James Chiang

Favorite Films: Fun Films

These days, both life and art seem far too serious. And worst of all, it’s serious in all the wrong places. In our society, all our attention is on rushed accumulation (money, information, social approval) and not on living attentively and joyfully each day. In the art of movies, both live action and animated, we’re overburdened with excessively plot driven arrangements — stories that never let one breathe in the atmosphere or allow one to feel for its characters. It’s as if the industry knows and feels that the audience is also in a hurry to be impressed or entertained. Perhaps art does reflect life? But, regardless, I think we’re all getting pretty tired of the endless exposition and cheaply written non-sensical dialogue to make up for weak story construction. Add to that the kind of frenetic camera work and editing that’s near impossible to follow, what we’re witnessing is nothing less than a trite mess that no amount technical eye candy is gonna save.

So in this selection of favorite films, I’ve specifically chosen ones whose topics, though they may still hit home in the heart and mind, don’t take themselves so seriously either in plot or technical wizardry. They are simply films, funny ones that let you enjoy what’s happening on screen. The art of filmmaking is designed to make people forget about themselves by inviting us to live and feel along with the characters no matter how fantastical or ridiculous the set up. Films don’t always have to be to high art, groundbreaking, or even original but they must be visual and interesting. They are ideas and experiences to be expressed and felt by the viewer. These comedies prove that we can be serious about our art without taking ourselves too seriously.

“As a filmmaker, you have to tell a story to the audience, and in so doing you have to translate it into an image, which means you direct the eye and the heart to look in a certain way, the way you want it to be, the way you want them to see it.” — Martin Scorcese, Filmmaker

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (directed by John Hughes)

What an incredibly funny film Planes, Trains and Automobiles is. It’s remarkably simple (and silly!) Really, it’s just a road movie about two guys trying to find their way home for Thanksgiving holiday. But here, Neil Page (Steve Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) are a perfect match of comedy misfits that are somehow forced to work together, their traveling fate sealed the moment Del accidentally steals Neil’s taxicab in New York City. You see, Neil Page is a bit of a stuffy, privileged white collar executive, while Del is your regular joe, happy-go-lucky shower curtain ring salesman who’s so kind and charming but also irritating at the same time. Nothing goes right for them as they make their way around the cold country in all kinds of transportation, as the title suggests. The two get on at each other’s nerves throughout their adventure, leading to creative conflict and bountiful good fun. As the film moves — and it keeps moving, visually and physically — we learn more and more about the characters. There’s so much brilliant visual humour, and it never seems to end, until it necessarily does with a surprising yet meaningful ending. Few films let you have this much fun and still give you a wonderful payoff. Both my belly and heart are always satisfied when I watch this film and that makes it a perennial favorite. As a friend of mind said after watching it, “it’s so sad they don’t make films like this anymore.”

My Cousin Vinny (directed by Jonathan Lynn)

I absolutely love My Cousin Vinny. If I need to laugh and smile, this unbelievably low key film does it every time. The magic between the two stars is fantastic, even if seemingly unlikely given the visual disparity. A court case comedy, Vinny (Joe Pesci) is an inexperienced lawyer from New York, who, along with his fiancée Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) comes down to Alabama to defend his cousin William Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and his buddy Stan (Mitchel Whitfield). All four characters are like oil in water, being big city folk now congregating in the old South. William and Stan are mistaken for murder but the evidence is heavily against their favour, and this being a backwater town, the paranoia and prejudice run wild and funny. This film shouldn’t be so hilarious, but it is. The characters are wonderfully rendered visual caricatures, with great performances all over and the way the story unfolds, it surprisingly holds you in suspense. For me, it’s the acting that make it so incredibly charming and so visually interesting. Morisa Tomei is so beautiful, funny and sexy here, she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress while Pesci is at his comic best with the kind of wit only he can deliver. There’s no car chases, no naked bodies nor any fisticuffs (although there is a redneck who’s dying to beat up Vinny if he were to ever get the chance). Unexpectedly funny, My Cousin Vinny has literally zero special effects and doesn’t need them.

Big (directed by Penny Marshall)

Big was the big feature break that Tom Hanks needed to showcase his wonderful talent to the world. Here, in director Penny Marshall’s wonderfully sweet and original comedy, Hanks plays 12 year-old Joshua, who, after making a wish to become “big” at an amusement park, wakes up transformed into a fully-fledged adult overnight. The story, again, is simple; a boy turns into a man who must find his way to return to being a boy while adjusting to becoming a man and in so doing learns the value of friendship, childhood and family. However, the way the story plays out is fresh, and playful, allowing the charm of its star to really shine. Hanks plays a young boy in an adult body better than anyone I’ve seen with a believable innocence and silliness that’s hard to doubt. Visual acting, and comedy especially, is the hardest kind of acting to pull off. Here, we witness a great physical performance that allows us to forget ourselves, and empathize fully with the character and those who love him, namely his best friend, his mother, and even his newfound girlfriend Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) who is overtaken by his strange yet sweet nature. I trust, for those who might see Big for the first time, realize why film making (and film acting) makes its greatest impressions on us when it’s visually interesting.

