Ladies and gentleman, what we have all been waiting for: A.O. Scott weighs in on The Dark Knight and the current state of the superhero genre: How Many Superheroes Does it Take to Tire a Genre?
If you've been around these parts before, you know the level of esteem I hold Tony Scott in. But I think he's substantially missed the boat on this one ( I said the same thing about Heath Ledger, then had to admit (provisional) error).
Tony writes: "Still, I have a hunch, and perhaps a hope, that “Iron Man,” “Hancock” and “Dark Knight” together represent a peak, by which I mean not only a previously unattained level of quality and interest, but also the beginning of a decline. In their very different ways, these films discover the limits built into the superhero genre as it currently exists."
He goes on: "But to paraphrase something the Joker says to Batman, “The Dark Knight” has rules, and they are the conventions that no movie of this kind can escape. The climax must be a fight with the villain, during which the symbiosis of good guy and bad guy, implicit throughout, must be articulated. The end must point forward to a sequel, and an aura of moral consequence must be sustained even as the killings, explosions and chases multiply." He continues in this vein, but for now, we have what we need.
First, a minor spoiler for The Dark Knight: "The climax must be a fight with the villain." Perhaps Mr. Scott and I watched a different movie, or are unsure who the villain is, or don't agree on what "fight" means. My favorite line in the entire movie is (paraphrasing): "Do you think I'd risk the battle for the soul of Gotham in a fist fight with you?" Tony, I don't know if you noticed, but there wasn't really a climax to this movie, and there wasn't really a fight between the hero and villain, or even between the hero or either of the villains. It just didn't happen. The movie wasn't interested in it. So when your point is that even the best superhero movies adhere to a formula, and then you lay out that formula, and the movie in question DOES NOT adhere to that formula, I think you've got trouble.
But beyond that singular but significant misstep, what I really want to discuss is A.O.'s analogy. After arguing that The Dark Knight only states serious questions, without ever exploring them. he writes: "And yet stating such themes is as far as the current wave of superhero movies seems able or willing to go. The westerns of the 1940s and ’50s, obsessed with similar themes, were somehow able, at their best, as in John Ford’s “Searchers” and Howard Hawks’s “Rio Bravo,” to find ambiguities and tensions buried in their own rigid paradigms."
Luckily for me, the Western is my primary area of expertise. So let me begin by saying that Red River would have been a better Hawks choice than Rio Bravo, in terms of dealing with those themes, and that Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may have been the most morally and intellectually sophisticated of all of them. And yet, the NY Times film critics of the day (Bosley Crowther and sidekick A.H. Weiler) said:
Red River: "And even despite a big let-down, which fortunately comes near the end, it stands sixteen hands above the level of routine horse opera these days." The "let-down" of which Crowther speaks is what Scott would call the "ambiguities and tensions" of the paradigm. As Crowther puts it, Red River is an excellent movie, but "runs smack into 'Hollywood'" conventions at its end.
The Searchers: "Mr. Ford, once started, doesn't seem to know when to stop. Episode is piled upon episode, climax upon climax and corpse upon corpse until the whole thing appears to be taking a couple of turns around the course. The justification for it is that it certainly conveys the lengthiness of the hunt, but it leaves one a mite exhausted, especially with the speed at which it goes."
The Searchers is considered by many to be the greatest film of all time, but if you've read any reviews of The Dark Knight, you know that many reviewers could have used this paragraph intact, except that they'd have to insert Nolan in place of Ford.
Rio Bravo (Weiler steps in, as Crowther was apparently tired of superheroes, er, I mean, Westerns): "Despite its slickness, virility, occasional humor and, if it may be repeated, authentic professional approach, it is well-made but awfully familiar fare." Just another Western.
And the coup is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which appeared after the Western's "peak" but today stands as one of the very best. Weiler sounds a a great deal like Scott on superheroes when he writes: "The Old West, ravaged by repetition and television, has begun to show signs of age...time has made their vehicle creaky. Their basically honest, rugged, and mature saga has been sapped of a great deal of effect by an obvious, overlong, and garrulous anticlimax." Too many Westerns, says Weiler! The formula is ravaged! Except the film he was watching wasn't formulaic and was a masterpiece. But he missed that.
The point of all this is not that to reprimand those critics who claim that The Dark Knight is a classic, or those critics who claim that The Dark Knight is not a classic, for making the decision too early. When you see a new movie, you have to call it like you see it, and you won't know how the film will be regarded in a few decades. But Tony didn't just write a review of The Dark Knight, he wrote an entire feature claiming that The Dark Knight didn't have the ability to render its genre problematic like the classic Westerns did.
And that is seriously going out on a limb. As we have seen, Scott's 50s counterparts did not realize those Westerns were masterpieces. They got it wrong, in each and every case - they praised those Westerns, but found them overlong, exhausting, anticlimatic, too Hollywood, etc. In other words, they made all the exact same arguments that Scott did about contemporary superheroes, particularly noting that they went on too long, had too clear a formula, and never managed to overcome that formula. But at least they did so in otherwise positive reviews. Scott wrote an entire piece making it clear that The Dark Knight didn't have that same ability to transcend its genre. He may not have to regret it. But I don't consider it very wise.
Showing posts with label A.O. Scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A.O. Scott. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Romantic Comedies Are for Boys Too
This week, the AFI released a new top 100 list. This time, instead of 100 "Great" films or films from an ur-genre (comedy, horror) they went with 10 films in 10 genres/subgenres. You can see the 10 lists here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_10_Top_10
One of the genres in question was Romantic Comedy. I mentioned to my wife that I wasn't happy with their top choice. She responded "Of course not, you hate romantic comedies." I want to set the record straight. I love romantic comedies. To explain why I love them, but my wife assumes I don't, involves a bit of history.
