It's been a while since I've done a real trailer post, since most of the big ones in recent months have been for the summer blockbusters, and I've been avoiding those. A lot of marketers have proven that they're perfectly happy to ruin a movie experience in the process of selling it to you this year. However, this week has been all about Cannes, and studios have been previewing some of their more serious films, due in theaters later in the fall and winter, which could turn out to be awards contenders. The marketing in this area tends to exhibit more self-control, so I've taken in a few of the coming attractions. "The Hobbit" was already covered in a previous post, and alas, I have not seen that seven-minute preview of "Django Unchained" out there. Links lead to Trailer Addict and Youtube.
The Master - This is my favorite kind of trailer, something simple and direct that gives you actual substance, something to whet your appetite for what's to come. Without telling you what the film is about, the preview for "The Master" offers up a brief snippet of conversation between Joaquin Phoenix's character and someone who appears to be law enforcement, rife with tension and hidden implications. The minimal, but quietly ominous music sets the mood and the tone. Bad things are a afoot, and I can't wait to see what they are.
The Great Gatsby - This is pinging as more "Moulin Rouge!" than "Australia," though with Baz Luhrman involved, it was never going to be a sedate adaptation. The trailer's emphasis on visual spectacle (3D? Really?) means we don't get much of the actual performances that are going to make or break this. So far, Joel Edgerton is looking way too much like Richard Roxburgh's Evil Duke, Carey Mulligan makes an adorable flapper, and Leo hasn't got a thing on Robert Redford. But it's too early to draw any conclusions.
The We and the I - Michel Gondry returns to indies after his "Green Hornet" misadventures. There are apparently some fantasy elements that creep their way into the movie, but all the trailer shows is a multiracial cast of teenagers taking the bus home on the last day of school, and the various dramas and intrigues playing out among them. Early reports suggest that "The We and the I" may be a little too raw, with its non-professional actors and unconventional bent, but it's still nice to see Gondry striking out in new directions.
Hyde Park on Hudson - This could be mistaken as a sequel to "The King's Speech," as "Hyde Park" is chiefly concerned with a visit by King George VI and his wife Elizabeth to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Hyde Park estate in 1939, for hijinks and talk of war. The trailer is pure Oscar bait, and selling the film as more lighthearted and sentimental than it may actually be. But the glimpses of Bill Murray as FDR, Olivia Williams as Eleanor, and Laura Linney as family confidante Margaret Suckly, have sold me already.
Argo - This is Ben Affleck's most ambitious directing job yet, and so far so good. I wish he had cast someone else as the lead, as Affleck has proven to be a stronger director than he is a performer, but I won't begrudge him the chance to rehabilitate his leading man status. At least he's gotten himself out of Boston at last, and into the middle of a covert operation to help rescue six Americans during the Iran Hostage crisis. There's plenty of material here for a good caper film, but I'm a little worried about the more dramatic bits.
Cosmopolis - I wasn't sure what to make of David Cronenberg's last film, "A Dangerous Method," and so far I have no idea what's going on in "Cosmopolis." However, I think that whoever is in charge of marketing here may be getting a little carried away calling this "the first film about our new millennium.” That said, I like the science-fiction elements, I like the bizarreness, and Robert Pattinson is not giving me any reason to think he can't pull this off. And good grief, have you seen the rest of the cast for this thing?
Amour - This one probably won't make much impact Stateside, but cinephiles ignore Michael Haneke at their own peril. End of life narratives tend to very upsetting for me, and I expect Haneke's take is going to be even more so. But at the same time, there are few who makes films as powerful and terrifying as he does anymore. It's probably going to take me a while to work up to it, but "Amour" looks to be one of those films I simply have to see.
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Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Highest Grossing Films I Haven't Seen
I'm stealing the idea for this post from Tim Brayton over at the excellent Antagony & Ecstasy. I've spent the last few years trying to fill in the holes in my film knowledge by tackling the classics, but largely ignoring the films that most people have actually seen, when you use box office earnings as a rough proxy for number of tickets sold. So where are the gaps in my knowledge of modern popular movies? Let's take a look at the ten highest grossing films I haven't watched, and find out.
For the purposes of this exercise, I'm leaving out "The Hunger Games," at #14 and "The Lorax," at #107, which were only released in March, and which I fully intend to see when they hit DVD in a few more months. Also, I'm consolidating some of the film series I haven't seen into single entries.
#19. The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,782,930 - Even my mother ended up in a theater for this one, but "Passion of the Christ" had its big cultural moment and then disappeared very quickly, so i never got swept up in all the hype. However, this is one of the only modern religious films that managed to make any impact on the American culture, so I am a little curious about it. There's a good chance I'll see it some day.
#21. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) $352,390,543 - I sat through the first two "Transformers" films in a state of increasing boredom and discomfort, both times because someone else wanted to watch them. I've managed to escape any social pressure to see the third entry, which I hear is better than the remarkably awful "Revenge of the Fallen," but I have no desire to go and confirm this. I'm done with "Transformers" until the reboot.
#40, 41, 52, 129. The Twilight Saga (2008-present) $1,071,212,372 total - I went through my high school vampire phase with "Buffy" and Anne Rice, and probably would have liked the "Twilight" books and movies if I were younger. However, I've picked up enough about "Twilight" from the media to know I wouldn't enjoy it as a grown-up. I'm glad for the success of the series because of the new opportunities it has created, but the films are not for me.
#53. Meet the Fockers (2004) $279,261,160 - I haven't seen "Meet the Parents" either. Modern comedy has been one of my blind spots, because I simply don't find a lot of the recent ones funny, and never connected with the major stars. Ben Stiller is tolerable, which is more than I can say for many of his colleagues, but I only tend to see his movies by chance. "Meet the Parents" and its sequels passed me by completely.
#82. Cast Away (2000) $233,632,142 - Another movie that everyone seemed to get caught up in at a certain point in time, that I just missed. I remember Tom Hanks being up for an Oscar for this, and Wilson the volleyball is a permanent pop culture fixture, but I wasn't curious enough to seek out "Cast Away" and find out what all the fuss was about. Given a choice, though, I'd pick this movie to watch over everything else on the list.
#91, 99, 291. Alvin and the Chipmunks Series (2007-2011) $570,823,098 total - Animation has always been a weakness of mine, and my go-to for brainless filler. I've seen all the "Ice Age" and "Madagascar" movies. Where I draw the line, however, is the reboots of old toons like "Alvin and the Chipmunks." I grew up with the 2D originals and I just can't get my head around the weird-looking CGI versions today's kids are watching.
