One of the most highly anticipated web videos to hit the internet this week is a movie review. And not just a movie review, but a ninety minute dissection of an eight-year old science-fiction film that has already been widely panned for wooden acting, chaotic direction, and uninspired special-effects. Of course, it helps that the reviewer is Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media, who takes on the persona of a deranged serial killer when bashing the cinematic objects of his disdain. And it also helps that the movie in question is "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," and the review is a direct follow-up to Stoklasa's widely lauded seventy minute "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" review.
Would-be movie reviewers should take note. The art of film critique may be in decline from the standpoint of the established, traditional, print-centric film reviewers who are watching their circulation numbers shrink, but out in the wilds of the Internet, it's alive and well. There's a new breed of fulminating film buffs out there who have learned to take advantage of rising prevalence of broadband connections, video sharing sites, cheap editing software, and podcasting tutorials. And the movie reviews they've spawned are quickly mutating into strange, new, innovative forms that were heretofore unthinkable.
Stoklasa's feature-length review of "Attack of the Clones," for example, is nearly as long as the subject of its scrutiny, a comprehensive catalogue of the film's perceived failings with dozens of examples provided by clips from multiple "Star Wars" films and other sources. It's also intercut with an original narrative where the serial killer reviewer terrorizes his latest female victim, eventually forcing her to watch the movie with him. Created with the Youtube format in mind, the review is neatly segmented into nine parts, each with an identifying title screen and often capped off by a cliffhanger at the end. It could have easily been released over a longer span of time as a serial.
Others have already built ongoing review programs around similarly novel reviewing conceits. One of the most successful of them has been Spill.Com, run by animator Korey Coleman. Each show gathers two to five reviewers to discuss new releases every week, edits down the conversations to roughly five or six minutes per film, and then creates a cartoon short version using Flash animation. The format is very simple, with the caricatures of the reviewers mostly sitting around and talking, plus a gag or two to liven things up. The resulting reviews are a little rough at times, but very consistent and well executed considering the extremely limited turn around time.
Traditionalists may groan at the thought of any plebe with a webcam being able to upload their own movie reviews, but it's also forced the ambitious ones to get creative in order to rise above the pack. Nascent critics are trying out any and every possible gimmick to attract eyeballs, from adopting fictional personas to coupling their commentary with original material. Movie reviews, that have always allowed the limited use of film clips, are also an obvious draw for the mash-up generation, who have been quick to push the boundaries of the intellectual property fair use exception at every turn. And without the limits imposed by mainstream media outlets, reviewers can be as profane, extreme, experimental, or just plain long winded as they want to be. And slowly but surely, reviews are becoming pieces of entertainment in and of themselves.
To be honest, Red Letter Media's "Star Wars prequel reviews are not to my taste. I think the guy is talented and has real insight, but the serial killer shtick makes me queasy. However, he is setting the bar higher for those who follow him, so he has my full support. Blurring the line between film commentary and film art seems like such an obvious path to go down, I'm a little surprised it's taken people this long to start experimenting. Whether this is a good or bad thing for film criticism in the long run remains to be seen, but it sure is exciting to see the paradigm starting to shift.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Next on CNN...
Ross Douthat, remarking on the declining fortunes of CNN in his latest column, pinpoints a fatal turning point in October of 2004 that led to the news channel's misfortune - the cancellation of "Crossfire" after a scathing appearance by "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who essentially mocked the program off the air. "Crossfire" was a pundit show, a point-counterpoint debate program that pitted liberal and conservative commentators against each other on a variety of topics, but tilted heavily toward conservative host Tucker Carlson in its final years.
Douthat posits that the resulting punditry vacuum is responsible for CNN's ratings decline, as FOX News and MSNBC have built their audiences on partisan personalities like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann. CNN has its own roster of stars, like Larry King and Anderson Cooper, but they're far more restrained than their competitors. Douthat goes so far as to call for the resurrection of "Crossfire," but in a form that's closer to "The Daily Show" to allow for more measured political discourse. I think this is a mistake.
First, "Crossfire" needs to stay dead, because anything resembling decent discourse is not going to happen with a show that's so heavily premised on being adversarial, with clearly delineated liberal and conservative sides. "Crossfire" and "The Daily Show" are on opposite ends of the punditry spectrum, and though Stewart leans to the left, his show is built on deflating the blowhards, not enabling them. Second, as FOX News has already learned, aping "The Daily Show" is not as easy as it looks. If CNN wants to build their own version, they have their work cut out for them. They'd be much better off just acquiring the "Daily Show" that already exists.
And well, why not? If Jon Stewart is responsible for felling the network, maybe he can save it too. An international version of "The Daily Show" already follows CNN programming in several overseas markets. Networks have poached major shows from each other before, most notably when Lifetime snatched "Project Runway" from Bravo. Comedy Central has built its schedule around the show, playing it three to five times around the clock on weekdays, but "The Daily Show" still sticks out like a sore thumb on a schedule that is otherwise chock full of standup specials, South Park reruns, and the often surreal broadcast versions of raunchy teen sex films.
I think that moving networks would actually be pretty healthy for "The Daily Show" and for Jon Stewart especially. Though extremely popular and prominent, his star could rise even higher if given the room to grow. There's been speculation about his future plans for years now. He's been brought up as a potential candidate for a late night desk job at a major network, but never very seriously. Forays into hosting duties of gala events such as the Academy Awards have produced mixed results. But more to the point, Stewart doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. He clearly loves the hosting gig on the "The Daily Show" and having the ability to tackle serious subject matter in a format that no one else has been able to duplicate. But I think he's got more in him.
