Letters to the Editor
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Charlie Wilson's War?
I can't believe this revisionist, propagandist piece of claptrap made the honorable mention list.
Here's a list of alternate titles:
The Making of Bin Laden
Requiem for the Rule of Law
How Coporate-Run Media Brainwashes the People
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Hooray for Grindhouse
I was very disappointed that this film (or films) didn't attract a wider audience. I hate to sound like an old codger, but the film going experience, even for good films, just doesn't hold the same weird bit of the unexplainable awe I used to experience in the old days when I and my friends were haunting faded movie palaces. Going to a movie today is just so bloodless by comparison. You pays your money, you file in, you watch, you file out. That certain bit of poetry we used to all feel just isn't there anymore. The process is so automated.
Grindhouse took me right back to the good old days when the whole process just seemed more alive and organic. The failure of Grindhouse, to me, was something of a death knell for the movie industry. Perhaps audiences today just prefer stepping on the conveyor belt and being run through the entertainment machine.
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Movies About Iraq
Stephanie Zacharek writes, regarding the dearth of an audience for the many films on the Iraq war:
One portion of the explanation might lie in the fact that most of the Iraq war-related movies were rated R, not PG or PG-13, which automatically trims their potential audience. Ultimately, the slender turnout for these movies may point to a larger and knottier problem: American moviegoers aren't necessarily turning away from the war as a subject. It could simply be that the audience for any kind of serious adult drama has shrunk, period -- after all, it's been shrinking for years.
Actually, aside from their (apparent) bad quality as films, I think the explanation is simpler: when we are hearing about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and suicide bombers and torture and rendition every day, what is the draw to see a fictionalized account of it? It's horrific enough to contemplate that it is our country doing those things; does one really want to shell out $7.50 (or whatever) and have one's nose rubbed in it?
Honestly, I don't think so.
A lot of critics bemoan the fact that Hollywood often tacks happy endings on films, and that audiences demand the same. But these films not only don't have happy endings, given the current quagmire in Iraq, they don't really have endings at all. And won't, until Iraq has an "ending." (How many war movies were made during World War II that were about, say, the Bataan death march or the internment of the Japanese? Heck, how many are made now?)
So Stephanie may be right about some of the reasons, but I think the main reason is that they hit 'way too close to home.
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Movie you missed
If there was one film that had an effect on me this year, it was Into the Wild, Sean Penn's film about a young man who gives up everything to become a vagabond. The film captures the spirit of the traveler, while giving us a very real look at the impact that our decisions have on our lives and on the people that love us.
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Backhanded compliment
Stephanie wrote: "And while I can't get on the creaky-wheeled existentialist "No Country for Old Men" chuck wagon, I'm willing to concede that it at least allows people to think it's a movie made for grown-ups."
It's fine by me that Stephanie Zacharek didn't like this film. I am ambivalent about it as well.
This sentence, however, deserves criticism.
(1) In what sense is "No Country for Old Men" existentialist? I read "Being and Nothingness" and other works of Jean-Paul Sartre, and I fail to see how the film itself is existentialist. I do not think that word means what you think it means. Sure, one of the characters has an arguably "existentialist" approach to life and death (at least, in the current sloppy version of the way the word is used, if not in the way it was coined and intended by Sartre), but this character is not representative of the film as whole. Indeed, his perspective is trumped and dampened by the response of his final victim.
(2) "Chuck wagon," Stephanie? Sorry, but the terms "chuck wagon" and "bandwagon" are not interchangeable. Just having a bit of wacky fun there? A chuck wagon is a mobile diner. A bandwagon has a big group of musicians and singers, and is metaphorically tied to a herd mentality. Play around with terms all you like, but sloppy writing is still sloppy writing.
(3) "I'm willing to concede that it at least allows people to think it's a movie made for grown-ups." How are you conceding anything here? This sentence very clearly implies that you think the film is not grown-up at all.
Like the films you like. Dislike the films you dislike. But don't be an asshole about it.
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The trouble with "Grindhouse"
I had been looking forward to "Grindhouse" and finally was able to block out the 3 hours and 15 minutes necessary to go see it. The theater was at about 1/20th its capacity.
The film was a box-office failure, and for good reason. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino made a serious miscalculation when they assumed audiences would appear in droves to see a movie that is 3 hours, 15 minutes long and rated R. Perhaps Tarantino's ego got in the way of simple marketing issues, but without good word-of-mouth, few people will go out of their way to see a 3+ hour movie.
Neither of the two main films are good enough to stand alone. The gimmick of making them old-style (with scratches and missing reels) was inspired and amusing, but a gimmick can't overcome 3 hours of jokey filmmaking.
Rodriguez and Tarantino should each have made a 45-minute movie with the three-act structure of a 90-minute film. If brevity is the soul of wit, this would have been the perfect length to extract the joy of recognition, kitsch, etc.
They also should have realized that Rodriguez's film was the best and probably should have been saved till last. Tarantino's film is slighter and more of a one-idea stunt.
The dudes thought they could do no wrong with their inspired double-homage idea. Rodriguez apparently destroyed his marriage by humping his lead actress throughout the production. Tarantino apparently thought that emulating a drive-in movie absolved him of giving audiences a reason to case about the characters.
I also can't stand when Tarantino inserts himself into his films without any payoff. It has already been proven several times over (see "Destiny Turns on the Radio") that Tarantino can't act. Here he compounds the problem by forcing us to watch Eli "Hostel" Roth's bad acting as well. Both of them are characters who serve no purpose, yet they are on-screen long enough for us to count their freckles. Annoying.
Finally, why does Tarantino insist on 15-minute passages of just people talking? It would be okay if they were having an intelligent discussion (I'm a big fan of both "My Dinner With Andre" and "My Breakfast With Blassie"), but they're just shooting the breeze to fill time. I don't go to the movies to watch people having endless chit-chat.
I can't believe Stephanie Zacharek would choose "Grindhouse" as a favorite while making "Juno" a runner-up. At least "Juno" has the power to affect audiences. The only effect one gets from "Grindhouse" is a numb butt.