#110. Wedding Crashers (2005) $209,255,921 - I had to Google to figure out who had starred in "Wedding Crashers" alongside Owen Wilson - it was Vince Vaughn. I've missed several of the primary Frat Pack movies, including "Old School," "Dodgeball," and "Anchorman," and I'm not very interested in catching up. This is not the kind of humor I enjoy, and frankly it still kinda mystifies me that Vince Vaughn is considered a comedic actor.
#122. Pearl Harbor (2001) $198,542,554 - One of Michael Bay's last stabs at serious filmmaking, if I remember right. The trailer was very impressive, but from the lugubrious bits and pieces of the actual movie I've caught from cable broadcasts, I was right to skip it. The film was notoriously loose with the historical record, and boasts a three hour running time, and then there's the Ben Affleck-Kate Beckinsale-Josh Hartnett love triangle. Oof.
#144. What Women Want (2000) $182,811,707 - This is the second Mel Gibson movie to appear, though I think it's more telling that this is one of three films from the year 2000 on the list, a point in time where I simply wasn't paying much attention to current movies. I'm sure "What Women Want" is a perfectly fine romantic comedy. The previews look fun and there was a recent Chinese remake. I think I also had this confused with "Dr. T and the Women."
#146. The Perfect Storm (2000) $182,618,434 - George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg starred in this? Really? I remember "The Perfect Storm" being a big summer disaster movie that was being pushed on the strength of its special effects, but it didn't seem to have much else going for it. And looking back, it has left almost no cultural footprint, no lasting impression on the cinema landscape. I take that as a good reason to keep ignoring it.
And for fun, here are my results when you adjust for inflation.
#34. Love Story (1970) $554,385,300
#39. Cleopatra (1963) $532,093,000
#42. Airport (1970) $523,601,400
#44. The Robe (1953) $518,400,000
#50. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) $496,941,200
#55. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) $475,200,000
#57. The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,782,930
#81. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) $426,693,300
#91. Duel in the Sun (1946) $404,081,600
#110. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) $363,673,500
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For the purposes of this exercise, I'm leaving out "The Hunger Games," at #14 and "The Lorax," at #107, which were only released in March, and which I fully intend to see when they hit DVD in a few more months. Also, I'm consolidating some of the film series I haven't seen into single entries.
#19. The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,782,930 - Even my mother ended up in a theater for this one, but "Passion of the Christ" had its big cultural moment and then disappeared very quickly, so i never got swept up in all the hype. However, this is one of the only modern religious films that managed to make any impact on the American culture, so I am a little curious about it. There's a good chance I'll see it some day.
#21. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) $352,390,543 - I sat through the first two "Transformers" films in a state of increasing boredom and discomfort, both times because someone else wanted to watch them. I've managed to escape any social pressure to see the third entry, which I hear is better than the remarkably awful "Revenge of the Fallen," but I have no desire to go and confirm this. I'm done with "Transformers" until the reboot.
#40, 41, 52, 129. The Twilight Saga (2008-present) $1,071,212,372 total - I went through my high school vampire phase with "Buffy" and Anne Rice, and probably would have liked the "Twilight" books and movies if I were younger. However, I've picked up enough about "Twilight" from the media to know I wouldn't enjoy it as a grown-up. I'm glad for the success of the series because of the new opportunities it has created, but the films are not for me.
#53. Meet the Fockers (2004) $279,261,160 - I haven't seen "Meet the Parents" either. Modern comedy has been one of my blind spots, because I simply don't find a lot of the recent ones funny, and never connected with the major stars. Ben Stiller is tolerable, which is more than I can say for many of his colleagues, but I only tend to see his movies by chance. "Meet the Parents" and its sequels passed me by completely.
#82. Cast Away (2000) $233,632,142 - Another movie that everyone seemed to get caught up in at a certain point in time, that I just missed. I remember Tom Hanks being up for an Oscar for this, and Wilson the volleyball is a permanent pop culture fixture, but I wasn't curious enough to seek out "Cast Away" and find out what all the fuss was about. Given a choice, though, I'd pick this movie to watch over everything else on the list.
#91, 99, 291. Alvin and the Chipmunks Series (2007-2011) $570,823,098 total - Animation has always been a weakness of mine, and my go-to for brainless filler. I've seen all the "Ice Age" and "Madagascar" movies. Where I draw the line, however, is the reboots of old toons like "Alvin and the Chipmunks." I grew up with the 2D originals and I just can't get my head around the weird-looking CGI versions today's kids are watching.
#110. Wedding Crashers (2005) $209,255,921 - I had to Google to figure out who had starred in "Wedding Crashers" alongside Owen Wilson - it was Vince Vaughn. I've missed several of the primary Frat Pack movies, including "Old School," "Dodgeball," and "Anchorman," and I'm not very interested in catching up. This is not the kind of humor I enjoy, and frankly it still kinda mystifies me that Vince Vaughn is considered a comedic actor.
#122. Pearl Harbor (2001) $198,542,554 - One of Michael Bay's last stabs at serious filmmaking, if I remember right. The trailer was very impressive, but from the lugubrious bits and pieces of the actual movie I've caught from cable broadcasts, I was right to skip it. The film was notoriously loose with the historical record, and boasts a three hour running time, and then there's the Ben Affleck-Kate Beckinsale-Josh Hartnett love triangle. Oof.
#144. What Women Want (2000) $182,811,707 - This is the second Mel Gibson movie to appear, though I think it's more telling that this is one of three films from the year 2000 on the list, a point in time where I simply wasn't paying much attention to current movies. I'm sure "What Women Want" is a perfectly fine romantic comedy. The previews look fun and there was a recent Chinese remake. I think I also had this confused with "Dr. T and the Women."
#146. The Perfect Storm (2000) $182,618,434 - George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg starred in this? Really? I remember "The Perfect Storm" being a big summer disaster movie that was being pushed on the strength of its special effects, but it didn't seem to have much else going for it. And looking back, it has left almost no cultural footprint, no lasting impression on the cinema landscape. I take that as a good reason to keep ignoring it.
And for fun, here are my results when you adjust for inflation.