Though Comedy Central has afforded "The Daily Show" the environment to build up its clout as a major independent voice in the media landscape, I'd love to see what would happen if the show was positioned directly in competition with the likes of Bill O'Reilly and the other pundit shows. A common defense used by FOX News when accused of egregiously biased news coverage is that their network's most vehement commentary comes from programming that's supposed to be for entertainment purposes only. So why not put a real, straightforward entertainment show up against them? CNN is the only major cable news network left that can make any claims to political neutrality with a straight face, so their stars and stripes are already pretty well aligned with Stewart & Co.
Clearly this is a long shot, but you get the point. I understand if CNN needs to inject a dose of entertainment into its programming in order to compete with FOX and MSNBC. But this does not mean that they're limited to doing what the other two are doing or going back to the way things were before. There are other options besides throwing more demagogues at us and adding to the already fairly unbearable din. If CNN must to go down the road of news entertainment absurdity, why not just go the whole way, and summon the most absurd of them all - Stephen Colbert? He and Stewart may not be professional journalists, but at least they're professional entertainers, which is more than most of the other guys can say.
Douthat posits that the resulting punditry vacuum is responsible for CNN's ratings decline, as FOX News and MSNBC have built their audiences on partisan personalities like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann. CNN has its own roster of stars, like Larry King and Anderson Cooper, but they're far more restrained than their competitors. Douthat goes so far as to call for the resurrection of "Crossfire," but in a form that's closer to "The Daily Show" to allow for more measured political discourse. I think this is a mistake.
First, "Crossfire" needs to stay dead, because anything resembling decent discourse is not going to happen with a show that's so heavily premised on being adversarial, with clearly delineated liberal and conservative sides. "Crossfire" and "The Daily Show" are on opposite ends of the punditry spectrum, and though Stewart leans to the left, his show is built on deflating the blowhards, not enabling them. Second, as FOX News has already learned, aping "The Daily Show" is not as easy as it looks. If CNN wants to build their own version, they have their work cut out for them. They'd be much better off just acquiring the "Daily Show" that already exists.
And well, why not? If Jon Stewart is responsible for felling the network, maybe he can save it too. An international version of "The Daily Show" already follows CNN programming in several overseas markets. Networks have poached major shows from each other before, most notably when Lifetime snatched "Project Runway" from Bravo. Comedy Central has built its schedule around the show, playing it three to five times around the clock on weekdays, but "The Daily Show" still sticks out like a sore thumb on a schedule that is otherwise chock full of standup specials, South Park reruns, and the often surreal broadcast versions of raunchy teen sex films.
I think that moving networks would actually be pretty healthy for "The Daily Show" and for Jon Stewart especially. Though extremely popular and prominent, his star could rise even higher if given the room to grow. There's been speculation about his future plans for years now. He's been brought up as a potential candidate for a late night desk job at a major network, but never very seriously. Forays into hosting duties of gala events such as the Academy Awards have produced mixed results. But more to the point, Stewart doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. He clearly loves the hosting gig on the "The Daily Show" and having the ability to tackle serious subject matter in a format that no one else has been able to duplicate. But I think he's got more in him.
Though Comedy Central has afforded "The Daily Show" the environment to build up its clout as a major independent voice in the media landscape, I'd love to see what would happen if the show was positioned directly in competition with the likes of Bill O'Reilly and the other pundit shows. A common defense used by FOX News when accused of egregiously biased news coverage is that their network's most vehement commentary comes from programming that's supposed to be for entertainment purposes only. So why not put a real, straightforward entertainment show up against them? CNN is the only major cable news network left that can make any claims to political neutrality with a straight face, so their stars and stripes are already pretty well aligned with Stewart & Co.
Clearly this is a long shot, but you get the point. I understand if CNN needs to inject a dose of entertainment into its programming in order to compete with FOX and MSNBC. But this does not mean that they're limited to doing what the other two are doing or going back to the way things were before. There are other options besides throwing more demagogues at us and adding to the already fairly unbearable din. If CNN must to go down the road of news entertainment absurdity, why not just go the whole way, and summon the most absurd of them all - Stephen Colbert? He and Stewart may not be professional journalists, but at least they're professional entertainers, which is more than most of the other guys can say.
Monday, April 5, 2010
A Not-So-Serious Man
A quick way to gauge whether you're a "pretentious" filmgoer or not is to consider your reaction to 2007's Best Picture Oscar winner, "No Country for Old Men." Were you left confused by the ending, that dispatched one main character without fanfare and left the other to close us out with a moody, highly symbolic monologue? Or did you spend the next few hours or days or weeks trying to puzzle out what it all meant? And if you picked the latter option, did you enjoy the process of trying to decode the film? If you did, you might just be a film geek.
Most movies these days are not for the geeky among us. Rather they're designed to be disposable entertainments, heavy on the upfront thrills and light on lingering substance. Overanalytical types might have fun trying to sort out color symbolism from the "Transformers" movies, and cultural watchdogs might suss out embedded gender role messages in "The Hangover," but any deeper meanings found in these films are usually inadvertant ones. More ambitious fare like "Gone Baby Gone" or "The Hurt Locker" might contain pointed social or political messages, but it's the message that's meant to be discussed rather than the actual form or presentation of the film itself.
So it's a rare piece of cinema that you can take apart scene by scene or even frame by frame and know that the filmmakers involved actually intended for you to. The Coen Brothers are among the few directors who can get away with making pictures like this consistently. The other notable I can think of off the top of my head is David Lynch, whose "Mulholland Drive" has inspired mountains of analysis by everyone with access to a copy of the film and the Internet. Their films, replete with ambiguous endings, mysterious objects, and elliptical dialoge, seem to cry out for interpretation. What does it mean? What does is all add up to?
