I listened to the ancillary commentary track on the new WALL-E blu-ray disc the other day, the one where several lower-run Pixar artists and producers comment on the movie and the pop-culture references therein. There are three guys on it, and one woman. The guys go on and on talking about what is a reference to SILENT RUNNING and what is a reference to DOCTOR WHO, and the woman keeps laughing at them for knowing and caring about this stuff, and they all generally agree that the three guys are "nerds" and how pathetic it is that they know that stuff.
But I ask: Why? Is America so overrun by shallow puddles of milky DNA stacks and plain old stupid people that we now ostracize anyone who knows "too much" about anything? Was there not a time when such knowledge would have been prized in an individual? It's certainly not useless knowledge to the WALL-E commentators! They made that movie! That knowledge has certainly helped them along in life. There is a difference between passion and nerdiness, but that demarcation is less and less important as we continue to compartmentalize, label, and stow all human endeavor for the coming storms.
Here's the thing. As bad as "the jocks" were in high school, so were the nerds. As I recall, nerds were humorless tightwads who took things way too seriously, constantly broadcasted their supposed superiority, and never had any fun.
But slowly and surely, over the last decade or so, the term "nerd" has unfortunately arrived at a much broader definition: anyone who is passionately informed and excited about any subject not officially catalogued as "manly" by the RMAA (Raging Male Assholes of America) is supposed to accept the label of "nerd" - and be slightly embarrassed about it to boot.
For instance:
Person #1: That reminds me of the pickle dish in 'Ethan Frome'
Person #2: (laughing nastily) What? You're such a nerd!
Person #1: (sheepishly conforming) Yeah, I know.
But hey, I fully approved of the 'nerd' label as originally implied. If you humorlessly catalog plot loopholes in STAR TREK - and JUST that one topic - then you may be a STAR TREK nerd, and you might have need to broaden your horizons.
But how can someone be a movie nerd? There are sexy movies, funny movies, good movies, great ones, bad ones, deep ones, bleak ones, goofy ones... One who chooses film among his fancies is certainly choosing an appropriately varied field, and one that can certainly while away one's hours happily. Why, such a pursuit is akin to the pursuit of happiness.
But since everyone generally likes movies, and everyone feels a certain amount of ownership of them, then someone who stands apart and dedicates more than just a passing fancy to the cinema is a "nerd". And on top of that, it's getting easier and easier for young people to choose the path of least resistance, and on that path you laugh at the people who know more than you about anything - "What a bunch of nerds they are over on that OTHER path, what a bunch of wasted lives, it's so sad really."
So I am a movie nerd, and, I guess, a rock nerd. Which means I care more passionately about those subjects than the average carrier of the human virus. No, I am not an "expert" or a "go-to" guy on those subjects, as I might have been 30 years ago. Today, I am a uselessly informed loser who doesn't spend enough time thinking about cars, sex, and football.
Because the average American is bred to believe that movies are just a past-time activity, and that rock music is just background party noise, and that anyone who chooses to dig deeper into those subjects is an unhealthily obssessed stigmatic, missing out on 'the good stuff' while he's wasting time with his passions.
You'll notice, there are no 'football nerds' or 'Jesus nerds' and even less 'sex nerds' in America. As a point-of-fact, I would say that 95% of male America qualify as 'sex nerds', in that they spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about and quantifying and cataloguing different aspects of an act that is even less complex than 'Star Trek'.
American males are, overwhelmingly, sports nerds and sex nerds. They are also 'gun nerds' and 'infidelity nerds' and 'alcohol nerds'...But because they have the floor, they get to decide what's kosher. And who is a nerd.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Three Stars High And Rising
I’m hopelessly behind in catching-up with year-end studio releases, so any attempt to forge a true ’08 “ten best” list would be callow and wasteful. But in the spirit of lists blooming everywhere like toadstools, I had the thought of compiling a litany that you won’t find elsewhere: the best “three-star” movies of the year.
You know what a three-star is, and you know where it rests on the slightly ridiculous but formally accepted four-star scale. To my mind, a three is a movie that rises to no ambition at all, totally succeeds at being satisfactory, soars confidently below the A-list, etc.
To put a finer point on it: there is nothing wrong with these movies, no adjustments that need to be made. They’re proudly innocuous, largely un-controversial, mostly playing it safe on the path to home video – I’m deeply in “like” with these movies, we’re friends, but I know there’s no future. (Except maybe for the title at #1, which shook up my criteria for aesthetic horse-races like no other)
10) MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (Wong Kar Wai)
Here’s a movie that exists in the spaces between other movies. So tiny, so inconsequential, so definitively lost in translation … and yet loaded with fetching faces (chief among them non-actor Norah Jones, who has the most beautiful screen neck of the year) and lovingly photographed rivulets of ice cream cascading down mashed blueberry pie. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is the kind of guilty pleasure you have to earn.
