THE ANTI-HOLLYWOOD KING OF CRINGE IS BACK
(reviewed on video)
He put his foot in the door with a movie about a High School loser who gets made fun of constantly at school, whose sister gets kidnapped, and whose boyfriend/bully keeps telling her that he’s going to rape her.
He followed that up with a 139 minute film about a pedophile, a murderer, a sexually frustrated stalker, and a kid who wants to cum.
Todd Solondz is the shock master of current cinema. His first feature film, , won rave reviews for its hilarious yet depressingly realistic look at High School. His sophomore effort, Happiness, won critical raves, but floundered at the box office and never found an audience. His newest film, Storytelling, featured somewhat good reviews (Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up), but was censored to receive an R, came and went in theaters as quick as you can say Minority Report sucks, and has found little shelf life on video.
It seems that while Solondz was supposed to be the “next big independent filmmaker,” there was no real audience for him besides the usual film fan or critic who was sick of the usual Hollywood popcorn fare that moviegoers eat up.
Storytelling is a film that will seemingly disappear. No one has ever heard of it, and no one ever will. Todd Solondz, who was king at Sundance, has not gone Hollywood. He has not followed Linklater and done a big budget Western. He has not followed Rodriguez and done a Kevin Williamson script. He has stayed exactly the same and not sold out, and sadly, he is paying for it, all the while he is currently one of the top ten directors working today.
Storytelling received mediocre attention from critics when it opened with an R rating instead of being unrated, as his last film, Happiness, was. Instead of cutting a sex scene, he has covered the scene with a gigantic pink rectangle. In essence, Solondz has told the MPAA to go fuck themselves. Fuck censorship. He wanted to make the movie he wanted. The studio didn’t want it unrated. The MPAA wouldn’t give him the R. So he did what no other filmmaker has ever done. He covered a sex scene up. You can still here what’s going on, and even Roger Ebert mentioned that by covering it up, the scene plays out even more extreme. It’s as if Jack Valenti is telling us all that we can’t see what is going on. We’re not allowed. Bad boys and girls. Look away.
Storytelling is not, however, as shocking as Happiness, a film that was more shock value than entertainment. It does feature classic Solondz, though. There are many scenes where you cringe in your seat and want to look away. And while it’s not as good as Welcome to the Dollhouse, it is a very good movie, and like his other films, his reputation stays the same; you’ve never seen nothing like this, and probably never will again.
The film is made up basically of two short films. With the subtitle of Fiction, Selma Blair plays a graduate student who is in a writing class taught by a Pulitzer Prize winning African American author who is very intense, and very cruel, yet always tells the truth.
The second film subtitled Nonfiction features a loser played by Paul Giamati who sets out to make a documentary film about High School. He ends up entangled with a dysfunctional family whose stoner Senior wants nothing to do with college, even though his venomous dad played by John Goodman has other intentions.
Both short films work. They shock, and entertain, but unlike usual Hollywood fare or movies that are only meant to shock or get a rise, Solondz understands these characters enough to make the film realistic and filled with real emotion. The stories work.
Solondz, as seen on TV, is a loser. He obviously went through High School as the King of the Nerds. He never got the girl. He probably got his head flushed down the toilet. He was emotionally scarred for life. Yet instead of using his father’s gun collection to mow down his enemies, he went into film making. He has a warped, depressing, sadistic view of the world. This isn’t a happy, fairy tale place. This is a part of real life. The horror of High School, the failure of love and the pain of sexual frustration. At least Solondz is doing something with his life; making good movies. He’s one of the best in the biz. He hasn’t sold out. He’s stayed true to what’s in his head. And while some may say he’s sick and fucked up and needs to go to prison, I say go and make another film. Personally, I can’t wait. ***
Welcome to the Dollhouse