The God of Cookery (directed by Stephen Chow)

I love watching Stephen Chow’s comedies. They’re ridiculous and often repetitive in its themes and visual tricks, but Chow, both as an actor and writer/director, always finds a way to make people laugh. I believe he succeeds here (and in his other global hits The King of Comedy (my co-favorite), Shaolin Soccer, and the bigger budget and more graphically refined Kung Fu Hustle) because at the heart of his films, it’s all about humanity; the ridiculousness of our daily obsessions, cultures, and overall behaviour are worth dissection and parody. In The God of Cookery, Chow plays an arrogant celebrity chef who gets tossed from his throne and into the slum-ridden street food markets of Hong Kong where he tries to re-work his way back to the top. And of course, throughout the journey, there’s the usual display of unrequited love, a share of the grotesque that caricatures the mannerisms of both the business elite and the impoverished working class, and of course, his love of Kung Fu. It all makes for a fantastical display of colourful characters and comedic action that guarantees laughter. The film is far funnier if one understands the spoken language of Cantonese because Chow manipulates the colloquialisms of the Chinese language in a very unique fashion, but even in subtitled form, the story and humour read loud and clear due to the visuals. Stephen Chow’s artistry is particularly distinct in that he has a tremendous respect for physical comedy and knows how to use the camera to express it effectively. He might also might be one of the best at making us laugh at humanity’s own silly obsession with superficial beauty and success.

Office Space (directed by Mike Judge)

It’s hard to not like Office Space, Mike Judge’s satire of office life and politics. Without the use of any big name stars (unless you consider a still relatively young Jennifer Aniston a star), Judge is able to build a story about characters who can’t stand their place at work. Personally, I can relate heavily to this film, as I, too, once worked in the confines of a corporate office environment, compiling, checking and matching numbers on papers and computers — the kind of work that makes so little sense in the big scheme of things that it’s hard to believe a sane man would actually get up in the morning to do this everyday of his life. In Office Space, that man happens to be Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) who is so depressed with his job that he actually agrees to go visit a shrink about it. During the visit, he goes into self-hypnosis but the psychologist actually has a heart attack during the session leaving Peter feeling accidentally yet completely refreshed and no longer burdened by his concerns about his career or even his life. He returns to the job but doesn’t quit, perplexing both his two equally disgruntled office buddies. In fact, his “I don’t give a crap attitude” actually gets him a promotion during an internal company audit while his two pals get the pink slip. He even dumps his mean old girlfriend for the new girl at the restaurant nearby. But of course, things don’t all go smooth. Still bitter about the kind of life and work he and others do at his company, he comes up with a scheme to pilfer, bit by bit, money from them. And there lies his journey to find that there is no way out of the mundaneness of work, and that sacrificing one’s ethics, even if just a bit, has its price. Office Space is truly silly, and yet at the same time completely right about the stupidity of our daily work lives — namely, that we all make too much of it. I used to get stressed out about numbers and such, but like the oft-mentioned TPS report, they’re all just symbols of absolute meaninglessness.

For more film recommendations, check out the Favorite Films Category.

Foundations

“Wax on, wax off” says Mr. Miyagi as he sneakily teaches one of the most fundamental blocks used not just in Karate, but in many other martial arts like Kung Fu and Tae Kwan Do. Image from **The Karate Kid**, starring Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio.

foundation (definition of):

the lowest load-bearing part of a building, typically below ground level.
an underlying basis or principle.

As they say, the foundations are everything. The core fundamentals of any craft start with the foundational bedrock of principles and skills that everything else is built upon. Unfortunately, most people, in almost every craft, want to skip over the long hours and dedicated hard work to truly be strong at the base.

Today, I’ll explain why this happens. Beyond just our ordinary rejection of doing extra work and our obsessive rush to get to the next step, the failure is so predominant because the general mindset about growth and learning is flawed. Most of us, and especially those who live in western cultures, tend to believe in the axiom “the more the better.” In other words, if we accumulate as much information, data or knowledge as possible, we’ll inevitably succeed. We see this in martial artists who “collect” multiple fighting styles, spiritual seekers who follow one guru to another, and even animators who hop from school to school, mentor to mentor. As noted in this blog before, knowledge alone is useless without understanding and actual prolonged application. Let’s look at the following diagrams:

The regular (idealized) set up. Each set of new skills (represented by a darker colored box) added to the current set of skills.

In this first diagram, we can see how most people (including large swaths of schools and educators) think and approach learning. As we learn the first levels of principles and techniques, we subsequently add on more principles and techniques. This is done gradually, but none the less step by step. This seemingly logical and practical approach makes the assumption that once we’ve received the lesson and have gone through its basic exercises that we’ve learned all we need to know and done all there’s to do at such stage. And so, we proceed towards more difficult tasks almost immediately like an assembly line, with one new challenge followed by another. Looking like a high-rise building, we think we’re making great progress, building one level after another constantly adding and “learning” new skills. Without any questioning, a general assumption is accepted as truth — that we’ve “passed” those levels and will never forgot or lose those acquired skills (or that we’ll somehow naturally improve on them as we go.) The animator, for example, does one walk cycle, thinks it’s ok (and it often gets “okayed” by the respected authorities) and believes he knows walk cycles. He goes on in this manner from two-legged ball characters to human walks, then towards fully fledged characters doing all kinds of physical actions and then eventually onwards to acting shots, multiple characters and moving cameras/multiple shot sequences. It seems both ideal and efficient.