The romantic comedy almost always existed, but the most popular version of it was born with Frank Capra's 1934 screwball romantic comedy film It Happened One Night. Back then, romantic comedies were not women's pictures - women's pictures were melodramatic weepies like Now, Voyager or Stella Dallas. No, it was believed that both men and women were interested in watching an attractive couple engage in a game of wits and forge a lasting relationship, usually with some slapstick along the way. Many of my favorite films of all time, directed by masters such as George Cukor, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, come from this 20 year era of romantic comedy bliss.
The second era of romantic comedies I don't have much use for, although my wife loves them. They star people like Rock Hudson and Doris Day, not Cary Grant and Irenne Dunne, and dominated the 50s and the 60s. I don't know much about them - the only one I've seen is Pillow Talk - so I'll see if I can get Mrs. Moviesetal to weigh in.
Like everything else in Hollywood, the old romantic comedy was swept way in the late 60s and 70s in favor of a leaner, meaner version. Thus the Woody Allen (or Jewish) style romantic comedy was born, and we were treated to neurotic New York liberals who couldn't get together, not because of the Production Code, but because they weren't sure what their shrink would say. Again, many of my favorite films of all time, such as Manhattan and The Purple Rose of Cairo, come from this era of romantic comedy; once again, romantic comedies weren't just for women.
If you're under the age of 30 and not a classic film geek, we probably haven't any gotten to anything you'd consider a romantic comedy yet. I call this era the Nora Ephron era; bland leading men like Tom Hanks and Richard Gere team up with Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts to shit all over us with completely predictable exercises where some nonsensical conflict delays the inevitable wedding for 100 minutes before we're treated to matrimony. This is the era of Sleepless in Seattle, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, etc and the British Hugh Grant offshoot of Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary, etc. A.O. Scott has thoroughly destroyed this era of the genre in his review of 27 Dresses.
Like many men, who have long been trained to loathe them, I hate this era,. Thus, my wife believes I hate romantic comedies. But I actually love them; I just hate this fourth era of them. I guess I'm not alone. Let's look, finally, at the AFI List
I am Film Ignorant about City Lights and Harold and Maude, but I see the breakdown like this:
1.Screwball Era: 4/10 (Night, Holiday, Story, Rib) The 20 year era produces 40% of the films
2.The Pillow Talk Era: 0/10. The AFI feels the same way I do.
3.The Neurotic Era: 2.5/10. (Annie Hall, Moonstruck, and When Harry)
4.The Ephron Era: 1.5/10 (Sleepless and Met Sally)
5.None of the Above: 2/10 (Lights and Harold and Maude)
Although the AFI always shortchanges recent films, I think there's more to it than that. I think the Ephron era just sucks, and nearly got shut-out of the whole thing. Ditto, of course, for Pillow Talk and its brethren.
I would like to add one final note. I am currently excited about the romantic comedy era. The Ephron era is dead, financially. In 2007, its top moneymakers were #47. PS, I love You and #52. Music and Lyrics. And sitting right there at #14, with almost $150 million, is Knocked Up. That's right, Knocked Up is a romantic comedy - it's just a guy-based one, and not in a Made of Honor kind of way. The three best romantic comedies of the last 5 years, in fact, all come from Judd Apatow: Knocked Up, The 40-Year Old Virgin, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
So maybe, just maybe, we're crawling out of the Ephron era. Sure 27 Dresses made a bit more than Sarah Marshall...but remember, Katherine Heigl made the jump to A-lister in an Apatow film. Also, Forgetting Sarah Marshall didn't suck. If there's any any justice in this world, we'll be able to look back on the last 5 years and next 15 as the Apatow era. And romantic comedies can be, like they were for most of their history, for everybody.
One of the genres in question was Romantic Comedy. I mentioned to my wife that I wasn't happy with their top choice. She responded "Of course not, you hate romantic comedies." I want to set the record straight. I love romantic comedies. To explain why I love them, but my wife assumes I don't, involves a bit of history.
The romantic comedy almost always existed, but the most popular version of it was born with Frank Capra's 1934 screwball romantic comedy film It Happened One Night. Back then, romantic comedies were not women's pictures - women's pictures were melodramatic weepies like Now, Voyager or Stella Dallas. No, it was believed that both men and women were interested in watching an attractive couple engage in a game of wits and forge a lasting relationship, usually with some slapstick along the way. Many of my favorite films of all time, directed by masters such as George Cukor, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, come from this 20 year era of romantic comedy bliss.
The second era of romantic comedies I don't have much use for, although my wife loves them. They star people like Rock Hudson and Doris Day, not Cary Grant and Irenne Dunne, and dominated the 50s and the 60s. I don't know much about them - the only one I've seen is Pillow Talk - so I'll see if I can get Mrs. Moviesetal to weigh in.
Like everything else in Hollywood, the old romantic comedy was swept way in the late 60s and 70s in favor of a leaner, meaner version. Thus the Woody Allen (or Jewish) style romantic comedy was born, and we were treated to neurotic New York liberals who couldn't get together, not because of the Production Code, but because they weren't sure what their shrink would say. Again, many of my favorite films of all time, such as Manhattan and The Purple Rose of Cairo, come from this era of romantic comedy; once again, romantic comedies weren't just for women.
If you're under the age of 30 and not a classic film geek, we probably haven't any gotten to anything you'd consider a romantic comedy yet. I call this era the Nora Ephron era; bland leading men like Tom Hanks and Richard Gere team up with Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts to shit all over us with completely predictable exercises where some nonsensical conflict delays the inevitable wedding for 100 minutes before we're treated to matrimony. This is the era of Sleepless in Seattle, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, etc and the British Hugh Grant offshoot of Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary, etc. A.O. Scott has thoroughly destroyed this era of the genre in his review of 27 Dresses.