9) LEATHERHEADS (George Clooney)
“Not so fast, hotshot,” the critical establishment replied when Clooney attempted to follow his masterful GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK with this utterly breezy charmer, kind of an old-school Barry Levinson thing right down to the perfect Randy Newman score. Quick-witted, nice to look at, and harmlessly in love with itself. It would seem a hard movie to dislike, but many did.
8) DOOMSDAY (Neil Marshall)
Utterly nuts. English horror auteur Marshall followed his terrific THE DESCENT with this mad John Carpenter pastiche (right down to the font used for the credits), but unlike most of the dreadful Carpenter remakes of late, this one gets the grime, bitterness, and playful nihilism. And lead toughie/looker Rhona Mitra makes for a fine Snake Plissken proxy. Just the kind of spirited mish-mash I dig.
7) IRON MAN (Jon Favreau)
First-rate second-rate moviemaking. Take away Robert Downey, Jr and his improvised laugh lines, replace him with Nic Cage, and IRON MAN would be unwatchable studio product. The script and story are deeply second-rate, especially once the movie clears the still-catchy Stan Lee origin story that makes up the first act. But, of course, add Downey (along with the best cast a popcorn movie has had in decades) and you’ve got the very definition of a movie that pleased everyone by offending nobody. Watch for IRON MAN 2 to be utterly excoriated by the Fanboy Nation for daring to exist, or for not being “dark” enough.
6) HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY (Guillermo Del Toro)
I was dragged against my will to see this one at the dollar theater. Turned out the price was right. While Del Toro’s initial entry in this wanna-be franchise remains rather lackluster, this sequel had enough of the dark PAN’S LABYRINTH pixie-dust sprinkled on it to rise above the standard-issue source material (Hellboy is an exact dupe of The Thing, from The Fantastic Four, in terms of huggability.) And the stand-off with the forest elemental is one of the stand-out scenes of the movie year.
5) BE KIND REWIND (Michel Gondry)
I couldn’t imagine I would have cottoned to this, but then again I couldn’t imagine artsy-fartsy show-off Michel Gondry would have invested the movie with so much warmth and soul (and movie love.) Like last year’s LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, this one takes a surprisingly warm-hearted view of a community coming together in support of something utterly ludicrous. It also contains the oddest allusions to Fats Waller since ERASERHEAD.
4) STREET KINGS (David Ayer)
I suppose people hate Keanu Reeves more than they like co-scripter James Ellroy, based on the reception to this underrated toughie. Neo-noir is nearly impossible to achieve, as self-consciousness tends to wear down on the organic bleakness of the original noir cycle, but STREET KINGS takes place in a particularly morally grimy Los Angeles. And Keanu works just fine. (Gravitas comes to everyone, if the career is long enough.)
3) THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (Justin Chadwick)
Any sleazy historical drama that comes in at under two hours and features two of the most beautiful young women on the planet is already well on its way to three-star glory, but BOLEYN resurrects the trash-history genre in higher-style (and with a lot more fun) than the early-year reviews let on.
2) BURN AFTER READING (Coen Bros.)
The Coens, coming off their masterpiece NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, slip back into their happy side-career of churning out three-star comedies; BURN is no different, and no weightier, which to some people reads as a punishable offense after OLD MEN’s heavy-lifting. But as with every minor Coen picture since O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, the true pleasures of BURN are in the precision and details, most of which only reveal themselves on second viewing. And Brad Pitt deserves an Oscar nom here, in an alternate universe.
1) MAMMA MIA! (Phyllida Lloyd)
Indeed. Here’s a movie-musical to separate those who take life too seriously, and those who love Abba. There are no other kinds of people, but if you love Meryl Streep like I do, add that ardor into the mix as well and you’ve a guilty pleasure that I’m feeling less and less guilty about. If every movie were as exuberant as MAMMA MIA, we wouldn’t need daylight.
You know what a three-star is, and you know where it rests on the slightly ridiculous but formally accepted four-star scale. To my mind, a three is a movie that rises to no ambition at all, totally succeeds at being satisfactory, soars confidently below the A-list, etc.
To put a finer point on it: there is nothing wrong with these movies, no adjustments that need to be made. They’re proudly innocuous, largely un-controversial, mostly playing it safe on the path to home video – I’m deeply in “like” with these movies, we’re friends, but I know there’s no future. (Except maybe for the title at #1, which shook up my criteria for aesthetic horse-races like no other)
10) MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (Wong Kar Wai)
Here’s a movie that exists in the spaces between other movies. So tiny, so inconsequential, so definitively lost in translation … and yet loaded with fetching faces (chief among them non-actor Norah Jones, who has the most beautiful screen neck of the year) and lovingly photographed rivulets of ice cream cascading down mashed blueberry pie. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is the kind of guilty pleasure you have to earn.
