MYST Post #1: So I Married An Axe Murderer

I was able to watch one of Mike Myers’s best comedies: So I Married An Axe Murderer. This movie is based around a first generation Scottish man named Charlie Mackenzie who lives in San Francisco. The story revolves around his love life and his fear of marriage until he meets a butcher named Harriet Michaelis (played by Nancy Travis). Their relationship goes well until Charlie develops an unsettling fear that Harriet is the infamous “Mrs. X” who kills her husbands on their honeymoons. The movie takes a surprising twist at the end which only adds to this unique romantic comedy.

Mike Myers is a unique actor. His ability to play pretty much any role adds to the pleasure of watching him on screen. Compared to his roles in Austin Powers, So I Married An Axe Murderer takes on some lighter character roles but nonetheless funny as his other movies. Myers in these two movies has been able to play multiple characters in the same movie, sometimes in the same scene. At times, the recognition between Myers and his characters are indistinguishable. For example, in both Austin Powers and So I Married An Axe Murderer, he has played the stereotypical Scottish man. In Austin Powers, he plays a fat Scottish pig named Fat Bastard while in So I Married An Axe Murderer, he plays Charlie’s Scottish dad, Stuart Mackenzie. Both of these characters are played over the top but in a way that adds to the scene through his use of facial expressions and emphasis on certain lines and phrases. Watching Mike Myers is entertaining enough in a movie.

Thomas Schlamme, the director of So I Married An Axe Murderer, has directed mainly TV series and films, making So I Married An Axe Murderer one of his best known works. Since this is one of his only films, the cinematography has many usual characteristics, the shot angles during dialogues are mainly Medium shots and Medium close ups. Yet, Schlamme makes this film unique by having San Francisco be a heavy influence in the shots used. Scenes that could have been shot at any usual place in comedies like this (home, coffee shop, work) are shot by the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz. Schlamme shoots a scene of Charlie and his best friend talking about his first date with Harriet during a tour at Alcatraz. The setting added a humorous element to the scene by bringing in two very contrasting topics. The camera work also is used to accentuate some comedic elements in the movie. For example, Charlie’s younger brother is criticized by his dad for having a too big head. Therefore, in the scene, the shots are positioned to have his brother in the majority of the shot while Charlie’s father is left in a small portion of the shot.

My favorite scene in the movie is the opening sequence. The premise of the first scene is bringing Charlie a cappuccino at a coffee shop where he will be reading poetry. Instead of having ordinary medium shots to occupy the scene, Schlamme takes you through the whole process of the dirty cup getting cleaned, filled, and brought to Charlie in a very chaotic coffee shop. The sequence is shot from the perspective of the waiter’s tray which shows the large cup being brought to Charlie and his corresponding response to the massive cup with “Excuse me Miss, there seems to be a mistake. I believe ordered the large cappuccino. Hello!” Although it is a seemingly unimportant scene, how it was shot from the viewpoint of the tray adds to the feeling of the craziness  yet order of a coffee shop by showing how the cup is reused and prepared for the next customer and helps support Charlie’s joke about the ridiculous nature of the cup. This scene sets up the mood for the movie to be one of clever shots and funny quips by Myers.

Overall, I give this movie a 5/5.

Review of the Reviews

        For me, there is no greater masterpiece than Inglorious Basterds. It marvels up with Quentin Tarantino’s best works such as Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. The film takes on an alternate ending of World War II thanks to the revenge-savvy plots by the characters played by Brad Pitt and Melanie Laurent. Yet, although my personal view on the movie as being nearly perfect, critics scored the movie an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is what a few of them had to say:

        Tom Charity’s review of the movie on CNN.com, “Review: ‘Basterds’ is quite Glorious”, was a compliment to Tarantino’s work with some slight criticism. The review opens with a reference from Spike Milligan, a comedian who wrote about his adventures in WWII in a memoir called Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall. This satirical introduction, as supported by Charity, embodies the film. He relates that Tarantino had Milligan’s same “chutzpah” as to his account of WWII. Charity goes on to talk about the characters’ roles in the film while, at the same time, giving a brief overview of the plot. Charity holds many of the cast members in high accord, praising Laurent as “excellent”. Charity pokes fun at Tarantino in a sarcastic way, stating that “only in a Tarantino movie do you find heroic critics”. This light and sarcastic tone supports a light-hearted view on the movie by Charity. He believes that it is well-structured and a unique approach to the war movie. Although he criticizes the writing to be long in parts and maybe a little too structured in parts, he finally praises the film as “still one of the best of [Tarantino’s] generation”.

        If Tarantino’s envision of Inglorious Basterds would be summarized in a phrase, it would be from Charity’s review of “‘Inglorious Basterds’ doesn't pretend to give us the war as it was, but as it should have been”. The film is blatantly changing the facts of WWII. The biggest one, spoiler alert, is that Hitler and most of the high command get killed in a movie theater thanks to a revengeful French Jew. Yet, the ridiculous nature of the movie’s plot makes the watcher want that to be how history turned out.

        On the negative side of the critics is Matthew Oshinsky of The Star Ledger. His review, “ ‘Inglorious Basterds’ Move Review: Pitt Leads Tarantino’s Nazi-hunters into a Historical Farce”, focuses on the flaws more on the film in general. He starts his review with a brief overview of the film that segues into how the film as a whole has a feeling of “disconnect”. He criticizes Tarantino as a director who focuses too much on movies about movies and how he fails to organize a morally brilliant movie. Oshinsky’s argument focuses on how Tarantino also does not take into account the moral implications of his film and how he portrays history. He believes that the brutal attacks on the Germans takes away from the heros of the movie and of history. Oshinsky also criticizes the score of the film, saying that the mixture of different generations of music “disorients” the watcher as to which time period the film is focusing on. The overall criticism of the review bashes not only the movie, but Tarantino as a director.

        Although the review does not take into account the purposeful nature of Tarantino’s work, there is one phrase that I do agree with: “It is a movie about war movies”. Tarantino takes the usual war movie and puts his own twist on it by incorporating an obviously fictional take on war. The organization of the story makes the film seem more like a novel than a film, taking the film to the next level of war.

        If I had never seen this film before, I would listen more to Charity’s review. He includes references used in the film which gives the review more credibility whereas Oshinsky’s review sounds more like a hateful stab at Tarantino. By including this evidence and including the intertextuality of the characters and their relation to the story, Charity’s review seems more thought out and criticized intelligently. Charity also criticizes the movie in his review, also. This mixture of both sides of the coin helps build the validity of his review. By taking a more neutral stance, Charity’s review can be looked on more as a source of knowledge where Oshinsky’s review is more of a venting essay about Tarantino and his work as a whole. Therefore, I would listen to Charity’s advice about the movie over Oshinsky’s.

        If I were to write a review for Inglorious Basterds, it would probably end up being more than a page long. This film is brilliantly crafted and the acting is just flawless. I would make sure to include the opening scene since there are so many subtle and disturbing elements and symbols to it that one has to re-watch it multiple times to pick up on what Tarantino was trying to say.

I would include the cinematography of the film since Tarantino focuses on very simple and seemingly unimportant things at times in the movie, such as milk and creme. I would also talk about the use of the chapters and subtitles throughout the film. This puts a unique feeling on the movie since there are clear distinctions on when the story shifts points of view that eventually meet up in the end. There would not be much that I would leave out. The only criticism I have is when a German soldier who recently became a father gets shot. Other than that, this film is a must-see.