The Coen's latest, "A Serious Man," is a merciless tease for film geeks who love to dissect their films. The protagonist, a Jewish physics professor played by Michael Stuhlbarg, is plagued with personal and financial calamities that seem to come out of nowhere, and is deperate to find some sort of spiritual explanation for his troubles. Multiple characters give their opinions, including three different rabbis with three different approaches to the situation. The movie ends with all the questions unanswered, but many possible keys to interpretation are left dangling in front of viewers' noses.
Which one of the rabbis was right? Are all of them right? If Stuhlbarg's character is being punished, what is he being punished for? Or is he just unlucky? And what do we make of the prologue with the Jewish folktale of the dybbuk, played by beloved Jewish stage actor Fyvush Finkel? And how do the constant references to mathematical equations, F Troop, Jefferson Airplane, and Jewish theology fit into this? And even more maddening, it's very likely that the point of the story may be that it's ultimately pointless to try to determine what God wants, so we should learn to accept that we'll never know what God wants. Stuhlbarg's character can easily be seen as a stand-in for the viewer, still trying to figure out what Anton Chigurh was supposed to represent.
"A Serious Man" reminded me a lot of "Donnie Darko," which was similarly concerned with ominous higher powers and obtuse symbols of impending doom. "Darko" took itself much too seriously, though, dripping with adolescent angst and soapbox diatribes. The Coens take a much livelier approach, setting their story in the 1960s, in a midwestern Jewish community populated by very distinctly drawn suburban characters who are just shy of caricatures. One suspects the directors drew heavily from their own childhoods as an influence. At times the film is very funny, with moments of sublime absurdity, especially after Stuhlbarg's stress level spikes and he starts to have unsettling dreams.
I wonder if the Coens have made a film that the casual watcher will get more out of than the obsessives this time around - assuming they're not put off by an apparent cliffhanger ending. By reading too much into the story, it's easy to overlook the sillier, warmer moments and some great comic performances. Even the epigraph at the beginning warns us to "[r]eceive with simplicity everything that happens to you." Maybe that's the great sin that our protagonist is being punished for - succumbing to temptation and taking everything much too seriously.
Most movies these days are not for the geeky among us. Rather they're designed to be disposable entertainments, heavy on the upfront thrills and light on lingering substance. Overanalytical types might have fun trying to sort out color symbolism from the "Transformers" movies, and cultural watchdogs might suss out embedded gender role messages in "The Hangover," but any deeper meanings found in these films are usually inadvertant ones. More ambitious fare like "Gone Baby Gone" or "The Hurt Locker" might contain pointed social or political messages, but it's the message that's meant to be discussed rather than the actual form or presentation of the film itself.
So it's a rare piece of cinema that you can take apart scene by scene or even frame by frame and know that the filmmakers involved actually intended for you to. The Coen Brothers are among the few directors who can get away with making pictures like this consistently. The other notable I can think of off the top of my head is David Lynch, whose "Mulholland Drive" has inspired mountains of analysis by everyone with access to a copy of the film and the Internet. Their films, replete with ambiguous endings, mysterious objects, and elliptical dialoge, seem to cry out for interpretation. What does it mean? What does is all add up to?
The Coen's latest, "A Serious Man," is a merciless tease for film geeks who love to dissect their films. The protagonist, a Jewish physics professor played by Michael Stuhlbarg, is plagued with personal and financial calamities that seem to come out of nowhere, and is deperate to find some sort of spiritual explanation for his troubles. Multiple characters give their opinions, including three different rabbis with three different approaches to the situation. The movie ends with all the questions unanswered, but many possible keys to interpretation are left dangling in front of viewers' noses.
Which one of the rabbis was right? Are all of them right? If Stuhlbarg's character is being punished, what is he being punished for? Or is he just unlucky? And what do we make of the prologue with the Jewish folktale of the dybbuk, played by beloved Jewish stage actor Fyvush Finkel? And how do the constant references to mathematical equations, F Troop, Jefferson Airplane, and Jewish theology fit into this? And even more maddening, it's very likely that the point of the story may be that it's ultimately pointless to try to determine what God wants, so we should learn to accept that we'll never know what God wants. Stuhlbarg's character can easily be seen as a stand-in for the viewer, still trying to figure out what Anton Chigurh was supposed to represent.
"A Serious Man" reminded me a lot of "Donnie Darko," which was similarly concerned with ominous higher powers and obtuse symbols of impending doom. "Darko" took itself much too seriously, though, dripping with adolescent angst and soapbox diatribes. The Coens take a much livelier approach, setting their story in the 1960s, in a midwestern Jewish community populated by very distinctly drawn suburban characters who are just shy of caricatures. One suspects the directors drew heavily from their own childhoods as an influence. At times the film is very funny, with moments of sublime absurdity, especially after Stuhlbarg's stress level spikes and he starts to have unsettling dreams.
I wonder if the Coens have made a film that the casual watcher will get more out of than the obsessives this time around - assuming they're not put off by an apparent cliffhanger ending. By reading too much into the story, it's easy to overlook the sillier, warmer moments and some great comic performances. Even the epigraph at the beginning warns us to "[r]eceive with simplicity everything that happens to you." Maybe that's the great sin that our protagonist is being punished for - succumbing to temptation and taking everything much too seriously.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Three Cheers for the Peabody Awards
The Peabody Awards were announced this week. They're primarily a journalism award for radio and television news programs, but they also honor educational and kids' programming and general televised entertainment. This is why shows like "Modern Family" and "Glee" were singled out this year along with headier fare like the "Frontline" analysis of the Bernie Madoff affair and NPR's coverage of Afghanistan. As far as media awards go, you can't do much better.
