Why Joseph Kahn is the Best Kept Secret in Hollywood

I've said before that I don't recommend movies, except for The Spanish Prisoner (1997, David Mamet), and I'm not going to contradict myself here. But when it comes to the one movie I freak out over it's Detention (2011, Joseph Kahn). I mean I can't describe it to someone without getting excited, overly animated, and thrilled that it was made. I love Detention so much. But I don't expect others to like it. I guess kind of like early Melvins.

Joseph Kahn's follow up to Detention is somewhat less schizo but it has a lot to say, is way more thought provoking, and just as fun.

But first another digression, remember the first time you realized that Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) is like the only big Hollywood studio of the Golden Age that lets the villain walk away scot free? Or the first time you saw Happiness (1998, Todd Solondz) or Ichi the Killer (2001, Takashi Miike)? I do. And I was thrilled to find movies so dark. It takes an artist, a master even, to do it right.

It's sad that there are so many awful movies I hate that are just mean or ugly or involve violence or debauchery in the guise of entertainment or art or creativity. I am so picky, but I have my reasons. Such is the nature of personal taste.

Bodied (2017, Kahn) is an article from a scientific journal thoroughly investigating political correctness.

All I knew going into it was that it's about a grad student who is writing a paper on rap battles. I don't know anything about rap battles and this movie didn't sound that appealing. But I was quickly won over. Bodied plunges the audience right into the middle of a rap battle in an abandoned warehouse and immediately establishes its tone.

Think of the first time you heard DAWSON and JOEY talking and got that feeling that their dialogue was obviously written by someone way older. Now imagine if that were sped up, and if a whole underground community of black rappers were thrown in who also speak in this same manner, only while simultaneously saying the most un-PC offensive things imaginable. And adding to this ADHD fun activity a heaping of pop-culture references. That's what Bodied feels like. And I love it.

Plus since this is Joseph Kahn, we get textual imagery. The first battle is introduced with on screen text that tells us the match is X-TRACT vs. BEHN GRYMM, and this is maybe one of the film's most characteristic devices because of how frequently it's used, but also in how many different ways. Kahn also still enjoys horizontal blue streak lens flares from practicals in the frame; his earthquake VFX; and a dynamic camera that has about as much trouble staying still as mischievous undisciplined child.

I was very curious to learn what kind of plot Bodied would have. I mean it can't just be filmed rap battles, right?

Bodied follows its protagonist, skinny white college kid ADAM, into his success and fame as the ultimate champion of rap battles. But while he gains the world and loses his soul, it is portrayed in a way that shows that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Competing in rap battles takes Adam from a shy cowardly kid to a vile, racist, misogynist monster. But right as he transforms into Satan, the movie ends; on a seemingly uplifting, empowering note. And it's funny that these archetypes feel Old Testament and the main character's name is Adam. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Bodied got me thinking a lot after I left the theatre last night. Mostly about what's offensive to others, and who's to say. And I was pleasurably humbled by watching a movie where so much of it went over my head or flew right past me. Also a lot of the references, pop culture or otherwise, were lost on me. And I would surely benefit from hearing much of the political discourse one more time.

So due to the limits of free speech being pushed, how much fun I had, and how intellectually stimulating and educational a comedy I found Bodied to be I think Joseph Kahn has crafted a major work of art here. And while I wish he would gain more fans, I can see his strong commitment to his own instincts as a factor in his niche appeal.

Torque

Since I was fourteen, I've known I want to write and direct my own movies. There's nothing I've thought about more or invested as much of myself into the pursuit of. There are quite a few ideas I've had that involve drastically reinventing the cinematic language. Every once in a while, I'm surprised to see another filmmaker, before anyone else, achieving something I'd only dreamed of.

Case in point: the notion I've fancied for some time now of someone making a feature length motion picture that did everything a Britney Spears music video or Chanel perfume commercial does in a minute, only for the ninety minute duration of a movie.

