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thehefnerFirst, happy birthday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reazik!
The Onion's A.V. Club has become one of my favorite entertainment sites. It nicely bridges the gap between b-movie geekery fandom sites like CHUD and Ain't It Cool News with the elitest indie snobbery of the Washington CityPaper, and other such free city indie newspapers. Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with everything they say, but they're usually entertaining and insightful, which is all I ask.
I'm currently addicted to their biweekly feature My Year in Flops, in which the head reviewer watches 150 or so flops, bombs, and utter financial disasters, analyzing them with a combination of snark and genuine understanding to figure out what went wrong, and if the film actually had merit or truly deserved its failure status. Along the way, he's celebrated and championed personal favorites of mine, such as PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and THE FOUNTAIN. Here are snippets of my favorite entries so far:
ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU: For in my entry on Missouri Breaks, I proposed what I call The Great Gazoo Theory: that sometime in the mid-‘70s Brando began taking marching orders from the Great Gazoo, the tiny, effeminate green alien only Fred Flintstone could see. For example, Brando’s behavior on the set of The Score is wholly understandable if you imagine The Great Gazoo hovering over Brando’s ear and whispering “Hey dum-dum, if you really want to show that Frank Oz fool what’s what, call him Miss Piggy and refuse to talk to him. That’ll show him”.
THE CAT IN THE HAT: I have compiled a list of ironclad laws and restrictions regarding art I collectively like to call “Georgia Rules.” Don’t ask me why. I just think it has a nice ring to it. My first Georgia Rule: the words “rape,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” all belong behind glass imprinted with the stern warning “Break Only In Case of Emergency.” With that in mind, I’d like to discuss a fascist film made by Nazis that totally raped my childhood: 2003’s The Cat In The Hat...
THE POSTMAN: Before being pleasantly shocked by The Postman’s non-shitty-osity, I planned to irreverently propose a third and climactic entry in what I would lovingly dub the post-apocalyptic “What the fuck was Kevin Costner thinking?” trilogy. In keeping with the constantly ballooning gigantism of the series, it’d be a four-hour long, $400 million sci-fi epic in which Costner would play a poo-eating man-goat who must defeat an evil two-headed kangaroo-man played by Ice-T and Christopher Walken in order to save a world that has been reduced to a damp, nightmarish swamp by excessive cellphone use. It’d be called Swampiverse. Costner’s ornery, telekinetic (did I mention his character is telekinetic?) man-goat would be introduced eating his own poo and strangling an orphan. It’d pretty much go downhill from there. I realize it doesn’t make much sense for goat-men or two-headed kangaroos to live in a swamp but hey, is that really any more preposterous than anything in Waterworld or The Postman?
The A.V. Club also recently did a list on 24 Great Films Too Painful to Watch Twice. (which is where I found WHEN THE WIND BLOWS)
I admit, I haven't seen most of the films on this list, but I have to be amazed by how many people are so upset and disturbed by REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Now, maybe it's my general personal lack of sympathy for addicts in the abstract, and maybe it's the fact that I've fallen in love with the REQUIEM theme for grand, over-the-top battle music... but really, I watch REQUIEM as a big ol' black comedy, a grand guignol in the tradition of TITUS. I just don't see the tragedy in these people, "heartbreakingly fragile" as the Onion calls them, towards whom I am frankly not sympathetic.
Similarly, it sounded like the reviewers couldn't even stand to watch UNITED 93 to review it. It read like they just assumed, based on what they'd read elsewhere, that it was one of those films. And y'know, I bet it is, for everyone else.spacechild and I just watched it recently, because no one else wanted to watch it with me, and it was damn good. We survived. We're all good. It was a downright excellent film, and honestly, for the sheer expertise of the film, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, maybe with director's commentary.
Clearly, there's something very wrong with me. But then, my favorite Shakespeare play is KING LEAR. I guess I'm just a sucker for a good heart-wrenching tragedy, if there art and a strange cousin of beauty behind it all.
reazik! The Onion's A.V. Club has become one of my favorite entertainment sites. It nicely bridges the gap between b-movie geekery fandom sites like CHUD and Ain't It Cool News with the elitest indie snobbery of the Washington CityPaper, and other such free city indie newspapers. Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with everything they say, but they're usually entertaining and insightful, which is all I ask.
