. So I'll take the hint given what I suggested there and set up a weekly offsite email group for encouragement (exercize, self-improvement, whatnot... probably with movies to help us) because it's easier to stay motivated in numbers. If you're interested, let me know. Consider it a sidebar experiment.

02. What's your favorite facial restoration technique or makeover sequence in a movie? 

03. Have you seen this little clip* from Ryan Gosling's Lost River? I'm only displaying it here because I was typing about self-improvement / possible exercize when I first heard its weird in your face mantra... 

Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. 

Yes, Matt Smith says it 13 times in this clip.

*I hope at some point there is a great reckoning about the lawlessness of YouTube and claims of "officialness" The account that posted this calls it the "official trailer" which it is clearly not (they are not the production company and there's no title or names or anything so if it's official it's doing a terrible job of making people aware of the movie) and a ton of websites are calling it the "first official teaser". I believe this is what's always been known as a "clip," a little moment (or moments) from the film. Words have meanings. Use them appropriately. 

Weight Watching

Earlier today I read Matt Singer's essay at The Dissolve about audience's attraction to the flabbiness of Seth Rogen (vote on our related poll!) in Neighbors. I like this essay which raises good points but it's depressing that no one ever extends this kind of enthusiasm or 'justify our love' ink to seeing less than perfect physical women on the screen.

Unrelated but coincidentally apt: On the bus home from my weekend in Boston on Sunday night the guy across from me was watching Bridget Jones's Diary on his laptop. I haven't seen it in years and years and every time I glanced over (I know it's not cool to eaveswatch but screens hypnotize me) I just thought "Zeéeeee* looks so pretty" Of course this is the movie wherein she was meant to be 'unattractive'.

Weight is a tricky emotionally loaded topic but the truth, at least according to me, is that there's room for all physical types in the world and "ideal weight" can vary quite a lot from person to person at least in terms of aesthetic pleasure. Some people look good at any weight, the lucky bitches. I personally think I have a tiny range of weight wherein I look my best (and I'm 20 lbs over it right now so I'm in Rogen territory. sigh) but some people look their best with some chunk and others when they're razor thin. Zellweger was one of the actresses that launched a million essays about standards of beauty and aspirational anorexia and all of that in the Aughts but if you ask me she was never more beautiful than when she was meant to be frumpy. I've never understood why the producers of Chicago didn't actually want her Bridget Jones body (especially since the films were close together) since it would have been a lot more period appropriate, sexier while dancing, and a better physical match for CZJ's traditional beauty hourglass physique. 

As for me I'm desperate to get back to the gym. But that might just be because I've been trapped in my apartment for two days with this awful cold. Tomorrow I will go for a jog if I have any strength at all. I've been half tempted to start an email self-help group for those of us who want to lose some weight, using movies as inspiration. But then that might give Hollywood the wrong idea and suggest that we only want Efron-style bodies. Can't we have a happy medium? My ideal body type both to look at and to have is definitely between the superhero (way too much work and boring as f***) and the schlub (way too much letting yourself go and ice cream... sweet sweet ice cream)

*Yes, it's true the Smackdown did a whammy on us and we keep thinking about Renée Zellweger