by Jason Suzuki
The internet boom of the 90s can be blamed for such clichés as an “increasingly connected world” or the “fast paced society” that we live in. But the wild west of the early net couldn’t be associated with a positive type of freedom. What the world needed was some sort of confirmation of the frailty of these connections. Y2K was supposed to be just that. And where the arrival of a new decade failed in this regard – the calendars were able to turn 1999 to 2000 just fine – it was the September 11th attacks that succeeded. The culmination of butterflies squashed as early as the Carter administration, possibly earlier, what better proof of the insecurity of our infrastructure could there be? You wanted more information and a bigger world well here it was. Increased power for the state and its three letter agencies, invasions of other countries that increased the wealth of defense contractors and oligarchs just as much as it increased the strength of the terrorist groups we were supposed to be fighting (even creating new ones). Each successive administration was able to sleep soundly despite their war crimes. The blood was on their hands but not their minds. All of this in the name of safety from far-away evils. The lesson reinforced: never let a good crisis go to waste. To cap off the decade, Wall Street’s newest Cheerleader in Chief oversaw a bailout of the predatory financial institutions who continue to screw over the working class to this day. No surprise seeing as how his cabinet was vetted by Citigroup. This is the setting for the “forget-me-naught.”
What started as a desire to give Smokin’ Aces (Joe Carnahan, 2006) another shot lead to a consideration for films of a similar ilk: hidden gems of the 2000s. But there was something more specific to the type of film I was seeking than just a “hidden gem.” Punch-Drunk Love might not have received the same praise and success as other films from Paul Thomas Anderson but it’s still highly regarded and has since been deemed worthy by the Criterion Collection, the same cinematic institution who has released Tiny Furniture and The Breakfast Club. The best I could describe what I wanted was low-brow branded works that had higher aspirations. My perception of their staying power played heavily into what I deemed fit this category as well. 11:14 but not Donnie Darko. The Paul Walker starring Running Scared (2006) has its rough spots but it goes hard for its gimmick of crime thriller filtered fairy tales. It doesn’t play it safe but hasn’t been rewarded for its un-inoffensiveness. Films like One Hour Photo or Big Fish I’m still on the fence, open to arguments for/against.
Upon talking to others, I discovered how entertainingly malleable the label of forget-me-naught is, sort of like the designation of noir. It has both specific parameters but is vague enough that anyone could make the case for anything to be a forget me naught. The element of active participation might be what’s so fun about it.
I see certain cases that need to be made to argue something is a forget-me-naught: that there is some element of the film that might cause audiences to write it off whether its the genre, mass audience intentions, etc.; the case also must be made that it has indeed been written off or underappreciated (more important currently than at the time of the release); and finally that there is something more going on that transcends the film beyond its place in the cheapo DVD bin. However, being released outside of the Aughts doesn’t seem to stop a film from being considered. Joe Dante’s Small Soldiers (1998) or Scott Frank’s A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) have that forget-me-naught energy. Ultimately, it’s an exercise in trying to see the good in things. This is not to say that there is good in all things.
Here’s the first round of the stuff I watched for this project. All were new to me and save for one, were things I have always been meaning to check out. This definitely has skewed the examples being given to define the label. I hope other people can broaden the scope of the forget-me-naughts because they can’t all be thrillers.
Identity (James Mangold, 2003)
Another take on And Then There Were None. Instead of an island, a group of strangers are stuck overnight at a motel during a heavy thunderstorm. Flooded roads in all directions prevent anyone from venturing out. Identity does a good job of doling out new information to keep things interesting. The guy in the photo on the desk doesn’t look like the guy who says he’s the owner. The man who says he’s a cop is hiding a big bloodstain on the back of his undershirt. But the third act reveal is real wild, something hinted at early enough but hard to believe they’ll go for it until they finally do. The cast is also a good time: three Johns (Cusack, Hawkes, McGinley), Amanda Peet in possession of the bundle of money Psycho MacGuffin, Ray Liotta, Alfred Molina. The rain is constant and heavy, the outlook is grim for these people. Apparently it was common for the cast to come down with a cold while shooting. In its very final moments the phrase “ricockulous” is earned. The Blu-ray of this is out-of-print, possibly useful for making the case of forgotten-ness.