9) LEATHERHEADS (George Clooney)
“Not so fast, hotshot,” the critical establishment replied when Clooney attempted to follow his masterful GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK with this utterly breezy charmer, kind of an old-school Barry Levinson thing right down to the perfect Randy Newman score. Quick-witted, nice to look at, and harmlessly in love with itself. It would seem a hard movie to dislike, but many did.
8) DOOMSDAY (Neil Marshall)
Utterly nuts. English horror auteur Marshall followed his terrific THE DESCENT with this mad John Carpenter pastiche (right down to the font used for the credits), but unlike most of the dreadful Carpenter remakes of late, this one gets the grime, bitterness, and playful nihilism. And lead toughie/looker Rhona Mitra makes for a fine Snake Plissken proxy. Just the kind of spirited mish-mash I dig.
7) IRON MAN (Jon Favreau)
First-rate second-rate moviemaking. Take away Robert Downey, Jr and his improvised laugh lines, replace him with Nic Cage, and IRON MAN would be unwatchable studio product. The script and story are deeply second-rate, especially once the movie clears the still-catchy Stan Lee origin story that makes up the first act. But, of course, add Downey (along with the best cast a popcorn movie has had in decades) and you’ve got the very definition of a movie that pleased everyone by offending nobody. Watch for IRON MAN 2 to be utterly excoriated by the Fanboy Nation for daring to exist, or for not being “dark” enough.
6) HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY (Guillermo Del Toro)
I was dragged against my will to see this one at the dollar theater. Turned out the price was right. While Del Toro’s initial entry in this wanna-be franchise remains rather lackluster, this sequel had enough of the dark PAN’S LABYRINTH pixie-dust sprinkled on it to rise above the standard-issue source material (Hellboy is an exact dupe of The Thing, from The Fantastic Four, in terms of huggability.) And the stand-off with the forest elemental is one of the stand-out scenes of the movie year.
5) BE KIND REWIND (Michel Gondry)
I couldn’t imagine I would have cottoned to this, but then again I couldn’t imagine artsy-fartsy show-off Michel Gondry would have invested the movie with so much warmth and soul (and movie love.) Like last year’s LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, this one takes a surprisingly warm-hearted view of a community coming together in support of something utterly ludicrous. It also contains the oddest allusions to Fats Waller since ERASERHEAD.
4) STREET KINGS (David Ayer)
I suppose people hate Keanu Reeves more than they like co-scripter James Ellroy, based on the reception to this underrated toughie. Neo-noir is nearly impossible to achieve, as self-consciousness tends to wear down on the organic bleakness of the original noir cycle, but STREET KINGS takes place in a particularly morally grimy Los Angeles. And Keanu works just fine. (Gravitas comes to everyone, if the career is long enough.)
3) THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (Justin Chadwick)
Any sleazy historical drama that comes in at under two hours and features two of the most beautiful young women on the planet is already well on its way to three-star glory, but BOLEYN resurrects the trash-history genre in higher-style (and with a lot more fun) than the early-year reviews let on.
2) BURN AFTER READING (Coen Bros.)
The Coens, coming off their masterpiece NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, slip back into their happy side-career of churning out three-star comedies; BURN is no different, and no weightier, which to some people reads as a punishable offense after OLD MEN’s heavy-lifting. But as with every minor Coen picture since O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, the true pleasures of BURN are in the precision and details, most of which only reveal themselves on second viewing. And Brad Pitt deserves an Oscar nom here, in an alternate universe.
1) MAMMA MIA! (Phyllida Lloyd)
Indeed. Here’s a movie-musical to separate those who take life too seriously, and those who love Abba. There are no other kinds of people, but if you love Meryl Streep like I do, add that ardor into the mix as well and you’ve a guilty pleasure that I’m feeling less and less guilty about. If every movie were as exuberant as MAMMA MIA, we wouldn’t need daylight.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Abba Daba Honeymoon
Can I say that Mamma Mia is a good movie? Well, that depends on your definition of what a “good movie” is. I liked it, almost enough to say “I liked it a lot.” But this one is a musical, so right there, I’ve lost a good number of you. And it’s not a post-modern musical, where its supposed to be odd that they’re breaking out in song, either. It’s of the traditional cheapie variety, and most people who don’t like musicals have seen very few, and very few that they’ve seen are of the "B-level" Mickey & Judy variety, where the production value is right there in those energetic faces, voices, and feet and nowhere else.
