I was outraged and excited and appalled and heartened and disappointed and confused and encouraged (oh how it will inspire the masses to watch more silent movies!) and annoyed and interested about the new AFI's 100 Best American Films for about 20 minutes, and then I suddenly got extremely tired of the whole thing. I mean, just utterly exhausted with the thought of thinking about it anymore.
It's not that I'm anti-list or anything, I usually love to pour over "best of" lists of all kinds (and I mean all kinds, even of things I have absolutely no real knowledge about, such as best architectural structures of the 20th century or something) and fume silently over all the TOTALLY WRONG CHOICES! OMG I CANT BELIEVE THEY LEFT THAT OFF THOSE BASTARDS!!1@ etc. (Do go here, though, for some intelligent and awesome commentary on the AFI list.)
But, well, it's f-ing summer and I just can't be bothered with Establishment lists and the "movie draft" that follows, where cine-types argue for who should get picked over whom (this year Raging Bull went fourth in the draft while The Graduate fell a few spots more than expected, but eccentric-blogger-guy would have taken a risk and gone with The Wind and more Sam Fuller, etc. etc.). Seriously, I thought about doing my own counter-list for about five minutes and then I realized I was just underwhelmed and bored by the mere five minute thought of it. It's summertime, la la la! and I guess I'm just feeling less inclined to think about big think-pieces or canon-making.
Basically I'm watching all these old movies from my childhood and reminiscing, rediscovering, relaxing -- the Three Rs of Summer! -- and it's much more fun to just write frivolous posts about 80s movies. That, in fact, is what I love so much about this whole movie-blogging thing. I don't have to have an official position on the AFI's 100 Greatest American Movies list!!!! Yay! I'll just watch and post about The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking and just forget about everything else. Which is what I intend to do. La la la.
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
LAME
I have a couple of questions for you LOST: Why did Charlie lock the door and basically commit suicide? Couldn't he have gotten out of the room before the bomb went off? There seemed like a lot of time between the moment Patch Guy showed up with the grenade and the time it took Charlie to lock the door, look meaningfully at Desmond, and wait an eternity for the bomb to go off. Couldn't Charlie have just gotten out of the room and let the grenade go off without locking the door? It would've taken twelve years for that cavernous hatch to fill up with water and by that time Charlie and Des could've been half-way to the island. Charlie's death, meant to be so meaningful and self-sacrificing (which it was, only needlessly so), ended up making no sense. Charlie just basically committed suicide for no reason, and it could have been remedied so easily if the writers had just decided to have the door lock behind Charlie so that he couldn't escape. Instead, they went for the extra-special-self-sacrificing version, even though Charlie's sacrifice was already heroic without this added-on really, really "heroic" (lame) stuff. It just makes Charlie look like an idiot (also, when did Charlie convert to Eastern Orthodoxy? Nice backwards sign of the cross, Chuck).
It's funny because I've always liked the Charlie character but I was actually hoping they would kill him because it would be heroic and give the character a real, meaningful death. I was actually looking forward to Charlie's death scene, one because it would be a nice way for the character to go out, and two because I like Dom Monaghan and I want him to move on from this train wreck show. Oh well (which is so often my reaction to a missed opportunity by LOST).
The problem with this scene, and with so many other moments on the show, is that the characters don't act like real people. A real person, when faced with the cryptic bullshit of the Others, would get angry, demand answers, maybe even get a little violent (which Jack finally did, thank God). Usually, the Losties just shrug their shoulders and drop it, which is just not a normal reaction. Charlie has the opportunity to save everybody and still live, and instead he basically kills himself. For what? Because Desmond said he had to die? The implication was always that Charlie had to die to save the Losties because there was no other way. But in the finale, it turns out there was another way. Several, in fact.
I'll probably still watch next season, though. I'm weak. But good for Dom that he can move on to other things. He deserves better than playing sixth banana on a sloppily written TV show.
It's funny because I've always liked the Charlie character but I was actually hoping they would kill him because it would be heroic and give the character a real, meaningful death. I was actually looking forward to Charlie's death scene, one because it would be a nice way for the character to go out, and two because I like Dom Monaghan and I want him to move on from this train wreck show. Oh well (which is so often my reaction to a missed opportunity by LOST).