To assess this chronology thus far:

• Go (1999, Doug Liman)
• Requiem for a Dream (2000, Darren Aronofsky)
• Spun (2002, Jonas Åkerlund)
• Domino (2005, Tony Scott)
• Speed Racer (2008, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski)
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright)

Spun was novel, but in the service of meth-tweaking, its editing style proves superfluous and nauseating overall; Domino is just an overly cross processed/saturated green color temperature and intentionally shoddy undercranking of the shutter speed; Speed Racer is simply mimicking animation styles; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is mostly just a live action video game...

...mostly.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World brought many of the motifs Wright had pioneered in the watershed Spaced TV series, which aired on Britain's Channel 4 from 1999-2001. During Spaced, Wright liberally parodied various Hollywood genres, in his Tarantino-like, fanboy way. The key to what makes Scott Pilgrim vs. the World so unique is its frenetic, hyper-self-aware style of visual onslaught, with constant pop-ups of text providing up-to-the-minute exposition during, and often before its context becomes apparent. That shit is not from video games; Wright was tapping into the aesthetics of MTV music videos.

Detention (2011, Joseph Kahn) finally delivered what I'd been awaiting: a ninety minute feature that constantly sells itself as a music video--it's like eating a huge, eleven-course meal where all of the entrées are cotton candy, pixy stix and cocaine, with only Jolt cola to wash it all down.

The narrative is unlike anything I've ever seen, including Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Grizzly Lake High, as a location, contains the milieu of this cast of characters, although there are quite a few times when the story follows some into intergalactic galaxies, and others who are cavorting through the space-time continuum.

I can't help myself from giving away a little of the goodies (major spoilers in this and the next ¶). The film begins with a Ferris Beuller style direct address (character breaking fourth wall), nodding to Clueless's (1995, Amy Heckerling) Cher along the way, as Taylor Fisher (Alison Woods) tells us how to follow her "Guide to Not Being a Total Reject." The on-screen text is eponymous and resembles Tarantino's style of chapter breaks, especially in the style he began using on Kill: Bill vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino), which he obviously got from Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableux (1962, Jean-Luc Godard). As old as I am, I seemed to get most of the dialogue and pop culture references during this sequence, and actually felt like I think I got more out of this movie than teenagers will, in this regard.

And, the ensemble is made up of students of Grizzly Lake. The killerest part is that each of the stereotypically John Hughesian characters are living in their own hyper-aware, emotionally overwhelming teen dramas that respectively get played out as isolated movies, each apologetically embodying a different genre. Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) lives in TV's My So-Called Life (1994); Ione (Spencer Locke) is in a Freaky Friday (2003, Mark Waters) meets Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis) plot; and Billy (Parker Bagley) is living The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg).
But this still doesn't quite communicate what exactly you get with Detention. Each vignette is titled, as its own chapter, but by the end you realize they're all insanely interlocked and build layers on top of each other that all work. Well, except the tilt-shift heavy "The Mysterious Tale of the Time Travelling Bear."
(End spoilers)

Kahn's music video aesthetic begins with his fancy for lens flares. I believe this was invented on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg), where Vilmos Zsigmond intentionally utilized the blue streaks of light that play out in anamorphic lenses when you aim uncorrected HMIs at it. But Kahn realized it looks cooler to key light Britney Spears with this technique (see the music video "Stronger"), instead of Spielberg using it to just hide what were maybe UFOs. Kahn also loves to push in on characters, a lot (I heard some kid saying that all Fincher's style is is pushing in--I kind of disagree). But, Kahn also uses "geometric editing" and vectors to put his puzzle together.

And the color temperature in Detention is typically a blueish frontal and overhead diffused source mixed with golden backlights and sidelights to mimic sunlight--which is actually very distinguished, fresh and works.

So, Kahn's narrative, his music video aesthetic and a ton of awesome pop songs and pop culture references (I mean really ambitious pop culture references, not Diablo Cody one-liners) make this film a new personal favorite of mine. The Ione character is so fun and cute--she's like if Taylor Momsen tried to be "Hit Me Baby One More Time" era Britney. Detention's an oasis in the desert of dull narrative filmmaking and I wish I could watch it again soon.

--Dregs