Like many men, who have long been trained to loathe them, I hate this era,. Thus, my wife believes I hate romantic comedies. But I actually love them; I just hate this fourth era of them. I guess I'm not alone. Let's look, finally, at the AFI List
I am Film Ignorant about City Lights and Harold and Maude, but I see the breakdown like this:
1.Screwball Era: 4/10 (Night, Holiday, Story, Rib) The 20 year era produces 40% of the films
2.The Pillow Talk Era: 0/10. The AFI feels the same way I do.
3.The Neurotic Era: 2.5/10. (Annie Hall, Moonstruck, and When Harry)
4.The Ephron Era: 1.5/10 (Sleepless and Met Sally)
5.None of the Above: 2/10 (Lights and Harold and Maude)
Although the AFI always shortchanges recent films, I think there's more to it than that. I think the Ephron era just sucks, and nearly got shut-out of the whole thing. Ditto, of course, for Pillow Talk and its brethren.
I would like to add one final note. I am currently excited about the romantic comedy era. The Ephron era is dead, financially. In 2007, its top moneymakers were #47. PS, I love You and #52. Music and Lyrics. And sitting right there at #14, with almost $150 million, is Knocked Up. That's right, Knocked Up is a romantic comedy - it's just a guy-based one, and not in a Made of Honor kind of way. The three best romantic comedies of the last 5 years, in fact, all come from Judd Apatow: Knocked Up, The 40-Year Old Virgin, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
So maybe, just maybe, we're crawling out of the Ephron era. Sure 27 Dresses made a bit more than Sarah Marshall...but remember, Katherine Heigl made the jump to A-lister in an Apatow film. Also, Forgetting Sarah Marshall didn't suck. If there's any any justice in this world, we'll be able to look back on the last 5 years and next 15 as the Apatow era. And romantic comedies can be, like they were for most of their history, for everybody.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
As you may know, I have two film critics that I feel particularly strongly about. I consider them two sides of the same coin, as they are both remarkably informed about film and literature, and both of them have developed a distinctive style, one that balances academic veracity and insight with a clarity and readability almost never found in academic writing. One of them takes all these skills and combines them with that most important of all critical features: taste. The other has no taste, but attempts to bring his criticism all together with an almost Michiko Kakutani-level of something else: pretension. A.O. Scott's taste is impeccable, and thus he can write both beautifully and wisely about Talledega Nights, Away from her, The Simpsons Movie, and The Lives of Others. Godfrey Cheshire has nothing but pretentiousness, and thus his taste in movies is always incomprehensible. These are my critical poles. This development has made me so very, very sad:
A.O. Scott writes about the new documentary Moving Midway:
"Some aspects of Godfrey Cheshire’s “Moving Midway” may also seem unlikely. Who, apart from Werner Herzog, would think of loading an old North Carolina plantation house onto a truck and moving it away from encroaching strip malls and sprawling developments? Mr. Cheshire’s cousin, as it happens. But the relocation of the house is only one piece of this extraordinarily rich documentary, which takes up the agonies and ironies of Southern history with remarkable wit, empathy and learning.
You bastard. I trusted you.
A.O. Scott writes about the new documentary Moving Midway:
"Some aspects of Godfrey Cheshire’s “Moving Midway” may also seem unlikely. Who, apart from Werner Herzog, would think of loading an old North Carolina plantation house onto a truck and moving it away from encroaching strip malls and sprawling developments? Mr. Cheshire’s cousin, as it happens. But the relocation of the house is only one piece of this extraordinarily rich documentary, which takes up the agonies and ironies of Southern history with remarkable wit, empathy and learning.
Mr. Cheshire, a New York film critic for many years, brings his intelligence and knowledge of the medium to bear on a primordial subject: What does it mean to think of a place as home?"
You bastard. I trusted you.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Top 20 Movies of 2007-2008
My Blog, my rules, so I'm gonna have a top 20 list of movies. Screw top 10 - I saw too many movies this year. Many critics' response to this problem (see: Godfrey Cheshire) is to have a 30-film long "honorable mentions" list, but that's a copout. I'm putting together a list of 20 films, in order of awesomeness. I'm also enclosing the number of publications that, according to metacritic, ranked each of these films the best of the year, so you can use that to decide how much my taste sucks - I'll try to find a Top 10 Tracker instead, since that'd be more representative, but I haven't found one yet. Enjoy. Soon, I'll try to add pictures and descriptions! (Try not to laugh if you stumble across this list in the year 2347, as part of your Doctoral Disseration on Film Blawgs of the early 21st century, and you find it without pictures or my comments).
Update: I'm too lazy to get pictures, and I've decided you don't necessarily need to hear from me again on these films, so I'm providing quotes for each of them from reviews by The Only Film Critic Who Matters. If he didn't review it, that film just has to sit without a quote and curse Dargis and Holden.
1.Away from Her
“I can’t remember the last time the movies yielded up a love story so painful, so tender and so true.”
2.Knocked Up (1)
“Mr. Apatow’s critique of contemporary mores is easy to miss — it is obscured as much by geniality as by profanity — but it is nonetheless severe and directed at the young men who make up the core of this film’s likely audience.”
3.No Country for Old Men (20)
“No Country for Old Men” is purgatory for the squeamish and the easily spooked. For formalists — those moviegoers sent into raptures by tight editing, nimble camera work and faultless sound design — it’s pure heaven.
