Road Rage: A Persnickety Analysis of: On The Road

 This film screened earlier today in the competition at Cannes, and I for one found it one of the worst things that's ever happened in the world of Cinema, that's ever. John Ford, Orson Welles, and D.W. Griffith should like form a ghostly coalition of the willing and beat Walter Salles to a bloody pulp. If I could punch this film in the face I would do it. But instead, I'm making a corn husk doll of Kristen Stewart and punching that in the face. It's healing some of the wounds.

First thing's first. Do not adapt Kerouac in the 21st century. Why the hell did you wait so long to where it's not even remotely relevant anymore. Who in their right minds could give two fucks about some hipster without a job meandering around, having pretentiously mediocre thoughts about the uselessness of existence whilst drinking and smoking a lot. Because, that's all the film is! I understand that that's what Kerouac wrote about, but it's considered 'unadaptable' for a reason. You can't just do that to your film audience i.e. have nothing happen for two and a half hours whilst people philosophize about said nothing in the voice over. Kerouac is dead folks. Oh and by the way, he died because his liver exploded from drinking so much. 

This brings me to my second point; it's a pet peeve of mine when people are shown CONSTANTLY drinking and doing drugs, but no one ever seems to get high or drunk, it's like I know you're in your early 20's but if you ingest that much Benzedrine and that much Vodka at the same time, I'm dropping your comatose ass off at the emergency room and making a quick getaway.

Neal Cassady on the left with Jack Kerouac on the right, the inspirations behind Dean and Sal in On the Road. Did I mention both died before they were 35? from alcoholism? Oh I did? well doesn't hurt repeating.

Point three. No one in our generation, who's never 'burned burned burned with the fire of a Roman candle' but plays 'Draw Something', talks to Siri like she's an actual person, and blogs blogs blogs all day long gives two fucks about the beat generation. That shit burn burn burned out real fast, and it's not even nostalgic anymore. It's taking us to a place none of us want to be, and around people none of us would be friends with. You're not watching it thinking 'oh these people are really unique and interesting, they have thoughts man, ya dig?' You're sitting there, thinking; 'wow, they are all dirty and useless. Grow up and get a fucking job...and where exactly do they get the money for all this weed?'

'Oh look at me with my silk blouse rocking out to spontaneous jazz medleys. I am soooooo of the period and don't stick out at all'

Point four. Casting. What the fuck were you thinking? Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty? He looks like the moron jock from every 80's movie. Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (who is just an avatar for Kerouac himself) gets a pass. But Kristen fucking Stewart as child bride Marylou? Are. You. Kidding. Me. She stands out like Winona Ryder in a period costume drama, like totally. She's so not 'of that generation' that it makes me infuriated that everyone is taking her seriously just because she does half of the movie naked. I respectfully disagree! This is worse than Keira Knightley pretending to be a Russian intellectual who likes to get spanked in A Dangerous Method (2011). Ya should have made it back in the early 90's when people still gave two shits about Neal Cassady, Jack Karouac, and reading in general, cast Brad Pitt as Dean, Ethan Hawke as Sal, and Juliette Lewis as Marylou. Sidney Lumet should have directed. Side note, that British dude who's Sienna Miller's baby daddy as Carlo Marx? So bad that it went past good and back to bad again.    

Tom Sturrige as Carlo Marx in one of the many ambiguous posters made for the film, caption reads 'we're alive?' harkening back to a question this motherfucker brings up constantly because he's on too much Benzedrine to disassociate reality from sleepy time. So the answer to your question you pretentious fuck is 'yes...but that can change. go buy a gun'.

Also, stop peppering films with big stars that just want to prove that they read Kerouac and are thereby intellectuals like Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen. You guys are established stars you do not need to associate with such garbage. Also, again, why exactly are you naked? 

If you want to walk out of a movie this year and be like 'hmm, I didn't give any fucks the whole time' then this is a film you should see. I kept rolling my eyes so much I think they started making a noise. Bright spot at the end of the dark tunnel lined with human excrement is that the films about beatniks genre might not be violently dead from massive head wounds which I personally inflict on it quite yet. Kill Your Darlings (2013) with Daniel Radcliffe as Allan Ginsburg actually seems pretty promising. I anxiously await for it to cure the cancer that I got watching this.