I'm currently addicted to their biweekly feature My Year in Flops, in which the head reviewer watches 150 or so flops, bombs, and utter financial disasters, analyzing them with a combination of snark and genuine understanding to figure out what went wrong, and if the film actually had merit or truly deserved its failure status. Along the way, he's celebrated and championed personal favorites of mine, such as PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and THE FOUNTAIN. Here are snippets of my favorite entries so far:
ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU: For in my entry on Missouri Breaks, I proposed what I call The Great Gazoo Theory: that sometime in the mid-‘70s Brando began taking marching orders from the Great Gazoo, the tiny, effeminate green alien only Fred Flintstone could see. For example, Brando’s behavior on the set of The Score is wholly understandable if you imagine The Great Gazoo hovering over Brando’s ear and whispering “Hey dum-dum, if you really want to show that Frank Oz fool what’s what, call him Miss Piggy and refuse to talk to him. That’ll show him”.
THE CAT IN THE HAT: I have compiled a list of ironclad laws and restrictions regarding art I collectively like to call “Georgia Rules.” Don’t ask me why. I just think it has a nice ring to it. My first Georgia Rule: the words “rape,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” all belong behind glass imprinted with the stern warning “Break Only In Case of Emergency.” With that in mind, I’d like to discuss a fascist film made by Nazis that totally raped my childhood: 2003’s The Cat In The Hat...
THE POSTMAN: Before being pleasantly shocked by The Postman’s non-shitty-osity, I planned to irreverently propose a third and climactic entry in what I would lovingly dub the post-apocalyptic “What the fuck was Kevin Costner thinking?” trilogy. In keeping with the constantly ballooning gigantism of the series, it’d be a four-hour long, $400 million sci-fi epic in which Costner would play a poo-eating man-goat who must defeat an evil two-headed kangaroo-man played by Ice-T and Christopher Walken in order to save a world that has been reduced to a damp, nightmarish swamp by excessive cellphone use. It’d be called Swampiverse. Costner’s ornery, telekinetic (did I mention his character is telekinetic?) man-goat would be introduced eating his own poo and strangling an orphan. It’d pretty much go downhill from there. I realize it doesn’t make much sense for goat-men or two-headed kangaroos to live in a swamp but hey, is that really any more preposterous than anything in Waterworld or The Postman?
The A.V. Club also recently did a list on 24 Great Films Too Painful to Watch Twice. (which is where I found WHEN THE WIND BLOWS)
I admit, I haven't seen most of the films on this list, but I have to be amazed by how many people are so upset and disturbed by REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Now, maybe it's my general personal lack of sympathy for addicts in the abstract, and maybe it's the fact that I've fallen in love with the REQUIEM theme for grand, over-the-top battle music... but really, I watch REQUIEM as a big ol' black comedy, a grand guignol in the tradition of TITUS. I just don't see the tragedy in these people, "heartbreakingly fragile" as the Onion calls them, towards whom I am frankly not sympathetic.
Similarly, it sounded like the reviewers couldn't even stand to watch UNITED 93 to review it. It read like they just assumed, based on what they'd read elsewhere, that it was one of those films. And y'know, I bet it is, for everyone else.
spacechild and I just watched it recently, because no one else wanted to watch it with me, and it was damn good. We survived. We're all good. It was a downright excellent film, and honestly, for the sheer expertise of the film, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, maybe with director's commentary.Clearly, there's something very wrong with me. But then, my favorite Shakespeare play is KING LEAR. I guess I'm just a sucker for a good heart-wrenching tragedy, if there art and a strange cousin of beauty behind it all.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 02:58 am (UTC)I have IKIRU on loan, but I haven't seen it yet. I fucking love love love RAN and DREAMS, but was underwhelmed by THE DEAD SLEEP WELL, the original corporate version of Hamlet. I fear to hear this about IKIRU as well, but I may yet give it a sporting chance.
Do let me know what you think of UNITED 93. But *not* FLIGHT 93, that's a made-for-TV film, not the Paul Greengrass film!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 03:42 am (UTC)Don't let my current viewing habit with IKIRU put you off... I really can't put my finger on why I've been taking it in pieces (maybe a little claustrophobic for me.)