4.The Lives of Others (2)
Georg and Captain Wiesler, though they occasionally waver and worry, remain true to their essential natures, and thus embody the film’s deepest, most challenging paradox: people don’t change, and yet the world does.
5.Rescue Dawn
6.Michael Clayton (3)
7.There Will be Blood (13)
8.Futurama: Bender's Big Score
9.Superbad
10.The Bourne Ultimatum (1)
11.Waitress (1)
Part feminist fable, part romantic fairy tale, it is by turns tart and sweet, charming and tough, rather like its heroine and like Keri Russell, the plucky, pretty, nimble actress (still perhaps best known as Felicity, from the television coming-of-age melodrama of the same name) who plays her.
12.The Simpsons Movie
I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to “The Simpsons.”
13.Once (2)
But its low-key affect and decidedly human scale endow “Once” with an easy, lovable charm that a flashier production could never have achieved. The formula is simple: two people, a few instruments, 88 minutes and not a single false note.
14.Persepolis
“Persepolis,” austere as it may look, is full of warmth and surprise, alive with humor and a fierce independence of spirit. Its flat, stylized depiction of the world — the streets and buildings of Tehran and Vienna in particular — turns geography into poetry.
15.3:10 to Yuma
Mr. Bale is one of the few screen actors who can convincingly shed the trappings of modernity. Dan is much more than a movie star in costume: with his gaunt, haggard face and wide, awe-struck eyes, he seems to have stepped out of a daguerreotype or a murder ballad.
16.The Lookout
17.American Gangster
18.The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (9.5)
Their common subject, however, is freedom, the self-willed liberation of a difficult, defiant individual. But Mr. Schnabel is not content simply to state or to dramatize this idea. Rather, he demonstrates his own imaginative freedom in every frame and sequence, dispensing with narrative and expository conventions in favor of a wild, intuitive honesty.
19.Enchanted
20.The Host
Honorable Mentions: Hot Fuzz, because everyone seems to have forgotten about it, and it was awesome, although less awesome than both Shaun of the Dead and the preceding 20 movies. Otherwise, I don't think you need a list of other movies I saw that were good, but not as good as these.
Regrets: I didn't see (and wanted or at least felt obligated to see) Lars and the Real Girl, Great World of Sound, No End in Sight, The Savages, This is England, King of Kong, Election and Triad Election, Across the Universe, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Charlie Wilson's War, I'm Not There. I also didn't see 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, but I blame the film industry/Mr. Stone for that.
Update: I'm too lazy to get pictures, and I've decided you don't necessarily need to hear from me again on these films, so I'm providing quotes for each of them from reviews by The Only Film Critic Who Matters. If he didn't review it, that film just has to sit without a quote and curse Dargis and Holden.
1.Away from Her
“I can’t remember the last time the movies yielded up a love story so painful, so tender and so true.”
2.Knocked Up (1)
“Mr. Apatow’s critique of contemporary mores is easy to miss — it is obscured as much by geniality as by profanity — but it is nonetheless severe and directed at the young men who make up the core of this film’s likely audience.”
3.No Country for Old Men (20)
“No Country for Old Men” is purgatory for the squeamish and the easily spooked. For formalists — those moviegoers sent into raptures by tight editing, nimble camera work and faultless sound design — it’s pure heaven.
4.The Lives of Others (2)
Georg and Captain Wiesler, though they occasionally waver and worry, remain true to their essential natures, and thus embody the film’s deepest, most challenging paradox: people don’t change, and yet the world does.
5.Rescue Dawn
6.Michael Clayton (3)
7.There Will be Blood (13)
8.Futurama: Bender's Big Score
9.Superbad
10.The Bourne Ultimatum (1)
11.Waitress (1)
Part feminist fable, part romantic fairy tale, it is by turns tart and sweet, charming and tough, rather like its heroine and like Keri Russell, the plucky, pretty, nimble actress (still perhaps best known as Felicity, from the television coming-of-age melodrama of the same name) who plays her.
12.The Simpsons Movie
I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to “The Simpsons.”
13.Once (2)
But its low-key affect and decidedly human scale endow “Once” with an easy, lovable charm that a flashier production could never have achieved. The formula is simple: two people, a few instruments, 88 minutes and not a single false note.
14.Persepolis
“Persepolis,” austere as it may look, is full of warmth and surprise, alive with humor and a fierce independence of spirit. Its flat, stylized depiction of the world — the streets and buildings of Tehran and Vienna in particular — turns geography into poetry.
15.3:10 to Yuma
Mr. Bale is one of the few screen actors who can convincingly shed the trappings of modernity. Dan is much more than a movie star in costume: with his gaunt, haggard face and wide, awe-struck eyes, he seems to have stepped out of a daguerreotype or a murder ballad.
16.The Lookout
17.American Gangster
18.The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (9.5)
Their common subject, however, is freedom, the self-willed liberation of a difficult, defiant individual. But Mr. Schnabel is not content simply to state or to dramatize this idea. Rather, he demonstrates his own imaginative freedom in every frame and sequence, dispensing with narrative and expository conventions in favor of a wild, intuitive honesty.
19.Enchanted
20.The Host
Honorable Mentions: Hot Fuzz, because everyone seems to have forgotten about it, and it was awesome, although less awesome than both Shaun of the Dead and the preceding 20 movies. Otherwise, I don't think you need a list of other movies I saw that were good, but not as good as these.