#34. Love Story (1970) $554,385,300
#39. Cleopatra (1963) $532,093,000
#42. Airport (1970) $523,601,400
#44. The Robe (1953) $518,400,000
#50. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) $496,941,200
#55. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) $475,200,000
#57. The Passion of the Christ (2004) $370,782,930
#81. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) $426,693,300
#91. Duel in the Sun (1946) $404,081,600
#110. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) $363,673,500
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Delays, Delays
One of the reasons it's so frustrating to follow movies sometimes is the sudden changes in scheduling. The character of a season can change in the blink of an eye. After lengthy speculation as to whether Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" would be completed in time for a 2012 release, a recent teaser trailer and a round of promotions at the Cannes Film Festival all but guarantee that it's going to be one of the major awards contenders this winter. Meanwhile, Alponso Cuaron's "Gravity," starring Sandra Bullock, had been slotted for a November 21, 2012 release date for months, but last week it was announced that it was being pushed back to 2013. There were test screenings for an incomplete version going on earlier in the spring, but it’s been suggested that the production has hit delays, and apparently the competitive holiday season means a shortage of 3D screens in November and December. So Warners is opting to delay the film.
Rumors abound, but it's impossible to tell what’s really going on. We don’t know if the movie tested well or not. We don't know if the move is meant to give Cuaron more time to finish his special effects, or because the studio doesn't think that it can compete with the likes of "Skyfall" and "The Hobbit," or if this is merely a tactical move so Warners isn't wrangling too many pictures in the same awards season – they’ll be juggling Baz Luhrmann’s “Great Gatsby,” and the Wachowskis’ “Cloud Atlas,” along with “The Hobbit.” "Gravity" was one of my most anticipated films going into 2012, and I've been very conscientious about not reading any of the reactions from screenings and not buying into any conspiracy theories. And yet, I'm extremely curious as to what Warners' thinking is here. This isn't the only film that they've delayed this year. "Jack the Giant Killer" was originally scheduled for this June, but got pushed back to March, 2013. The stated reason for the delay was to finish up special effects and take advantage of "The Hobbit" to launch a marketing push. Most observers noted that March is becoming a more lucrative month for big budget releases, while much less competitive than the middle of summer, so "Jack" would probably fare better there.
That narrative doesn't quite work for "Gravity" though. If it's anywhere near as ambitious as the hype seems to indicate, shouldn't Warners want to take advantage of awards season? On the other hand, with so many awards inching their deadlines earlier and earlier, if the film is struggling with post-production and has to be rushed to make its November deadline, it might be worth it to wait until the next awards season in 2013. Warners got burned last year with "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" being left out of contention for several key awards due to late screenings. "Gravity" doesn't have a new release date yet, but where it ends up on the schedule will say a lot about how commercially viable Warners thinks it is. The later in the year it resurfaces, the better. Hopefully it won't be another case like "47 Ronin," Universal's samurai film with Keanu Reeves, which was also supposed to open on November 21, 2012. An expensive production with a first-time director, the project is reputedly a troubled one, and its new release date reflects this - February 8, 2013.
Other former 2012 releases include the Brad Pitt zombie film "World War Z," which was scheduled for December, but pushed back to a comfortable June, 2013 berth, a Sylvester Stallone vehicle, "Bullet to the Head," which went from April, 2012, to February, 2013, and "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," which originally slated for March, 2012, but is now being dumped in January, 2013. The remake of "Gambit" with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz nearly ended up there too, but CBS Films had a change of heart and pulled it back to October 12, 2012. Now I want to emphasize that a release date really has nothing to do with the quality of a film, but rather its perceived commercial prospects, which have a major effect on marketing and distribution. Some of these moves signal serious problems, but others are simply a matter of the studios trying to balance out their release slates, or working out marketing strategies.
Consider the multiple delays of John Hillcoat's "Lawless," formerly known as "The Wettest County in the World." The Weinstein Company acquired it at Cannes a year ago, and was originally considering it for a 2011 awards season run, but they had a lot of major contenders already, so the film was moved to April, 2012. A few months ago, it was delayed again to August, purportedly to take advantage of any buzz for "Lawless" leading man Tom Hardy after "The Dark Knight Rises" bows in July, where Hardy plays the villain Bane. All the repositioning doesn’t appear to have hurt “Lawless,” a movie most average movie watchers never heard of before this week, but it’s still frustrating as hell for those of us who just want to see the damn thing already.
So it goes with “Gravity.” The movie is high profile enough that Warners won’t sit on it for too long, so it’s just a matter of waiting to see what tactic they want to use to sell it to us. Relying on awards buzz next year means waiting until after Labor Day. If they think it’s a blockbuster prospect, maybe June or July. If they don’t want to take a risk that big, but still think it could make some money on the strength of its concept and stars alone, maybe March or April.
Fortunately, there are a lot of other interesting movies coming out in 2012 to keep us distracted. And “Gravity” may end up being part of a very promising run of science fiction pictures in 2013 – Neil Blomkamps’ “Elysium,” Joseph Kosinski’s “Oblivion,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pacific Rim,” and “Ender’s Game” among others. I fully expect that 2012 is still going to be a great movie year, in spite of my most anticipated film no longer being part of it. And it’s always nice to have a few more movies to look forward to for next year.
UPDATE: Deadline broke the news today that "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is being moved to March, 2013 too, a little more than a month before it was set to open on June 29, 2012. They want to covert it to 3D and avoid the potential summer crush, which is all well and good, but has there been another case where a studio has waited to pull a film this close to its intended release date? The trailers have been out for months already.
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Rumors abound, but it's impossible to tell what’s really going on. We don’t know if the movie tested well or not. We don't know if the move is meant to give Cuaron more time to finish his special effects, or because the studio doesn't think that it can compete with the likes of "Skyfall" and "The Hobbit," or if this is merely a tactical move so Warners isn't wrangling too many pictures in the same awards season – they’ll be juggling Baz Luhrmann’s “Great Gatsby,” and the Wachowskis’ “Cloud Atlas,” along with “The Hobbit.” "Gravity" was one of my most anticipated films going into 2012, and I've been very conscientious about not reading any of the reactions from screenings and not buying into any conspiracy theories. And yet, I'm extremely curious as to what Warners' thinking is here. This isn't the only film that they've delayed this year. "Jack the Giant Killer" was originally scheduled for this June, but got pushed back to March, 2013. The stated reason for the delay was to finish up special effects and take advantage of "The Hobbit" to launch a marketing push. Most observers noted that March is becoming a more lucrative month for big budget releases, while much less competitive than the middle of summer, so "Jack" would probably fare better there.
That narrative doesn't quite work for "Gravity" though. If it's anywhere near as ambitious as the hype seems to indicate, shouldn't Warners want to take advantage of awards season? On the other hand, with so many awards inching their deadlines earlier and earlier, if the film is struggling with post-production and has to be rushed to make its November deadline, it might be worth it to wait until the next awards season in 2013. Warners got burned last year with "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" being left out of contention for several key awards due to late screenings. "Gravity" doesn't have a new release date yet, but where it ends up on the schedule will say a lot about how commercially viable Warners thinks it is. The later in the year it resurfaces, the better. Hopefully it won't be another case like "47 Ronin," Universal's samurai film with Keanu Reeves, which was also supposed to open on November 21, 2012. An expensive production with a first-time director, the project is reputedly a troubled one, and its new release date reflects this - February 8, 2013.