I really appreciate that the Peabody Awards exist, because they're devoid of all the politicking and all the drama that seems to go with every other media award out there. The awards are chosen by a panel of academics, critics, and faculty members of the University of Georgia. Nominees and shortlists are not announced, so there's no campaigning. The awards themselves are not televised or otherwise broadcast, so there's no publicity up until the announcement. And since they're not chosen primarily by the entertainment industry itself, but instead by outside observers following a fairly lofty set of criteria for merit, the Peabodys also have a rare prestige to them.
All awards are a popularity contest, but the Peabodys seem less so. This is certainly reflected in the award recipients. When the list comes out every year, there's always an oddball show or two that everyone else in TV land tends to have overlooked. Last year, the excellent "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was on the list. This year "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" got the honors, for a great interview with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Since individual entertainment shows can only win once, there are almost no repeated winners from year to year.
Finally, the Peabodys are almost unique in that the winners are always accompanied by a sentence or two on why they won the award. In other words, the Peabody Board actually explains the reasoning for its picks, however briefly. "Glee," for instance, made the list for being "dependably tuneful and entertaining" and for "episodes such as 'Wheels,' about the daily struggles of a wheelchair-bound singer."
I'd love to see the Emmys or the Golden Globes try to pull that off one of these days.
I really appreciate that the Peabody Awards exist, because they're devoid of all the politicking and all the drama that seems to go with every other media award out there. The awards are chosen by a panel of academics, critics, and faculty members of the University of Georgia. Nominees and shortlists are not announced, so there's no campaigning. The awards themselves are not televised or otherwise broadcast, so there's no publicity up until the announcement. And since they're not chosen primarily by the entertainment industry itself, but instead by outside observers following a fairly lofty set of criteria for merit, the Peabodys also have a rare prestige to them.
All awards are a popularity contest, but the Peabodys seem less so. This is certainly reflected in the award recipients. When the list comes out every year, there's always an oddball show or two that everyone else in TV land tends to have overlooked. Last year, the excellent "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was on the list. This year "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" got the honors, for a great interview with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Since individual entertainment shows can only win once, there are almost no repeated winners from year to year.
Finally, the Peabodys are almost unique in that the winners are always accompanied by a sentence or two on why they won the award. In other words, the Peabody Board actually explains the reasoning for its picks, however briefly. "Glee," for instance, made the list for being "dependably tuneful and entertaining" and for "episodes such as 'Wheels,' about the daily struggles of a wheelchair-bound singer."
I'd love to see the Emmys or the Golden Globes try to pull that off one of these days.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
In Praise of Hipster Children's Films
I'm still catching up with last year's movies. Just finished off what were deemed by the press as the "hipster" children's films, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Where the Wild Things Are." Even after a decade of everyone and their dentist trying to explain what a hipster is, I'm still not clear exactly what they are or what they do. But if these are the kinds of films that hipster children get, than I want to be one.
Of "Fantastic Mr. Fox," I don't have much to say, except that I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it as much as I did. When I first saw the trailers for this one, I wasn't sure what to make of the retro stop-motion animation and celebrity-heavy voice cast, and there were rumors flying around that Wes Anderson may not have actually directed it. Viewing the film put that theory to rest, because "Mr. Fox" is clearly an Anderson film. It has all the earmarks: the captions, the incredibly particular art direction, the long pan shots, the full set of Anderson character types (weary mother, blustering father, resentful son, and assorted colorful eccentrics), and the distinctly familiar dialogue.
Dahl fans may fret that the film is so much more Anderson than Dahl, as Anderson invents a new beginning and ending, and shifts the focus to Mr. Fox's personal crises of identity and family. This does not take away from the story, but rather couches the events in a different context. Anderson does stay fairly true to the book's plot and many of its particulars. (The poem about the three bad farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, is recited early on and recurs as the lyrics to the main musical theme. And several of Anderson's trademark captions incorporate chapter titles.) He just doesn't stop with the book, essentially having Dahl's characters star in a psychodrama of his own making that happens simultaneously with the action. And it's a pretty fun ride.
"Where the Wild Things Are" was the best trailer I saw last year. It literally had me on the verge of tears in the theater as I recognized the images appearing one by one. The film got lost in the shuffle of prestige pics and was all but ignored at awards season. I'm glad I waited to see it until now, away from the hype and away from the critics trying to vivisect it. I haven't had a film hit me this hard on an emotional level in a while now, and there's no question that it is something very, very special.
I am intimately familiar with the Maurice Sendak picture book, which is very short and simple. The movie is neither of these things, yet doesn't add as many original elements as I was expecting. We do see a little more of Max's home life before he runs away, glimpses of an older sister and his mother's date, who spark Max's wild behavior. Yet most of the film, as in the book, is spent on the island of the Wild Things, and this is where it truly comes alive. I could go on for several thousand words about the way the film looks and sounds, how beautifully the Wild Things are translated from film to screen visually, how the natural landscape is more wondrous than any CGI generated creation could ever be, and how the strange, unconventional soundtrack works wonders.
