There's this outtake from The Devil's Rejects where there are two people in horrifying I've-been-tortured-to-death makeup slumped on the floor of a motel bathroom. The maid comes in and snarls because the lights won't turn on and opens the window shades and then opens the bathroom door - and the two actors burst into song and mug for the camera.
It's funny. The on-screen of the movie is apalling. But the more I watch horror flicks and the more carefully I watch them, backed up by interviews, outtakes and commentary, the more it seems that off-screen the actors, the writers, the directors, the effects people - the more it seems that they're having the most fun.
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2007
It's a scream
I missed this post from last month on Vincent Baker's blog, but I thought other horror fans might be interested in the discussion:
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
A little perspective?
I was checking out Clark Stooksbury's blog and I saw this quote from his review of Bil McKibeen's Deep Economy:
That's pretty unsettling. I'm working on some kind of grand unified theory that revolves around the way we've lost all sense of perspective as a culture. We'll see how it goes...
Since World War II, the United States has grown fantastically wealthy and, consequently, Americans consume mightily, but we haven't become happier than we were a half-century ago. In fact, the trend lines are moving in the opposite direction. The author details, via numerous studies, the grim results of our explosion of prosperity. The results indicate that, beyond a point, we are less happy with more stuff. He even notes one recent study indicating that the “ average American child reported now higher levels of anxiety than the average child under psychiatric care in the 1950s: our new normal is the old disturbed.”
That's pretty unsettling. I'm working on some kind of grand unified theory that revolves around the way we've lost all sense of perspective as a culture. We'll see how it goes...
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Transcending the Genre
In this post defending 28 Weeks Later, Sean brings up his dislike of the concept of "Transcending the Genre".
This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, too, not just because it is kind of condescending, but because it's such a fuzzy idea (even though I've used it myself on occasion). If you say that a movie "transcends its genre" you are probably trying to get across one or more of the following ideas (some of which contradict each other):
Hey - I think of a genre as a kind of ongoing conversation people the people creating movies/books/etc. and the audience for those movies/books/etc.* This means that any given genre is going to be a (slowly?) moving target (a genre is dynamic, not a Platonic Form) and that individual books/movies/etc. are going to be a part of that conversation. So maybe it's better to talk about how movies/books/etc. can expand their genre or exemplify their genre at its best or open up their genre to the uninitiated than to talk about how they "transcend the genre", which kind of means leaving the conversation behind.
*For better or worse, marketing folks (used in the broadest sense of the term), also shape the conversation, but we'll ignore that for now.
This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, too, not just because it is kind of condescending, but because it's such a fuzzy idea (even though I've used it myself on occasion). If you say that a movie "transcends its genre" you are probably trying to get across one or more of the following ideas (some of which contradict each other):
- Most movies in the blogger biopic genre are bad, but The Forager Movie is pretty great. This might be the most common way folks use "TTG". From my POV, this brings us really close to Sturgeon's Law.
Note: If "TTG" just means "a good movie that happens to be part of a recognizable genre", we're straying into genre-condescension territory: after all, I don't think we'd say of Philip Roth's American Pastoral that it's a male-mid-life-crisis novel that transcends its genre, even though (a) most male-mid-life-crisis novels aren't all that great (IMO, of course) and (b) American Pastoral is pretty great (again, IMO). So this mainly gets applied to books and movies in ghetto genres like sci-fi and the western. My take is that a great movie that is also a great sci-fi movie (for instance) is not a case of "transcending the genre", but rather showing-off the genre or maybe even fulfilling the genre. - Most movies in the blogger biopic genre will appeal mainly (only?) to the die-hard fan, but The Forager Movie will appeal to a general audience. Ok - I have a lot of sympathy for this kind of thinking. For instance, as a fan of super-hero comics I know there are super-hero books that I would recommend to "just about anybody" and those that I would only recommend to other fans. So, in a sense, "TTG" is correct: some movies/books/etc. transcend a lot of the wonky, specific appeal of their genres.
Note: As a wonk and a fan I know that sometimes I'm not going to be as interested in books/movies/etc. that are aimed at a general audience. Like, with horror movies: I want to be scared! I want my buttons pushed! It's not as important that the story be well-constructed or that the actors are all giving accessible performances or that it is "about something". To clarify: as a rule, I'm in favor of genre books/movies/etc. that do try to reach a wider audience. When it comes to some of my favorite genres, they just aren't necessarily as interesting to me. But this works both ways: there's a fair amount of contempo poetry that is really only accessible to contempo poetry wonks. I'm not one, so I'm more apt to read contempo poetry that is aimed at a general audience. Hmmm... wait a second: once again, we're getting close to genre condescension territory. After all, lit-critics are probably more likely to talk about a sci-fi novel "transcending the genre" and a book of general interest poetry being "watered down for the masses". (Heh - well, obviously, I'm biased.) - While The Forager Movie is recognizably a blogger biopic, it gets rid of that genre's more odious conventions and trappings. This is like #2, but with more of a judgmental edge. Sometimes I suspect when people talk about horror movies that "transcend the genre" they mean that they don't feature lots of T&A and gore. I don't think when people use "TTG" they ever mean just this, but it seems to be a sentiment that gets mixed in there (remember the fuzziness).
(Personally, I'm somewhat split on this: there are some trappings and conventions that don't bug me, even though I know they're silly/offensive/etc. - colorful costumes in super-hero comics, for instance. Other times, though, they do annoy me - convoluted cross-overs in super-hero comics, for instance. This also raises the question of pandering: some time a movie/book/etc. will feature a genre element simply to pander to the hardcore fan. I tend to prefer stuff that doesn't blatantly pander, but , in terms of "TTG", this gets back to #1 and Sturgeon's Law.) - Usually, blogger biopics are done in by the conventions of that genre, but The Forager Movie avoids those traps. Actually, this really is how I feel about most musician biopics: the conventions of the genre are just seem so stupid to me that even when they're well done, I can't work up that much enthusiasm. This is another variation on #2. The important point here, though, is that the phrasing is more specific than just saying that "The Forager Movie transcends its genre."
- The Forager Movie only looks like it is a blogger biopic, but, actually, it eschews (almost?) all of the conventions of that genre. Really the snob version of #2, but, again, this is more specific than the standard "TTG". Personally, I think this line of argument
Hey - I think of a genre as a kind of ongoing conversation people the people creating movies/books/etc. and the audience for those movies/books/etc.* This means that any given genre is going to be a (slowly?) moving target (a genre is dynamic, not a Platonic Form) and that individual books/movies/etc. are going to be a part of that conversation. So maybe it's better to talk about how movies/books/etc. can expand their genre or exemplify their genre at its best or open up their genre to the uninitiated than to talk about how they "transcend the genre", which kind of means leaving the conversation behind.
*For better or worse, marketing folks (used in the broadest sense of the term), also shape the conversation, but we'll ignore that for now.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
More Moore
One more comment on Sean's Alan Moore posts, which is actually tangential to Sean's point but speaks to the quote from the more interview that Bruce Baugh quotes in the e-mail that Sean quoted:
I think it's interesting to look at which parts of Watchmen influenced the super-hero comics that followed it and which part didn't. We can see its grim 'n' grittiness (Identity Crisis), its meticulous "coded" structure (Arkham Asylum, Seven Soldiers), its taking-apart of the super-hero comic book (Animal Man, Seaguy), and its super-heroes in the "real world" perspective (two very different takes: Astro City and Supreme Power). What we don't see much of, though, are super-hero comics that have been influenced by Dave Gibbons's contributions to Watchmen. I've said this before, but I think what Gibbons does is show us super-heroes - who, archetypically, are (most?) famous for being able to defy gravity - who are bound by the laws of gravity. That's my cute way of saying: the super-heroes in Watchmen (with one exception) look like normal people and have realistic non-idealized bodies. They're flabby and sagging and scared and wrinkled. They don't strike poses: they just kind of stand around like normal people.
This aspect of Watchmen has, to my knowledge, never shown up in a super-hero comic since them, except when occasionally played as a joke (i.e. Blue Beetle gaining too much weight in the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire-era Justice League books).