It would, however, be wrong to pretend that Mamma Mia is some kind of threadbare thing; truly morally inferior for me to try to get those with the desire to house independent-minded underdogs to adopt another cause. No, this is a big-budget (in terms of cast and location and material) musical that is not trying to sell you on the idea of the genre. It assumes you already are inclined towards it (as I mysteriously but happily am, being an otherwise graceless guy). It is not part of the whole “selling the irony kids on musicals” genre either, like the enormously popular but still-suspect Moulin Rouge – but not last year’s magnificent and growing Across The Universe, which is another argument.
Mamma Mia is not even as “good” in the objective sense as the derided film version of The Producers from a few years back. That one was good, better than it’s rep. I think people were just tired of the show by then, and many had been watching that movie for forty years at that point. And Mamma is certainly not VERY good, like last year’s terrific Hairspray. It’s good like Joel Schumacher’s Lloyd Weber Phantom film. That is, it's good, unless you hate musicals. Terrible, if you do.
And also “good” if you root for movies, if you’re on the side of movies while you’re watching them, especially ones like Mamma Mia, which start off on a purposeful but unsteady foot, and falter here and there, but hang together with verve, and deny cynicism. If you enjoy not enjoying movies, you certainly won’t enjoy this one. It is full of reasons not to like it, if that’s what turns your on. Much of the staging is uninspired, the plot is utterly kooky in a way that makes certain men uneasy, and – easiest target of all – Pierce Brosnan cannot sing, not even talk-sing like Rex Harrison. In fact, if you do like not liking things, I recommend this film to you, because you will have a great time fuming and thinking of ways to say you didn’t like it. It’s very screwy, silly, faux-gay, chintzy, admittedly.
So you’re thinking, there I’ve spent this whole blog entry talking about reasons you won’t like it, and I’ve already implied that I like it, so am I trying to make enemies of the void? Is this blog turning into one of those misanthropic things that get mysteriously deleted whenever things get shaky? Don’t worry, it’s not.
Here’s why I liked Mamma Mia. Firstly, two things. Meryl Streep is my favorite screen actor of all time, and she looks like she’s having a great time here in a role that is “beneath her” - but if we really feel so harshly about artists that we don’t allow them to have fun in roles we don’t approve of them taking, then do we really like them at all? Or do we hate them and own them, like unloved pets? So I like Meryl Streep as a person (who I’ve never met, but I’ve seen in a lot of her movies, which is more than I know about some people I’ve worked with for years), so seeing her happy makes me happy. She throws herself into this role just like she does any other, and she’s wonderful
Also, I’m a huge fan of ABBA. Yes, I know, for a long time rock critics were anti-ABBA, mainly because of the outfits and the tenuous connection to disco. But in the last, say, 15 years, the critics have come around (even guys like Elvis Costello) and recognized that the four Swedes produced pop music with inherent smarts; a deep understanding of what sounds good, and (adopted English or no) at least a few pop songs with weightier lyrics and themes than we sometimes find on the top forty.
“The Winner Takes It All,” for instance, may be the greatest break-up song I can think of. It’s obviously a creation forged in real emotion, and it has the arc and drama of theater, and it sounds great and sad. There’s a scene in Mamma Mia where my favorite screen actor of all time delivers this song in character and it’s one of the best scenes of the year, movie-wise. She’s delivering it to an ex-lover that we have to figure out is an ex-lover (the material the film is based on is smarter than it seems) of more import than two other ex-lovers also hovering about, not because we’re told but because we figure it out, which is the best way to do that. In fact, taken as an entry in the musical genre, Mamma Mia is rather wise and charming about sexual politics and old love. So, yeah, I liked the picture. It moves and has fun and everyone is happy and the plot is just silly enough that I enjoy watching smart people doing their all to pretend it isn’t.
Will you like it? I don't know. Are you me?
It would, however, be wrong to pretend that Mamma Mia is some kind of threadbare thing; truly morally inferior for me to try to get those with the desire to house independent-minded underdogs to adopt another cause. No, this is a big-budget (in terms of cast and location and material) musical that is not trying to sell you on the idea of the genre. It assumes you already are inclined towards it (as I mysteriously but happily am, being an otherwise graceless guy). It is not part of the whole “selling the irony kids on musicals” genre either, like the enormously popular but still-suspect Moulin Rouge – but not last year’s magnificent and growing Across The Universe, which is another argument.
Mamma Mia is not even as “good” in the objective sense as the derided film version of The Producers from a few years back. That one was good, better than it’s rep. I think people were just tired of the show by then, and many had been watching that movie for forty years at that point. And Mamma is certainly not VERY good, like last year’s terrific Hairspray. It’s good like Joel Schumacher’s Lloyd Weber Phantom film. That is, it's good, unless you hate musicals. Terrible, if you do.