The reality (which is common place). The new skills are grander and heavier than the previous skills, and place great strain on the levels below.

Here, in this second diagram, is the reality of taking on such an approach. As we can see — and it should be clear to any student who begins to massively struggle as the next levels of the craft are taught — that the expected learning rate of the original methodology has been misleading. Soon, the artist struggles not only with the new techniques but also with sustaining the proper and solid applications of the lower level techniques to his work. It turns out that his recently acquired skills are far from sufficient and that the new skills amplify the need of mastery of the lower levels. Eventually, the failures mount and the whole structure of his learning begins to topple as the top weight overwhelms the underlying foundation. No architect would ever design a building in such a manner but this construction approach is common in the arts. The reality is this: the foundations have to be stronger and more solid than everything else above it because each next step up is significantly more difficult in size, scope and depth than what has come before. A ready-level competence is necessary in order to learn and practice new techniques. When the lower skills are too weak, difficulty and frustration become too great and any learning stops completely. In major league sports like Hockey or Baseball, pro teams are careful not to rush top young talents into the pro leagues too early for fear of ruining their development when neither their bodies or minds are ready. Boxing coaches, who know that boxers often get only one shot at a title (if at all), take an even more cautious approach making sure their fighters have zero core deficiencies. The reason being is that without a very strong foundation below new techniques have no place to set. For example, the animator who’s barely passed his 2-legged ballie character walk cycle, is completely unprepared for taking on a 4-limbed fully-built rig, never mind any acting shot with all the bells and whistles like moving cameras and props. More often than not, the necessary foundational knowledge and skills, although they may have been shown to him, have not been grasped or understood with any proficiency to handle any added challenges. When an artist continues in this way, a terrible toll weighs on his psyche; the advancing difficulty and size of the challenges become so overwhelming that he loses all confidence, he stagnates and often gives up. This is why it’s so common as a teacher to witness animators — even those working in the industry — reveal remarkable flaws even when doing the most basic mechanics shots when tested. They know this instinctively and it’s one of the reasons they seek my counsel but it’s unfortunate that this happens. The truth is that at all levels of the craft, from basic mechanics to acting and camera work; each level of learning can feel daunting and exponentially difficult when the approach to learning is wrong.

The best set up. Although it takes longer to learn new skills, the continued advancement of the lower skills make for more stable and effective learning.

In this third chart, we can see the approach that I encourage for all young artists. The mindset of a true and honest learner is one that continues to build on the foundations that support his craft. As he learns and practices each new set of principles and techniques, he continues to strengthen the previous skills he’s acquired knowing full well that he HAS NOT yet mastered them. So, as time progresses, he becomes more and more skilled at the levels beneath and leverages them to meet the challenges of the next level. He knows and does this consciously, maintaining a humble mindset until his core foundations get significantly stronger, so strong in fact, that they become second nature. Approaching one’s learning in this manner not only stabilizes one’s growth in a sustainable way but also boosts confidence. In due time, the underlying foundations become so solid that it culminates into a pyramid of tremendous creative power where one can reach seemingly endless heights. It’s why genius is often stated as being 10% talent and 90% hard work. Consistency, passion and persistence are key ingredients to excellence and creativity. Top animation professionals don’t have to remember to apply weight, or achieve good arcs or spacing because they’re aware of these fundamentals constantly as part of the background of their work. When I spent many years studying fighters (due to my deep devotion to my other love, martial arts), I found the best ones were the ones with the strongest foundations. The great martial artists, regardless of style, had rock solid stances/balance and the strongest yet most supple bodies. And their minds paralleled that strength and flexibility. The same was true when I looked deeply into the work of the great animators. They could all draw well, demonstrate strong weight, present beautiful arcs and express confident camera/staging in all their work. The physical and emotional performances of their characters reflected a well thought-out vision — and all of it made possible by their deep knowledge and grasp of the fundamentals achieved thru an authentic practice.

Animation from **Sword In The Stone** by master animator Milt Kahl. Beautiful and sophisticated art like this happens only when the artist possesses an absolute mastery of the fundamentals.

Summary:

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we wait till we’ve mastered everything before we take on a new job or challenge — we can and sometimes have to learn on the job — but it’s much harder. In industry, one is judged daily on results, not promises or potential. Failures aren’t often overlooked and there’s alss a “what have you done for us lately” mindset in nearly every corporate environment. Add to it the stress of delivering under pressure, personal expectations and tight deadlines, it can overwhelm even the coolest individuals. Therefore, I suggest always to keep things simple and to maintain a humble spirit. I know, everyone’s in a hurry to get good, rich and successful. Don’t rush your learning. This suggestion may seem too much “wax on, wax off” for some but it’s truly the only way to learning something well and be truly good. And being good is the best kind of security we can possibly have.

“Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”
— Michael Jordan, Basketball Player