This is Watchmen's central visual idea and I think it tends to get the short shrift in discussions about the book because it is visual and it tends to be more fun and rewarding for us word-crazy intellectual-types to decode/interpret symbolism than to write about what is actually right there on the page, staring us in the face.
Hey (and this isn't tangential to Sean's comments): while I definitely agree with his point about Moore's "Important Statements", it's Moore's collaborators who really put those books over for me. I wish more people would talk about the art of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell (Eddie Campbell shouldn't be the only person doing detailed analysis of these pages).
I've brought this up before and received dismissive comments along the lines of "the artists are just doing what Moore tells them to do" or "they're just following his detailed scripts", but I'm completely willing to accept that and it doesn't change what I'm trying to get across: that even though Moore's scripts are "coded" and (to a certain extent) closed-off, the art opens them back up by grounding the symbolism and clockwork structure within specifically-observed and realized worlds.
I think it's interesting to look at which parts of Watchmen influenced the super-hero comics that followed it and which part didn't. We can see its grim 'n' grittiness (Identity Crisis), its meticulous "coded" structure (Arkham Asylum, Seven Soldiers), its taking-apart of the super-hero comic book (Animal Man, Seaguy), and its super-heroes in the "real world" perspective (two very different takes: Astro City and Supreme Power). What we don't see much of, though, are super-hero comics that have been influenced by Dave Gibbons's contributions to Watchmen. I've said this before, but I think what Gibbons does is show us super-heroes - who, archetypically, are (most?) famous for being able to defy gravity - who are bound by the laws of gravity. That's my cute way of saying: the super-heroes in Watchmen (with one exception) look like normal people and have realistic non-idealized bodies. They're flabby and sagging and scared and wrinkled. They don't strike poses: they just kind of stand around like normal people.
This aspect of Watchmen has, to my knowledge, never shown up in a super-hero comic since them, except when occasionally played as a joke (i.e. Blue Beetle gaining too much weight in the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire-era Justice League books).
This is Watchmen's central visual idea and I think it tends to get the short shrift in discussions about the book because it is visual and it tends to be more fun and rewarding for us word-crazy intellectual-types to decode/interpret symbolism than to write about what is actually right there on the page, staring us in the face.
Hey (and this isn't tangential to Sean's comments): while I definitely agree with his point about Moore's "Important Statements", it's Moore's collaborators who really put those books over for me. I wish more people would talk about the art of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell (Eddie Campbell shouldn't be the only person doing detailed analysis of these pages).
I've brought this up before and received dismissive comments along the lines of "the artists are just doing what Moore tells them to do" or "they're just following his detailed scripts", but I'm completely willing to accept that and it doesn't change what I'm trying to get across: that even though Moore's scripts are "coded" and (to a certain extent) closed-off, the art opens them back up by grounding the symbolism and clockwork structure within specifically-observed and realized worlds.
The Flying Seaguy
Another post from Sean that I'll file under "I Wish I Had Said It Like That".
It made me think of my recent negative experience reading G.K. Chesterton's The Flying Inn. Now, I really like Chesterton's essays and I really like his Father Brown mysteries, but his full-on, philosophical/allegorical fiction, like The Flying Inn and The Man Who Was Thursday, doesn't really provide what I'm looking for from, well, fiction. That is: when I want to read a philosophical essay, I'll read a philosophical essay. I don't particularly want to read an essay that has been transmogrified into a story that I then need to decode back into an essay.
And thinking about Alan Moore and my problem with The Flying Inn reminded me of my problem with Grant Morrison's Seaguy and, to a lesser extent, Seven Soldiers. In his capsule on Inside Man, Michael Sicinski writes that he doesn't "want to seem like yet another dumbass critic implicitly trumpeting the amazing power of genre to rein in idiosyncratic directors", and I feel the same kind of self-consciousness saying that, for me, Morrison's more straightforward comics - Doom Patrol, Animal Man, We 3, The New X-Men, JLA, parts of The Invisibles, and, to a lesser extent, The Filth - work better for me than Seaguy does. They do, though, and I think it's because they provide story first and all of the big themes and ideas seem to grow organically out of it, rather than starting with the big themes and ideas and coming up with a story that enacts them in code.
And, while I'm on a roll, I sort of have the same issue with some of Chuck Palahniuk's books: I get the sense with books like Survivor and Lullaby that he's just paying lip service to the storytelling aspects of these novels and his characters are really there to act as mouthpieces for his rants.
It made me think of my recent negative experience reading G.K. Chesterton's The Flying Inn. Now, I really like Chesterton's essays and I really like his Father Brown mysteries, but his full-on, philosophical/allegorical fiction, like The Flying Inn and The Man Who Was Thursday, doesn't really provide what I'm looking for from, well, fiction. That is: when I want to read a philosophical essay, I'll read a philosophical essay. I don't particularly want to read an essay that has been transmogrified into a story that I then need to decode back into an essay.
And thinking about Alan Moore and my problem with The Flying Inn reminded me of my problem with Grant Morrison's Seaguy and, to a lesser extent, Seven Soldiers. In his capsule on Inside Man, Michael Sicinski writes that he doesn't "want to seem like yet another dumbass critic implicitly trumpeting the amazing power of genre to rein in idiosyncratic directors", and I feel the same kind of self-consciousness saying that, for me, Morrison's more straightforward comics - Doom Patrol, Animal Man, We 3, The New X-Men, JLA, parts of The Invisibles, and, to a lesser extent, The Filth - work better for me than Seaguy does. They do, though, and I think it's because they provide story first and all of the big themes and ideas seem to grow organically out of it, rather than starting with the big themes and ideas and coming up with a story that enacts them in code.
And, while I'm on a roll, I sort of have the same issue with some of Chuck Palahniuk's books: I get the sense with books like Survivor and Lullaby that he's just paying lip service to the storytelling aspects of these novels and his characters are really there to act as mouthpieces for his rants.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Favorite Movie-related Quote of the Day
Michael "The Academic Hack" Sicinski on Catch and Release:
Oh, and one thought: is there some rule that every men-in-the-kitchen sequence in a Hollywood film has to conclude with someone turning on the blender with the lid off? Do people ever actually do this? Is this some sort of rom-com money shot, giving women some sort of gooey, splooshy satisfaction, the pancake batter of male incompetence cumming all over the fellas' faces and dripping down the side? (Shall we christen it the "blender-facial"? Let's.)
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
On and On...
I more or less agree with Ross Douthat's general point in this post on why, in a lot of cases, with good TV shows, shorter runs are better than longer ones.
My slight disagreement has to do with The Sopranos: while I think it could have used some trimming, a lot of what makes it a great show (as I have suggested) is also what makes it a bit of a mess. Serial TV shows (or comic books) are different from movies in this respect: they sometimes work best when they have room to grow, to make wrong turns, to build what were originally minor ideas/incidents/characters into major elements of the show. That is, there's the opportunity for a kind of narrative improvisation that happens on the writing/production level.
(Matthew Yglesias responds to Ross's point with the comment that shows require "planning". I more or less disagree with this, or, at least, I think that having an overall structure that is (at least partially) open is one of the strengths TV serials have over films and novels)*.
So, I'd adjust what Ross is saying, just slightly: rather than have hard constraints on shows ("David Chase should have told his story in four seasons"), I'd like to promote the idea that shows don't have to go on forever. So, if you're a fan of, say, Firefly/Serenity (like I am), don't whine that you aren't getting any more episodes/movies: be glad that what we have is pretty darn good.
Also, Ross asks "would My So-Called Life be remembered as fondly as it is if we'd had to watch Angela Davis and Jordan Catalano get together, break up, get back together, break up - and then, worst of all, go off to the same college?" - which is exactly the problem with Veronica Mars right now.
*There's a difference between (a) coming up with a story that will take 30 hours to tell and then breaking it up into forty 44-minute pieces story line and (b) coming up with 6 hours worth of story and then figuring out the next 6 hours based on things like which elements resonated most with the writers, producers, actors, audience etc. Both approaches can result in "good TV", but approach (b) is something that TV serials can do really well.