And also “good” if you root for movies, if you’re on the side of movies while you’re watching them, especially ones like Mamma Mia, which start off on a purposeful but unsteady foot, and falter here and there, but hang together with verve, and deny cynicism. If you enjoy not enjoying movies, you certainly won’t enjoy this one. It is full of reasons not to like it, if that’s what turns your on. Much of the staging is uninspired, the plot is utterly kooky in a way that makes certain men uneasy, and – easiest target of all – Pierce Brosnan cannot sing, not even talk-sing like Rex Harrison. In fact, if you do like not liking things, I recommend this film to you, because you will have a great time fuming and thinking of ways to say you didn’t like it. It’s very screwy, silly, faux-gay, chintzy, admittedly.
So you’re thinking, there I’ve spent this whole blog entry talking about reasons you won’t like it, and I’ve already implied that I like it, so am I trying to make enemies of the void? Is this blog turning into one of those misanthropic things that get mysteriously deleted whenever things get shaky? Don’t worry, it’s not.
Here’s why I liked Mamma Mia. Firstly, two things. Meryl Streep is my favorite screen actor of all time, and she looks like she’s having a great time here in a role that is “beneath her” - but if we really feel so harshly about artists that we don’t allow them to have fun in roles we don’t approve of them taking, then do we really like them at all? Or do we hate them and own them, like unloved pets? So I like Meryl Streep as a person (who I’ve never met, but I’ve seen in a lot of her movies, which is more than I know about some people I’ve worked with for years), so seeing her happy makes me happy. She throws herself into this role just like she does any other, and she’s wonderful
Also, I’m a huge fan of ABBA. Yes, I know, for a long time rock critics were anti-ABBA, mainly because of the outfits and the tenuous connection to disco. But in the last, say, 15 years, the critics have come around (even guys like Elvis Costello) and recognized that the four Swedes produced pop music with inherent smarts; a deep understanding of what sounds good, and (adopted English or no) at least a few pop songs with weightier lyrics and themes than we sometimes find on the top forty.
“The Winner Takes It All,” for instance, may be the greatest break-up song I can think of. It’s obviously a creation forged in real emotion, and it has the arc and drama of theater, and it sounds great and sad. There’s a scene in Mamma Mia where my favorite screen actor of all time delivers this song in character and it’s one of the best scenes of the year, movie-wise. She’s delivering it to an ex-lover that we have to figure out is an ex-lover (the material the film is based on is smarter than it seems) of more import than two other ex-lovers also hovering about, not because we’re told but because we figure it out, which is the best way to do that. In fact, taken as an entry in the musical genre, Mamma Mia is rather wise and charming about sexual politics and old love. So, yeah, I liked the picture. It moves and has fun and everyone is happy and the plot is just silly enough that I enjoy watching smart people doing their all to pretend it isn’t.
Will you like it? I don't know. Are you me?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Rental suggestions
I know most of us don't practice the ritual of picking out video boxes and bringing them up to the front counter of a rental store anymore, and neither do I...
... But if you ever did, and you ever practiced the art of trying-to-get-a-reaction-from-the-clerk-via-your-selection-of-titles, here's the menu for tonight...
THE HAND (Oliver Stone's middling-to-poor early horror film)
F.I.S.T. (Norman Jewison and Stallone's middling late-70s issue picture)
FINGERS (James Toback's electric early feature, with Harvey Keitel and Jim Brown)
DICK (The underrated 90s comedy, featuring a fine Dan Hedaya in the role of Nixon - which seems to be a role one can't miss at; even Steven Seagal might make a convincing Tricky Dick)
... But if you ever did, and you ever practiced the art of trying-to-get-a-reaction-from-the-clerk-via-your-selection-of-titles, here's the menu for tonight...
THE HAND (Oliver Stone's middling-to-poor early horror film)
F.I.S.T. (Norman Jewison and Stallone's middling late-70s issue picture)
FINGERS (James Toback's electric early feature, with Harvey Keitel and Jim Brown)
DICK (The underrated 90s comedy, featuring a fine Dan Hedaya in the role of Nixon - which seems to be a role one can't miss at; even Steven Seagal might make a convincing Tricky Dick)
The Dream Life of Bond
When I was a child, still not interested in the female shapes that now are the clear draw, I asked my dad what the meaning of the James Bond credits sequences was.
“That’s the dream life of Bond, of James Bond,” he said laughing, and went to scribble it down.
“Oh, of course,” I thought but did not say. Young children do not say such things yet.
I’ve always loved the Bond movies. I love the Bond movies so much, I’ve never even attempted to read the Bond books. I’m sure they are superior works, and yet I love my Bond movies too much to sacrifice them to superior works. I love all of them, mostly, or I guess I like all of them, love a good number, and am ambivalent about relatively few (A View To A Kill and the recent Quantum Of Solace have a rough time trying to sneak past my defenses, but I’ll always give them another shot.) There are no movies, in the whole of the series, that I don’t enjoy on some level, and that’s a pretty mighty feat for popcorn.