Other former 2012 releases include the Brad Pitt zombie film "World War Z," which was scheduled for December, but pushed back to a comfortable June, 2013 berth, a Sylvester Stallone vehicle, "Bullet to the Head," which went from April, 2012, to February, 2013, and "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," which originally slated for March, 2012, but is now being dumped in January, 2013. The remake of "Gambit" with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz nearly ended up there too, but CBS Films had a change of heart and pulled it back to October 12, 2012. Now I want to emphasize that a release date really has nothing to do with the quality of a film, but rather its perceived commercial prospects, which have a major effect on marketing and distribution. Some of these moves signal serious problems, but others are simply a matter of the studios trying to balance out their release slates, or working out marketing strategies.
Consider the multiple delays of John Hillcoat's "Lawless," formerly known as "The Wettest County in the World." The Weinstein Company acquired it at Cannes a year ago, and was originally considering it for a 2011 awards season run, but they had a lot of major contenders already, so the film was moved to April, 2012. A few months ago, it was delayed again to August, purportedly to take advantage of any buzz for "Lawless" leading man Tom Hardy after "The Dark Knight Rises" bows in July, where Hardy plays the villain Bane. All the repositioning doesn’t appear to have hurt “Lawless,” a movie most average movie watchers never heard of before this week, but it’s still frustrating as hell for those of us who just want to see the damn thing already.
So it goes with “Gravity.” The movie is high profile enough that Warners won’t sit on it for too long, so it’s just a matter of waiting to see what tactic they want to use to sell it to us. Relying on awards buzz next year means waiting until after Labor Day. If they think it’s a blockbuster prospect, maybe June or July. If they don’t want to take a risk that big, but still think it could make some money on the strength of its concept and stars alone, maybe March or April.
Fortunately, there are a lot of other interesting movies coming out in 2012 to keep us distracted. And “Gravity” may end up being part of a very promising run of science fiction pictures in 2013 – Neil Blomkamps’ “Elysium,” Joseph Kosinski’s “Oblivion,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pacific Rim,” and “Ender’s Game” among others. I fully expect that 2012 is still going to be a great movie year, in spite of my most anticipated film no longer being part of it. And it’s always nice to have a few more movies to look forward to for next year.
UPDATE: Deadline broke the news today that "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is being moved to March, 2013 too, a little more than a month before it was set to open on June 29, 2012. They want to covert it to 3D and avoid the potential summer crush, which is all well and good, but has there been another case where a studio has waited to pull a film this close to its intended release date? The trailers have been out for months already.
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Monday, May 21, 2012
Kevin Smith's New Show
So I'm browsing through Filmschoolrejects this morning, when the following headline catches my eye: Kevin Smith Turning Movie Website Comment Sections Into a Show. The article is talking about "Spoilers," the just announced Hulu exclusive series that Smith will be premiering later in the summer. After reading the associated Deadline and Wired articles, this is going to be a movie talk show of sorts, with major segments reviewing and discussing recent mainstream movies, and smaller bits for guest filmmakers and a Criterion corner - Hulu is hosting a good chunk of the Criterion Collection on its site, remember.
I wouldn't characterize "Spoilers" as a "comment section brought to life" though. For one thing, the show's contributors, a passel of fifty film geeks that Smith is in the process of rounding up, won't be anonymous. The anonymity is an important component of most online fandom interactions, as it frees people up to be more profane and non-PC and altogether more honest than they would be offline. Online discussion groups are varied in character from the low-brow, young male id driven Ain't it Cool News, to the more thoughtful crowd that frequents the AV Club. Suppressing participants' ruder impulses would affect one more than the other, but there would be a significant impact on both. Think of the recent spate of celebrities who have gotten themselves in trouble by shooting their mouths off on Twitter. Comments that wouldn't raise an eyebrow if they were coming from an account bearing an obvious pseudonym suddenly have a lot more weight when they're attributable to a real person.
And then you've got the in-jokes and the off-topic tangents and the memes and the grudges and the nutcases who keep popping up in discussion after discussion, all things that help the best forums and message boards and comment sections really develop into their own little communities. You'd get little to none of this community-building in a TV show or web series, which would be beholden to certain time constraints and format considerations. We might become familiar with some of the more prominent contributors, but it just wouldn't be the same. The only way you're getting a show that is a "comment section brought to life" is if you hire a couple of actors to do selected readings from a real one. And frankly, that would make for a pretty tedious series.
It looks like what Smith is really trying to do here is create a more populist version of a traditional review show, using a forum of fifty participants to interact with, instead of the more familiar two-man format, or a small panel of critics. Logistically, I'm not sure how this is all going to work. Are they going to let the roomful of opinionated film geeks just go at it by themselves free-form for a few hours, and then assemble the show from the most interesting arguments? Are they going to have Kevin Smith lead the thing like a class discussion? Are they going to spotlight a few movie geeks each week, or let a few of the loudest voices and strongest personalities dominate, as they always do in these situations? There are going to be a lot of bumps to work out, but the mass participation is an interesting idea and I'm curious to see how Smith and his collaborators are going to realize it. Sure sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
Kevin Smith also has a second season of his "Comic Book Men" unscripted show for AMC in the works, and together with "Spoilers" it looks like the director has found a good post-directing niche for himself on television/whatever the hell Hulu is. I'm generally not very keen on shows about fanboy culture, which can get indulgent and silly very quickly, but if they're going down that road, better that they have someone like Kevin Smith in charge, who at least knows what he's talking about. I'd rather he continue directing movies, especially as "Red State" showed that Smith is very capable working outside of his own little Askewniverse, but I it's nice to have him around in any capacity. As for "Spoilers," I doubt that it'll be a replacement for the sorely missed "At the Movies," but it could certainly help to start filling the void.
And Kevin Smith touting the Criterion Collection? Potentially discussing the merits of Godard and Truffaut? This I've got to see.
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I wouldn't characterize "Spoilers" as a "comment section brought to life" though. For one thing, the show's contributors, a passel of fifty film geeks that Smith is in the process of rounding up, won't be anonymous. The anonymity is an important component of most online fandom interactions, as it frees people up to be more profane and non-PC and altogether more honest than they would be offline. Online discussion groups are varied in character from the low-brow, young male id driven Ain't it Cool News, to the more thoughtful crowd that frequents the AV Club. Suppressing participants' ruder impulses would affect one more than the other, but there would be a significant impact on both. Think of the recent spate of celebrities who have gotten themselves in trouble by shooting their mouths off on Twitter. Comments that wouldn't raise an eyebrow if they were coming from an account bearing an obvious pseudonym suddenly have a lot more weight when they're attributable to a real person.