The problem with this scene, and with so many other moments on the show, is that the characters don't act like real people. A real person, when faced with the cryptic bullshit of the Others, would get angry, demand answers, maybe even get a little violent (which Jack finally did, thank God). Usually, the Losties just shrug their shoulders and drop it, which is just not a normal reaction. Charlie has the opportunity to save everybody and still live, and instead he basically kills himself. For what? Because Desmond said he had to die? The implication was always that Charlie had to die to save the Losties because there was no other way. But in the finale, it turns out there was another way. Several, in fact.
I'll probably still watch next season, though. I'm weak. But good for Dom that he can move on to other things. He deserves better than playing sixth banana on a sloppily written TV show.
Monday, November 27, 2006
You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?
I've noticed over the past couple of years (I dunno, maybe it's been happening longer and I just never noticed) is that mainstream critics -- newspaper critics, magazine critics, TV critics, many online critics -- all tend to adopt a "script" about certain movies and then proceed to view these movies only through that script. For The Passion of the Christ it was the possible anti-Semitism of the film; for Brokeback Mountain it was the gay romance angle and how the film was breaking down prejudices against Gay and Lesbian people in America; now for Borat it's the angle that the movie is some great social commentary revealing the "hidden prejudices in America." The angle, in such cases, takes over the conversation about the movie to the point that nearly every major review or commentary approaches the film from that angle and the film gets defined as being "about" that before the audience has even seen the film. This, of course, isn't limited to film criticism and movie reviews -- the media has a tendency to approach a story in only one way and that one way is the one that dominates our national conversation about the story. But I'm getting kind of annoyed by this in film criticism since film is what I'm most interested in and I hate how the conversation gets defined before the audience has even had a chance to see the film and decide for itself.
Borat is the latest example of this, where everyone has been told for months that the film is all about exposing the prejudices of "average" Americans so people go into the movie expecting it to be about this, and since the movie does have a few scenes where Americans act like bigoted, disgusting jerks, people think they've seen some ground-breaking work of social satire.
Am I being too condescending toward the audience? Am I giving critics too much credit and the audience not enough? Maybe. I would hope that people are able to see films for what they are and not have their opinions dictated to them by the media or so-called experts. Maybe I'm getting hot and bothered for nothing and most people in the audiences for Borat recognize that they aren't laughing at the frat boys' stupid remarks because, frankly, their gross remarks aren't funny, but that they're laughing at Borat and his silly, over-the-top comments, and his zany slapstick. For the most part, the comedy in Borat doesn't come from the awful remarks made by a few frat boys and rednecks; the comedy comes from Borat himself. But the way the media hype surrounding the movie would have it, you'd think you were watching a two-hour masterpiece of groundbreaking social satire. I hate the way the conversation gets started about a film and everyone just echoes and parrots the same few things that the mainstream critics have all glommed onto.
I am encouraged by the Internet, of course, and the fact that more people have a voice now and can enter the conversation instead of just being suffocated by the conversations of others (i.e.: "professionals"). To take Borat as an example again, there's the commentary by Christopher Hitchens which I think makes some good points (and of course, some points I happen to agree with, see my review below), and then there's Jim Emerson's response, which also makes some excellent points, and analyzes the film in its relation to traditional cinematic comedy (as opposed to its status as social commentary), something I'm afraid I've found very little of in the mainstream reviews that welcomed the movie into theaters. Hitchens and Emerson are, of course, both part of the mainstream themselves, in a way that I, the humble nobody blogger, am not. But they're engaging the film in a way that is based on actually thinking about it as individuals and not just parroting a lot of movie reviewer groupthink. That's what's refreshing, and I hope the more I explore this whole film blogger thing the more I'll encounter this kind of individualism in criticism. At this point, I'm pretty much sick to death of the professional reviewer scene, because it seems like there's always a specific "line" on a movie -- it's this, it's that, it's got this controversy surrounding it, it's got that scandal accompanying it -- and whatever the line is the reviewer can't help but reduce the film to that one thing. I suspect what people like Hitchens and Jonah Goldberg are reacting to (I can't comment on David Brooks, whom Emerson mentions, because I don't subscribe to the New York Times online) is not so much the movie Borat itself, but the national conversation that seems to have arisen around it. The "line" on a film has already been written, and so that's what the movie "is," whether we like it or not.
