King of California tries hard to be the kind of quirky movie cinemagoers will mention when discussing their favourite quirky movies (see Juno and Little Miss Sunshine).
It’s got an overly mature teenager who works at McDonald’s, a mentally ill father who works as a musician when he works at all, an absent mother, a dilapidated house that said adolescent and dad could get evicted from and a scheme to find some lost treasure hidden underneath a giant store. All good and all quirky. The trouble with King of California isn’t Michael Douglas’s performance as the father with bipolar disorder or Rachel Evan Wood’s turn as the stoic daughter who supports the treasure hunting plan, but that the film seems convinced of its own idiosyncratic appeal. This gives the moderately entertaining work a smug tone that means by the time Douglas’s character hits pay dirt it’s not as inspiring or heart warming as the filmmakers hope it’ll be. The movie seems to champion the idea that the mentally ill are more imaginative and unconstrained by the sort of rules that say you don’t break into stores to dig under cement to find treasure, but in the end King of California thinks the mad aren’t meant for this world (see Redemption, Death as) and that’s not a creative idea at all.
King of California is out now on DVD
David Small touches on the effects of having a family member with a mental illness in his compelling autobiographical graphic novel, Stitches. The only image of Small’s grandmother looking content is when she’s being taken away to an asylum after trying to incinerate her husband. Her longstanding discontent goes some way to explaining Small’s mother’s pathological inability to communicate, not to mention her anger. Small’s mother is drawn as a sharp-featured woman whose scowl only disappears in the presence of other adults, especially a doctor’s wife she secretly adores. A strip of grey regularly darkens her features. Growing up in middle-class America in the 1950s, Small gained some maternal attention by being sickly (“And I, too, had learned a way of expressing myself wordlessly. Getting sick, that was my language”). Unfortunately for Small, his radiologist father believed frequent X-rays would cure his ills. Not only did David have to be sick to garner moments of attention, as loveless as it was, his father possibly gave him cancer, which was then left to worsen because of his parents’ alternately miserly and wasteful ways. Small’s book gives truth to British psychologist Olives James’s thesis that They F*** You Up (parents that is), but Small shares James’s belief in the healing powers of psychotherapy. In the acknowledgements he thanks his therapist for “…placing (him) on the road to the examined life.” It’s clear Small now draws to explore life rather than escape from it as he used to as a child.
Grat to see you back with your film reviews Darlene.
Cheers, Fine : )
Films I have recently really enjoyed on DVD include Rachel Getting Married and Mary and Max (hope it gets an AFI or two). Waltz with Bashir was great to, but as I got it back three days late it ended up costing me about $25. Must see what’s on at the movies this week.
Looking forward to the Jane Campion movie on Keats.
Nothing much memorabe in the DVD line (except the BBC’s prodsuction of War And Peace, which I haven’t watched a second time yet. Thinking of collecting the Upstairs and Downstairs DVDs.
Haven’t seen Twilight yet, and I’m missing heaps of episodes of B&B (which, to my astonishment, you can always pick up on after weeks of not watching it.
Welcome back, Darlene.
Hey Paul : ), let me tell you it’s the time to go to the movies, especially if you live in Melbourne. Yikes, very hot.
Thanks. I love Jane Campion flicks so I will catch that one.
Never seen Twilight but it seems to be very popular (if the amount of women’s magazine ink used to discuss it and it’s cast is anything to go by).
B & B is very easy to pick up. Just think Brooke crying and marrying Ridge and/or Thorne and/or Eric and/or Nick and/or, well, you get the picture. It’s a trashy delight.
I’ve trying to get my head around the notion of Douglas playing Liberace in Soderbergh planned bio-pic, with Matt Damon as his lover/driver. Can hardly wait.
Douglas and Damon. Douglas is a good actor. Should be an interesting flick. I have no idea what Liberace was like beyond the image.
I wonder who will play Jamie Redfern?
Molly Meldrum?
If that poster reflects anything like reality, it’s good to see Michael Douglas’s eyes getting back to normal after the post-plastic-surgical anorexic-deer-in-the-headlights look.
Tee hee, that’s funny Bernice.
Yes, the post-plastic surgery look isn’t a good one. I was watching Madonna’s Celebration (contains vidoes of all her songs, although strangely not “American Life”, the “political” one) and in “Miles Away” she has just that look. I understand that she believes in the importance of staying young and fit, but I’m sure not sure when young and fit was equated with “anorexic deer in headlights”. I remember Douglas having that look not so long ago. Perhaps he has decided to sacrifice “youth” for his craft.
Some compelling DVD releases of late:
Wendy and Lucy : A woman and her dog on a bleak trip through the American econo/apocalypse.
True North : Scottish fishermen become involved in the smuggling of Chinese refugees
Far North : A deserting Russian soldier is given shelter by an Eskimo woman.
I’m going to see a preview of ‘Bright Star’ in a couple if weeks. Very excited. Douglas as Liberace is a great idea.
An Old liberace, I presume?
Wendy and Lucy was a very interesting film. Michelle Williams gave such a contained performance, with moments of sheer panic and despair. When she hops on the train to head to Alaska (I think) it was a real reminder of the days of the Depression. True North and Far North both look interesting, with True North particularly timely.
Here’s a link to the Bright Star website:
http://www.brightstar-movie.com/
Ouch, Paul. Depends if he did the movie before or after the facelift. : )
Thanks, Darlene. Fascinating.
makes one think of various movies on Byron
& the Shelleys (The night they Mary wrote Frankensein, Rimbaud, Wordsworth % Coleridge) the Austen industry, etc.