And then you've got the in-jokes and the off-topic tangents and the memes and the grudges and the nutcases who keep popping up in discussion after discussion, all things that help the best forums and message boards and comment sections really develop into their own little communities. You'd get little to none of this community-building in a TV show or web series, which would be beholden to certain time constraints and format considerations. We might become familiar with some of the more prominent contributors, but it just wouldn't be the same. The only way you're getting a show that is a "comment section brought to life" is if you hire a couple of actors to do selected readings from a real one. And frankly, that would make for a pretty tedious series.
It looks like what Smith is really trying to do here is create a more populist version of a traditional review show, using a forum of fifty participants to interact with, instead of the more familiar two-man format, or a small panel of critics. Logistically, I'm not sure how this is all going to work. Are they going to let the roomful of opinionated film geeks just go at it by themselves free-form for a few hours, and then assemble the show from the most interesting arguments? Are they going to have Kevin Smith lead the thing like a class discussion? Are they going to spotlight a few movie geeks each week, or let a few of the loudest voices and strongest personalities dominate, as they always do in these situations? There are going to be a lot of bumps to work out, but the mass participation is an interesting idea and I'm curious to see how Smith and his collaborators are going to realize it. Sure sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
Kevin Smith also has a second season of his "Comic Book Men" unscripted show for AMC in the works, and together with "Spoilers" it looks like the director has found a good post-directing niche for himself on television/whatever the hell Hulu is. I'm generally not very keen on shows about fanboy culture, which can get indulgent and silly very quickly, but if they're going down that road, better that they have someone like Kevin Smith in charge, who at least knows what he's talking about. I'd rather he continue directing movies, especially as "Red State" showed that Smith is very capable working outside of his own little Askewniverse, but I it's nice to have him around in any capacity. As for "Spoilers," I doubt that it'll be a replacement for the sorely missed "At the Movies," but it could certainly help to start filling the void.
And Kevin Smith touting the Criterion Collection? Potentially discussing the merits of Godard and Truffaut? This I've got to see.
---
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Well, There Goes the "Community"
Oh, the studios can be so unkind. Yesterday, about an hour after I posted my final thoughts on the third season of "Community," it was announced that Sony had removed series creator Dan Harmon from the showrunner position. He'll be replaced by David Guarascio and Moses Port, who previously worked on "Happy Endings," "Aliens in America" and "Just Shoot Me." Harmon will be kept on in the limited capacity of executive consultant, a position which Harmon clarified this morning amounts to absolutely no creative control or input. This comes on the heels of the show's executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan signing with 20th Century Fox TV. To top it off Chris McKenna, who wrote some of the show's best episodes like "Paradigms of Human Memory" and "Remedial Chaos Theory," and vital directors Joe and Anthony Russo are also gone.
Moving "Community" to a Friday night, 8:30PM time slot following "Whitney" was bad enough, but at least I could see the logic. After three seasons and seventy-one episodes, it's clear that "Community" is a niche show, too smart and too unconventional to attract more than a small audience, but it's an audience that loves it. Harmon was rumored to be demanding, difficult to work with, and often just plain unpleasant, as the feud with Chevy Chase brought to light, but he fought for the show creatively. He's the one responsible for the consistently high level of quality and originality. Removing Harmon all but guarantees that "Community" will never be the same. We've seen it happen time and again, with shows like "The West Wing" and "Gilmore Girls." Once the original creators depart, sharks are jumped shortly thereafter.
However, this is exactly what Sony and NBC want. This is their last-ditch effort to help the low-rated "Community" shed some of its oddity and find a bigger audience. That's really the saddest part of all this. In order for "Community" to be a ratings success on network television, it has to become more palatable to the masses, which probably means being forced to compromise, to pander, and go for the easier jokes instead of the glorious heights of absurdity that it regularly reached. The only way to save "Community" may be to dumb it down, and that is simply too high a price to pay for six seasons and a movie. Personally, after seeing the third season end on such a high note, it might be best to just let "Community" end. "Arrested Development" had a similarly short-lived but celebrated run, and the show lives on undiminished as a cult favorite.
Moreover, I suspect that NBC's tactics are going to backfire. With the show stuck on Fridays and most potential viewers having made up their minds about it already, it's hard to figure how "Community" is going to pick up that broader mainstream audience. And there's the considerable risk that "Community's" hardcore group of fans, who would be willing to follow "Community" to Fridays, are going to be alienated by the changes. Remember, a lot of people who may not count in the ratings numbers are watching episodes online and buying the DVD sets.
It has been widely speculated that "Community" only got a fourth season so that enough episodes could be produced to sell the show in syndication. NBC could have just let the show continue with Harmon through a final half-season and seen it end on its own terms. They did that this season with the similarly low-rated fan favorite "Chuck." Right now I'm really ticked off that this possibility has been taken away from the fans of the show, who have supported and cheered on "Community" through tough times. It was such a relief to hear that NBC had renewed the show, but now it turns out the cake is a lie, and we've all been duped. Can you blame me for feeling bitter?
I've seen several reaction pieces already this morning, urging patience, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I'm sorry, but no matter how I look at this, we're getting a terrible deal. Nearly all the key behind-the-scenes creative talent is gone. The ambitious, metatextual, experimental, yes-you-can-do-that-on-television spirit of "Community" is going with them, because it's clear that this is not what NBC and Sony want. I wish the new guys luck, but whatever they come up with will be a different show, a placeholder, an understudy.
As far as I'm concerned right now, "Community" got three great seasons and ended before its time.
---
Moving "Community" to a Friday night, 8:30PM time slot following "Whitney" was bad enough, but at least I could see the logic. After three seasons and seventy-one episodes, it's clear that "Community" is a niche show, too smart and too unconventional to attract more than a small audience, but it's an audience that loves it. Harmon was rumored to be demanding, difficult to work with, and often just plain unpleasant, as the feud with Chevy Chase brought to light, but he fought for the show creatively. He's the one responsible for the consistently high level of quality and originality. Removing Harmon all but guarantees that "Community" will never be the same. We've seen it happen time and again, with shows like "The West Wing" and "Gilmore Girls." Once the original creators depart, sharks are jumped shortly thereafter.