My slight disagreement has to do with The Sopranos: while I think it could have used some trimming, a lot of what makes it a great show (as I have suggested) is also what makes it a bit of a mess. Serial TV shows (or comic books) are different from movies in this respect: they sometimes work best when they have room to grow, to make wrong turns, to build what were originally minor ideas/incidents/characters into major elements of the show. That is, there's the opportunity for a kind of narrative improvisation that happens on the writing/production level.
(Matthew Yglesias responds to Ross's point with the comment that shows require "planning". I more or less disagree with this, or, at least, I think that having an overall structure that is (at least partially) open is one of the strengths TV serials have over films and novels)*.
So, I'd adjust what Ross is saying, just slightly: rather than have hard constraints on shows ("David Chase should have told his story in four seasons"), I'd like to promote the idea that shows don't have to go on forever. So, if you're a fan of, say, Firefly/Serenity (like I am), don't whine that you aren't getting any more episodes/movies: be glad that what we have is pretty darn good.
Also, Ross asks "would My So-Called Life be remembered as fondly as it is if we'd had to watch Angela Davis and Jordan Catalano get together, break up, get back together, break up - and then, worst of all, go off to the same college?" - which is exactly the problem with Veronica Mars right now.
*There's a difference between (a) coming up with a story that will take 30 hours to tell and then breaking it up into forty 44-minute pieces story line and (b) coming up with 6 hours worth of story and then figuring out the next 6 hours based on things like which elements resonated most with the writers, producers, actors, audience etc. Both approaches can result in "good TV", but approach (b) is something that TV serials can do really well.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thanks
I just wanted to take a moment to thank Michael Blowhard and Sean T. Collins for their frequent links to my little blog here. A lot of the visitors who end up at this site seem to find it through posts on their blogs. While I'm not in this to be popular, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I greatly appreciate the support, especially because it's coming from two bloggers who I like and respect. Both of their blogs are daily must-reads for me and a lot of my favorite posts on this blog have been inspired by posts of theirs.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Movie Club?
Talking with a friend on the phone last night, I realized that I now approach moviewatching in a very haphazard and personal manner: more-or-less following my whims when it comes to choosing what to have Netflix send me next, so, for example, I find myself catching up with the recent work of Renny Harlin in between re-watching Fellini and seeing the Kurosawa movies that I was saving for a rainy day. This isn't a bad thing, and, really, it's the way I prefer to do it. My semi-frequent attempts to place anything like a formal structure on my viewing habits (i.e., focusing just on Italian Neo-realism for a month) have always failed.
What I do miss, though, is the community aspect of movie-watching that I had while in college and grad school. Because of this, I'm interested in trying out some kind of blog-based movie club: much less formal and much more low key than a blogathon, but along the same lines. Choose a movie, set up a post about it, and discuss it in the comments section. I'm not sure how much interested there would be in something like this: my past experience has shown that the web is not-so-good for "top down"-organized events, although I know that a gaming message board that I sometimes read did have one successful round of a book club.
What I do miss, though, is the community aspect of movie-watching that I had while in college and grad school. Because of this, I'm interested in trying out some kind of blog-based movie club: much less formal and much more low key than a blogathon, but along the same lines. Choose a movie, set up a post about it, and discuss it in the comments section. I'm not sure how much interested there would be in something like this: my past experience has shown that the web is not-so-good for "top down"-organized events, although I know that a gaming message board that I sometimes read did have one successful round of a book club.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Even More About Film Critics
After reading this post on Peter Suderman's blog and thinking back to some of the things that Jim Emerson has been writing about recently, I'm tempted to say that we're in the middle of a crisis of faith among film critics. Except that I'm not sure that this is anything new: film critics seem to have been in a crisis of faith for the last few years.
My take:
Peter is right: writing for a mass audience (i.e., in a daily paper) about the latest big budget comedy/action movie/chick flick does not require all that much knowledge about film history. Writing for an "educated" audience (i.e., in something like The New Yorker) requires a good deal more knowledge about film history, if only because your readers will expect you to put things in a larger context. Writing for an audience of film buffs (i.e., in something like Film Comment) requires a great deal of knowledge of film history, because fitting movies into that larger context is one of the major reasons magazines like that exist.
One of Peter's commenters wants to make the distinction between "reviewer" and "critic", and, though I don't think I've said this before, I think this is a bogus distinction. What matters is: who are you writing for? Who are you trying to engage with?
The problem with trying to separate "reviewer" from "critic" is that a lot of people who are writing about movies end up simultaneously reviewing (giving their opinion on the movie and suggesting what kind of audiences might find it appealing or otherwise) and doing criticism (giving their take on the movie and trying to place it into some kind of larger context).
With regard to Ronald Bergan's essay, I'd suggest that it's probably more important for film critics to put some work into learning about history in general and the history of other art forms (especially: visual arts, the novel, and the theater). Picking up film history is (comparatively) easy: the movies haven't been around that long and a couple of weekends of watching Criterion DVDs can get you up to speed pretty nicely.
My take:
Peter is right: writing for a mass audience (i.e., in a daily paper) about the latest big budget comedy/action movie/chick flick does not require all that much knowledge about film history. Writing for an "educated" audience (i.e., in something like The New Yorker) requires a good deal more knowledge about film history, if only because your readers will expect you to put things in a larger context. Writing for an audience of film buffs (i.e., in something like Film Comment) requires a great deal of knowledge of film history, because fitting movies into that larger context is one of the major reasons magazines like that exist.
One of Peter's commenters wants to make the distinction between "reviewer" and "critic", and, though I don't think I've said this before, I think this is a bogus distinction. What matters is: who are you writing for? Who are you trying to engage with?
The problem with trying to separate "reviewer" from "critic" is that a lot of people who are writing about movies end up simultaneously reviewing (giving their opinion on the movie and suggesting what kind of audiences might find it appealing or otherwise) and doing criticism (giving their take on the movie and trying to place it into some kind of larger context).
With regard to Ronald Bergan's essay, I'd suggest that it's probably more important for film critics to put some work into learning about history in general and the history of other art forms (especially: visual arts, the novel, and the theater). Picking up film history is (comparatively) easy: the movies haven't been around that long and a couple of weekends of watching Criterion DVDs can get you up to speed pretty nicely.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
300 Wrap Up
I said most of what I wanted to say about 300 in this post and its comments section. I normally wouldn't post about it again because (a) it's not like I'm that passionate about the movie and (b) I half-suspect that Jim Emerson is right that it's popularity is driven mostly by marketing and the movie itself is no more than a blip on the pop-culture landscape (as opposed to, say, The Matrix which, even 8 years down the road seems to have marked a paradigm shift).
But I also half-suspect that 300 represents, if not another paradigm shift, then perhaps a paradigm consolidation. It became a hit even though it offered almost none of the traditional narrative movie pleasures: no stars, no twists or turns, hardly any "story" to speak of - just spectacle and digital effects and lots of it, done in a semi-facetious style that (as commenter Mega pointed out) never really earns the epic scale that the material suggests.
Vincent Baker calls it "dumb" and Dave McDougall thought it was "boring", and it kind of is by the usual standards of quality filmmaking, which is why I think, so far, Michael Blowhard has had the most incisive and perceptive take on the movie or, at least, on what the movie represents in a larger cultural context. You'll probably find your own key thing to take away from this piece, but here's mine:
Even though I'm able to enjoy stuff like 300, I'm enough of a fan of "traditional movie values" to find this trend a little depressing. And the fact that I can watch all the Fellini movies I want in the comfort of my home doesn't quite make up for this loss of a larger, serious, old-fashioned film culture.
But I also half-suspect that 300 represents, if not another paradigm shift, then perhaps a paradigm consolidation. It became a hit even though it offered almost none of the traditional narrative movie pleasures: no stars, no twists or turns, hardly any "story" to speak of - just spectacle and digital effects and lots of it, done in a semi-facetious style that (as commenter Mega pointed out) never really earns the epic scale that the material suggests.
Vincent Baker calls it "dumb" and Dave McDougall thought it was "boring", and it kind of is by the usual standards of quality filmmaking, which is why I think, so far, Michael Blowhard has had the most incisive and perceptive take on the movie or, at least, on what the movie represents in a larger cultural context. You'll probably find your own key thing to take away from this piece, but here's mine:
Pre-computer movies often took you out into the world. As lovely as they could be to lose yourself in, they weren't an end in themselves. They were concerned finally with real experience, and they drew on culture in a broad sense: on art history, movie history, music history, and the other arts too. Becoming a moviebuff was often the first step on the road to becoming an arts and culture buff more generally. These days, the movies seem to lead at most to further experiences of cyber-pop culture.