Déjà Vu (Tony Scott, 2006)
This era saw multiple collaborations between two titans of the forget-me-naught. Tony Scott’s last decade of work became more experimental. They felt like you were watching Brakhage with guns. It reminds me of the the recent work of Michael Mann, more concerned with mood and subtext than holeless plots and assumes audience’s familiarity with certain character tropes to cut out early-stage character building. As for the other titan of the forget-me-naught it’s Denzel, their king. To encapsulate his majesty let’s look at a moment from Deja Vu:
This is a familiar type of scene that can be found in the handbook The Thirty-Six Action Movie Situations in which a brainy, pencil-neck attempts to explain some sort of phenomena, usually scientific, and is met with an incredulous “In English please” or “How about something for the rest of the class?” response from a different character who in this moment is acting on behalf of the author’s perceived audience. As can be seen from the above, to the surprise of no one, Denzel makes this type of moment his own. Watching him watch footage of the Paula Patton character going about her private life days before her body gets pulled from the river could fall under the category of “pure cinema,” if you want to get pretentious and overly-sentimental about it. The way he looks at her has shades of Laura and Vertigo.
Once the time travel element is introduced we have the set-piece of the film: a car chase where the vehicles involved are being driven days apart. In order to find the suspect’s hideout, which is somewhere outside of the range of what the FBI chrono-surveillance tech can see, Denzel sets out with a mobile version to tail the suspect’s car. There’s a helmet with a viewfinder that allows Denzel to see the past as he drives, he keeps one eye free for the traffic of the present. It’s visually striking and just feels like the work of people wanting to one-up what usually passes for a chase sequence.
Deja Vu touches on the overreach of surveillance in the name of preventing terrorism. Not much time is wasted on the ethical debate because ultimately we see it’s fantasy that increased state power works and it will literally swallow you up once you buy into it. To have the culprit be a domestic terrorist feels rebellious in its rejection of the Muslim extremism fear mongering going on at the time. If the film were to come out now it would be DHS approved propaganda.
Death Sentence (James Wan, 2007)
This go-round with the revenge film is sort of a more brutal, more miserable variation on Death Wish; it even shares the same source author in Brian Garfield. Instead of going for the weepy moralism of something like I Saw the Devil (Kim Jee-woon, 2010), Death Sentence has the respect for its audience to not glamorize vigilantism but also resist the obvious finger wagging about where an eye for an eye leads. When the Big Bad points out to Bacon’s character that now he’s just like him, from the violence down to more superficial things like the shaved head, he’s preaching to the choir. Bacon looks the mutually ensured destruction in the face and says “so what?” All parties involved know what kind of picture they’re in. The chase through the parking garage and the final showdown are the highlights (along with the sweaty John Goodman performance) that in hindsight just fit knowing Wan’s skilled eye for action seen in Furious 7, Aquaman, and Malignant. Also of interest is this part of the score that just sounds like a knockoff of Kaada/Patton. To be fair, it’s noticeable which is true for a lot of the music in Wan’s films.
The Lookout (Scott Frank, 2007)
A heist film where we follow the patsy, think Drive a Crooked Road for reference. JGL is the sap, Chris. A guy who peaked as a high school athlete. His life took a turn after being at fault for a high-speed car crash that killed two of his friends, injured his girlfriend, and left him functioning but brain damaged. A few years post-crash, it’s not just his guilt that hinders Chris on a daily basis, a mental prison is a common occurrence in noir, but his impairments alienate him from others as he has issues communicating. As part of his recovery therapy he is assigned sequencing exercises. Since his memory is shot even listing out the mundanities of his day is challenging. His blind roommate (Jeff Daniels) suggests starting at the end and figuring out his day in reverse. When things start going to pieces as heists are wont to do, Chris uses that advice to form a plan by starting at the end, in other words how he wants it to end, and work backwards from there. Essentially this is what the writer is doing. It’s a meta moment so low-key and skillfully implemented that it makes other common techniques - like having the protagonist working on a film similar to the one we’re watching - come off just as rookie level as having a character talk to the camera.
Side note: The character’s name is Chris Pratt which is distracting nowadays after having the actor forced upon the public but in 2007 the real Chris Pratt hadn’t even played the asshole friend in Wanted yet.