The reason, I think, is because of The Broccoli Bond’s character: a generally witty (when he’s Roger Moore), fierce (Connery and the new guy) secret agent who is absolutely sex-mad, nearly more interested in Eros than his work (Connery and Moore, not the new guy yet, but definitely Brosnan.) And his work comes with the caveat that he can kill anybody he wants, and he does so in absolute cold-blood, sometimes out of pure hatred. This is one enjoyable fictional fantasy role model, folks.
My friends and I have a nicely ridiculous theory that the Bond movies, as clearly formulaic and disconnected as they are, should represent a strict chronological timeline – and, beyond this, that each new Bond actor should represent a “change of season” in Bond’s life. But not necessarily in the order by which they appeared. For instance, it makes us laugh to consider that Daniel Craig is meant to be fetal Bond, but that the adventure of George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the best of the Bonds along with Casino Royale) follows the two Craig films, and I can’t recall quite how the rest of the evolution goes, but we all agree that Roger Moore represents the most evolved Bond, the most enlightened Bond. His job is killing, and he’s long-since fine with that, and his fancy is fucking everything, especially girls who won’t make it past the second act. And all along, he maintains an ironic distance, a wit, a supreme remove. Fucking and murder among jokes, yep, that’s Roger Moore as Final Bond.
But I’m not gonna write about the actors, and I only mention the opening credits sequences as a segue to a discussion of the Bond songs, and as an introduction to the idea that the credits and the songs can represent, if you so wish, and it’s a lot more fun let me tell you, the secret life of Bond. The part he hides from everyone in his world but cannot hide from us on this side.
TO BE CONTINUED…
“That’s the dream life of Bond, of James Bond,” he said laughing, and went to scribble it down.
“Oh, of course,” I thought but did not say. Young children do not say such things yet.
I’ve always loved the Bond movies. I love the Bond movies so much, I’ve never even attempted to read the Bond books. I’m sure they are superior works, and yet I love my Bond movies too much to sacrifice them to superior works. I love all of them, mostly, or I guess I like all of them, love a good number, and am ambivalent about relatively few (A View To A Kill and the recent Quantum Of Solace have a rough time trying to sneak past my defenses, but I’ll always give them another shot.) There are no movies, in the whole of the series, that I don’t enjoy on some level, and that’s a pretty mighty feat for popcorn.
The reason, I think, is because of The Broccoli Bond’s character: a generally witty (when he’s Roger Moore), fierce (Connery and the new guy) secret agent who is absolutely sex-mad, nearly more interested in Eros than his work (Connery and Moore, not the new guy yet, but definitely Brosnan.) And his work comes with the caveat that he can kill anybody he wants, and he does so in absolute cold-blood, sometimes out of pure hatred. This is one enjoyable fictional fantasy role model, folks.
My friends and I have a nicely ridiculous theory that the Bond movies, as clearly formulaic and disconnected as they are, should represent a strict chronological timeline – and, beyond this, that each new Bond actor should represent a “change of season” in Bond’s life. But not necessarily in the order by which they appeared. For instance, it makes us laugh to consider that Daniel Craig is meant to be fetal Bond, but that the adventure of George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the best of the Bonds along with Casino Royale) follows the two Craig films, and I can’t recall quite how the rest of the evolution goes, but we all agree that Roger Moore represents the most evolved Bond, the most enlightened Bond. His job is killing, and he’s long-since fine with that, and his fancy is fucking everything, especially girls who won’t make it past the second act. And all along, he maintains an ironic distance, a wit, a supreme remove. Fucking and murder among jokes, yep, that’s Roger Moore as Final Bond.
But I’m not gonna write about the actors, and I only mention the opening credits sequences as a segue to a discussion of the Bond songs, and as an introduction to the idea that the credits and the songs can represent, if you so wish, and it’s a lot more fun let me tell you, the secret life of Bond. The part he hides from everyone in his world but cannot hide from us on this side.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Whither Shawshank?
Why in the heck is THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION regarded so highly by so many people? I recall seeing it upon release in '93, thinking it was a solid little melodrama, and then - as they say - I moved on.
But in the years since, somehow, this modest little prison picture has become utterly beloved by some great mass silent majority.
I can't figure it. There is the possibility that, since the picture trades in some rather "Golden Age of Hollywood" storytelling tropes, it is simply the only NON post-modern film that many post-Tarantino fan-boys have ever seen. (Many of today's film fans only became so after seeing PULP FICTION, and this explains why, to them, the fidelity of the scripted dialogue is the only measure by which they will critique most films.)