Regrets: I didn't see (and wanted or at least felt obligated to see) Lars and the Real Girl, Great World of Sound, No End in Sight, The Savages, This is England, King of Kong, Election and Triad Election, Across the Universe, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Charlie Wilson's War, I'm Not There. I also didn't see 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, but I blame the film industry/Mr. Stone for that.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Love, A.O. Scott Style
Just after I weighed in on love, our Patron Saint decided to do so as well. He's a better writer than me. Enjoy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/movies/03scot.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/movies/03scot.html
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Heath Ledger
I haven't offended anyone yet that I know of with this blog, so I think it's about time to start. Heath Ledger died yesterday. Here are my thoughts.
1. Yes, it is sad. But, you know, not really anymore sad than anyone else dying (you didn't know Heath Ledger) unless you were deeply invested in Heath Ledger. If Owen Wilson had died, it would have meant a great deal to me. Heath Ledger, not so much. Which is not to say that Heath Ledger is less important than anyone else - but people die everyday and I don't worry about it too much. The fact that I knew of this particular man doesn't make his death anymore important to me than the death of others I was unfamiliar with, especially since, for the most part, I disliked his work.
2.Heath Ledger was not a very good actor. Yes, he was absolutely magnificent in Brokeback Mountain. I call this the Val Kilmer in Tombstone rule: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and then turns in one academy award caliber performance, it's still a duck. Just because Heath was great in one movie doesn't undo his otherwise general badness.
I will admit, I have not seen all of his movies. Here's what I have seen/not seen.
Not seen: Ned Kelly, Monster's Ball, Candy, Ned Kelly, The Order, The Brothers Grimm, Lords of Dogtown, The Four Feathers, I'm not There. I've heard good things about him in Ball, otherwise, nothing there interests me.
Seen (rating him, not the movie):
10 Things I hate About You: Bleck
The Patriot: Double-bleck
A Knight's Tale: Bleck
Casanova: Are Triple-blecks allowed?
Brokeback Mountain: nearly flawless.
So that's it. In 5 movies, a total of 4 (or 7) blecks and one really good performance.
3.The Dark Knight proviso. All word and trailers so far have pointed towards Ledger being amazing in the upcoming Batman sequel. If indeed he is excellent, I will consider amending my evaluation of him from "even a broken clock is right twice a day" to "many truly excellent actors start off crappy and hone their craft." We'll never be able to tell if he would have indeed made a Paul Newman-like development, but a great job as The Joker would at least suggest it. Stay tuned.
4.A.O. Scott missed this one. Check out this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/movies/24appr.html for "An Actor Whose Work Will Outlast the Frenzy," Scott's piece about how great Heath Ledger was, even if he didn't have time to live up to his potential. Scott does note that: "It seems inevitable that he will now be inscribed in the cult of the beautiful stars who died too young, alongside James Dean, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe." I agree with this. I haven't seen quite enough of Clift and Dean to be sure, but although those three were all beautiful, my initial thought is that none of them were actually that great at acting. Like those three, I think Ledger's critical reputation will be burnished over time by his death. We'll find out eventually
1. Yes, it is sad. But, you know, not really anymore sad than anyone else dying (you didn't know Heath Ledger) unless you were deeply invested in Heath Ledger. If Owen Wilson had died, it would have meant a great deal to me. Heath Ledger, not so much. Which is not to say that Heath Ledger is less important than anyone else - but people die everyday and I don't worry about it too much. The fact that I knew of this particular man doesn't make his death anymore important to me than the death of others I was unfamiliar with, especially since, for the most part, I disliked his work.
2.Heath Ledger was not a very good actor. Yes, he was absolutely magnificent in Brokeback Mountain. I call this the Val Kilmer in Tombstone rule: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and then turns in one academy award caliber performance, it's still a duck. Just because Heath was great in one movie doesn't undo his otherwise general badness.
I will admit, I have not seen all of his movies. Here's what I have seen/not seen.
Not seen: Ned Kelly, Monster's Ball, Candy, Ned Kelly, The Order, The Brothers Grimm, Lords of Dogtown, The Four Feathers, I'm not There. I've heard good things about him in Ball, otherwise, nothing there interests me.
Seen (rating him, not the movie):
10 Things I hate About You: Bleck
The Patriot: Double-bleck
A Knight's Tale: Bleck
Casanova: Are Triple-blecks allowed?
Brokeback Mountain: nearly flawless.
So that's it. In 5 movies, a total of 4 (or 7) blecks and one really good performance.
3.The Dark Knight proviso. All word and trailers so far have pointed towards Ledger being amazing in the upcoming Batman sequel. If indeed he is excellent, I will consider amending my evaluation of him from "even a broken clock is right twice a day" to "many truly excellent actors start off crappy and hone their craft." We'll never be able to tell if he would have indeed made a Paul Newman-like development, but a great job as The Joker would at least suggest it. Stay tuned.
4.A.O. Scott missed this one. Check out this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/movies/24appr.html for "An Actor Whose Work Will Outlast the Frenzy," Scott's piece about how great Heath Ledger was, even if he didn't have time to live up to his potential. Scott does note that: "It seems inevitable that he will now be inscribed in the cult of the beautiful stars who died too young, alongside James Dean, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe." I agree with this. I haven't seen quite enough of Clift and Dean to be sure, but although those three were all beautiful, my initial thought is that none of them were actually that great at acting. Like those three, I think Ledger's critical reputation will be burnished over time by his death. We'll find out eventually
Thursday, January 3, 2008
10 Down
1. Women. Women have had a bad year in Hollywood - such a bad year that it could be its own post. Waitress started the year off great, and Juno closed it, but in between nothing but bad stuff happened to women. First of all Adrienne Shelly, the writer-director-co-star of Waitress, was murdered. Then you've got the infamous, possibly apocryphal statement by WB exec Jeff Robinov that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." Enter Judd Apatow sausage-fests like Knocked Up and Superbad; in the former, the women are well-treated but get way less screen time and fun, while in the latter women are at best sexual objects and at worst the coming catastrophe that destroys young male homosociality. As A.O. Scott said about Juno, in response to the Apatow films: "Despite what most products of the Hollywood comedy boys’ club would have you believe, it is possible to possess both a uterus and a sense of humor." Every female actress of note in the entire world was packed into Evening (Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Natasha Richardson) but it sucked so no one went to see it. So, we've still got Juno. I guess that's about it.