Basically, this sums it up beautifully:

"Many have speculated that 'On the Road,' Jack Kerouac's seminal beat novel, is unadaptable for the screen, and Walter Salles' game attempt suggests that this may indeed be the case. Despite its pretty cast and sun-ripened colours, the film quickly settles into a tedious looping rhythm of Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) experiencing some kind of beatnik debauchery with co-wanderers Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and Marylou (Kristen Stewart), before retiring to a shady corner and scribbling wildly in a notebook. Neither the journey nor the destination seems to matter a jot." — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Read the full article here: Cannes 2012 Review of On The Road

Here's another really interesting article called Kerouac retold as 'Bro-Retry'
Every Sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Retold for Bros

Which is basically what this film is. It's a dumb-it-down bro-mance road movie. And it's long as fuck. No pun intended.  

I realize that all I'm doing is making you watch it more, so fine. Here's the trailer. I hope you enjoy contemplating murder-suicide for two and a half hours. 

Freudian Fail and Other Options.

even the spanking scenes in Method were lackluster.

For something as promising in filth, sin, and spanking, A Dangerous Method was a dull and mundane fake orgasm you share with the person you are about to break up with later in the day. From a director who is known for cultivating a cult status based on blood, sex, and surrealism, you would think he would have been the ideal choice to tackle psychoanalysis. Alas, it couldn't have been more sugar coated if it was a Busby Berkeley musical. I wanted it to be raw and dirty, deranged, shameful, degrading, and punishing. It was none of those things, though they managed to talk about all of those things ad nauseam and made it feel as if reading verbatim from Freud for Dummies. 

We open on a picturesque view from a hill in the farm lands of Switzerland where Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) a well-educated and well-mannered gentlemen with good looks and charm runs a hospital for the criminally insane. He is seeking to cure these poor unfortunates with the new and controversial 'talking cure' that's been going around those parts. His first subject is a overly realized perception of mental instantly that filmmakers dressed in period clothes and tousled the hair of, I am speaking of course of none other than masturbation fodder for a whole generation and Wonderbra aficionado Keira Knightly who just can't stop screaming, damn it. The bitch has issues, let's put it that way, and strangely enough, they all stem from her being spanked by her pop pop when she was a little girl.Fancy that. Could she be more of a perfect candidate for psychotherapy? I venture nay. She's thus the perfect subject for Jung and his new 'experimental method' this 'psychoanalysis' that couldn't possibly work, well he'll prove all of them wrong, and he'll use her as his prototype. That means a lot of time alone together recalling all kinds of nasty shit. A few spank scenes worthy of a soft-core short later and they are completely in love, the student and the master. Fancy that!

Keira really outdid herself, and I'm not sure if I mean that in a positive way, call me crazy but I STILL have a problem with her playing serious roles. She chewed the scenery so hard it was almost comic. She did that under-bite and finger claws film cliche thing that just infuriates me, and overall really tried to make herself unappealing, when all she had to do was that nude scene where she and Fassbender are in bed together after coitus for all of us to see that she has the upper body of a per-pubescent boy. Regardless, she might have been the most redeeming quality of this film and this statement includes the Cronenberg and his underwhelming lackluster portrayal of three central figures in sexual psychology and psychoanalysis.

Basically it was all talk no action, which is an elementary no-no in cinema. Why the filmmakers felt the need to take nearly two hours to explain Freudian theory backwards and forwards to us like we're all idiots is beyond me, and it doesn't make for a dramatic narrative at all. It didn't even present it in a way that was remotely interesting or sparking the curiosity of the greenest Freud layman (no pun intended). Bottom line is anyone with half a high school education will know the basics of Freudian psychology.

Basically the filmmakers got frustrated with compressing almost half a century of scientific psychological research into a film so they decided to focus on making it aesthetically pleasing by throwing money at the costume and production design departments with one grand rule: make sure Keira's nipples are showing in every scene. 

This film was an enormous let down. If I can compare it to a sexual scenario which would be appropriate in this context, it would be like finally bedding that one person who you've lusted over since you were aware of your sex organ functions and never felt you were good enough to get, and though they were the hottest thing you'd ever had a wet dream about, they were the worst lay you've ever had, including your right hand on a wine-soaked evening. Definitely skip, you will not be missing anything.