Vacancy (Nimród Antal, 2007)
A divorce-imminent couple get to work on their marriage while surviving one of those motel/snuff film shooting location hybrids. Released during the torture porn boom, Vacancy bears little resemblance to the trend. In the on-disc behind the scene featurette the director mentions wanting to bring elegance to the material. This confirms what can already be seen in the film. The opening credits are a clear homage to the Bass/Herrmann title sequences of Alfred Hitchcock so it’s clear what the aspirations are. Psycho might be an obvious point to reference due to the motel setting but it pays off having the filmmakers conscious of craft. Every set-up seems considered and not just pulled from the safety net of shooting coverage.
Fun fact: This and Identity were released as a BD Double Feature.
The Box (Richard Kelly, 2009)
Southland Tales is on the rewatchlist for forget-me-naught consideration but I had honestly written Richard Kelly off since discovering that the non-director’s cut of Donnie Darko turned out to be the more cryptic version of the film as opposed to lore dumps and expository crossfades of explanatory notes and diagrams. But that was his first and The Box was his third and so much more confident in piling on inexplicable happenings and leaving things go unanswered. Coming from a Matheson short story that the 80s iteration of The Twilight Zone had previously done, a couple are visited by a man (Frank Langella minus part of his face) with an offer: press the button on top of a box and get a million dollars. Depending on the empathy of the person presented with the box, the catch is that pressing it also will cause the death of someone they don’t know. Once the button dilemma is resolved - the wife pushes it, possibly topping Lucille Ball in the realm of spousal hijinks - the film becomes a great paranoid thriller. You might get a good laugh at some of the odd shit that goes down. A particular favorite is the gang of burly men that march after James Marsden through a library. Sadly, Kelly’s had issues getting a project going ever since. He is listed as producer on the Robin Williams black comedy World’s Greatest Dad so if nothing pans out for Kelly in the future, this was a good year for him.
Gamer (Neveldine/Taylor, 2009)
The disc for this film had the trailer for Neveldine/Taylor’s masterpiece Crank 2: High Voltage but Gamer still has a lot going for it such as its mile-wide-inch-deep view of society. Instead of just one all popular video game that everyone is connected to, the public is obsessed with two from the same celebrity creator (Michael C. Hall) in which real humans are the playable avatars for other people. The ones being controlled are there either for work or for a chance to commute their prison time. What’s most impressive is how unrelentingly crude it is. Tween girls with such usernames as ‘Kumdumpstaz’ and ‘2KATCHAPREDATOR,’ morbidly obese gamers dunking waffles into bowls of syrup, and sandwiches with pistachio butter (possibly analogous to the real world avocado toast). The vulgarity manifests in the style of filmmaking where the editing creates an almost non-stop sensory overload. A good update to the film would be the reveal that the activist group Humanz was just controlled opposition all along. The film’s portrayal of tune-in/tune-out culture is not even its most prescient aspect; it’s the villain tech billionaire who has contracts with the government and admits to wanting to control how people think and how they vote. So outlandish you can only find it in science fiction.
The Hole (Joe Dante, 2009)
This is most entertaining when its goofiness can come out. Best example is Dick Miller’s cameo as the guy who delivers a pizza. He just stands there, doesn’t say a word, staring the lead actor down as if thinking this kid should be delivering the pizza while Dick gets to pal around with his younger brother and the cute girl next door. Doesn’t even have a uniform on. Still, might have to give Dante’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action the mantle of his best forget-me-naught. To save both men and women (and everything in between) from unneeded anxiety, I recommend looking up Haley Bennet and doing the math before watching.
Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron, 2009)
This is what would be considered a “forget-me-now.” An aggressively joyless two hours that reminded me of The Onion article where Meryl Streep dares the reader to name a single masterpiece of cinema that she’s starred in. Instead of a livelier cross cutting between the stories of Julie and Julia the film alternates between extended sequences following each woman. Because of the slower pacing, when the two leads are going through similar situations instead of it coming across as playful shared experience it’s just the tedium of being told the same thing twice. This material could have potential. The duo of Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai could have fun using the past/present structure to create something multi-layered. Their rom-com Romancing in Thin Air a great example of their brand of intellectual crowd pleaser. This type of play is only ever hinted at near the very end of the film where a museum recreation of Julia Child’s kitchen being visited by Amy Adams crossfades back in time to her actual kitchen.