Bad Weather (pt. II)

The Ice Storm

Cool Runnings

Greeting and salutations, dear reader, and thank you for your patience. Thanks to the lack of foresight from Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk, the indifference of our fascist governor, and the catastrophic effects of climate change, hundreds of thousands of Austinites (and beyond) were without power last week—including your favorite movie bitch. Some people are STILL without power, despite the temperature warming to melt the ice on power lines, and crews from other cities coming in to repair the damage. Take it from someone who went days without showering or using electronic devices: it has been a messy, chaotic, gloriously miserable time. This was even worse than Snowmageddon two years ago—we lost power for 24hrs but I was still able to watch movies and write my dumb words about them. Now that I’m done reading by candlelight, I wanted to commemorate this traumatic experience with another round of Bad Weather features. When we last explored some troublesome forecasts in film, extreme summer heat and wind was at the center, but tonight is dedicated to icy, snowy, winter weather. Even though temperatures in Austin are currently reaching 70 degrees, the chill that ran down my spine last week has yet to disappear, and watching Ang Lee’s 1997 film The Ice Storm is partly to blame. The Ice Storm is based upon Rick Moody’s novel of the same name and follows two neighboring families in 1970s Connecticut suburbia (redundant?) who are respectively and collectively going through cataclysmic changes. The Hood family consists of a stern but sexy father Ben (Kevin Kline) a meek but chic mother Elena (Joan Allen) a high-achieving son who often gets high Paul (Tobey Maguire) and a politically-involved and precocious daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci). Every family member has a secret, and Ben has one that intertwines them with their neighbors The Carvers—he’s having an affair with Mrs. Carver (the most elegantly-styled I’ve ever seen queen Sigourney Weaver). Wendy is also involved with members of this family, she just can’t decide between the two sons (played by Elijah Wood and Adam Hann-byrd) and ends up (accidentally?) toying with both of them. The aesthetic and setting of this film is assuredly 1970s suburbia, but the 90s of it all can’t help but bleed through—and the film was all the better for it. Between the political tension and governmental distrust brought upon by Nixon, the revolutionizing and de-stigmatization of sex brought upon by the first wave feminist movement, the 70s must’ve felt pretty wild and unwieldy—which is why the cynical, existentialist POV of 1990s filmmaking worked perfectly for this story. Within the first five minutes we see Tobey Maguire taking bong rips in his boarding school dorm room with stoner icon David Krumholtz, so I was already sold on this film and its ethos pretty early on. Tobey Maguire and Christina Ricci look nothing alike but were believably detached siblings, both indifferent to one another until they are in need of help, both too smart and therefore too depressed for their own good. I know it sounds silly, or maybe even pretentious, but I sometimes love when children are written to be deep and existential. As a devout over-thinker myself, I was hyperbolically anxious about the future and pondering death from a young age, but at least I had the internet to distract me—these kids could do nothing but smoke bad weed and shoplift to forget their worries. The Ice Storm, plot-wise, is quite simple. It’s about a family attempting to regain normalcy during Thanksgiving break, despite the clear rift in a marriage, and the dangerous levels of apathy the children are feeling (or are not feeling). Kevin Kline dabbles in being a dick while his wife Joan Allen dabbles in feminism, and it’s a constant battle between the parents and the children for who can makes things more uncomfortable. While Kevin Kline really wants his family to be together, he’s constantly sneaking out to bang Sigourney, who grows increasingly tired of his post-coital complaining and says “I already have one husband, I don’t need two.” Tobey spends most of his time planning ways to get back to his crush (Katie Holmes, who plays a girl named… Libbets?), Wendy keeps sneaking out to hang with the two nerdy boys next door, and the mom Elena keeps running into this kinda hot, long-haired male church leader(?), who may or may not be a cult leader. Clearly, there is a lot going on here—and I didn’t even get to the random tragedy that, while anticipated, I still didn’t expect to present itself in the final ten minutes. Even still, I really enjoyed this movie. I love the 90s’ obsession with the 70s, I loved the random cameos from people like Allison Janey, and I loved that as the ice formed on the branches and roads and homes in this film, it just further descended into chaos. Although I expectedly experienced some PTSD from watching the way this insidiously dangerous ice effected everyone, I had the perfect cinematic remedy lined up to cure me. Up next was a film that is too-often quoted, referenced, and beloved for me to ignore it any longer—Jon Turteltaub’s 1993 film Cool Runnings. Cool Runnings is loosely based on the true story of the Jamaica national bobsleigh team’s first competition during the 1988 Olympics. The film follows Derice, a sprinter who prepares and plans everyday to qualify for the Olympics. But when the day of the final qualifying race comes, another runner named Junior Bevil accidentally stumbles, not only falling over himself, but knocking down Derice, and another competitor named Yul Brenner. Derice is devastated and begs the Olympic committee leader to give him another shot, but he just recommends Derice try out for one of the other sports that Jamaica has traditionally competed for: cycling or boxing. But Derice spots a photo on the committee leader’s wall, one of Derice’s father and a white coach named Irving Blitzer (John Candy), who once led the Jamaican bobsled team. Derice hatches a plan: to track down the disgraced former bobsled coach, gather up his new friends Junior and Yul Brenner, get his old friend Sanka Coffee (a pushcart derby champion), and form the next great Jamaican bobsled team. After some negotiating with a shlubby but lovable John Candy (in his final film role), and convincing his warm-natured friends to bear the cold, this team of underdogs is off to the Olympics. Derice says that “Cool Runnings” means “peace be the journey” and pulls his reluctant friends out of their frozen funks and raises their spirits. I had a feeling I would love Cool Runnings. It began with an infectious beat and the stunning scenery of Jamaica, but even when the climate turned frozen, the vibrancy and warmth of this film never wavered. Even when their uniforms shift from short sleeves to long, even when their track turns from sand to snow, the energy never settles, and the good times never cease. It may be the understatement of the century, to say that Cool Runnings has the sweetest and most delightful vibes I’ve seen in awhile, certainly after watching The Ice Storm(…), but I really tend to avoid sports films in general—so all of this was a pleasant surprise to me. Cool Runnings is full of genuine laughs, genuinely great montage sequences, and it all ends with a slow clap from a crowd who initially undervalued this team, which is how all good sports films should end. The two main leads of this film, Derice and Sanka Coffee, were turned down by Denzel Washington and Eddie Murphy, but the film is so much better for it. Doug E. Doug, who plays Sanka, is the funniest character, and Leon (also known as “Just Leon”, which is cool) was drop dead gorgeous. I was so charmed by him and enraptured with his presence, not only because he’s beautiful to look at but because I definitely recognized him but could not place him… until I realized that I’ve seen him on The Real Housewives of Atlanta (because he is the former boyfriend of and baby daddy to supermodel Cynthia Bailey!! You have no idea how long it took me to realize this.) Again, I am SO not a sports person. And I am REALLY not an Olympics person. But I completely understand why Cool Runnings is so adored, and how it was the highest grossing Disney film for a significant streak of the 90s. I’m a sucker for an underdog story, and this film managed to warm my chilly little heart. Thanks for taking me back, dear readers, after my week of hiatus and hell. And thank you for reading along, in general. Tune in next week, weather permitting, for the 300th Double Features to grace this blog… ta ta for now! Or as Chet Hanks would say: big up the whole island!