My other theory, which I tend to prefer, is that SHAWSHANK is a weeper that men feel free to enjoy, because it has no women in it (other than the one killed in the first few minutes.) This may sound like cynicism, but there's a whole generation of fanboy-thugs out there who believe that any film that attempts to tug at the heart-strings is to be mistrusted, called-out, denied, forsaken, etc. (Perhaps they believe they can identify these films by the amount of women in the cast, and so it goes...)
Which brings up a secondary, broader point: If a movie is "sentimental", that in itself is not a statement of critique, but rather a statement of style. The same is true if a movie is "dark"; just claiming a movie is "dark" is not in any way pointing towards the film's actual quality level, but rather a simple descriptor of tone. And just because a film has sentiment, that doesn't make it a craven lie or any kind of immoral manipulation. (Trust me, I've heard a lot of people respond to the question "Is 'Movie X' any good?" with "Yeah, it was really dark!")
E.T. is a sentimental film. So is TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Both are, as far as mainstream American cinema goes, masterpieces. To dismiss them as a "kid's flick" and a "chick flick" is to be rather pathetically reductive. To deny their intelligence or gravitas because they aim for a certain kind of softer, feminine reaction is malarkey. Conversely, to say that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is good because it is "dark", rather than because it is so much fun (which is the case), it to stubbornly stake a claim at staying 13 and sullen forever. (On the other hand, PATCH ADAMS is indeed bad because it is sentimental in a phony way, and most of Film Noir is wonderful because it IS dark... in an honest and earned way that resembles post-war angst a lot more than it resembles high-school poetry.)
So, SHAWSHANK. To these eyes, a three-star movie to its core, and not even helmer Darabont's best venture based on a Stephen King novella (that would be the B&W version of THE MIST.) And yet, the film's popularity is nearing the fervor of religion. And I think the above reason #2 is why: Here is a film with no women in sight, some violence and tough guys here and there, and a murder to kick it all off. To the one-dimensional male, this is clearly a sign that there is no false heart-string tugging on display. This safeguard bypassed, male viewers are then able to enjoy the film - a soppy, sentimental, eminently watchable melodrama that is no more or less honest in its feelings, nor any less sincere about its fondling of the heart-strings, than STEEL MAGNOLIAS - which is also a perfectly watchable three-star movie.
But in the years since, somehow, this modest little prison picture has become utterly beloved by some great mass silent majority.
I can't figure it. There is the possibility that, since the picture trades in some rather "Golden Age of Hollywood" storytelling tropes, it is simply the only NON post-modern film that many post-Tarantino fan-boys have ever seen. (Many of today's film fans only became so after seeing PULP FICTION, and this explains why, to them, the fidelity of the scripted dialogue is the only measure by which they will critique most films.)
My other theory, which I tend to prefer, is that SHAWSHANK is a weeper that men feel free to enjoy, because it has no women in it (other than the one killed in the first few minutes.) This may sound like cynicism, but there's a whole generation of fanboy-thugs out there who believe that any film that attempts to tug at the heart-strings is to be mistrusted, called-out, denied, forsaken, etc. (Perhaps they believe they can identify these films by the amount of women in the cast, and so it goes...)
Which brings up a secondary, broader point: If a movie is "sentimental", that in itself is not a statement of critique, but rather a statement of style. The same is true if a movie is "dark"; just claiming a movie is "dark" is not in any way pointing towards the film's actual quality level, but rather a simple descriptor of tone. And just because a film has sentiment, that doesn't make it a craven lie or any kind of immoral manipulation. (Trust me, I've heard a lot of people respond to the question "Is 'Movie X' any good?" with "Yeah, it was really dark!")
E.T. is a sentimental film. So is TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Both are, as far as mainstream American cinema goes, masterpieces. To dismiss them as a "kid's flick" and a "chick flick" is to be rather pathetically reductive. To deny their intelligence or gravitas because they aim for a certain kind of softer, feminine reaction is malarkey. Conversely, to say that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is good because it is "dark", rather than because it is so much fun (which is the case), it to stubbornly stake a claim at staying 13 and sullen forever. (On the other hand, PATCH ADAMS is indeed bad because it is sentimental in a phony way, and most of Film Noir is wonderful because it IS dark... in an honest and earned way that resembles post-war angst a lot more than it resembles high-school poetry.)
So, SHAWSHANK. To these eyes, a three-star movie to its core, and not even helmer Darabont's best venture based on a Stephen King novella (that would be the B&W version of THE MIST.) And yet, the film's popularity is nearing the fervor of religion. And I think the above reason #2 is why: Here is a film with no women in sight, some violence and tough guys here and there, and a murder to kick it all off. To the one-dimensional male, this is clearly a sign that there is no false heart-string tugging on display. This safeguard bypassed, male viewers are then able to enjoy the film - a soppy, sentimental, eminently watchable melodrama that is no more or less honest in its feelings, nor any less sincere about its fondling of the heart-strings, than STEEL MAGNOLIAS - which is also a perfectly watchable three-star movie.