Sorry for the rant, but I say not.
Borat is the latest example of this, where everyone has been told for months that the film is all about exposing the prejudices of "average" Americans so people go into the movie expecting it to be about this, and since the movie does have a few scenes where Americans act like bigoted, disgusting jerks, people think they've seen some ground-breaking work of social satire.
Am I being too condescending toward the audience? Am I giving critics too much credit and the audience not enough? Maybe. I would hope that people are able to see films for what they are and not have their opinions dictated to them by the media or so-called experts. Maybe I'm getting hot and bothered for nothing and most people in the audiences for Borat recognize that they aren't laughing at the frat boys' stupid remarks because, frankly, their gross remarks aren't funny, but that they're laughing at Borat and his silly, over-the-top comments, and his zany slapstick. For the most part, the comedy in Borat doesn't come from the awful remarks made by a few frat boys and rednecks; the comedy comes from Borat himself. But the way the media hype surrounding the movie would have it, you'd think you were watching a two-hour masterpiece of groundbreaking social satire. I hate the way the conversation gets started about a film and everyone just echoes and parrots the same few things that the mainstream critics have all glommed onto.
I am encouraged by the Internet, of course, and the fact that more people have a voice now and can enter the conversation instead of just being suffocated by the conversations of others (i.e.: "professionals"). To take Borat as an example again, there's the commentary by Christopher Hitchens which I think makes some good points (and of course, some points I happen to agree with, see my review below), and then there's Jim Emerson's response, which also makes some excellent points, and analyzes the film in its relation to traditional cinematic comedy (as opposed to its status as social commentary), something I'm afraid I've found very little of in the mainstream reviews that welcomed the movie into theaters. Hitchens and Emerson are, of course, both part of the mainstream themselves, in a way that I, the humble nobody blogger, am not. But they're engaging the film in a way that is based on actually thinking about it as individuals and not just parroting a lot of movie reviewer groupthink. That's what's refreshing, and I hope the more I explore this whole film blogger thing the more I'll encounter this kind of individualism in criticism. At this point, I'm pretty much sick to death of the professional reviewer scene, because it seems like there's always a specific "line" on a movie -- it's this, it's that, it's got this controversy surrounding it, it's got that scandal accompanying it -- and whatever the line is the reviewer can't help but reduce the film to that one thing. I suspect what people like Hitchens and Jonah Goldberg are reacting to (I can't comment on David Brooks, whom Emerson mentions, because I don't subscribe to the New York Times online) is not so much the movie Borat itself, but the national conversation that seems to have arisen around it. The "line" on a film has already been written, and so that's what the movie "is," whether we like it or not.
Sorry for the rant, but I say not.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
American Niceness and Borat
John Derbyshire of NRO has seen Borat (Larry Charles, 2006), and though I generally don't agree with him on ANYTHING, I think he's got a great point about Americans as seen in the movie:
I think native Americans might be more at ease with this movie than I am. Imbedded in it is a critique of American niceness. Coming from the Old World, where people are much less nice, I am a bit of a fan of American niceness, and perhaps can't laugh at it as easily as someone who grew up with it.
Niceness is of course a matter of balance. Niceness can hypertrophy into the horrors of Political Correctness—speech codes, hate crimes, litigation over mild insults or compliments, etc. The opposite danger, the one SBC's style of humor points to, is that too much deconstructing of niceness might lead to a state of affairs where niceness vanishes. What's that Nadezhda Mandelshtam quote? Something like: "Once there were kind people, and even people who weren't kind, pretended to be, because that was the way to be. Then people began to scoff at this hypocrisy, to make fun of it, to expose it. The result we now see: there are no more kind people now." She was writing from the depths of Stalin's USSR. No, SBC isn't going to drag us down into totalitarianism, of course not. I do hope, though, very much, that he won't make Americans ashamed of their niceness.
