"BUG"GING ME
Althougth I'm aware that there has been an erosion of civil liberties, increased surveillance, illegal detainment of suspects, and an overall disrespect for privacy, I don't yet feel I live in an Orwellian universe. But to look at the recent glut of recent films, there is a preoccupation with spying that borders on the paranoid. Indeed, just two weeks ago I waited in line to by tickets for the vastly popular Intrernational Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., which has been selling out for five years.
It began in February, with the carefully detailed biopic, BREACH, with the excellent Chris Cooper, playing an FBI agent selling secrets to Russians. Then there was the Academy Award Winning LIVES OF OTHERS, with its subject the East German spying operation, the Stasi. It crops up in the Dogme inspired Scottish film, RED ROAD, in which the heroine spends her days watching images filmed by surveillance cameras on banks of video monitors. Surveillance is even present in two thrilers set in the future, CHILDREN OF MEN and 28 WEEKS LATER.
A continuing theme in films that deal with spying is that one can't trust what one sees. That's true in Hitchock thrillers like THE 39 STEPS and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, through Coppola's THE CONVERSATION to the films of today. It's also a recurring theme at the Spy Museum, where, upon entering, one assumes a fake identity as one goes through the more than two hours of exhibits and interactive games.
Now comes 'BUG' an exercise in paranoid behavior from Academy Award winning director William Friedkin, whose filmmaking career has been largely dormant for over 25 years, with the exception of the highly underrated TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. Even the ad for BUG is an exercise in deception. Although it announces the film is from the director of THE EXORCIST, anyone expecting that kind of thriller will be strongly disappointed. Instead, there wil find a claustrophobic, overly verbal drama (it was adapted from a stage play) with two of the most unpleasant, unsympathetic characters I've sat wsith for a long time. The play's three act structure is readily apparent, the characters give increasingly long paranoid rants, and, except for a 3-secnd shot after the characters make love, there aren't even any bugs. That's the point I guess, but while it's always nice to see Ashley Judd do her damsel-in-distress bit and, of course, see her in various stages of undress, sitting through this was close to unbearable. I've seen some hard to sit through film lately, like the beautifully acted DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT and STEPHANIE DALEY, which, by the way, had one of the tightest scripts I've seen lately, but these films, apart from being fresh and excellently directed, had characters one could feel for, and, an overal film we could admire for integrity and craft.
Not so with BUG. But, pehaps I too can't trust what I see, or perhaps my own judgment. For, lo and behold, critics actually liked BUG. In fact, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly actually raved. They even found humor in the excelles of the paranoid ramblings. At least audiences have not been giving the film strong word of mouth, and the Rotten Tomatoes website only gives it a 61, sort of a "D", But the discrepancy between the film I was expecting to see from reviews and advertising has been increasing lately. It began with Miranda July's YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which I found derivitive from performance art and self-consciously quirky, as was THE GRADUATE rip-off GARDEN STATE. The same was true of BROKEN FLOWERS. Even the virtues of last year's award winning BABEL eluded me. To me, it was a rehash of the same devices of the same director's AMORES PERROS and 28 GRAMS, devices which became familiar in TRAFFIC and SYRIANA.
Although I can sympathyze with the characters in BUGF whose hysteria urges us not to trust what we see, for me it carries over to the adversiting and the too easy reviewing that goes on. But perhaps Big Brother is watching me after all.
It began in February, with the carefully detailed biopic, BREACH, with the excellent Chris Cooper, playing an FBI agent selling secrets to Russians. Then there was the Academy Award Winning LIVES OF OTHERS, with its subject the East German spying operation, the Stasi. It crops up in the Dogme inspired Scottish film, RED ROAD, in which the heroine spends her days watching images filmed by surveillance cameras on banks of video monitors. Surveillance is even present in two thrilers set in the future, CHILDREN OF MEN and 28 WEEKS LATER.
A continuing theme in films that deal with spying is that one can't trust what one sees. That's true in Hitchock thrillers like THE 39 STEPS and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, through Coppola's THE CONVERSATION to the films of today. It's also a recurring theme at the Spy Museum, where, upon entering, one assumes a fake identity as one goes through the more than two hours of exhibits and interactive games.
Now comes 'BUG' an exercise in paranoid behavior from Academy Award winning director William Friedkin, whose filmmaking career has been largely dormant for over 25 years, with the exception of the highly underrated TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. Even the ad for BUG is an exercise in deception. Although it announces the film is from the director of THE EXORCIST, anyone expecting that kind of thriller will be strongly disappointed. Instead, there wil find a claustrophobic, overly verbal drama (it was adapted from a stage play) with two of the most unpleasant, unsympathetic characters I've sat wsith for a long time. The play's three act structure is readily apparent, the characters give increasingly long paranoid rants, and, except for a 3-secnd shot after the characters make love, there aren't even any bugs. That's the point I guess, but while it's always nice to see Ashley Judd do her damsel-in-distress bit and, of course, see her in various stages of undress, sitting through this was close to unbearable. I've seen some hard to sit through film lately, like the beautifully acted DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT and STEPHANIE DALEY, which, by the way, had one of the tightest scripts I've seen lately, but these films, apart from being fresh and excellently directed, had characters one could feel for, and, an overal film we could admire for integrity and craft.
Not so with BUG. But, pehaps I too can't trust what I see, or perhaps my own judgment. For, lo and behold, critics actually liked BUG. In fact, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly actually raved. They even found humor in the excelles of the paranoid ramblings. At least audiences have not been giving the film strong word of mouth, and the Rotten Tomatoes website only gives it a 61, sort of a "D", But the discrepancy between the film I was expecting to see from reviews and advertising has been increasing lately. It began with Miranda July's YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which I found derivitive from performance art and self-consciously quirky, as was THE GRADUATE rip-off GARDEN STATE. The same was true of BROKEN FLOWERS. Even the virtues of last year's award winning BABEL eluded me. To me, it was a rehash of the same devices of the same director's AMORES PERROS and 28 GRAMS, devices which became familiar in TRAFFIC and SYRIANA.
Although I can sympathyze with the characters in BUGF whose hysteria urges us not to trust what we see, for me it carries over to the adversiting and the too easy reviewing that goes on. But perhaps Big Brother is watching me after all.
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