2.Sequels. I hated the first two Spider-man movies, but the critics liked them. I liked the first two Shrek movies and the first two Rush Hour movies. Nobody liked Fantastic Four, and the people liked National Treasure, but not the critics. All of those franchises were in different places, and all of them had different levels of financial success in their 2007 offerings, but all the 2007 offerings had one thing in common: they all sucked, to differing degrees. Most of them alot.
3.The War on Terror. In the Valley of Elah was pretty good, and I've heard good things about Charlie Wilson's War and The Kingdom. That's the best that can be said: 3 ok movies that got ok reviews and made ok money. Then, of course, there's Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, and probably some other crap I'm forgetting that no critics liked and no one saw. Oh well. Just rent Three Kings.
4.Biopics. Last year, a mediocre biopic, Walk the Line, had Oscar success, and a couple years back an even worse film, Ray, also had inexplicable success. This year, two French biopics (Moliere and La Vie en Rose) were mostly ignored while Todd Haynes' I'm Not There made biopics look pathetically conservative (which they are) and Judd Apatow's Walk Hard made them look stupid (they are). No more biopics, ever.
5.John C. Reilly. Everything Judd Apatow touches turns to gold. So when he elevated perpetual fourth fiddle John C. Reilly to lead in his spoof of Hollywood's worst genre, Reilly's road to stardom seemed paved to success - hell, it even got good reviews. This one time out, though, Apatow turned some lead to more lead, and the only possible explanation I can come up with is that people just aren't interested in Reilly. Maybe there'll be a Talladega Nights sequel starring him or something, but don't count on it.
6.The Lives of Others. This German film took a double whammy this year. First, us pathetic non-Manhattanites got our first look at it this year, but it won last year's Oscar for best foreign picture. Some critics put it on top 10 lists this year, some not. Frankly, I don't know what to do with it on my own list, and this annoys me. More importantly, although Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the film's overly-named debut director, is still alive, we lost its 54-year old star, Ulrich Muhe, to cancer before he had a chance to bring us more of his captivating underplaying. God, people keep dying on this list.
7.The Independent Film Channel. The IFC has a great new plan for releasing movies: release them simultaneously on demand on cable, the internet, and in one pretentious theater somewhere in Manhattan. So that means the renowned This is England will never come near me in theaters, so I have to watch it on my laptop screen. I've wanted to watch it for months, but I don't like watching movies on my laptop screen. Couldn't we just keep seeing movies, you know, in movie theaters - without moving to Manhattan?
8.Rich white people who think their lives suck so much that they have to go off to Alaska and die for no reason, so that another rich white person can write a book about it for rich white people to read in bookclubs, and then have other rich white people make a movie about it for rich white people to go see in independent movie theaters while drinking halfcalf double foam vanilla lattes and oohing and ahhing about the plight of unhappy rich white people.
9. Star Power. In addition to the Rubinov quote, it was a rough year for stars. Put simply, no one will go see a movie just because a star is in it, ever again. They have to want to see the movie itself. This means brilliant fare such as Michael Clayton goes unnoticed because George Clooney can't sell a movie all by himself, but it also probably means no more Julia Roberts vehicles forever. At least an even trade.
10.Manohla Dargis. She's a good critic. But every time I see that she reviewed a movie I wanted to hear about from A.O, my soul shriveled a little.
2.Sequels. I hated the first two Spider-man movies, but the critics liked them. I liked the first two Shrek movies and the first two Rush Hour movies. Nobody liked Fantastic Four, and the people liked National Treasure, but not the critics. All of those franchises were in different places, and all of them had different levels of financial success in their 2007 offerings, but all the 2007 offerings had one thing in common: they all sucked, to differing degrees. Most of them alot.
3.The War on Terror. In the Valley of Elah was pretty good, and I've heard good things about Charlie Wilson's War and The Kingdom. That's the best that can be said: 3 ok movies that got ok reviews and made ok money. Then, of course, there's Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, and probably some other crap I'm forgetting that no critics liked and no one saw. Oh well. Just rent Three Kings.
4.Biopics. Last year, a mediocre biopic, Walk the Line, had Oscar success, and a couple years back an even worse film, Ray, also had inexplicable success. This year, two French biopics (Moliere and La Vie en Rose) were mostly ignored while Todd Haynes' I'm Not There made biopics look pathetically conservative (which they are) and Judd Apatow's Walk Hard made them look stupid (they are). No more biopics, ever.
5.John C. Reilly. Everything Judd Apatow touches turns to gold. So when he elevated perpetual fourth fiddle John C. Reilly to lead in his spoof of Hollywood's worst genre, Reilly's road to stardom seemed paved to success - hell, it even got good reviews. This one time out, though, Apatow turned some lead to more lead, and the only possible explanation I can come up with is that people just aren't interested in Reilly. Maybe there'll be a Talladega Nights sequel starring him or something, but don't count on it.
6.The Lives of Others. This German film took a double whammy this year. First, us pathetic non-Manhattanites got our first look at it this year, but it won last year's Oscar for best foreign picture. Some critics put it on top 10 lists this year, some not. Frankly, I don't know what to do with it on my own list, and this annoys me. More importantly, although Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the film's overly-named debut director, is still alive, we lost its 54-year old star, Ulrich Muhe, to cancer before he had a chance to bring us more of his captivating underplaying. God, people keep dying on this list.