But what the film does, and does so well, is to capture and distill that sense of being a child, which is not as pleasant as adults remember it being. Emotions are sharp and feelings are strange, and the most wonderful moments of happiness can turn into raging anger or abject despair in an instant. And it's impossible to explain why. The movie turns the Wild Things into extensions of Max's own emotions, a pack of oversized, furry, feathery, monstery, child-like creatures for him to play with. Yet like children, they're not simple or stupid, and Max's innocent interactions with the Wild Things have some deeply unhappy, awful consequences that turn dangerous for everyone involved. Their problems seem so small – tending hurt feelings, making sure everyone gets along, and letting everyone have their turn – but of course they're anything but.
I've read complaints that the film has no plot, that Max and the Wild Things spend too much time talking and sitting around. But really, that's plenty enough. "Where the Wild Things Are" works by dream logic, where the emotional reality is far more important than anything that's happening literally. It doesn't matter that KW, a female Wild Thing, has two friends who turn out to be owls, but that her having those friends makes the most prominent Wild Thing, Carol, jealous and resentful. And it doesn't matter that Carol an Max try to build a fort that is ultimately abandoned, but that building it doesn't make either of them as happy as they thought they would be. This is not a movie for thinking, but for feeling, and for feeling not only the joy and laughter and thrills, but also the sadness and fear and rage that childhood is made of.
Both of these films were made by directors who clearly loved and respected their source material. And yet neither were so reverent as to curb their own creative impulses to expand upon them. "Mr. Fox" and "Wild Things" come off as thoughtful, nostalgic, and very honest, which is something that seems to be missing in many children's films lately. I don't know how most kids would respond to these pictures, especially the talky "Mr. Fox," but I know I would have loved them as a kid. I never understood what the puns and jokes in "Rudolf" and "Rocky and Bullwinkle" were about until I was much older, but loved them anyway. And it was almost a relief sometimes to come across moments in "The Sword in the Stone" or "Lady in the Tramp" where I knew I was supposed to feel sad.
May we all be hipster children, and may the hipsters keep making us films.
Of "Fantastic Mr. Fox," I don't have much to say, except that I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it as much as I did. When I first saw the trailers for this one, I wasn't sure what to make of the retro stop-motion animation and celebrity-heavy voice cast, and there were rumors flying around that Wes Anderson may not have actually directed it. Viewing the film put that theory to rest, because "Mr. Fox" is clearly an Anderson film. It has all the earmarks: the captions, the incredibly particular art direction, the long pan shots, the full set of Anderson character types (weary mother, blustering father, resentful son, and assorted colorful eccentrics), and the distinctly familiar dialogue.
Dahl fans may fret that the film is so much more Anderson than Dahl, as Anderson invents a new beginning and ending, and shifts the focus to Mr. Fox's personal crises of identity and family. This does not take away from the story, but rather couches the events in a different context. Anderson does stay fairly true to the book's plot and many of its particulars. (The poem about the three bad farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, is recited early on and recurs as the lyrics to the main musical theme. And several of Anderson's trademark captions incorporate chapter titles.) He just doesn't stop with the book, essentially having Dahl's characters star in a psychodrama of his own making that happens simultaneously with the action. And it's a pretty fun ride.
"Where the Wild Things Are" was the best trailer I saw last year. It literally had me on the verge of tears in the theater as I recognized the images appearing one by one. The film got lost in the shuffle of prestige pics and was all but ignored at awards season. I'm glad I waited to see it until now, away from the hype and away from the critics trying to vivisect it. I haven't had a film hit me this hard on an emotional level in a while now, and there's no question that it is something very, very special.
I am intimately familiar with the Maurice Sendak picture book, which is very short and simple. The movie is neither of these things, yet doesn't add as many original elements as I was expecting. We do see a little more of Max's home life before he runs away, glimpses of an older sister and his mother's date, who spark Max's wild behavior. Yet most of the film, as in the book, is spent on the island of the Wild Things, and this is where it truly comes alive. I could go on for several thousand words about the way the film looks and sounds, how beautifully the Wild Things are translated from film to screen visually, how the natural landscape is more wondrous than any CGI generated creation could ever be, and how the strange, unconventional soundtrack works wonders.
But what the film does, and does so well, is to capture and distill that sense of being a child, which is not as pleasant as adults remember it being. Emotions are sharp and feelings are strange, and the most wonderful moments of happiness can turn into raging anger or abject despair in an instant. And it's impossible to explain why. The movie turns the Wild Things into extensions of Max's own emotions, a pack of oversized, furry, feathery, monstery, child-like creatures for him to play with. Yet like children, they're not simple or stupid, and Max's innocent interactions with the Wild Things have some deeply unhappy, awful consequences that turn dangerous for everyone involved. Their problems seem so small – tending hurt feelings, making sure everyone gets along, and letting everyone have their turn – but of course they're anything but.
I've read complaints that the film has no plot, that Max and the Wild Things spend too much time talking and sitting around. But really, that's plenty enough. "Where the Wild Things Are" works by dream logic, where the emotional reality is far more important than anything that's happening literally. It doesn't matter that KW, a female Wild Thing, has two friends who turn out to be owls, but that her having those friends makes the most prominent Wild Thing, Carol, jealous and resentful. And it doesn't matter that Carol an Max try to build a fort that is ultimately abandoned, but that building it doesn't make either of them as happy as they thought they would be. This is not a movie for thinking, but for feeling, and for feeling not only the joy and laughter and thrills, but also the sadness and fear and rage that childhood is made of.
