Computer Chess

Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess, currently playing at Film Forum, is an odd case. Even a movie like the classic Women in the Dunes posits an atmosphere that is somewhat engaging—in that case due to the existential inundation it so wonderfully describes. Let’s take horrifying movies like The Silence of the Lambs or The Shining or the crème de la crème of frightening movies When a Stranger Calls. As troubled as these landscapes are, they are places that you could imagine yourself trapped in. Computer Chess does for artificial intelligence what Boogie Nights did for porn. The film introduces a cast of nerds as devoid of intelligence, as Boogie Nights  produced porn stars lacking in eroticism. The setting of the movie is a l980 computer chess convention and the drab black and white in which the film is shot is a kind of computerized chess board in brownout. Stasi and Tsar 3 are two of the chess programs and there’s an iconoclastic character named Michael Papageorge (Myles Paige) who walks around in a three piece double knit suit that one of the characters in Saturday Night Fever might have worn to work Monday morning. Papageorge floats between the convention and a group of Esalen type spiritualists who follow an African guru. Bujalski’s film is beyond parody. The assortment of geeks and seekers rolling huge anachronistic consoles around their hotels rooms has all the makings of parody, but Computer Chess is really metaparody, if such a thing can be said to exist. We’re in Todd Solondz land in this parody of parody that turns simple comedy on its head. The problem is that despite all its brilliant concepts, it's difficult to watch. The world of the film is quirkily repellant; you don’t want to be there. The score accompanying the final credits recalls another 80’s icon Tiny Tim. If you like Tiny Tim, you’ll probably love Computer Chess.

Dark Horse

In his New York Times review A. O. Scott compared the character of Abe (Justin Gelber) in Todd Solondz’s Dark Horse to Willy Loman. Actually a better comparison might be Strindberg and characters like Miss Julie who are trapped by everything they are biologically, sociologically and morphologically. The title of the movie comes from Abe’s position in his family. Still in his 30’s he’s an overweight college dropout who lives at home and works in the family business. His father Jackie (Christopher Walken) is a narcoleptic suburban realtor who is constantly demanding spread sheets. One long shot of Jackie going over rent rolls with his visionless mercantilism paints a character that is about as about as far from Gary Cooper’s portrait of the architect Howard Roark in The Fountainhead as it’s possible to get. Abe’s mother Phyllis (Mia Farrow) preens over him and apologizes for his ineptitude while offering a rather dire prognosis of his prospects. His older brother Richard (Justin Bartha) is a successful doctor in a competitive Jewish family—in other words everything he is not. Richard is gay and Abe blames his brother for having abandoned him ten years before for having gone off to Fire Island instead of accompanying him on a cross country trip. Solondz’s family is garish, but there is also a tenderness to the portrayal. Abe is trapped in himself and the victim of a confluence of factors that transcend just bourgeois values. There are all kinds of brilliant touches in the film. One of Abe’s first lines to Miranda (Selma Blair), the catatonic woman he proposes to after one date, is “I never dance. It’s not my thing.” It’s all down hill from there. “I want to want you,” she tells him later in the movie. “That’s enough for me,” Abe enthusiastically responds. Abe’s signature vehicle a Hummer and he gets into a fight in a store, whose Toys "R"Us logo is intentionally blurred (one would suppose that the toy chain didn’t want their logo associated with the production), when he tries to return a scratched action figure. As Abe’s life finally implodes entirely, the movie turns from Strindbergian determinism to Walter Mitty like fantasy. Dark Horse is a mess that gives a new meaning to the word mordant, but outrageously funny too. One wouldn’t be surprised to find Solondz transforming the scene of Oedipus with his eyes plucked out into a sequel to Animal House. Tragedy turned to farce. That’s the unique and sometimes frigid sensibility at work.