Pooleside

Back in ye olde early ‘90s, if you watched MuchMusic there was no escape from Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” video. In fact I was so sick of that video, that by the third week in heavy rotation I just wanted poor, bullied Jeremy to be home schooled so I didn’t have to see him anymore. Regardless, those images of tortured kid boiling over, which helped launch the band into the stratosphere, are burned into my brain.

A couple years later a video hit heavy rotation for a song with one of the weirdest names ever: “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe.” It was made for Scandinavian band called Whale and has a very cute, impish girl with braces being tossed up and down on a blanket in the middle of a quarry while her cross-dressing male band mates rock out. It grabbed my teenaged attention. After all, this babe was wearing braces, and I had braces – maybe there was hope… . But wait, why is she humping hobos? Surely she could do better. Did that mean I would never know the love of a non-hobo as long as I had tracks on my teeth?!? Gah! I spent too much time thinking about it, mainly because the imagery was so arresting, so sexy, so original.

More recently, in 2002, The Flaming Lips, blew up, partially on the strength of their single for “Do You Realize?” The video, shot mostly on the old Vegas strip where rows of neon signs meet a block-long rooftop covered in blinking lights, has singer Wayne Coyne in a white suit, flanked by beautiful women, rabbit mascots and a real live elephant. It’s a feast for the eyes. Again, more unforgettable visuals.

The common thread here is director Mark Pellington, and while long before I knew who he was, he was grabbing my attention with music videos, I learned his name on the strength of his 2002 feature film The Mothman Prophecies.

“What? Isn’t the Richard Gere film about a moth-creature?!?” you ask, incredously, perhaps with a sneer, or a derisive eye-roll.

Sure is; it’s also one of the best modern horror films, which tanked mainly because horror fans didn’t wanna see a Richard Gere movie and Richard Gere fans are wimps who can’t handle a horror movie. Gere is actually fine in the film, but what really makes it work is Pellington’s stellar direction. Damn, it’s effective. From the gloomy, off-putting small town where the freaky events take place, to the chilling second hand pictures of the black creature with piercing red eyes, to that absolutely terrifying hotel sequence where Gere’s character realizes he’s dealing with something far from human – a thing we catch a glimpse of in a mirror. Atmosphere, uncanny imagery, psychological head-trips and the horror of suggestion are the tools Pellington wields like a master. And although the ending of the movie gets too Hollywood happy, The Mothman Prophecies is very effective at scaring your britches to stitches.

I’ve been waiting for another film from Pellington…and waiting. I wondered what happened to him – was he in director jail for birthing a box office flop? According to boxofficemojo.com, Mothman made under $36 million domestically on a $32 million budget. The answer came last summer in this New York Times article, in which Pellington talks about the sudden loss of his wife in 2004, and his new direction as a filmmaker.

Since her death, he’s become spiritual (he thanks god on his Myspace page), and this is at the forefront of his new film, Henry Poole is Here (just released on DVD). Poole stars Luke Wilson as the title character, a bitter, wounded guy who buys a house in the sunny suburbs, seemingly for the purpose of drinking, lying around and not grooming (he’s basically a joyless Jeff Lebowski who doesn’t bowl). He doesn’t want to be bugged by anyone, but when a neighbour lady discovers a stain on the side of his house that kinda, sorta looks like Jesus, he’s very grudgingly pulling into a miracle. Soon, church folk intrude to gawk, including a priest played by comedian George Lopez. At the same time, the single mother next door (Radha Mitchell) and her shy daughter catch Henry’s attention and he begins to question his faithlessness.

It’s to Pellington’s credit that he keeps it visually interesting despite it being set in only a couple different locations. It's something he does with interesting camera movements, dynamic backgrounds (e.g. the white slats on weathered fence) and a bright colour palette. However, there are no surprises as to where this one is going, and it’s just a matter of watching the character change in exactly the way you expect him to.

The main problem, though, is one common to music video directors: manufactured transcendence. Pellington has proven that he’s adept at potent visuals married to music, and he overloads Henry Poole with mini-music videos where characters come to powerful realizations set to heartstring-tugging tunes. Music video directors generally want to give you a transcendent experience, where the images and notes imbue each other with more meaning than they can muster as separate parts, like adding one plus one and getting three. This works fine in a four-minute music video, but repeat it over and over again in a feature and you’ve got a recipe for cheese. It’s fromage manufactured with close-ups, slow pans and fades that become cliché pretty quickly.

Henry Poole is just so damn self-righteous that after it you’ll wanna watch a Robert Altman movie just to get the saccharine sting of Uplifting Human Spirit out of your mouth. Or better yet watch the similarly titled Henry Fool (1997) by indie veteran Hal Hartley. Hartley makes films that often manage amazing moments of transcendence with very offbeat characters, excellent soundtracks and absolutely no sunshine blown up anyone’s nether regions. (Of course, if he had a more populist sensibility for characterization and drama, he’d be a household name.) Regardless, it’s too bad Pellington’s first feature in six years is so choked by cookie cutter joie de vivre.

Henry Poole is Here, and will hopefully go away quickly – like a water soluble stain.

-Dave Alexander