However, this is exactly what Sony and NBC want. This is their last-ditch effort to help the low-rated "Community" shed some of its oddity and find a bigger audience. That's really the saddest part of all this. In order for "Community" to be a ratings success on network television, it has to become more palatable to the masses, which probably means being forced to compromise, to pander, and go for the easier jokes instead of the glorious heights of absurdity that it regularly reached. The only way to save "Community" may be to dumb it down, and that is simply too high a price to pay for six seasons and a movie. Personally, after seeing the third season end on such a high note, it might be best to just let "Community" end. "Arrested Development" had a similarly short-lived but celebrated run, and the show lives on undiminished as a cult favorite.
Moreover, I suspect that NBC's tactics are going to backfire. With the show stuck on Fridays and most potential viewers having made up their minds about it already, it's hard to figure how "Community" is going to pick up that broader mainstream audience. And there's the considerable risk that "Community's" hardcore group of fans, who would be willing to follow "Community" to Fridays, are going to be alienated by the changes. Remember, a lot of people who may not count in the ratings numbers are watching episodes online and buying the DVD sets.
It has been widely speculated that "Community" only got a fourth season so that enough episodes could be produced to sell the show in syndication. NBC could have just let the show continue with Harmon through a final half-season and seen it end on its own terms. They did that this season with the similarly low-rated fan favorite "Chuck." Right now I'm really ticked off that this possibility has been taken away from the fans of the show, who have supported and cheered on "Community" through tough times. It was such a relief to hear that NBC had renewed the show, but now it turns out the cake is a lie, and we've all been duped. Can you blame me for feeling bitter?
I've seen several reaction pieces already this morning, urging patience, trying to make the best of a bad situation. I'm sorry, but no matter how I look at this, we're getting a terrible deal. Nearly all the key behind-the-scenes creative talent is gone. The ambitious, metatextual, experimental, yes-you-can-do-that-on-television spirit of "Community" is going with them, because it's clear that this is not what NBC and Sony want. I wish the new guys luck, but whatever they come up with will be a different show, a placeholder, an understudy.
As far as I'm concerned right now, "Community" got three great seasons and ended before its time.
---
Friday, May 18, 2012
Another Season of "Community"
NBC aired the last three "Community" episodes of the season last night. It was almost too much. First, there was the animated video game episode, one of the best straight parodies they've ever done. Then came the heist episode that paid off the Chang storyline with the doppelganger Dean. Finally, we had an episode that tied up a lot of loose ends, and could have served as a nice series finale if "Community" hadn't been picked up for a fourth season. All in all it was a great capper to a suspenseful year of ups and downs, highs and lows. We definitely need a post to wrap up the season.
"Community" had some significant growing pains this year. It added Jim Rash's Dean Pelton to the cast, and was often in locations outside of Greendale, such as Troy and Abed's apartment. This meant there was less focus on classes and studying, and more on the characters' changing relationships. As a result, this was a terrible year for the guest stars, with the severe underuse of John Goodman and Michael K. Williams as potential antagonists. Among the regulars, we had mixed results. Annie moved in with Troy and Abed part-way through the season, which ruffled some feathers. There was the brief Troy and Abed split, which didn't yield nearly as much good material as I was hoping for. However, Troy and Britta's increasingly cuddly attraction to each other has been a great vein of humor all year. Meanwhile, Chang became a security guard at Greendale, amassed an army of preteens, and took over the school. It was a good move for him, as Chang always worked best in the role of unhinged authority figure. However, Pierce and Shirley didn't get much to do outside of squabbling over Shirley's sandwich shop, and Jeff has become much less apathetic to his friends' troubles since last year, but had a tendency progress or regress depending on what the plot needed from him. Also, no movement on the Jeff and Annie romance at all.
Of course, this was also the year of seven different timelines and the pillow fort v. the blanket fort saga. And the "Law & Order" episode. And the "Glee" episode. And fooseball. And Inspector Spacetime and Constable Reggie and the Blorgons (Can you believe "Inspector Spacetime" was only introduced in this season?). And "Kiss from a Rose" karaoke. And "Roxanne" karaoke. And a new television commercial for Greendale Community College. And the Air Conditioning Repair Annex. And the black and white Michael Jackson impersonators. And Cornelius Hawthorne and his ivory hairpiece. And another blatant Subway promotion. It was a year of more running gags and story devices, revisiting some concepts and ideas, but with new variations. Hence another documentary episode, but in the form of a behind the scenes "making of" chronicle. And another fake clip show couched in a therapy session with John Hodgman. The "normal" episodes were few and far between, but the normal episodes were getting odder and the odder, while the weird ones often had the best character development, such as the installment where Annie learns to use the Dreamatorium and navigate the inner workings of Abed's head.
Some of the more ambitious ideas didn't work. The Halloween episode had a lot of good gags, but it wasn't up to par. Chang's stint as a film noir detective early in the year had me worried that is character was going in the wrong direction, before he started recruiting minions. Also, while I appreciate that Dan Harmon and the writers were trying to add more thematically interesting material, particularly Abed's fear of change and Troy's continuing maturation putting them at odds, sometimes they were too on the nose about their intentions. Evil Abed was great for a gag, but his later appearances were really hitting us over the head with Abed's mental baggage. Ditto Britta's decision to declare herself a psychology major and using it as an excuse to play therapist with her friends. Britta was great this season, but she didn't need the extra schtick. Ditto some of the more outrageous plot developments like the Dean being replaced and the Greendale Seven being briefly expelled. The school kept getting farther and farther away from reality, so it was a relief that the finale was a fairly by-the-book collection of smaller, low-key stories, that reestablished the status quo after several weeks of escalating madness.
The third season of "Community" is probably my least favorite overall, but it has some of the best episodes in the show's run, and I admire that it was trying to improve on what it had done in the past, and to strike out in different directions. Ironically, I think it got a little too far from its roots while at the same time devoting so much more time and attention to the relationships at the heart of the show. Pierce and Shirley still need more to do, but I think that's a given at this point. However, this season did manage to establish is that "Community" is no longer Jeff Winger's show. He's now sharing the narrative pretty equally with Troy and Annie, and to a lesser extent Abed and Britta. And that's a good thing.
Here's hoping for a back nine order for Season Four, and that they'll cast someone awesome to play Jeff's dad.
'Til next season, fellow Greendale Human Beings.