7.The Independent Film Channel. The IFC has a great new plan for releasing movies: release them simultaneously on demand on cable, the internet, and in one pretentious theater somewhere in Manhattan. So that means the renowned This is England will never come near me in theaters, so I have to watch it on my laptop screen. I've wanted to watch it for months, but I don't like watching movies on my laptop screen. Couldn't we just keep seeing movies, you know, in movie theaters - without moving to Manhattan?
8.Rich white people who think their lives suck so much that they have to go off to Alaska and die for no reason, so that another rich white person can write a book about it for rich white people to read in bookclubs, and then have other rich white people make a movie about it for rich white people to go see in independent movie theaters while drinking halfcalf double foam vanilla lattes and oohing and ahhing about the plight of unhappy rich white people.
9. Star Power. In addition to the Rubinov quote, it was a rough year for stars. Put simply, no one will go see a movie just because a star is in it, ever again. They have to want to see the movie itself. This means brilliant fare such as Michael Clayton goes unnoticed because George Clooney can't sell a movie all by himself, but it also probably means no more Julia Roberts vehicles forever. At least an even trade.
10.Manohla Dargis. She's a good critic. But every time I see that she reviewed a movie I wanted to hear about from A.O, my soul shriveled a little.
10 Up
I work at the Chelsea Movie Theater in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and generally we hold, when making our lists of the Top 10 films of the year, that the movie year is from one Oscars telecast to the next, not Jan-Dec. We don't have A.O. Scott's luxury of living in New York and being paid to see all the movies that come out months before the Oscars telecast in Manhattan - we have to wait for the movies if we get them at all. Thus, I can't do a top 10 list, because Atonement, The Savages, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, There Will be Blood, and pretty much an entire second half of a top ten list haven't showed up here. But, in honor of the new year, and a new blog, I will post here a list of the 10 entities I see as having had the best and worst year, so far. Let's start with 10 up.
1.Josh Brolin. If you'd asked me who Josh Brolin was a year ago, I would have said "who?" You could have even told me he was in Mimic, which I saw, and I would have had no idea who he was. But, in 2007, he made up part of a stellar cast of In the Valley of Elah, scared the hell out of me as a Zombie doctor in Grindhouse, anchored the sublime No Country for Old Men between sociopath Javier Bardem and world-weary Tommy Lee Jones, and stole every goddamn scene he was in in American Gangster. I think I can safely say he had the best year of anyone.
2.Seth Rogen. So far, my favorite movie of the year has been Judd Apatow's testosterone-fueled maternity epic Knocked Up, and that movie rested on the shoulders of Rogen, everyone's favorite lovable slacker. Throw in the fact that he co-wrote another Apatow hit, Superbad, and contributed to that film's brilliant cast, and you've got a year that only a Brolin could top.
3.Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jones sure is a tracker/hunter/sheriff, isn't he? Do yourself a favor and see No Country for Old Men and In the Valley of Elah for two absolutely beautiful portraits of a lawman trying to solve a crime that threatens to rend his sanity in two. Then do yourself another favor and see the same thing happen in his excellent directorial debut from last year, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Then watch The Fugitive just to see stuff blow-up. Finally, rent 2003's The Hunted and tell me why I thought it was good when no one else did. Also, more stuff blows up, at least at the beginning
4.Tony Gilroy. In terms of good movies, actually good movies, not just campfests or Sean Connery romps, I think the Bourne series now beats the Bond series 3-1 (Casino Royale*). Gilroy, who you might not have heard of, wrote all three of the Bourne movies, and each was better than the last, culminating in this year's amazing Bourne Ultimatum. But Gilroy also wrote and made his directorial debut with Michael Clayton, which was even better than any of the Bourne movies and made legal thrillers thrilling again. Take that, John Grisham.
5.Judd Apatow. Judd would probably have been number two, behind only the mustachioed Brolin, but Walk Hard bombed. I'm sure the hundreds of millions of dollars he made this year with Superbad and Knocked Up will console him for this fall from grace on my first annual 10 Up feature.
6.Russell Crowe. God I love Russell Crowe. And this year he accomplished the impossible: prior to out-acting the excellent Denzel Washington in American Gangster, his flashy outlaw in 3:10 to Yuma showed up Christian Bale, the man Werner Herzog proclaimed the best actor of his generation. If you're better than Christian Bale at anything, you had a good year. Also, I'd like to see them have a push-up contest (shirtless, of course).
7.Christian Bale. God I love Christian Bale.
8.Werner Herzog. I know Herzog hasn't been gone, but it's felt like he has - I like documentaries very much, but I miss his fiction features. We got the first one in years in Rescue Dawn, which showcased Steve Zahn, the lush environment of Thailand (standing in for Vietnam), Christian Bale's astonishing ability to lose weight, Christian Bale's slack jaw, and Christian Bale. Awesome.
9.The Princess Bride. Hollywood fairy tales have gone the Shrek route since, well, Shrek, and it was good to see Disney revive the tongue-in-cheek but considerably lighter touch of Princess Bride in Enchanted. Even more Princess Bride-ish is Stardust, the likewise excellent and likewise lightly condescending but ultimately satisfying take on fairy tales.
10.Wes Anderson. The Life Aquatic was good but disappointing, and Darjeeling Limited proved that, while we don't know what the future holds, ol' Wes has still got it, whatever it is. Plus, as every critic and "blogger" never ceases to point out, without Wes, you wouldn't have seen Juno, Rocket Science, Margot at the Wedding, or any other movie about charming and quirky hipsters who try to make their lives work while battling quirkily crippling social disorders and having cool music play in the background. And I like those movies.