Both of these films were made by directors who clearly loved and respected their source material. And yet neither were so reverent as to curb their own creative impulses to expand upon them. "Mr. Fox" and "Wild Things" come off as thoughtful, nostalgic, and very honest, which is something that seems to be missing in many children's films lately. I don't know how most kids would respond to these pictures, especially the talky "Mr. Fox," but I know I would have loved them as a kid. I never understood what the puns and jokes in "Rudolf" and "Rocky and Bullwinkle" were about until I was much older, but loved them anyway. And it was almost a relief sometimes to come across moments in "The Sword in the Stone" or "Lady in the Tramp" where I knew I was supposed to feel sad.
May we all be hipster children, and may the hipsters keep making us films.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Why "Precious" Made Me Think of "Norbit."
The words "cringe" and "wince" tend to come up in any discussion of "Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire," an urban memoir of a teenage African-American girl's hellish life in 1987 New York. Talking up Academy Award contenders with my fellow pretentious movie buffs, this was the movie that always gave us pause. Everyone had heard of it, but nobody wanted to see it in theaters. One by one, we all agreed it was better to wait to see it on DVD, all hastily emphasizing that we were worried about the film's intensity and subject matter affecting our ability to judge it fairly in a theater setting. I'll fully admit I was one of them, after reading queasy descriptions of the film's content, including non-stop verbal and physical abuse, incestuous rape and molestation scenes, and a sequence where Precious steals and consumes a bucket of fried chicken, only to vomit everything up into a trash bin moments later.
I shouldn't have worried. "Precious" is an excellent film that is deserving of all the kudos that has been heaped upon it. The film is a hard watch at first, due to the subject matter, but it's honest and it's genuine and has a story that's well worth telling. And though I prepared myself for the worst, the content wasn't graphic at all, roughly on par with what you'd find in any raunchy sex comedy. I found it striking that so many of the images and concepts in this film were familiar ones, usually played for gross-out laughs or skeevy innuendoes. Seeing Precious and her mother Mary, I couldn't help but be reminded of Rasputia, the awful caricature of an obese black woman in "Norbit," played by Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. It's easy to laugh at Rasputia, an over-the-top harridan with no redeeming qualities, who is designed to be a target for derision and abuse. But when the same type of character is played straight, in a realistic environment, it's almost unbearable to watch.
The heroine, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), is the embodiment of many social ills the bulk of the audience has been trained to ignore or reject. A poor, African-American, obese, illiterate teenager, who is pregnant for the second time by an absent father, and living under the tyranny of a violently abusive mother, her situation is bleak to say the least. But the worst part is that Precious is self-aware. She understands what the world thinks of her and expects of her, which is very little on both counts. The film reveals that she is smart enough and strong-willed enough to struggle against everything that keeps her down, but it has no illusions about how far this can take her. "Precious" does not get a Hollywood happy ending where all her dreams come true. She walks away with a few personal victories and a far more positive attitude, but also with the odds stacked higher against her than ever. The emotional finale is almost shockingly unsentimental.
Much has been said about the performance of Mo'Nique as Mary, Precious's beastly mother. Once again, I was led to expect a far more monstrous, traditionally evil character than the one who actually appears onscreen. Rather the mother is terrifying because she is human, the greedy, selfish, hateful product of all the oppressive forces in the world that bear down on Precious, but still a vulnerable human being. It is impossible to laugh at her, even though she shares many of the same characteristics and mannerisms as Eddie Murphy's Rasputia. It is impossible to dismiss or ignore her presence, even when she's not in a scene. The only screen performance I can think to compare her to is Bette Davis's Baby Jane, who seemed so hatefully cruel and controlling, and yet came across as such a powerless victim at the same time.
The performances are strong all around. In fact, some of my favorites are the ones that didn't get much press, especially the kids who play Precious's classmates at her alternative school. They're vulgar, violent, crude, and mean to each other and their teacher, Ms Blue Rain (a very underappreciated Paula Patton), but they're also bright-eyed young people who are brimming over with potential that the camera doesn't miss. "Precious" also features several celebrities in smaller roles, all but unrecognizable without the aid of makeup or typical Hollywood lighting. Mariah Carey plays a social worker, Lenny Kravitz a male nurse, and Sherri Shepherd from "The View" pops up as the school receptionist. One might be tempted to accuse them of slumming for indie credibility, but none of these characters come across as noticeably ugly or dowdy. They just look like ordinary people, and frankly it's comforting to realize that they actually are people underneath all that marquee glitz.
I'm not sure if "Precious" is a great film, but I don't think that it was an exploitative film, or a film that mainstream audiences aren't ready to see, or a film that enforces stereotypes, or any of the other write-offs that have been handed down from various and sundry. It's a different film. A film about characters we don't see very often in the mainstream media, and certainly not handled with this much care or treated so seriously on their own terms. For that alone, I'm glad we have it.
I shouldn't have worried. "Precious" is an excellent film that is deserving of all the kudos that has been heaped upon it. The film is a hard watch at first, due to the subject matter, but it's honest and it's genuine and has a story that's well worth telling. And though I prepared myself for the worst, the content wasn't graphic at all, roughly on par with what you'd find in any raunchy sex comedy. I found it striking that so many of the images and concepts in this film were familiar ones, usually played for gross-out laughs or skeevy innuendoes. Seeing Precious and her mother Mary, I couldn't help but be reminded of Rasputia, the awful caricature of an obese black woman in "Norbit," played by Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. It's easy to laugh at Rasputia, an over-the-top harridan with no redeeming qualities, who is designed to be a target for derision and abuse. But when the same type of character is played straight, in a realistic environment, it's almost unbearable to watch.