Full post here
I think native Americans might be more at ease with this movie than I am. Imbedded in it is a critique of American niceness. Coming from the Old World, where people are much less nice, I am a bit of a fan of American niceness, and perhaps can't laugh at it as easily as someone who grew up with it.
Niceness is of course a matter of balance. Niceness can hypertrophy into the horrors of Political Correctness—speech codes, hate crimes, litigation over mild insults or compliments, etc. The opposite danger, the one SBC's style of humor points to, is that too much deconstructing of niceness might lead to a state of affairs where niceness vanishes. What's that Nadezhda Mandelshtam quote? Something like: "Once there were kind people, and even people who weren't kind, pretended to be, because that was the way to be. Then people began to scoff at this hypocrisy, to make fun of it, to expose it. The result we now see: there are no more kind people now." She was writing from the depths of Stalin's USSR. No, SBC isn't going to drag us down into totalitarianism, of course not. I do hope, though, very much, that he won't make Americans ashamed of their niceness.
Full post here
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Superman Retreads
(N.B.: This is not really a review. It's more like a few idiosyncratic observations.)
I'm not sure how it happened, but my opinion of Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, B-) has steadily decreased from B+ to B to B- as time has passed. I figure I'd better commit myself to a blog entry before things get worse and Superman gets downgraded to just plain old Average C. As it is, he's only slightly above average and that's too bad. Too bad because I'm one of the few (I think) who really likes Superman (better than Batman and Spiderman and Ghost Rider) and doesn't think he's a stodgy old boy scout. Too bad, because a director with a little les nostalgia in his eyes and a little more daring could have made a fresh, sparkling film for 2006, instead of the backward-looking homage to the 1978 film we actually got. Everything about Superman Returns feels unnecessary, in the sense that if we wanted a film like this we could have just turned to the original Richard Donner film. Why make this new one?
Imagine for a moment some possible ideas for a new Superman film, a film meant to jumpstart the franchise for the 21st century (and also note that these are just a few off-the-cuff ideas I came up with, or borrowed from other, better sources):
*It's 1942 and a (Golden Age) Superman must defend the Daily Star, Metropolis, and the Allied forces from a (magical, kryptonite-fortified) Spear of Destiny-weilding Hitler. Imagine Superman fighting scientifically enhanced Nazi supermen and throwing tanks across the fields of France (and as Clark Kent, exposing Lex Luthor as a shameless war profiteer who's getting rich selling arms to the Axis).
*Imagine Superman is dying (one of Lex Luthor's schemes and the idea Grant Morrison has come up with in his All-Star Superman comic), so what else does he do except go to his Fortress of Solitude and develop a serum that gives Lois the same powers as himself for 24 hours. Oh, and he also reveals to her his secret identity as Clark Kent.
*How about Braniac as the big bad? Or maybe a riff on the "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Alan Moore story? What if Superman returned and found Lex Luthor elected president?!
Any idea that has some gumption or a spark of innovation would have been just the thing to revitalize the Superman movie franchise and make it feel necessary. Instead, Bryan Singer indulged his love for the original Christopher Reeve version and delivered a well-made (boring) semi-remake. I guess I'm just not infatuated enough with Donner's movie to get all starry-eyed with this too-long (154 min.) tribute to it. Don't get me wrong: the performances are generally good (loved Kevin Spacey), the special effects dazzling (loved the bullet glancing off Superman's eye), the story well-told (if ill-chosen). But did we really need another Lex Luthor land scheme? (Lex Luthor O'Hara: "Why Kitty Scarlett Kowalski, you mean to tell me that land doesn't mean anything to you?! Why, land's the only thing that matters, the only thing worth fighting for, worth dying for. Because it's the only thing that lasts." *unless Superman throws it into space of course*)
Was Singer's notion of a fresh idea really just to add a cute kid to the mix? Wow, I can't wait to see the sequel in which Superman agonizes over what to do about his bastard son. That sounds like a great storyline for a superhero movie!