*What, you want to argue Goldfinger? Dr. No? Thunderball? Go back and watch them first - I love them, but they're not good. That's why I love them.
1.Josh Brolin. If you'd asked me who Josh Brolin was a year ago, I would have said "who?" You could have even told me he was in Mimic, which I saw, and I would have had no idea who he was. But, in 2007, he made up part of a stellar cast of In the Valley of Elah, scared the hell out of me as a Zombie doctor in Grindhouse, anchored the sublime No Country for Old Men between sociopath Javier Bardem and world-weary Tommy Lee Jones, and stole every goddamn scene he was in in American Gangster. I think I can safely say he had the best year of anyone.
2.Seth Rogen. So far, my favorite movie of the year has been Judd Apatow's testosterone-fueled maternity epic Knocked Up, and that movie rested on the shoulders of Rogen, everyone's favorite lovable slacker. Throw in the fact that he co-wrote another Apatow hit, Superbad, and contributed to that film's brilliant cast, and you've got a year that only a Brolin could top.
3.Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jones sure is a tracker/hunter/sheriff, isn't he? Do yourself a favor and see No Country for Old Men and In the Valley of Elah for two absolutely beautiful portraits of a lawman trying to solve a crime that threatens to rend his sanity in two. Then do yourself another favor and see the same thing happen in his excellent directorial debut from last year, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Then watch The Fugitive just to see stuff blow-up. Finally, rent 2003's The Hunted and tell me why I thought it was good when no one else did. Also, more stuff blows up, at least at the beginning
4.Tony Gilroy. In terms of good movies, actually good movies, not just campfests or Sean Connery romps, I think the Bourne series now beats the Bond series 3-1 (Casino Royale*). Gilroy, who you might not have heard of, wrote all three of the Bourne movies, and each was better than the last, culminating in this year's amazing Bourne Ultimatum. But Gilroy also wrote and made his directorial debut with Michael Clayton, which was even better than any of the Bourne movies and made legal thrillers thrilling again. Take that, John Grisham.
5.Judd Apatow. Judd would probably have been number two, behind only the mustachioed Brolin, but Walk Hard bombed. I'm sure the hundreds of millions of dollars he made this year with Superbad and Knocked Up will console him for this fall from grace on my first annual 10 Up feature.
6.Russell Crowe. God I love Russell Crowe. And this year he accomplished the impossible: prior to out-acting the excellent Denzel Washington in American Gangster, his flashy outlaw in 3:10 to Yuma showed up Christian Bale, the man Werner Herzog proclaimed the best actor of his generation. If you're better than Christian Bale at anything, you had a good year. Also, I'd like to see them have a push-up contest (shirtless, of course).
7.Christian Bale. God I love Christian Bale.
8.Werner Herzog. I know Herzog hasn't been gone, but it's felt like he has - I like documentaries very much, but I miss his fiction features. We got the first one in years in Rescue Dawn, which showcased Steve Zahn, the lush environment of Thailand (standing in for Vietnam), Christian Bale's astonishing ability to lose weight, Christian Bale's slack jaw, and Christian Bale. Awesome.
9.The Princess Bride. Hollywood fairy tales have gone the Shrek route since, well, Shrek, and it was good to see Disney revive the tongue-in-cheek but considerably lighter touch of Princess Bride in Enchanted. Even more Princess Bride-ish is Stardust, the likewise excellent and likewise lightly condescending but ultimately satisfying take on fairy tales.
10.Wes Anderson. The Life Aquatic was good but disappointing, and Darjeeling Limited proved that, while we don't know what the future holds, ol' Wes has still got it, whatever it is. Plus, as every critic and "blogger" never ceases to point out, without Wes, you wouldn't have seen Juno, Rocket Science, Margot at the Wedding, or any other movie about charming and quirky hipsters who try to make their lives work while battling quirkily crippling social disorders and having cool music play in the background. And I like those movies.
*What, you want to argue Goldfinger? Dr. No? Thunderball? Go back and watch them first - I love them, but they're not good. That's why I love them.
A Note on Blogging
So first of all, god, I have a blog. I find this pretty inappropriate, as I am against blogs in general. My wife has one, and my friend Russ has one, and presumably other people that I know that walk around like normal people are also secretly, in a different life, "bloggers." So it seems like I should follow suit. I actually have another one that I made for a class I was in, but since I was in charge of my own project I decided not to update it. It has one post.
This blog, as you might be able to guess from the title, will be mostly about movies, although I'm sure I'll also hold forth on comics, literature, music, and politics, in roughly that order of frequency. I will do my best to never mention any sandwiches that I have eaten, or my cats, or when I'm having a bad day. In other words, I shall try to keep the "blogging" to a minimum.
Finally, I should start with the one tenet that guides this blog: A.O. Scott is always right. If I ever disagree with him, I will reserve the right to do so on this blog, but I will also bring shame to myself for disagreeing with him and thus being wrong. Best I can do, folks.
This blog, as you might be able to guess from the title, will be mostly about movies, although I'm sure I'll also hold forth on comics, literature, music, and politics, in roughly that order of frequency. I will do my best to never mention any sandwiches that I have eaten, or my cats, or when I'm having a bad day. In other words, I shall try to keep the "blogging" to a minimum.
Finally, I should start with the one tenet that guides this blog: A.O. Scott is always right. If I ever disagree with him, I will reserve the right to do so on this blog, but I will also bring shame to myself for disagreeing with him and thus being wrong. Best I can do, folks.
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