Even though I'm able to enjoy stuff like 300, I'm enough of a fan of "traditional movie values" to find this trend a little depressing. And the fact that I can watch all the Fellini movies I want in the comfort of my home doesn't quite make up for this loss of a larger, serious, old-fashioned film culture.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The show must go on - wait, no, it shouldn't...
I don't completely agree with the specifics of this zigzigger post (I've enjoyed the third season of Veronica Mars, although it is much more wobbly than the first season story-wise and style-wise, and if it does return the idea of jumping forward a few years strikes me as the right one), but, more generally, I think he's right on:
I know all the reasons why it will never happen, but I'd like to see a move towards the way some British shows (like Prime Suspect, for example) are produced and marketed:
No show can make the "never-ending storyline" thing work, so it's better for a show's creators to end things on their own terms than to be forced to wrap things up due to fading ratings.
Long running shows that are successful tend (a) to be completely episodic with no real serial elements (Law & Order, although even there the formula is showing its age) or (b) to keep the central situation the same while shuffling new characters in and out (like in E.R. and, to a lesser extent, The Wire, which is one of the only shows I can think of that has consistently gotten better each season).
The creators of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and 24 would have been much better off if they realized that the limited nature of these shows' central premises almost required that they be resolved at the end of the first season. I almost thought Battlestar Galactica had done this - that the third season would mark a complete change in the show, moving from outer-space chase to planet-bound life-under-occupation drama - but after a few episodes they were back in space, doing the same old, same old, but falling into all the traps they were smart enough to avoid the first time around.
(Plus, I agree with something he brings up in the comments: one of the reasons I like Freaks and Geeks is that it said all it had to say and then had the dignity to get cancelled.)
Fans seem to want their favorite shows to be love affairs that last forever and a day... I would rather a good show have a short run than see it extend beyond its natural life into a parody or pale imitation of itself.
I know all the reasons why it will never happen, but I'd like to see a move towards the way some British shows (like Prime Suspect, for example) are produced and marketed:
- Conceive each season as a stand alone story. Don't leave major plot threads hanging. Get rid of the season-ending cliff-hanger.
- Don't try to turn a show into a brand name: rather, focus on actors and writers.
No show can make the "never-ending storyline" thing work, so it's better for a show's creators to end things on their own terms than to be forced to wrap things up due to fading ratings.
Long running shows that are successful tend (a) to be completely episodic with no real serial elements (Law & Order, although even there the formula is showing its age) or (b) to keep the central situation the same while shuffling new characters in and out (like in E.R. and, to a lesser extent, The Wire, which is one of the only shows I can think of that has consistently gotten better each season).
The creators of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and 24 would have been much better off if they realized that the limited nature of these shows' central premises almost required that they be resolved at the end of the first season. I almost thought Battlestar Galactica had done this - that the third season would mark a complete change in the show, moving from outer-space chase to planet-bound life-under-occupation drama - but after a few episodes they were back in space, doing the same old, same old, but falling into all the traps they were smart enough to avoid the first time around.
(Plus, I agree with something he brings up in the comments: one of the reasons I like Freaks and Geeks is that it said all it had to say and then had the dignity to get cancelled.)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Movie Critics
I meant to get to this earlier...
I was very interested in this post from Jim Emerson about movie critics which deals with some of the same issues that I've brought up on this blog.
I basically agree with Jim, although I think he raises some tricky questions which he then ignores (at least in this post, I'm pretty sure this is stuff that he's aware of and thinks about).
He writes:
Now, I know a job is a job, and if I was trying to eke out a career as a movie reviewer, I know that I'd write about whatever movies my editor wanted me to. And it can be fun to write take-downs of stuff like Wild Hogs, but I'm sure, more often, it's just kind of a chore.
But if you're a critic like Jim who knows that a lot of movies that get released are going be stuff like Wild Hogs, then I think it might be a good idea to at least try to approach them in the manner they're intended. I mean, it's not like it should be surprising that Wild Hogs is no Sideways.
Actually, I shouldn't even be talking about Wild Hogs, which I haven't seen and I'm sure is probably pretty awful, but check out the Metacritic scores for Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, two of the greatest examples of gross-out comedy (here's a terrific essay on Kingpin by Alan Dale, my favorite film critic when it comes to writing about comedy). Most movie critics don't like even the best examples of this kind of movie, so, of course, they're not going to like mediocre ones.
Sean Collins brought up a similar issue in his exchange with Jim Treacher about the critical response to 300: he questioned why Slate had Dana Stevens review the film when she's on record as not liking war movies. Now, I think it can be good to get a kind of dissenting opinion-style piece: to read a review of a movie by someone who just doesn't like that kind of thing in general. Sometimes an outside perspective can provide insight that "insiders" are too close to see. (For instance, I'd note the genre of review where "that kind of thing in general" is experimental/art films and the outside perspective is along the lines of "what obscure, pretentious nonsense".)
In general, though, I get more out of a review or piece of criticism written by someone who is sympathetic to the kind of movie being reviewed, even if not to the actual movie itself. That is, I generally get more out of a negative review of something like 300 written by someone who appreciates Peckinpah movies and wuxia flicks and war movies than one written by someone who just doesn't respond to these kind of things, across the board.
Likewise, I doubt that Alan Dale will write about Wild Hogs (although he might write about Norbit), but I'd be more interested in his take on the movie, simply because I know that he can appreciate and enjoy a good gross-out comedy when he sees it. (On the experimental/art side, even though these movies generally don't float my boat, I tend to get more out of criticism written by folks who do dig this stuff - like Michael Sicinski - then I do from that written by people who's views/tastes are closer to my own).
I don't really have a big summing up point or even a major gripe. I'll just note that this phenomenon - critics writing lots and lots about kinds of movies that they, essentially, aren't that interested in/jazzed by - plays a big part in why professional film criticism is such a wonky, wobbly thing. For instance, as Jim points out, a critic is going to be thankful for a movie that gives him or her something to write about, i.e, a movie that makes their job easier and/or more interesting. This just might mean that certain kinds of movies - those which lend themselves to being written about - are going to tend to have a better reputation among critics than an "equally good" movie that speaks for itself.
Not a big problem, by any means, but one people who write about film and read about film should be aware of.
I was very interested in this post from Jim Emerson about movie critics which deals with some of the same issues that I've brought up on this blog.
I basically agree with Jim, although I think he raises some tricky questions which he then ignores (at least in this post, I'm pretty sure this is stuff that he's aware of and thinks about).
He writes:
[M]ost movies are also crap! Even if they're relatively enjoyable at the time, they're forgettable and disposable, like yesterday's lunch. Imagine if you had to spend more time writing about movies than you actually do seeing them. Because most reviews take longer than 90 minutes to write, which is probably why many critics prefer writing about films that give them something to write about. Something that may be worth thinking about after you pay for your parking.
Now, I know a job is a job, and if I was trying to eke out a career as a movie reviewer, I know that I'd write about whatever movies my editor wanted me to. And it can be fun to write take-downs of stuff like Wild Hogs, but I'm sure, more often, it's just kind of a chore.
But if you're a critic like Jim who knows that a lot of movies that get released are going be stuff like Wild Hogs, then I think it might be a good idea to at least try to approach them in the manner they're intended. I mean, it's not like it should be surprising that Wild Hogs is no Sideways.
Actually, I shouldn't even be talking about Wild Hogs, which I haven't seen and I'm sure is probably pretty awful, but check out the Metacritic scores for Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, two of the greatest examples of gross-out comedy (here's a terrific essay on Kingpin by Alan Dale, my favorite film critic when it comes to writing about comedy). Most movie critics don't like even the best examples of this kind of movie, so, of course, they're not going to like mediocre ones.
