of joyless hairy man-geeks and shiny hairless space surfers

[thehefner]

Y'know how I've sometimes said that one of my favorite critics is CHUD.com's Devin Faraci? That he's so entertaining, even though I violently disagree with about 1/4 of everything he says? I see him as the flip side of Harry from aintitcool.com, who constantly exudes a charming child-like passion for movies, which sometimes means he likes too many things (sorry, Harry, the TEXAS CHAINSAW remake is not and will never, ever be a good movie. Ever.). Devin, on the other hand, is a smug, arrogant, snarky prick who's incredibly picky, analytical, and opinionated above all, which is great considering I agree with him most times. In fact, more often than not I've posted links to his reviews and rants here. Here's an example of his other stuff:

"Nostalgia is the Mind Killer," or "You're an Idiot for Loving THE GOONIES."

And y'know, he does bring up several good points. It's absolutely important that artists and fans not be blinded by unthinking nostalgia for something that was never any good in the first place. And yes, I can sadly, easily imagine future generations longing for the good ol' days of LOONATICS or something.

But on the other hand, I kinda have to wonder... what about people like Tarantino, Scorsese, or the SHAUN/HOT FUZZ guys? They've taken their nostalgia for things which were arguably never any good in the first place (they filmed major portions of a movie around BAD BOYS II, I rest my case) which have ignited their imagination and influenced them as artists and made new--and possibly better, in some cases-- works based on that. And no one can argue that the majority of real grindhouse movies are any better than THE GOONIES or HOOK, can they?

Of course, not everyone is a Scorsese, obviously. Nor do I have a cohisive rebuttal to Devin's rant here, which does, again, bring up several good points. I just wanted to raise a few questions against his all-encompassing bitterness toward this issue. Because this is less of an objective essay and more a drippingly venomous rant of repressed resentment. Not to mention (kinda typically) smug and arrogant, in that much of his argument seemed based around the "fact" that THE GOONIES sucks dick, and he's the only one to realize it. And I'm not going to begin to defend that movie, either. That's not the point.

This is why I prefer aintitcool.com over CHUD.com. Because at the end of the day, I'll take people having joyous, child-like passion over a little too many things than joyless, opinionated, sarcastic rants over a little too many things.

And besides, I can always discount anything Devin says that I don't like by reminding myself that he loved FANTASTIC FOUR and hated BATMAN BEGINS.



Speaking of several of those above-mentioned points, and God help me if I can tell you on which side it falls, the aintitcool side or the CHUD side...

The *new* trailer for FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER.

Oh God. Ohhhh God. Shit. Shit. Stupid storm cloud Galactus or no stupid storm cloud Galactus, I... I may just have to keep an open mind, against ALL frelling logic of everything against this movie's favor. Guh!

(Also, I kinda like Doug Jones' voice as the Surfer. Aren't they going to re-dub him over with Laurence Fishburne? If so, I dunno, I think it might be the wrong choice, based on this alone)

Comments

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Your feelings about Devin Faraci are very close to my feelings about James Wolcott; his blog is one of my first stopping places in my daily blog reading routine, but I'd be happy if I could filter out all of the culture bits, in which he tends to trash a lot of actors and artists that I like, and read only the political bits. (On Oscar night, he took no less than three posts to inform his readers that he would be/was/had been ignoring big chunks of the Academy Awards in order to drool at the Skinemax-Lite fumblings of faux lesbians on The L Word.)

As for my reaction to the piece that you linked to: hrm. I think that Devin showed his hand right away by using the picture of that creepy Peter Pan guy at the top of his article; if you don't agree with his thesis, well, we all know what that makes you. The spectre of the permanostalgic, parents'-basement-dwelling, vintage-mint-in-box-and-sold-on-eBay-at-a-staggering-markup-toy-buying nerd loser is shopworn enough that he has to conflate it with adult infantilism fetishists, and all the time he's creating an opposing, yet almost equally-unattractive stereotype, that of the reflexively cynical pop culture trasher who has to compulsively re-examine every movie that he's ever seen to see if it holds up to his current standards and to rake it over the coals if it doesn't. There's a whole lot of middle ground between enshrining everything that gave you pleasure during childhood and... well, and having Devin's job.