Seriously, I sound a lot harsher about this movie than I really feel. I did like it. It's just a disappointment insofar as it's supposed to be a restart of the franchise and instead it just feels like a retread of a movie from 30 years ago. Superman returned alright. I just wish he could've flown in a different direction.
I'm not sure how it happened, but my opinion of Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, B-) has steadily decreased from B+ to B to B- as time has passed. I figure I'd better commit myself to a blog entry before things get worse and Superman gets downgraded to just plain old Average C. As it is, he's only slightly above average and that's too bad. Too bad because I'm one of the few (I think) who really likes Superman (better than Batman and Spiderman and Ghost Rider) and doesn't think he's a stodgy old boy scout. Too bad, because a director with a little les nostalgia in his eyes and a little more daring could have made a fresh, sparkling film for 2006, instead of the backward-looking homage to the 1978 film we actually got. Everything about Superman Returns feels unnecessary, in the sense that if we wanted a film like this we could have just turned to the original Richard Donner film. Why make this new one?
Imagine for a moment some possible ideas for a new Superman film, a film meant to jumpstart the franchise for the 21st century (and also note that these are just a few off-the-cuff ideas I came up with, or borrowed from other, better sources):
*It's 1942 and a (Golden Age) Superman must defend the Daily Star, Metropolis, and the Allied forces from a (magical, kryptonite-fortified) Spear of Destiny-weilding Hitler. Imagine Superman fighting scientifically enhanced Nazi supermen and throwing tanks across the fields of France (and as Clark Kent, exposing Lex Luthor as a shameless war profiteer who's getting rich selling arms to the Axis).
*Imagine Superman is dying (one of Lex Luthor's schemes and the idea Grant Morrison has come up with in his All-Star Superman comic), so what else does he do except go to his Fortress of Solitude and develop a serum that gives Lois the same powers as himself for 24 hours. Oh, and he also reveals to her his secret identity as Clark Kent.
*How about Braniac as the big bad? Or maybe a riff on the "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Alan Moore story? What if Superman returned and found Lex Luthor elected president?!
Any idea that has some gumption or a spark of innovation would have been just the thing to revitalize the Superman movie franchise and make it feel necessary. Instead, Bryan Singer indulged his love for the original Christopher Reeve version and delivered a well-made (boring) semi-remake. I guess I'm just not infatuated enough with Donner's movie to get all starry-eyed with this too-long (154 min.) tribute to it. Don't get me wrong: the performances are generally good (loved Kevin Spacey), the special effects dazzling (loved the bullet glancing off Superman's eye), the story well-told (if ill-chosen). But did we really need another Lex Luthor land scheme? (Lex Luthor O'Hara: "Why Kitty Scarlett Kowalski, you mean to tell me that land doesn't mean anything to you?! Why, land's the only thing that matters, the only thing worth fighting for, worth dying for. Because it's the only thing that lasts." *unless Superman throws it into space of course*)
Was Singer's notion of a fresh idea really just to add a cute kid to the mix? Wow, I can't wait to see the sequel in which Superman agonizes over what to do about his bastard son. That sounds like a great storyline for a superhero movie!
Seriously, I sound a lot harsher about this movie than I really feel. I did like it. It's just a disappointment insofar as it's supposed to be a restart of the franchise and instead it just feels like a retread of a movie from 30 years ago. Superman returned alright. I just wish he could've flown in a different direction.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
"Hardly the stuff that dreams are made of"
Kathy Shaidle has a great little post up about "beautiful" celebrities, and her take is very similar to my own:
Time was someone like Winona Rider would have been a beloved character actress/ingenue (or working at the Dairy Queen) than a "sex symbol". Diana Durban or such like. And yet she is the Fantasy Woman of millions of my fellow Gen-Xers. Yes, I know she has that giant shelf o' boobs. But really, isn't Rider just a few steps up from the squinty-eyed, lipless Tatum O'Neal (who I blame for much of this lowering of standards), and her latter day doppleganger, that Bridget Jones girl whose name I can't even remember.