Sean Collins brought up a similar issue in his exchange with Jim Treacher about the critical response to 300: he questioned why Slate had Dana Stevens review the film when she's on record as not liking war movies. Now, I think it can be good to get a kind of dissenting opinion-style piece: to read a review of a movie by someone who just doesn't like that kind of thing in general. Sometimes an outside perspective can provide insight that "insiders" are too close to see. (For instance, I'd note the genre of review where "that kind of thing in general" is experimental/art films and the outside perspective is along the lines of "what obscure, pretentious nonsense".)
In general, though, I get more out of a review or piece of criticism written by someone who is sympathetic to the kind of movie being reviewed, even if not to the actual movie itself. That is, I generally get more out of a negative review of something like 300 written by someone who appreciates Peckinpah movies and wuxia flicks and war movies than one written by someone who just doesn't respond to these kind of things, across the board.
Likewise, I doubt that Alan Dale will write about Wild Hogs (although he might write about Norbit), but I'd be more interested in his take on the movie, simply because I know that he can appreciate and enjoy a good gross-out comedy when he sees it. (On the experimental/art side, even though these movies generally don't float my boat, I tend to get more out of criticism written by folks who do dig this stuff - like Michael Sicinski - then I do from that written by people who's views/tastes are closer to my own).
I don't really have a big summing up point or even a major gripe. I'll just note that this phenomenon - critics writing lots and lots about kinds of movies that they, essentially, aren't that interested in/jazzed by - plays a big part in why professional film criticism is such a wonky, wobbly thing. For instance, as Jim points out, a critic is going to be thankful for a movie that gives him or her something to write about, i.e, a movie that makes their job easier and/or more interesting. This just might mean that certain kinds of movies - those which lend themselves to being written about - are going to tend to have a better reputation among critics than an "equally good" movie that speaks for itself.
Not a big problem, by any means, but one people who write about film and read about film should be aware of.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Tim and Eric, "Not Film", and YouTube
I had originally planned to write more on Tim and Eric here, but I came down with a cold last week, fell behind in my blogging, and decided to post what I had.
Anyway, I commented a little bit about the Tim and Eric show on a message board and I wanted to use one of the responses from there to anchor this post. "The Atlas Boy" wrote:
First, Tim certainly seemed like a nice guy at the show. Towards the end of their act, Tim and Eric come out on stage in bathrobes and show a super secret behind-the-scenes clip from their first Cartoon Network series Tom Goes to the Mayor. I was impressed by how "off" they were: that is, they didn't seem to be performing and it was a weirdly comforting, in a "these are just regular guys" kind of way. That's not a feeling I generally get watching comedians.
Of course, Tim and Eric aren't really comedians. "The Atlas Boy" is right that their bits either don't have or don't emphasize punchlines. There wasn't a memorable one all evening, and, on their Adult Swim shows, any that are there seem like throw-aways or head-scratchers.
And he's also right that there is something like an unpleasant edge to a lot of their stuff. I'm not sure if I would use the word "unpleasant", but there's something willfully off-putting about a sketch like Uncle Muscles, where Tim plays an incompetent singer, sweating buckets under the lights, and the poorly lit video emphasizes the character's bad make-up job. ("Bad make-up" is a recurring Tim and Eric motif.)
What's interesting to me, though (this week at least), is the way Tim and Eric (who met in college and made their first videos for film classes) ransack the realm of performance/video art in order to find material and techniques for their comedy. And I was thinking about Tim and Eric when I read this post about "not films" on Andy Horbal's blog.
There, Andy gives as an example of a "not film" a broadcast of a basketball game that made heavy use of the instant replay in order to figure out a close call. The producers of the broadcast keep replaying - from different angles, at different speeds - a key moment of play. Andy argues that the effect - the way it calls attention to the technique of TV broadcast production - is similar enough to the effect that some avant-garde films aim at - calling attention to what is normally "invisible" in conventional, narrative cinema - so that it would make a useful teaching tool.
There's always going to be a very select audience for long-form, non-narrative films. They ask a lot out of a viewer (in time, attention, etc.) and what they deliver (an abstract, aesthetic experience) is not what most people go to the movies for.
I think the problem facing a lot of long-form avant-garde films is the same problem that Spengler diagnoses for modernist music in this article. That is, modernist painting/sculpture is more accessible (or at least bearable) than its film/video equivalent partly because you aren't trapped in the experience.
(One of my own issues with existing avant-garde films is that they're often in danger of being more interesting to think about/write about/read about than they are to actually watch. It's almost like you have to sit through them in order to earn the right to talk about them afterwards, like some kind of weird, intellectual hazing.)
But, and here I'll go back once again to this recent post from 2Blowhards and connect this seeming digression to what I was talking about at the beginning of this post, I think that the kind of "accidental" avant-garde videos that Michael Blowhard points to on YouTube and the little movies on Tim and Eric's website seem to suggest the emergence of avant-garde-ish video making as a "lively" art, one that not only Andy's hypothetical film students but actual everyday people will find (relatively) accessible.
Anyway, I commented a little bit about the Tim and Eric show on a message board and I wanted to use one of the responses from there to anchor this post. "The Atlas Boy" wrote:
I like their live performances, but to be honest, I've never been very fond of any of their recorded material -- I see it as kind of like Napoleon Dynamite or that sort of thing without characters, structure, or (for the most part) punchlines. And you know how I am about punchlines. I think they do a good job creating an atmosphere, but either fail to or aren't interested in doing anything with that atmosphere. (They're better in this regard live, obviously.)
And they have a bit of that deliberately-grotesque-and-unpleasant edge that I've never been able to endure.
But as I said, I do like their live work for the most part (though I don't know what they're doing on this tour, or if it has any relation to anything I've seen), and Tim is a really nice guy. (I don't mean Eric isn't. I don't know Eric.)
First, Tim certainly seemed like a nice guy at the show. Towards the end of their act, Tim and Eric come out on stage in bathrobes and show a super secret behind-the-scenes clip from their first Cartoon Network series Tom Goes to the Mayor. I was impressed by how "off" they were: that is, they didn't seem to be performing and it was a weirdly comforting, in a "these are just regular guys" kind of way. That's not a feeling I generally get watching comedians.
Of course, Tim and Eric aren't really comedians. "The Atlas Boy" is right that their bits either don't have or don't emphasize punchlines. There wasn't a memorable one all evening, and, on their Adult Swim shows, any that are there seem like throw-aways or head-scratchers.
And he's also right that there is something like an unpleasant edge to a lot of their stuff. I'm not sure if I would use the word "unpleasant", but there's something willfully off-putting about a sketch like Uncle Muscles, where Tim plays an incompetent singer, sweating buckets under the lights, and the poorly lit video emphasizes the character's bad make-up job. ("Bad make-up" is a recurring Tim and Eric motif.)
What's interesting to me, though (this week at least), is the way Tim and Eric (who met in college and made their first videos for film classes) ransack the realm of performance/video art in order to find material and techniques for their comedy. And I was thinking about Tim and Eric when I read this post about "not films" on Andy Horbal's blog.
There, Andy gives as an example of a "not film" a broadcast of a basketball game that made heavy use of the instant replay in order to figure out a close call. The producers of the broadcast keep replaying - from different angles, at different speeds - a key moment of play. Andy argues that the effect - the way it calls attention to the technique of TV broadcast production - is similar enough to the effect that some avant-garde films aim at - calling attention to what is normally "invisible" in conventional, narrative cinema - so that it would make a useful teaching tool.
There's always going to be a very select audience for long-form, non-narrative films. They ask a lot out of a viewer (in time, attention, etc.) and what they deliver (an abstract, aesthetic experience) is not what most people go to the movies for.
I think the problem facing a lot of long-form avant-garde films is the same problem that Spengler diagnoses for modernist music in this article. That is, modernist painting/sculpture is more accessible (or at least bearable) than its film/video equivalent partly because you aren't trapped in the experience.
(One of my own issues with existing avant-garde films is that they're often in danger of being more interesting to think about/write about/read about than they are to actually watch. It's almost like you have to sit through them in order to earn the right to talk about them afterwards, like some kind of weird, intellectual hazing.)