I don't avoid my childhood favorites in order to keep from having them spoiled for me; having seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and browsed over the Pippi Longstocking books recently, I can say that my former regard of them has diminished greatly without a great deal of pain. But not only are there other things that have held up, sometimes I appreciate them even more. More to the point, though, I can leave them be and appreciate the pleasure that they gave me at the time without having to check out that book or rent that video to reassure myself that they were "really" good.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Oh, one comparison that I left out: David Sedaris wrote a piece early in his career from the viewpoint of a snotty theater critic who mercilessly savages a number of grade school children's productions.

[civilbloodshed.livejournal.com]

Omg, that...that looks good. Whatsherface still looks all weird, but I might actually be excited to watch FF. I mean, the first one was hella lame and almost completely unwatchable, but this? Different.

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

I bet those were Doom's soldiers firing rockets at the Silver Surfer over the forest.

Please let this movie be good. Oh please oh please oh please. I didn't like the first FF movie, but then again I really didn't like the first Xmen movie, and I loved 2 and 3... please let this be good...

[gore-whore-5.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like THE GOONIES and HOOK. Sure, it's a nostalgic thing, but that's not the entirety of it. Those movies are just really fun.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

I actually saw the Goonies for the first time in high school. Didn't really see what the big fuss was all about, personally. So have they actually confirmed the storm cloud? Ugh, I'd seriously take the bugs over that because at least that's canon. Well in the Ultimate universe anyway.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was never that hugely into it as a kid either, but I think it has its charms. Nothing amazing or life-changing about that. MONSTER SQUAD, on the other hand...

And y'know, much as I outright hated the space bugs, I think I agree with you. Someone who reviewed the novelization said it's a storm cloud. Oy.

[the-mithril-man.livejournal.com]

I thought Fishburne was doing the voice of Galactus? I don't know I like the surfer's voice (what I can hear) in the trailer, more monotone and matter-of-fact the better. And don't get me started on the cloud of space bugs. Or do, it's your funeral.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

I've never actually seen Monster Squad as I spent most of my formative years living abroad.

I just wrote a bitchy bulletin about it on Lamespace. I really need a geeky roommate that I can bitch to about this shit consistently. Because I always take "my work" home with me.

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

"I see him as the flip side of Harry from aintitcool.com, who constantly exudes a charming child-like passion for movies...

I just found out recently that Harry used to be babysat by my former work-study boss, an awesome guy and huge movie buff. Spending three years with him in a university film library was one of the best things about college for me. Knowing he was probably a formative influence on Harry Knowles explains so much!

/I think Walter still talks about the day I kicked out a film major for asking for Fellini's "Eight Point Five"
//(yeah, I was a bit of a snob then, but only because I was majoring in television and still knew film better than its condescending majors)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Heck, I'd only recently seen it because I bought the bootleg DVD. It's worth it, rest assured. Hopefully we'll see it released in the near future.

Lamespace, aye, that it certainly has been. While I'm gonna need to set up a page for THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES, I've gotten zero use (and lots of spam friend requests from nonexistant hot women) from it of late.

You take your work home with you? Me, I see it as bringing my geek to my work sometimes. Aye, it's sad not having a constant geek companion ready at all hours of the night or whatever. I had once, actually, but he turned out to be a douche.

[jellied.livejournal.com]

Well I meant in the sense that I'm never not geeky. And I wish I was at work more often to actually go into rants with people who understood what exactly I was yelling really loudly about. As of right now, yelling to an audience of one (my cat) isn't working out so well.

All of my friends are hipster fags who collect records instead of comics-- so I'm a little out of my depth.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Somehow I got the impression (may just be wishful thinking) that the storm cloud could just be a sort of V'Ger-type smoke screen, and not the Big G himself/itself/themselves. Of course, that rips off Independence Day, but "ID4" is a ripoff of the original Galactus saga, sort of, so it's fair.

[spacechild.livejournal.com]

yeah.. i saw the new preview in the theatre and nearly crapped my pants.

they also had a life size silver surver figure blasting out of a building in the lobby.

Holly said i cant have it.