The strangest thing is watching today's mousy actresses make yesterday's mousy actresses look better, the way "crappy" 80s music we all made fun of now sounds genius compared to Coldplay. I mean, stick Lindsay Lohan next to Winona and suddenly Ryder looks like Liz Taylor. We've moved way beyond jolie laide to just plain moche.
TCM has been featuring Elizabeth Taylor during the month of July, and I just can't get over the fact that she is stunning. Like maybe one of the most beautiful people ever. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I was totally overwhelmed by the h-o-t-t hotness of Paul Newman and La Liz, and was really hoping that they would have a child, like, not just in the movie but in real life. Talk about most gorgeous offspring.
More Kathy:
Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis weren't supposed to be "sexy." That was Ava Gardner's job.
Indeed. But were the 1930s-50s just some kind of blip on the beautiful people radar and that kind of beauty just won't be achieved again in Hollywood? I mean, Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, etc. are very cute, but they're nowhere near as sexy or drop-dead gorgeous as someone like Paul Newman in the 50s, or Cary Grant and Clark Gable in the 30s. Were Hedy Lamar, Ava Gardner, Liz Taylor, and Greta Garbo just flukes? I guess they probably were, and maybe it's nice that today's standard of beauty is more attainable for us mere mortals -- but, well, I'm not sure what I'm saying, except that our Hollywood stars today don't feel like STARS so much as just good-looking people with very little in the way of personality. In fact, I'd say that "stars" in the old-Hollywood style don't exist anymore -- Angelina Jolie is a curiousity, a puzzle, a homewrecker, a freak-a-do, a whatever, but she's certainly not mysterious or glamorous or otherwordly the way Greta Garbo was. Heck, even Liz Taylor has lost her "star"-ness and become just another crazy curiousity in a town of lost dreams.
Time was someone like Winona Rider would have been a beloved character actress/ingenue (or working at the Dairy Queen) than a "sex symbol". Diana Durban or such like. And yet she is the Fantasy Woman of millions of my fellow Gen-Xers. Yes, I know she has that giant shelf o' boobs. But really, isn't Rider just a few steps up from the squinty-eyed, lipless Tatum O'Neal (who I blame for much of this lowering of standards), and her latter day doppleganger, that Bridget Jones girl whose name I can't even remember.
The strangest thing is watching today's mousy actresses make yesterday's mousy actresses look better, the way "crappy" 80s music we all made fun of now sounds genius compared to Coldplay. I mean, stick Lindsay Lohan next to Winona and suddenly Ryder looks like Liz Taylor. We've moved way beyond jolie laide to just plain moche.
TCM has been featuring Elizabeth Taylor during the month of July, and I just can't get over the fact that she is stunning. Like maybe one of the most beautiful people ever. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I was totally overwhelmed by the h-o-t-t hotness of Paul Newman and La Liz, and was really hoping that they would have a child, like, not just in the movie but in real life. Talk about most gorgeous offspring.
More Kathy:
Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis weren't supposed to be "sexy." That was Ava Gardner's job.
Indeed. But were the 1930s-50s just some kind of blip on the beautiful people radar and that kind of beauty just won't be achieved again in Hollywood? I mean, Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, etc. are very cute, but they're nowhere near as sexy or drop-dead gorgeous as someone like Paul Newman in the 50s, or Cary Grant and Clark Gable in the 30s. Were Hedy Lamar, Ava Gardner, Liz Taylor, and Greta Garbo just flukes? I guess they probably were, and maybe it's nice that today's standard of beauty is more attainable for us mere mortals -- but, well, I'm not sure what I'm saying, except that our Hollywood stars today don't feel like STARS so much as just good-looking people with very little in the way of personality. In fact, I'd say that "stars" in the old-Hollywood style don't exist anymore -- Angelina Jolie is a curiousity, a puzzle, a homewrecker, a freak-a-do, a whatever, but she's certainly not mysterious or glamorous or otherwordly the way Greta Garbo was. Heck, even Liz Taylor has lost her "star"-ness and become just another crazy curiousity in a town of lost dreams.
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