The heroine, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), is the embodiment of many social ills the bulk of the audience has been trained to ignore or reject. A poor, African-American, obese, illiterate teenager, who is pregnant for the second time by an absent father, and living under the tyranny of a violently abusive mother, her situation is bleak to say the least. But the worst part is that Precious is self-aware. She understands what the world thinks of her and expects of her, which is very little on both counts. The film reveals that she is smart enough and strong-willed enough to struggle against everything that keeps her down, but it has no illusions about how far this can take her. "Precious" does not get a Hollywood happy ending where all her dreams come true. She walks away with a few personal victories and a far more positive attitude, but also with the odds stacked higher against her than ever. The emotional finale is almost shockingly unsentimental.
Much has been said about the performance of Mo'Nique as Mary, Precious's beastly mother. Once again, I was led to expect a far more monstrous, traditionally evil character than the one who actually appears onscreen. Rather the mother is terrifying because she is human, the greedy, selfish, hateful product of all the oppressive forces in the world that bear down on Precious, but still a vulnerable human being. It is impossible to laugh at her, even though she shares many of the same characteristics and mannerisms as Eddie Murphy's Rasputia. It is impossible to dismiss or ignore her presence, even when she's not in a scene. The only screen performance I can think to compare her to is Bette Davis's Baby Jane, who seemed so hatefully cruel and controlling, and yet came across as such a powerless victim at the same time.
The performances are strong all around. In fact, some of my favorites are the ones that didn't get much press, especially the kids who play Precious's classmates at her alternative school. They're vulgar, violent, crude, and mean to each other and their teacher, Ms Blue Rain (a very underappreciated Paula Patton), but they're also bright-eyed young people who are brimming over with potential that the camera doesn't miss. "Precious" also features several celebrities in smaller roles, all but unrecognizable without the aid of makeup or typical Hollywood lighting. Mariah Carey plays a social worker, Lenny Kravitz a male nurse, and Sherri Shepherd from "The View" pops up as the school receptionist. One might be tempted to accuse them of slumming for indie credibility, but none of these characters come across as noticeably ugly or dowdy. They just look like ordinary people, and frankly it's comforting to realize that they actually are people underneath all that marquee glitz.
I'm not sure if "Precious" is a great film, but I don't think that it was an exploitative film, or a film that mainstream audiences aren't ready to see, or a film that enforces stereotypes, or any of the other write-offs that have been handed down from various and sundry. It's a different film. A film about characters we don't see very often in the mainstream media, and certainly not handled with this much care or treated so seriously on their own terms. For that alone, I'm glad we have it.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
"FlashForward"? Fast Forward!
I fully stand by my previous assertion that "FlashForward" is a terrible show, but to its credit, it's much better than "V" and has done much more with its material so far. The premise is interesting, following the aftermath of a worldwide "blackout" event where everyone briefly loses consciousness and experiences a flash of their lives several months into the future. The main character is a Fed whose flash forward shows him uncovering the origins of the blackout, so he follows apparent destiny and starts an investigation. His partner, on the other hand, had no premonition and fears this may signal his impending death. There's a shadowy conspiracy involved, lots of different characters to follow, and no shortage of twists and turns as the show approaches the date when the flashes of the future will finally match up to the present.
I've watched roughly eight or nine of the ten episodes of "FlashForward" aired so far, so I feel I've got a good idea of where this show is going wrong. It's good to have a point of comparison, so let's use the first season of "Heroes." Superpowered characters and other nerd bait aside, they have a similar structure, with one of the characters in "Heroes" churning out comic book panels that foretell of a coming apocalypse. The goal is also to prevent the apparently inevitable from happening, with various groups of peripherally connected characters trying to puzzle out the best way to do this as the clock runs down. In addition to the shared plots, "FlashForward" often feels like a toned down, more serious version of "Heroes," with its occasional globetrotting and notably diverse cast. Unfortunately, this is where the similarities end.
As with "V," the major failing of "FlashForward" is thinking too small, with the bulk of the drama and tension playing out in domestic settings. The investigation into the cause of the blackout preoccupies the main characters, but there's no urgency in the search. Their primary concerns are all personal ones. The lead federal agent character fears that his alcohol consumption in his flash forward means that he's doomed to fall off the wagon and jeopardize his marriage. Meanwhile, his physician wife has a premonition of an intimate tryst with the father of one of her patients. Understandably these become recurring worries for the characters, but after a few episodes of guilty looks and tense conversation, recurrence becomes repetitiveness. The agent and his wife spend so much time dwelling on their predestined miseries, it drags the rest of the narrative down with it. And while the show plays will-they-won't-they by placing its characters on paths that appear to lead to their downfall, the teases are lacking because the narrative doesn't play fair. The flash forwards are brief and easily taken out of context. Multiple minor characters have already had their visions revealed to be incomplete or misleading. I can already guess the real circumstances of most of the flash forwards that have yet to be explained.
Moreover, nearly all of the looming, unhappy outcomes have very limited impact. Bad marriages can be fixed and bad habits overcome. There are no flash forwards that match the threat of the apocalypse envisioned in "Heroes," with the exception of the character who expects to die. This robs the story of most of its tension, and leaves it without a common focal point for all the disparate stories to converge upon. Rather, the apocalypse of "FlashForward" was the original blackout, and the characters who were initially united by the harrowing event are now striking out in ever more scattered directions. As the end date approaches, there's nothing to draw them back together, and already it's easy to lose track of the characters who don't make consistent appearances from week to week. The investigation storyline has plodded along over half a season without really getting anywhere, so we're left with these small, domestic dramas to carry the weight. And they don't really hold up.