---
"Community" had some significant growing pains this year. It added Jim Rash's Dean Pelton to the cast, and was often in locations outside of Greendale, such as Troy and Abed's apartment. This meant there was less focus on classes and studying, and more on the characters' changing relationships. As a result, this was a terrible year for the guest stars, with the severe underuse of John Goodman and Michael K. Williams as potential antagonists. Among the regulars, we had mixed results. Annie moved in with Troy and Abed part-way through the season, which ruffled some feathers. There was the brief Troy and Abed split, which didn't yield nearly as much good material as I was hoping for. However, Troy and Britta's increasingly cuddly attraction to each other has been a great vein of humor all year. Meanwhile, Chang became a security guard at Greendale, amassed an army of preteens, and took over the school. It was a good move for him, as Chang always worked best in the role of unhinged authority figure. However, Pierce and Shirley didn't get much to do outside of squabbling over Shirley's sandwich shop, and Jeff has become much less apathetic to his friends' troubles since last year, but had a tendency progress or regress depending on what the plot needed from him. Also, no movement on the Jeff and Annie romance at all.
Of course, this was also the year of seven different timelines and the pillow fort v. the blanket fort saga. And the "Law & Order" episode. And the "Glee" episode. And fooseball. And Inspector Spacetime and Constable Reggie and the Blorgons (Can you believe "Inspector Spacetime" was only introduced in this season?). And "Kiss from a Rose" karaoke. And "Roxanne" karaoke. And a new television commercial for Greendale Community College. And the Air Conditioning Repair Annex. And the black and white Michael Jackson impersonators. And Cornelius Hawthorne and his ivory hairpiece. And another blatant Subway promotion. It was a year of more running gags and story devices, revisiting some concepts and ideas, but with new variations. Hence another documentary episode, but in the form of a behind the scenes "making of" chronicle. And another fake clip show couched in a therapy session with John Hodgman. The "normal" episodes were few and far between, but the normal episodes were getting odder and the odder, while the weird ones often had the best character development, such as the installment where Annie learns to use the Dreamatorium and navigate the inner workings of Abed's head.
Some of the more ambitious ideas didn't work. The Halloween episode had a lot of good gags, but it wasn't up to par. Chang's stint as a film noir detective early in the year had me worried that is character was going in the wrong direction, before he started recruiting minions. Also, while I appreciate that Dan Harmon and the writers were trying to add more thematically interesting material, particularly Abed's fear of change and Troy's continuing maturation putting them at odds, sometimes they were too on the nose about their intentions. Evil Abed was great for a gag, but his later appearances were really hitting us over the head with Abed's mental baggage. Ditto Britta's decision to declare herself a psychology major and using it as an excuse to play therapist with her friends. Britta was great this season, but she didn't need the extra schtick. Ditto some of the more outrageous plot developments like the Dean being replaced and the Greendale Seven being briefly expelled. The school kept getting farther and farther away from reality, so it was a relief that the finale was a fairly by-the-book collection of smaller, low-key stories, that reestablished the status quo after several weeks of escalating madness.
The third season of "Community" is probably my least favorite overall, but it has some of the best episodes in the show's run, and I admire that it was trying to improve on what it had done in the past, and to strike out in different directions. Ironically, I think it got a little too far from its roots while at the same time devoting so much more time and attention to the relationships at the heart of the show. Pierce and Shirley still need more to do, but I think that's a given at this point. However, this season did manage to establish is that "Community" is no longer Jeff Winger's show. He's now sharing the narrative pretty equally with Troy and Annie, and to a lesser extent Abed and Britta. And that's a good thing.
Here's hoping for a back nine order for Season Four, and that they'll cast someone awesome to play Jeff's dad.
'Til next season, fellow Greendale Human Beings.
---
Thursday, May 17, 2012
A Week of Westerns
Westerns have always been one of my blind spots. I've never liked them. When I was younger, when tales of cowboys and gunfighters were far more prevalent on television, they always seemed to blend together into one hazy morass of bland, old-fashioned folksiness, with a corny ballad or the "Bonanza" theme playing off in the distance somewhere. However, you're simply not going to get very far in American cinema without running into westerns. They are the quintessential American genre, for the simple reason that we had the American West, with all its deserts and canyons and Native Americans, which no other country with a film industry had access to. And westward expansion has long been an essential part of the American narrative.
Still, it took me a long time to start watching westerns, and when I finally did it was only with supreme reluctance. I went through most of John Ford's filmography with little interest, using his films as filler when I wasn't watching anything else. Sergio Leone's epics were more diverting, but didn't do much to penetrate my overall apathy. The later Clint Eastwood and Peckinpah films of the 70s always felt very subversive of genre ideas and ideals I wasn't sure I had the best grasp on in the first place. My favorite western for a long time was "High Noon," which is practically a filmed stage play, and hardly features any of the elements that make westerns distinctive. So, last week I decided to attack the genre again, head on. I marathoned several of the highest profile westerns that I hadn't seen yet, including Anthony Mann's "The Man from Laramie" (1955) and "Man of the West" (1958), John Ford's "Wagon Master" (1950), Budd Boetticher's "Ride Lonesome" (1959), and capped it off with Sam Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" (1962), one of his earliest films.
I think that covered a good range of styles and approaches that let me see some of the evolution of the genre through the 50s, when westerns were arguably at their peak popularity. Ford's "Wagon Master" was the oldest and most conventional of them, with the most straightforward, morally upright heroes. It's a film about communal struggle, bringing together a band of of various dissolute characters to journey together though challenging terrain. It's a classic pioneer story with all the romantic ideals and imagery and song of Ford's most nostalgic visions of the Old West. A few years later, came the advent of Cinemascope and other widescreen formats, which Westerns were extremely well suited for. I spent most of "The Man From Laramie" and "Man of the West" appreciating the structure and composition of the extra-wide, extra photogenic shots. Anthony Mann's films also had the benefit of Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper as leading men, both turning in excellent late career performances. I'd seen them both in romantic comedies of the same period, which they were both clearly too old to be playing in any longer, but in the westerns they fit the scenery.
As the decade wore on, the stories got darker and the American West became harsher and more unfriendly. There were prominent female characters featured in all of these films, who were subjected to increasingly perilous and compromising situations, often by the men who they put their trust in. "Man of the West" has the lovely Julie London as a platonic love interest for Gary Cooper, but he fails to protect her from sexual assault, and another woman from senseless slaughter. "The Searchers," with all its interracial and psychosexual tensions, had come two years before in 1956. "Ride Lonesome" made it explicit in dialogue. The American West was a terrible place for a woman, where the threat of rape and ruin were ever-present. "Ride Lonesome's" heroine has to travel with a band of bounty hunters for protection, nearly gets traded off to an Indian for a horse, and finds herself in the middle of a revenge plot orchestrated by our hero.