Grass Is Greener
I’ll stay away from the political and social ramifications of whether or not Marijuana (I capitalize out of respect) should be legalized here. Although I do think that once Washington is full of baby boomers and no longer haunted by greatest-generation holdovers who think of pot as “jazz cigarettes for the coloreds”, this “Devil’s weed with its roots in hell” will hardly be scary enough for lawmakers to resist legalizing, exploiting, and draining all the fun from.
No, what I want to talk about here is/are/am Movies (again, out of respect).
(These columns will generally vacillate between bits about Movies and bits about Rock and Roll. This is by no means a statement of purpose, or a healthy restriction of topics, but simply a measure of the rather limited scope but fiery focus of my expertise.)
So, as a bonus to you all as first-time readers of this first-time posting, I’ll keep this short, succinct, and, you know, generally lacking in extemporaneous verbiage. What I’m trying to say is that this will be a short piece. You can probably see where it ends even now, without having to scroll down at all. Nice, right? Life has gotten much, much faster these days, and that must be because there’s so much more good stuff out there to experience, right? So we won’t waste a-n-y more time.
I always feel the fourth paragraph is where you want to state your thesis, and I feel one coming on. And here it is: Marijuana is the only drug – and I include coffee and cigarettes, as well as alcohol, under that heading – that does NOT imply something negative about an on-screen character when that on-screen character makes use of it recreationally. It’s the only drug a character can smoke on-screen that does not necessarily point to a fixable-by-the-third-act character flaw.
If a character smokes cigarettes, he can’t be trusted. If he smokes a pipe, he’s a curmudgeon. If a character drinks coffee (in an establishing scene), she probably needs to spend the rest of the movie in Barbados rediscovering her groove. If a character has a headache and takes aspirin, the character just needs to find a good woman or man.
But if a character lights up a joint, that’s the filmmakers letting you know that this character is relaxed, hip, well-balanced, still young-at-heart, etc. Look at AMERICAN BEAUTY, EYES WIDE SHUT, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and on and on. In all these cases, despite the various outcomes, the revelation of the Marijuana in the cabinet is a revelation of humanity, a lack of stuffiness, etc.
Now, sure, at the end of WONDER BOYS, Michael Douglas has to throw his stash away. And we don’t ever want to see young kids smoking or huffing anything. Illegal is illegal, I suppose. But from Charlton Heston in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS to Cheech and Chong, the on-screen use of pot is almost always a signifier that “this guy is on the side of the humans.”
No, what I want to talk about here is/are/am Movies (again, out of respect).
(These columns will generally vacillate between bits about Movies and bits about Rock and Roll. This is by no means a statement of purpose, or a healthy restriction of topics, but simply a measure of the rather limited scope but fiery focus of my expertise.)
So, as a bonus to you all as first-time readers of this first-time posting, I’ll keep this short, succinct, and, you know, generally lacking in extemporaneous verbiage. What I’m trying to say is that this will be a short piece. You can probably see where it ends even now, without having to scroll down at all. Nice, right? Life has gotten much, much faster these days, and that must be because there’s so much more good stuff out there to experience, right? So we won’t waste a-n-y more time.
I always feel the fourth paragraph is where you want to state your thesis, and I feel one coming on. And here it is: Marijuana is the only drug – and I include coffee and cigarettes, as well as alcohol, under that heading – that does NOT imply something negative about an on-screen character when that on-screen character makes use of it recreationally. It’s the only drug a character can smoke on-screen that does not necessarily point to a fixable-by-the-third-act character flaw.
If a character smokes cigarettes, he can’t be trusted. If he smokes a pipe, he’s a curmudgeon. If a character drinks coffee (in an establishing scene), she probably needs to spend the rest of the movie in Barbados rediscovering her groove. If a character has a headache and takes aspirin, the character just needs to find a good woman or man.
But if a character lights up a joint, that’s the filmmakers letting you know that this character is relaxed, hip, well-balanced, still young-at-heart, etc. Look at AMERICAN BEAUTY, EYES WIDE SHUT, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and on and on. In all these cases, despite the various outcomes, the revelation of the Marijuana in the cabinet is a revelation of humanity, a lack of stuffiness, etc.
Now, sure, at the end of WONDER BOYS, Michael Douglas has to throw his stash away. And we don’t ever want to see young kids smoking or huffing anything. Illegal is illegal, I suppose. But from Charlton Heston in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS to Cheech and Chong, the on-screen use of pot is almost always a signifier that “this guy is on the side of the humans.”
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