Please do yourself a favor and watch Freud (1962) directed by John Huston and starring the incomparable Montgomery Clift as the titular character (no pun intended). Below is a clip. Get on it. Seriously. 

Also, you should watch the psychoanalysis-inspired film by Hitchcock called Spellbound (1945) if you haven't already, starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman with a cameo by Mikhail Chekhov and a dream sequence directed by Salvador Dalí. It doesn't get much better than that folks. Both films in full versions on the youtubes. 

A DANGEROUS METHOD - A DANGEROUS FILM

THERE IS A NEW TRAILER EXCLUSIVE ON ITUNES FOR THE UPCOMING CRONENBERG OPUS A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011) ABOUT THE FOREMOST NAME IN SEX, SIGMUND FREUD (VIGGO MORTENSEN) AND HIS LONG TIME COLLABORATOR, INSPIRATION, AND INFLUENCE CARL JUNG (MICHAEL FASSBENDER). IT'S CURRENTLY PLAYING AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL AND WILL BE AT TORONTO NEXT MONTH. IT OPENS ON NOVEMBER 23RD OF THIS YEAR AND I FOR ONE CAN'T WAIT. WHY? IF THERE IS A CONTEMPORARY SEXUAL INFLUENCE ON THE CINEMA THAT IS SINCERE, UNINHIBITED, AND VIOLENT, IT'S CRONENBERG. I AM A HUGE HUGE FAN (THAT GOES WITHOUT SAYING BUT ANYWAY) I BELIEVE THAT IF ANYONE CAN BIO PIC THE PERSONAL LIFE AND PROFESSIONAL PASSION  OF FREUD IT'S HIM. I HAVE A LOT OF FAITH IN THE TWO MALE PRINCIPLE LEADS AS WELL, YOU REALLY CAN'T GO WRONG WITH FASSBENDER AND MORTENSEN (AND CRONENBERG AND MORTENSEN GO TOGETHER LIKE PEAS AND CARROTS THESE DAYS) THE ONLY THING I HAVE TROUBLE WITH PER SE IS THE CASTING OF KEIRA KNIGHTLY AS RUSSIAN BANANA SANDWICH AND FREUD PARAMOUR SABINA SPIELREIN. THIS COULD BE A MAKE OR BREAK PERFORMANCE FOR THE FILM, AND TRUTH BE TOLD...I'M NERVOUS. I HONESTLY DON'T THINK SHE PACKS ANY APPEAL SEXUAL OR OTHERWISE AND DON'T SEE HER AS ABLE TO CARRY THE ROLE, BUT YOU KNOW...WE'LL SEE.

STILL FROM A DANGEROUS METHOD.

ARTIST RENDITION OF NEUROLOGIST AND FREUD COLLABORATOR JEAN-MARTIN CHARCOT DEMONSTRATING HYPNOSIS ON A PATIENT. 

THIS IS A FILM I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR, FOR A WHILE NOW. I HAVEN'T BEEN THIS EXCITED SINCE THE FIRST TRAILER FOR THE SOCIAL NETWORK WAS RELEASED, AND I HOPE THIS WILL ALL DRIVE US BACK TO OUR BOOKSHELF TO PICK UP THAT OLD DUSTY COPY OF 'BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE' THAT WE HAD TO READ IN HIGH SCHOOL AND IMAGINE THE SEXUAL APPEAL OF HANDLE BAR MUSTACHES. 

CRONENBERG IS A NAME SYNONYMOUS WITH THE IDEA OF CONFRONTING DIFFICULT AND CONTROVERSIAL MATERIAL AND HE DOESN'T SHOW ANY SIGNS OF TAKING IT EASY ANY TIME SOON, IN FACT, HE'S ACCELORATING AND NOW PUSHING 70 DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE CRESTED. HE'S NOT SLOWING DOWN NOW THAT HE'S IN HIS GOLDEN YEARS, HE'S STILL AS INNOVATIVE AND UNCENSORED AS EVER, I DON'T DOUBT THAT A DANGEROUS METHOD WILL REITERATE THAT. LETS ALL GO SEE IT AND THEN GO GET HYPNOTIZED INTO ADMITTING REPRESSED SEXUAL MEMORIES! CHEERS.
A LINK TO THE TRAILER EXCLUSIVE:
A DANGEROUS METHOD ITUNES EXCLUSIVE