But this is nothing compared to what happens to poor Elsa, played by Mariette Hartley, in "Ride the High Country." She runs away from a domineering father to marry a man of her choosing at a nearby mining camp. The fiancé turns out to be an abusive thug, with a pack of equally thuggish brothers intent on exploiting her. Peckinpah eschews the eye-pleasing landscapes of Ford and Mann for tighter, more immediate visuals, emphasizing violence and viscerality. The wedding scene, where every other woman present is a prostitute, stands as a firm rebuke to sanitized, idealized portrayals of frontier life in the past, with its Stetson-wearing white knights. When Elsa is rescued, it is by Joel McCrea's aging law man, well past his prime. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these films starred Hollywood Golden Age stars nearing retirement, in increasingly cynical stories about a much more anarchic, amoral version of the West.
Protagonists were losing their moral uprightness. Their histories got more colorful, their motives more suspect, and those who were made in the mold of the traditional heroes found their effectiveness ebbing. "Ride Lonesome" features Randolph Scott as a bounty hunter anti-hero, who knowingly endangers the rest of his party in order to lure in Lee Van Cleef's nominal villain. Gary Cooper's reformed criminal sees his past catch up with him, and is drawn back into the cycle of violence and terror. Even Jimmy Stewart's Will Lockhart touches off the purging of a corrupted family largely by accident. You can see the seeds of more subversive westerns with even darker protagonists starting to germinate here, leaving the likes of Shane and "High Noon's" Marshal Will Kane firmly behind them.
After spending a week with some of the major westerns of the 50s, I'm still not much of a fan of the genre, but I'm satisfied. I can see the versatility of the Old West as a setting, and the various ways that different directors used its familiar conventions. It's a deadlier, meaner world in these films than I remember too, not one I think I'd ever feel particularly nostalgic about. Maybe that's why I was always so hostile to the schmaltzier TV westerns about the good old days - something about the approach always felt a little dishonest, a little more make-believe than reality. I got a little of that from John Ford, but not any of the other directors this week. Instead there was a lot of disillusionment, a lot of angst, a lot of discontent, and a few shootouts.
Not my idea of good times, but it did make for some good movies.
---
Still, it took me a long time to start watching westerns, and when I finally did it was only with supreme reluctance. I went through most of John Ford's filmography with little interest, using his films as filler when I wasn't watching anything else. Sergio Leone's epics were more diverting, but didn't do much to penetrate my overall apathy. The later Clint Eastwood and Peckinpah films of the 70s always felt very subversive of genre ideas and ideals I wasn't sure I had the best grasp on in the first place. My favorite western for a long time was "High Noon," which is practically a filmed stage play, and hardly features any of the elements that make westerns distinctive. So, last week I decided to attack the genre again, head on. I marathoned several of the highest profile westerns that I hadn't seen yet, including Anthony Mann's "The Man from Laramie" (1955) and "Man of the West" (1958), John Ford's "Wagon Master" (1950), Budd Boetticher's "Ride Lonesome" (1959), and capped it off with Sam Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" (1962), one of his earliest films.
I think that covered a good range of styles and approaches that let me see some of the evolution of the genre through the 50s, when westerns were arguably at their peak popularity. Ford's "Wagon Master" was the oldest and most conventional of them, with the most straightforward, morally upright heroes. It's a film about communal struggle, bringing together a band of of various dissolute characters to journey together though challenging terrain. It's a classic pioneer story with all the romantic ideals and imagery and song of Ford's most nostalgic visions of the Old West. A few years later, came the advent of Cinemascope and other widescreen formats, which Westerns were extremely well suited for. I spent most of "The Man From Laramie" and "Man of the West" appreciating the structure and composition of the extra-wide, extra photogenic shots. Anthony Mann's films also had the benefit of Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper as leading men, both turning in excellent late career performances. I'd seen them both in romantic comedies of the same period, which they were both clearly too old to be playing in any longer, but in the westerns they fit the scenery.
As the decade wore on, the stories got darker and the American West became harsher and more unfriendly. There were prominent female characters featured in all of these films, who were subjected to increasingly perilous and compromising situations, often by the men who they put their trust in. "Man of the West" has the lovely Julie London as a platonic love interest for Gary Cooper, but he fails to protect her from sexual assault, and another woman from senseless slaughter. "The Searchers," with all its interracial and psychosexual tensions, had come two years before in 1956. "Ride Lonesome" made it explicit in dialogue. The American West was a terrible place for a woman, where the threat of rape and ruin were ever-present. "Ride Lonesome's" heroine has to travel with a band of bounty hunters for protection, nearly gets traded off to an Indian for a horse, and finds herself in the middle of a revenge plot orchestrated by our hero.
But this is nothing compared to what happens to poor Elsa, played by Mariette Hartley, in "Ride the High Country." She runs away from a domineering father to marry a man of her choosing at a nearby mining camp. The fiancé turns out to be an abusive thug, with a pack of equally thuggish brothers intent on exploiting her. Peckinpah eschews the eye-pleasing landscapes of Ford and Mann for tighter, more immediate visuals, emphasizing violence and viscerality. The wedding scene, where every other woman present is a prostitute, stands as a firm rebuke to sanitized, idealized portrayals of frontier life in the past, with its Stetson-wearing white knights. When Elsa is rescued, it is by Joel McCrea's aging law man, well past his prime. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these films starred Hollywood Golden Age stars nearing retirement, in increasingly cynical stories about a much more anarchic, amoral version of the West.
Protagonists were losing their moral uprightness. Their histories got more colorful, their motives more suspect, and those who were made in the mold of the traditional heroes found their effectiveness ebbing. "Ride Lonesome" features Randolph Scott as a bounty hunter anti-hero, who knowingly endangers the rest of his party in order to lure in Lee Van Cleef's nominal villain. Gary Cooper's reformed criminal sees his past catch up with him, and is drawn back into the cycle of violence and terror. Even Jimmy Stewart's Will Lockhart touches off the purging of a corrupted family largely by accident. You can see the seeds of more subversive westerns with even darker protagonists starting to germinate here, leaving the likes of Shane and "High Noon's" Marshal Will Kane firmly behind them.
After spending a week with some of the major westerns of the 50s, I'm still not much of a fan of the genre, but I'm satisfied. I can see the versatility of the Old West as a setting, and the various ways that different directors used its familiar conventions. It's a deadlier, meaner world in these films than I remember too, not one I think I'd ever feel particularly nostalgic about. Maybe that's why I was always so hostile to the schmaltzier TV westerns about the good old days - something about the approach always felt a little dishonest, a little more make-believe than reality. I got a little of that from John Ford, but not any of the other directors this week. Instead there was a lot of disillusionment, a lot of angst, a lot of discontent, and a few shootouts.
Not my idea of good times, but it did make for some good movies.
---
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