Wrong

Small talk.

Having the time.

Honestly expressing oneself.

A hard day's work.

The first film that I've seen that takes banal quotidian frustrations and places them generally within a framework resembling something like a bourgeois displacement of Twin Peak's Black/White Lodge, wherein neuroses and hyperanalytic tendencies proceed, full-speed-ahead, even as corporeal and material structures inexplicably change shape and regenerate, the insignificant theoretically becomes essential, and declarations of counterproductive antisocial lassitudes bifurcate, with explanations required and clarifications sought after, a face burned by acid, a formula for hard wiring permanent love, detectives hired to figure out what's already known to have taken place, figure 13-d, it (Wrong) could be qualified as Kafkaesque but the transitions, the hilarious transitions, director Quentin Dupieux isn't only a master of framing confused asymmetrical curious yet despondent facial expressions, again and again and again, it keeps working, he does the same thing when transitioning from scene to scene, meaning that something ornery takes place, the mood becomes anxious, and then we're back to a comfortable pastoral cheery suburban image, overflowing with stability and integrity, happiness and relaxation, there's no job but the bills are paid, let's start again fresh, like you're having a picnic in a meadow, lakeside, surrounded by elk wearing glasses, before hero Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick) must once again attempt to socially interact, and everyone's notable lack of expertise, or bizarre exhaustive supernatural comprehensions, violently yet sweetly cover things up, like a thunder storm bombarding an idyllic mountain stream.

Pets are important.

Routines are important.

It's important to ask questions.

Scientific exploration has no limits.

Caught somewhere between the anal retentive and the blissfully vacant, Wrong appreciates the ways in which the extroverted ideal (see Susan Cain's informative Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking [I love this book!]) has been adopted by oh so many people who were not born to embrace it, but still adamantly attempt to do so.

The key seems to be to buy a pet.

Love it.

End up crushed when it disappears.

And revel in ecstasy when it returns.

Magic: the magic.

Best comedy I've seen in awhile. Stand Up Guys is just as good, but Wrong does it without star power.

Accept for William Fichtner.

Who is now one of my favourite actors.

Almost forgot about the final song.

Still laughing. I'll be thinking about this film and laughing for months.

Dependability.

Wrong defines dependability.

It does.

Whatever Works

Never thought I'd live to see Woody Allen and Larry David team up together but that's what they've done in Whatever Works, another tale of a neurotic sexually repressed manic depressive doing his best to get by. Within, Allen recycles a number of the themes that have successfully worked for him in the past but this time rather than star in the film himself his (alter?) ego has been replaced by Larry David (as Boris Yellnikoff) (whose resemblance to Allen is remarkable). Boris speaks to the screen and is aware he's being filmed even though his fellow cast members have no idea which simultaneously accentuates and deconstructs his mania. A disgruntled genius, Boris cast off the trappings of the ivory tower in order to teach chess, scraping by a meagre living as he presents his antagonistic reflections to anyone stuck listening to him. Enter Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a troubled Southerner homeless and destitute in the streets of New York. Boris takes her in, grows fond of her, and the rest of the film unreels in response to their off-beat odd coupling.

It's definitely a Woody Allen film and will most likely appeal to most of his fans. Seeing Larry David play a hapless genius as opposed to the hapless Larry David is fun, as is seeing what happens to Melodie's parents when they arrive in New York City. There are times when it's impossible to separate Larry David from Boris Yellnikoff which decreases the dramatic affects of the characterization, but I don't think this is a problem. Nothing really that new, but so much fun all the same.