But, and here I'll go back once again to this recent post from 2Blowhards and connect this seeming digression to what I was talking about at the beginning of this post, I think that the kind of "accidental" avant-garde videos that Michael Blowhard points to on YouTube and the little movies on Tim and Eric's website seem to suggest the emergence of avant-garde-ish video making as a "lively" art, one that not only Andy's hypothetical film students but actual everyday people will find (relatively) accessible.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Blog Chat: Personally...
Lots of introspection going on in the comments section of this post on Andy Horbal's blog.
I just wanted to comment briefly on something Chris Stangl wrote:
Now, I'm definitely in favor of clarity in writing (even if my own writing doesn't always meet the standard), so, yes, I think it's a bad thing if your best ideas are getting lost...
However (and this is me riffing on Chris's comment, rather than reading into it or arguing with it), if we're doing criticism, "personal-life mush" is going to play a part. To the extent that movies are aesthetic, emotional, and, even erotic experiences, we can't help that our responses are going to be personal. One of the strengths of blogs, IMHO, is that, as opposed to newspaper/magazine film criticism or academic film criticism, writers can deal with how this "personal-life mush" affects their response to and interpretation and appreciation of a given movie in an up-front and straightforward manner.
This 2Blowhards post from last year brings up some related issues.
I just wanted to comment briefly on something Chris Stangl wrote:
I know I was just arguing for the power of diary form film blogging, but how many blogs would be vastly improved if the writer would just put some intellectual distance between their heart and their keyboard? A: I have no idea, but I can think of a few. Those few are rare because they're writers with interesting ideas lost in a swamp of personal-life mush.
Now, I'm definitely in favor of clarity in writing (even if my own writing doesn't always meet the standard), so, yes, I think it's a bad thing if your best ideas are getting lost...
However (and this is me riffing on Chris's comment, rather than reading into it or arguing with it), if we're doing criticism, "personal-life mush" is going to play a part. To the extent that movies are aesthetic, emotional, and, even erotic experiences, we can't help that our responses are going to be personal. One of the strengths of blogs, IMHO, is that, as opposed to newspaper/magazine film criticism or academic film criticism, writers can deal with how this "personal-life mush" affects their response to and interpretation and appreciation of a given movie in an up-front and straightforward manner.
This 2Blowhards post from last year brings up some related issues.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Weekly Round-up
- I made my first contribution to a Blog-a-Thon. Sam Peckinpah was one of my first "favorite" directors and I was glad to share my appreciation/admiration for one of his lesser known movies. Other things I learned: I like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia a lot less than most other Peckinpah buffs. I like Convoy a lot more than most other Peckinpah buffs. But to each his own... (I'll have to write about both movies one day.)
More seriously, this Blog-a-Thon got me thinking about Peckinpah's self-destructive nature and how it fueled his art, while, at the same time, it got in the way of his moviemaking. Maybe it's because I'm also in the middle of reading a Bob Fosse biography, but I have a much greater respect than I used to for guys like Robert Altman, Luis Bunuel, and Jean-Luc Godard, who were able to maintain artistic integrity while making movies without destroying themselves. (And I'm also saddened that I've known so many would-be artists who got the self-destructiveness down, but didn't have any "results" to show for it.) - Blake Bell posted this quote from Seth talking about the difference between European and American cartoonists:
I’m not as attracted to European cartooning as I am to North American cartooning. Where a lot of it is really beautiful and interesting, I find that a lot of the European cartoonists, and this could just be in the translations, but they seem to be missing some kind of passionate spark that I find in the best North American cartoonists. There’s some eccentric quality, generally, amongst North American cartoonists that when they tackle some piece of material, it seems to be invested so deeply in their psyche that, if they’re a good artist, it’s very riveting. I don’t find that as much in the European work. I find it a little more dispassionate. It’s well-crafted and interesting but…
Recognizing that he's making sweeping generalizations, here, I kind of agree with his observation, but, for me, that's one of the best things about Eurocartoonists. They aren't all as "in your face" and they often seem a bit more (dare I say it?) sophisticated in their distance from the material. In my mind I'm comparing two favorites: American Peter Bagge's Buddy Bradley stories and Dupuy & Berberbian's Mr. Jean stories. Both are sharply observed takes on young, creative, slackerish types, but Bagge's work is just a wee bit aggressive (as befits stories appearing in a comic titled Hate), while D&B's is somewhat distanced. They seem to give the reader more room: it's a more relaxing, contemplative reading experience. What's weird is that I get the same relaxed feeling from Seth's own work. - This is complete speculation: My guess is that Paul Muni and Frederic March, who were big, Oscar-winning stars in their day, suffered from backlash from film buffs of the 50s onward, who might have thought these actors - who showed up in lots of prestige pictures - were overrated when compared to performers who worked in less reputable pictures. I wonder if, now, though, they aren't (relatively) underrated.
- Through the Sam Peckinpah Blog-a-Thon I rediscovered the writing of Scott Von Doviak (and some other guys who used to post on a movie message board that I once participated on).
I liked Scott's recent column, where he talks about art house sci-fi movies. At the end, he writes about one of my newest favorites, the time travel brain twister, Primer: "Check out the movie’s Wikipedia page for an obsessive breakdown of the jumbled timeframe and see how far you get before your brain seizes up. So yes, it’s complex and thought provoking, but does this make it a good movie?"
A rhetorical question, maybe, but, as much fun as I have trying to untangle the paradox puzzles, what I really like about the movie is the subtle way it gets at how creative endeavors can end up poisoning friendships when the struggle to have to have the last say in what's best for the company, project, etc. ends up overshadowing any other concerns. In other words, its the human drama that matters to me, (which is really what I'm always looking for in sci-fi stories).
Interesting to think about: I probably would not like Primer as much as I do if I had first seen it in a theater. But, DVR'd off of the Sundance Channel, I was able to pause and rewind so that I could clarify and consolidate my understanding as I went along. And the movie is short enough - just 77 minutes - that it makes it easy enough to watch enough times to get a grasp on what's really going on.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Movie Chat: Links and Lists
I love it when David Bordwell uses his, um, encyclopedic knowledge of film history for good, like he does here (via Andy Horbal's February links page) when he puts the slap down on Variety's claim that Thomas Schlamme pioneered the "walk and talk" shot.
Bordwell has some interesting, and nicely-illustrated, stuff to say. For example, he notes that the walk-and-talk is particularly suited to movies/shows that take place in "institutional" spaces like hospitals or police stations.
He goes on to point out the lack of variety in the way contemporary filmmakers stage dialogue scenes. According to Bordwell, nowadays, directors tend to use either the walk-and-talk or the stand-and-deliver, but in old-time Hollywood movies, they would spice things up with more elaborate blocking, stage business, and camera movement.
Personally, I prefer that kind of staging - for one thing, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for performers, giving them more space to work with. "Lost" techniques like these keep me going back to old movies.
Also, I had fun following and participating in this conversation about movie list-making on Andy Horbal's blog itself. Last weekend I travelled to Worcester, MA for an annual list party that my undergrad film professor throws for some of his dedicated film buff students. It was lots of fun, and it has inspired lots of thinking about movies, lists, and arts & culture stuff in general, some of which should make its way to blog form over the next few weeks.
Bordwell has some interesting, and nicely-illustrated, stuff to say. For example, he notes that the walk-and-talk is particularly suited to movies/shows that take place in "institutional" spaces like hospitals or police stations.
He goes on to point out the lack of variety in the way contemporary filmmakers stage dialogue scenes. According to Bordwell, nowadays, directors tend to use either the walk-and-talk or the stand-and-deliver, but in old-time Hollywood movies, they would spice things up with more elaborate blocking, stage business, and camera movement.
Personally, I prefer that kind of staging - for one thing, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for performers, giving them more space to work with. "Lost" techniques like these keep me going back to old movies.
Also, I had fun following and participating in this conversation about movie list-making on Andy Horbal's blog itself. Last weekend I travelled to Worcester, MA for an annual list party that my undergrad film professor throws for some of his dedicated film buff students. It was lots of fun, and it has inspired lots of thinking about movies, lists, and arts & culture stuff in general, some of which should make its way to blog form over the next few weeks.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Blog Chat: Film Buffs
This dialogue between Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Uhlich from The House Next Door is pretty interesting. I'm going to nitpick and shoot spitballs at it from the sidelines here, but if you're at all interested in concepts like "the future of movies" and "the death of cinema" it'll be worth a read.
