MAN CAVE: Uncomfortable movie moments

Joseph Gordon Levitt's new flick is a free-wheeling entity of sexually inappropriate, violent, reptilian impulses.

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MAN CAVE: Uncomfortable movie moments

POSTED: Monday, May 16, 2011, 12:00 PM

Filed Under: Man Cave

Man Cave is a testosterone-laden Monday feature that highlights the weekend haps of an everyday, pop-culture-loving Philly dude.

Friday: Michael Clayton, the George Clooney scandal flick about agro-industrial lawsuits and corporate espionage, is just as good the second time around. Tom Wilkinson's role as the bipolar law partner is entertaining, magnetic and genuine. His breakdown after years of working at "an organism whose sole purpose is to excrete the ammo for much larger more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity" is just one of Clooney's many problems that require "fixing." If you skipped this a few years ago, Netflix the SHIZZ out of it.

Saturday: Cyrus stars John C. Reilly as a divorced man who meets Marisa Tomei and gets excited about life for the first time in years. Her son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill) is a twenty-one-year-old live-at-home man-kid whose mom-attachment issues are somewhat mutual. His creepy campaign against Reilly is half comedy half psych drama. It's clear that Hill's talents are stronger for comedy than drama, but this was a strong outing for him. His screen presence made most of the movie effectively uncomfortable, which is important to the story.

Sunday: Speaking of comedians taking serious roles, I had to check my comprehension when I saw Rainn Wilson's name listed in the new Joseph Gordon-Levitt flick, Hesher. Dwight from the office actually looked like a regular human being, donning a full beard for his role as a grieving widower. Gordon-Levitt did not, donning long death-metal hair and a massive tattoo of a middle finger on his usually bare back. Natalie Portman donned old lady glasses and an unasuming hairstyle. There was lots of donning going on, and I'll say that this film might have been the most thrillingly uncomfortable movie of my weekend. There were only five other people in the theater with me, and three of them walked out somewhat early on.

I didn't blame them. Most people can't palate surreal minimalism. If something is unrealistic, it needs to be way over the top, magical and soaring. One ring to rule them all! When something is unrealistic but laced with understatement and mundanity, people often mistake it for a poorly executed attempt at slice-of-life cinema. With the excpetion of comedies like Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine, whose juxtaposition of the absurd with the banal creates more comprehensible comedic contrast... this friggin flick was simply wild.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt played a fire-setting, metal-thrashing foul-mouthed squatter who behaves unpredictably benevolent and malevolant toward the recent widower and his thirteen-year-old son. Critics are describing the normally man-crush-calliber Levitt's character as "pure id." And that's exacty what he was. A free-wheeling entity of sexually inappropriate, violent, reptilian impulses. And nihilistically free of agenda. An entertaining popcorn flick this ain't, but if you're in the mood to deal with an oddly funny, dark story about sheer unadulterated subconscious, grab it while it still has a few days left in the theater.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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