The structural problems might have been mitigated with stronger characters, but this is another major flaw of the series. Though it has a solid ensemble cast, "FlashForward" has very badly defined leads who don't leave much of an impression. Genre shows can get by with cardboard characters when they're all about action scenes and special effects, but for something like "FlashForward" that has decided to go the fairly realistic, dramatic route, character is everything. And though I've been watching steadily for half a season, I can't recall the main character's name off the top of my head. Or his wife's. Or that of the villain, the African-American supervisor, the bearded friend, the male nurse, the babysitter, the villains, or the female agent. The only one I do remember is Dimitri Noh, the main character's partner who is played by John Cho, because he has a funny name. Now compare this to "Heroes," where even people who don't watch the show can identify Hiro, Sylar, the Petrelli brothers, and Claire Bennett, better known as The Cheerleader.
And there's one last little problem that several of the critics picked up on when the show made its debut in the fall. Once the finale rolls around and all the flash forwards are finally explained, will the audience have any reason to stick around for the next season? Premonitions have been used in plenty of genre shows to provide tension, but few creators have premised entire shows around them for just this reason. "Heroes" ran into the same problem once the apocalypse was narrowly averted, which it resolved by promptly pulling the same trick with a new apocalypse the next year. Following suit, "FlashForward" is already running commercials with the main character announcing in hushed tones that there will be another blackout. Unfortunately, "Heroes" has been steadily losing viewers since the end of the first season, having lost too much momentum from its early success. But at least "Heroes" had the popular characters, and the special effects, and the comic book kitsch to keep the fans coming back, at least for a little while.
"FlashForward," I'm sad to say, has nothing of the sort.
I've watched roughly eight or nine of the ten episodes of "FlashForward" aired so far, so I feel I've got a good idea of where this show is going wrong. It's good to have a point of comparison, so let's use the first season of "Heroes." Superpowered characters and other nerd bait aside, they have a similar structure, with one of the characters in "Heroes" churning out comic book panels that foretell of a coming apocalypse. The goal is also to prevent the apparently inevitable from happening, with various groups of peripherally connected characters trying to puzzle out the best way to do this as the clock runs down. In addition to the shared plots, "FlashForward" often feels like a toned down, more serious version of "Heroes," with its occasional globetrotting and notably diverse cast. Unfortunately, this is where the similarities end.
As with "V," the major failing of "FlashForward" is thinking too small, with the bulk of the drama and tension playing out in domestic settings. The investigation into the cause of the blackout preoccupies the main characters, but there's no urgency in the search. Their primary concerns are all personal ones. The lead federal agent character fears that his alcohol consumption in his flash forward means that he's doomed to fall off the wagon and jeopardize his marriage. Meanwhile, his physician wife has a premonition of an intimate tryst with the father of one of her patients. Understandably these become recurring worries for the characters, but after a few episodes of guilty looks and tense conversation, recurrence becomes repetitiveness. The agent and his wife spend so much time dwelling on their predestined miseries, it drags the rest of the narrative down with it. And while the show plays will-they-won't-they by placing its characters on paths that appear to lead to their downfall, the teases are lacking because the narrative doesn't play fair. The flash forwards are brief and easily taken out of context. Multiple minor characters have already had their visions revealed to be incomplete or misleading. I can already guess the real circumstances of most of the flash forwards that have yet to be explained.
Moreover, nearly all of the looming, unhappy outcomes have very limited impact. Bad marriages can be fixed and bad habits overcome. There are no flash forwards that match the threat of the apocalypse envisioned in "Heroes," with the exception of the character who expects to die. This robs the story of most of its tension, and leaves it without a common focal point for all the disparate stories to converge upon. Rather, the apocalypse of "FlashForward" was the original blackout, and the characters who were initially united by the harrowing event are now striking out in ever more scattered directions. As the end date approaches, there's nothing to draw them back together, and already it's easy to lose track of the characters who don't make consistent appearances from week to week. The investigation storyline has plodded along over half a season without really getting anywhere, so we're left with these small, domestic dramas to carry the weight. And they don't really hold up.
The structural problems might have been mitigated with stronger characters, but this is another major flaw of the series. Though it has a solid ensemble cast, "FlashForward" has very badly defined leads who don't leave much of an impression. Genre shows can get by with cardboard characters when they're all about action scenes and special effects, but for something like "FlashForward" that has decided to go the fairly realistic, dramatic route, character is everything. And though I've been watching steadily for half a season, I can't recall the main character's name off the top of my head. Or his wife's. Or that of the villain, the African-American supervisor, the bearded friend, the male nurse, the babysitter, the villains, or the female agent. The only one I do remember is Dimitri Noh, the main character's partner who is played by John Cho, because he has a funny name. Now compare this to "Heroes," where even people who don't watch the show can identify Hiro, Sylar, the Petrelli brothers, and Claire Bennett, better known as The Cheerleader.
And there's one last little problem that several of the critics picked up on when the show made its debut in the fall. Once the finale rolls around and all the flash forwards are finally explained, will the audience have any reason to stick around for the next season? Premonitions have been used in plenty of genre shows to provide tension, but few creators have premised entire shows around them for just this reason. "Heroes" ran into the same problem once the apocalypse was narrowly averted, which it resolved by promptly pulling the same trick with a new apocalypse the next year. Following suit, "FlashForward" is already running commercials with the main character announcing in hushed tones that there will be another blackout. Unfortunately, "Heroes" has been steadily losing viewers since the end of the first season, having lost too much momentum from its early success. But at least "Heroes" had the popular characters, and the special effects, and the comic book kitsch to keep the fans coming back, at least for a little while.
"FlashForward," I'm sad to say, has nothing of the sort.
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