First, I thought it was funny that while they point out the cyclical nature of those "death of film" think pieces, they didn't acknowledge that their complaints about fuddy-duddies like Paul Schrader ignoring non-narrative cinema are just as cyclical. Ever since Birth of a Nation, Film As Art Guys have been decrying the dominance of "conventional narrative" and evangelizing non-narrative film.
I used to be pretty gung-ho about non-narrative movies. Well, gung-ho about the idea of them - I have to admit that there weren't many actual non-narrative movies that I enjoyed watching.
Nowadays, though, my main interest is in stories and storytelling, and, at least when it comes to movies, books, and comics, give me Steven Spielberg, Gore Vidal, and Peter Bagge. I still like to read and talk a little bit about the artsier, "exploration and expansion of the medium" stuff, but I'm no longer driven to keep up with it. (I'm no longer driven to keep up with much of anything, which is a very liberating feeling).
I'd guess that most people are going to be like me: we go to the movies to get a story.
But, as this dialogue at 2Blowhards suggests, non-narrative "movies" have a future at YouTube. I'd wager that while there will never be a big audience demand for feature length, large scale, non-narrative film experiences, there will be a growing demand for small scale, five-minutes-or-less, non-narrative video clips, made with a sense of fun, outside of (or at least peripheral to) any existing avant-garde film/video movements, by amateurs and hobbyists.
Second, my major gripe with the piece is the shrill tone they take when they're attacking retrograde ideas about film. Who do they think they are - the film critic thought police? Statements like this...
...make me cringe.
Who cares if you're out of it? This constant pressure to keep up, to adopt the latest and most fashionable attitudes toward cinema (or to anything else for that matter) is pretty unpleasant. It doesn't feel all that different from the pressure we get from Big Media to stay on the cutting edge of consumable crap. And there's something a little bullying about their "get on the bus or get run over" language. I don't think these guys are bullies, at all, but I do think they get carried away here. Do they realize how badly they come off to someone who has honest disagreements with them?
Third, Keith writes that:
But it is a very rare person who is going to like all of these kinds of things equally, because, well, they each offer very different kinds of experiences. No one would say that because you like books you should try to like cook books as much as travel guides as much as volumes of poetry. We're all going to have our preferences: kinds of movies we respond more to than others, kinds of movies we just aren't interested in. Consider that even within a specific "type" of movie - conventional narrative Hollywood stuff - most people are going to have strong preferences for certain genres, styles, subject matter, etc. It always seems a little forced to me when someone proclaims equal love for all of these things (but that might just be because I used to try to force myself into thinking/responding that way).
This has been a little bit of a hobby horse with me lately, but I think criticism of any kind benefits when the critic is honest and upfront about the specific kinds of experiences he or she actually responds to and is interested in.
Tangentially, one of the defining moments of my own career as a film buff came during the first few weeks of my cinema studies program. I was talking with a classmate and I noticed that he had no familiarity with most of the movies I was bringing up (mostly old Hollywood, but also French stuff from the 1930s). After I asked him "Have you seen that?" for the sixth or seventh time, he told me: "I don't like watching movies much. I just really like the idea of cinema." I didn't say anything more about it at the time, but what I have come to realize is that I really don't care about "movies in general". I do, very much, care about specific movies, and I'm very much interested in the people who make them and they methods they use. But "the idea of cinema"? Eh.
First, I thought it was funny that while they point out the cyclical nature of those "death of film" think pieces, they didn't acknowledge that their complaints about fuddy-duddies like Paul Schrader ignoring non-narrative cinema are just as cyclical. Ever since Birth of a Nation, Film As Art Guys have been decrying the dominance of "conventional narrative" and evangelizing non-narrative film.
I used to be pretty gung-ho about non-narrative movies. Well, gung-ho about the idea of them - I have to admit that there weren't many actual non-narrative movies that I enjoyed watching.
Nowadays, though, my main interest is in stories and storytelling, and, at least when it comes to movies, books, and comics, give me Steven Spielberg, Gore Vidal, and Peter Bagge. I still like to read and talk a little bit about the artsier, "exploration and expansion of the medium" stuff, but I'm no longer driven to keep up with it. (I'm no longer driven to keep up with much of anything, which is a very liberating feeling).
I'd guess that most people are going to be like me: we go to the movies to get a story.
But, as this dialogue at 2Blowhards suggests, non-narrative "movies" have a future at YouTube. I'd wager that while there will never be a big audience demand for feature length, large scale, non-narrative film experiences, there will be a growing demand for small scale, five-minutes-or-less, non-narrative video clips, made with a sense of fun, outside of (or at least peripheral to) any existing avant-garde film/video movements, by amateurs and hobbyists.
Second, my major gripe with the piece is the shrill tone they take when they're attacking retrograde ideas about film. Who do they think they are - the film critic thought police? Statements like this...
It's a little embarrassing at this point to still be debating the issue of whether or not a movie is less of a movie because it was shot with a camcorder; and whether television can be art; and whether series television is inherently less worthy of attention than, say, your typical mainstream Hollywood genre film. People who catch themselves talking in those terms should cringe and correct themselves, because it's 20th century thinking.
...make me cringe.
Who cares if you're out of it? This constant pressure to keep up, to adopt the latest and most fashionable attitudes toward cinema (or to anything else for that matter) is pretty unpleasant. It doesn't feel all that different from the pressure we get from Big Media to stay on the cutting edge of consumable crap. And there's something a little bullying about their "get on the bus or get run over" language. I don't think these guys are bullies, at all, but I do think they get carried away here. Do they realize how badly they come off to someone who has honest disagreements with them?
Third, Keith writes that:
I do my best not to be closed off to the potentialities of any motion picture: "Hollywood films", "Foreign films", "Avant-garde films", "Home videos"—at a very basic, gut level these distinctions are anathema to me.
But it is a very rare person who is going to like all of these kinds of things equally, because, well, they each offer very different kinds of experiences. No one would say that because you like books you should try to like cook books as much as travel guides as much as volumes of poetry. We're all going to have our preferences: kinds of movies we respond more to than others, kinds of movies we just aren't interested in. Consider that even within a specific "type" of movie - conventional narrative Hollywood stuff - most people are going to have strong preferences for certain genres, styles, subject matter, etc. It always seems a little forced to me when someone proclaims equal love for all of these things (but that might just be because I used to try to force myself into thinking/responding that way).
This has been a little bit of a hobby horse with me lately, but I think criticism of any kind benefits when the critic is honest and upfront about the specific kinds of experiences he or she actually responds to and is interested in.
Tangentially, one of the defining moments of my own career as a film buff came during the first few weeks of my cinema studies program. I was talking with a classmate and I noticed that he had no familiarity with most of the movies I was bringing up (mostly old Hollywood, but also French stuff from the 1930s). After I asked him "Have you seen that?" for the sixth or seventh time, he told me: "I don't like watching movies much. I just really like the idea of cinema." I didn't say anything more about it at the time, but what I have come to realize is that I really don't care about "movies in general". I do, very much, care about specific movies, and I'm very much interested in the people who make them and they methods they use. But "the idea of cinema"? Eh.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Blog Chat: Cinephiles?, Gateways, Plagiarism, More Children of Men
Andy Horbal asks this question over on his blog:
I chose B): to me "cinephile" sounds too much like "audophile" which I (perhaps unfairly) associate with people who are really into their stereo system. I prefer "film buff", partly because it's a lot more casual sounding.
Blake Bell has a thoughtful post on the mainstream comics industry's delusions about coming up with gateway comics.
Eddie Campbell has a (perhaps) provocative post about plagiarism, Roy Lichtenstein, and IP. He quotes R.G. Collingwood:
I bet you can find this kind of cross-pollination with the folks making videos for sharing on YouTube, too. Hmmm... Thinking about it, the line between the people producing original content for YouTube and the people just uploading found/captured videos looks pretty fuzzy.
And Sean Collins responds to my post on Children of Men. Once again, I find myself not only agreeing with Sean, but wishing that I had put it this way myself first:
The more I think about Children of Men, the less my quarrels with its ideas seem to matter. Usually, it goes the other way around for me, as it did with The Queen, which I saw around the same time, where the nagging, nay saying voice in my head was relatively quiet while I was watching the movie, but grew louder the more I thought about it.
On the other hand, I still think there's something a little underhanded about the way Cuaron et al. do a complete 180 on the novel's take on immigration. And it's the fact that the novel makes more sense regarding this issue that keeps me a little bit suspicious of Cuaron's choices.
Do you
A) identify with
B) feel alienated by
the term cinephile? Or would you choose
C) none of the above?
I chose B): to me "cinephile" sounds too much like "audophile" which I (perhaps unfairly) associate with people who are really into their stereo system. I prefer "film buff", partly because it's a lot more casual sounding.
Blake Bell has a thoughtful post on the mainstream comics industry's delusions about coming up with gateway comics.
Eddie Campbell has a (perhaps) provocative post about plagiarism, Roy Lichtenstein, and IP. He quotes R.G. Collingwood:
Let all such artists as understand one another, therefore, plagiarize each other's work like men. Let each borrow his friends' best ideas, and try to improve on them. If A thinks himself a better poet than B, let him stop hinting it in the pages of an essay; let him re-write B's poems and publish his own improved version. If X is dissatisfied with Y's this-year Academy picture, let him paint one caricaturing it; not a sketch in Punch, but a full-sized picture for next year's Academy. I will not rely upon the hanging committee's sense of humour to the extent of guaranteeing that they would exhibit it; but if they did, we should get brighter Academy exhibitions. Or if he cannot improve on his friends' ideas, at least let him borrow them; it will do him good to try fitting them into works of his own, and it will be an advertisement for the creditor. An absurd suggestion? Well, I am only proposing that modern artists should treat each other as Greek dramatists or Renaissance painters or Elizabethan poets did. If any one thinks that the law of copyright has fostered better art than those barbarous times could produce, I will not try to convert them.
I bet you can find this kind of cross-pollination with the folks making videos for sharing on YouTube, too. Hmmm... Thinking about it, the line between the people producing original content for YouTube and the people just uploading found/captured videos looks pretty fuzzy.
And Sean Collins responds to my post on Children of Men. Once again, I find myself not only agreeing with Sean, but wishing that I had put it this way myself first:
...I still found the dystopia convincing and frightening, and I think that at least in part that comes from approaching those elements as horror... Children of Men fails as a dystopia that one could logically arrive at from its constituent elements, I think, but succeeds despite that because of the way those elements add up as a big frightening collage of Things That Are Horrifying. Domestic terrorism, ecological and economic breakdown, torture, prisoner abuse, large-scale human rights violations by a Western nation, internecine warfare between "freedom fighters," increased video surveillance, assassinations, plausibly deniable action by the government against journalists and dissidents, Abu Ghraib, Vladimir Putin, the drug war, limited nuclear exchanges, pandemics, Islamic fascism, urban warfare, intrusive media and advertising presence, euthanasia, and (I think this is the real emotional key to why the film works and I haven't seen anyone comment on it) the constant presence of animals in great danger, as undiluted an conveyor of helplessness as it gets--put it all together and it works in the same way that, for example, The Shining takes axes and ghosts and corpses and haunted houses and child abuse and rivers of blood and isolation and psychics and puts them all together and that works.
The more I think about Children of Men, the less my quarrels with its ideas seem to matter. Usually, it goes the other way around for me, as it did with The Queen, which I saw around the same time, where the nagging, nay saying voice in my head was relatively quiet while I was watching the movie, but grew louder the more I thought about it.
On the other hand, I still think there's something a little underhanded about the way Cuaron et al. do a complete 180 on the novel's take on immigration. And it's the fact that the novel makes more sense regarding this issue that keeps me a little bit suspicious of Cuaron's choices.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Movie Chat: Double Features
This post at The House Next Door got me thinking about the worst double feature I ever attended.
I had always wanted to see Irvin Kershner's Loving, which, though available now on DVD, used to be really hard to find. I was pretty excited when I saw that the Film Forum was showing it as part of their American New Wave, Late 60s, early 70s series (this was back in 1996). It was the second movie of a double bill with another George Segal movie from 1970, Where's Poppa? I'm a big George Segal fan, so I was happy to see both of them, both for the first time.
Now, I liked Where's Poppa? a lot: it was funny and raunchy and had no sense of good tatse to get in the way of the fun. The crowd liked it, too. The problem was, they liked it so much and had such a good time at it, that, when Loving came on after a 10 minute break, they were still in the mood for laughs. They seemed tone deaf to Loving's minor key melancholy and, instead, they treated it as camp.
The problem is that the costumes and sets of Loving did look funny to a 1990s audience - mainly because they're so late-60s/early-70s. But the movie itself is serious and weighty. An audience that hadn't been revved up by Where's Poppa?, but instead had been treated to an even bigger downer of a movie like Born to Win, might have gotten onto its wavelength after a few titters at the actors' haridos.
Although maybe not. In my experience, Film Forum revivals tend to have the worst audiences in New York City. I mean, audiences for horror movies on 86th St. will be rowdier and louder, but that's what you'd expect for horror movies, which attract a lot of teens out looking for a good time. But you might think that someone going to the Film Forum to see Loving or Rio Bravo or Sunrise would be enough of a film buff to know how to behave at a theater. But these revivals end up attracting:
Because (1) I've seen enough old movies that it isn't a novel, alien experience, (2) I generally take these movies fairly seriously (or, at least, I try to meet them on their own terms), and (3) my approach towards movie appreciation is almost always non-ironic, I get annoyed pretty quickly when the folks around me respond as if everything on the screen is there for their detatched, knowing, amusement.
Oh, my dream double bill would be two by Floyd Mutrux: Dusty and Sweets McGee (because I've never seen it) and Aloha, Bobby and Rose, because I never get tired of seeing it and I missed it the last time it was playing at the Film Forum.
I had always wanted to see Irvin Kershner's Loving, which, though available now on DVD, used to be really hard to find. I was pretty excited when I saw that the Film Forum was showing it as part of their American New Wave, Late 60s, early 70s series (this was back in 1996). It was the second movie of a double bill with another George Segal movie from 1970, Where's Poppa? I'm a big George Segal fan, so I was happy to see both of them, both for the first time.
Now, I liked Where's Poppa? a lot: it was funny and raunchy and had no sense of good tatse to get in the way of the fun. The crowd liked it, too. The problem was, they liked it so much and had such a good time at it, that, when Loving came on after a 10 minute break, they were still in the mood for laughs. They seemed tone deaf to Loving's minor key melancholy and, instead, they treated it as camp.
The problem is that the costumes and sets of Loving did look funny to a 1990s audience - mainly because they're so late-60s/early-70s. But the movie itself is serious and weighty. An audience that hadn't been revved up by Where's Poppa?, but instead had been treated to an even bigger downer of a movie like Born to Win, might have gotten onto its wavelength after a few titters at the actors' haridos.
Although maybe not. In my experience, Film Forum revivals tend to have the worst audiences in New York City. I mean, audiences for horror movies on 86th St. will be rowdier and louder, but that's what you'd expect for horror movies, which attract a lot of teens out looking for a good time. But you might think that someone going to the Film Forum to see Loving or Rio Bravo or Sunrise would be enough of a film buff to know how to behave at a theater. But these revivals end up attracting:
- (a) Hipsters who think it is so funny that in, say, Rio Bravo, John Wayne talks so much like someone doing a John Wayne impression, that they laugh every time he opens his mouth.
- (b) People who watch old movies for primarily campy pleasures, so they end up treating any old movie as if it were a camp experience.
Because (1) I've seen enough old movies that it isn't a novel, alien experience, (2) I generally take these movies fairly seriously (or, at least, I try to meet them on their own terms), and (3) my approach towards movie appreciation is almost always non-ironic, I get annoyed pretty quickly when the folks around me respond as if everything on the screen is there for their detatched, knowing, amusement.
Oh, my dream double bill would be two by Floyd Mutrux: Dusty and Sweets McGee (because I've never seen it) and Aloha, Bobby and Rose, because I never get tired of seeing it and I missed it the last time it was playing at the Film Forum.
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