The Wild Angels

The Wild Angels
YouTube viewing

Roger Corman is still alive and making movies! This Variety piece from last December discusses his latest projects and how he’s adapted to the technological changes to the industry—and even during the quarantine, he’s encouraged others to keep making movies.

To go into his career as an independent producer-writer-director, including discussing the many film superstars who started out with him when they were nobodies, would take way too long, so let’s focus on one aspect of it: his association with indie production company American International Pictures.

Founded by Samuel Arkoff & James Nicholson in 1954, their mandate was finding low-budget films that could be released as double features for the burgeoning teen market. Their first release was a Corman production, The Fast and the Furious. (Fun fact: Corman licensed that title to Universal in 2001, and when the long-running sports car franchise became a hit, Corman got a tiny piece of the profits.)

Corman had spent the 60s making adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories with Vincent Price and even spent a little time at Columbia Pictures. Then one day he became aware of motorcycles.

What’s so pure about entertainment?

What’s wrong with the modern American cinema? Out of the top twenty films in 2015, why were twelve rated R, six rated PG-13, and not one rated G? The reason for these depressing statistics is a simple one: films are merely rated but not censored. In other words, all obscene content is allowed as long as audiences are warned of it. Many people complain about the shocking content of nearly every film released in this country, and moral Americans dream about times in the past when they could go to the theater and see good films. Not even all senior citizens remember a time when every film was decent.

This is the opening passage from a post on a blog begun in 2016 called the Pure Entertainment Preservation Society, originally written as a research paper by the blog’s creators, Tiffany and Rebekah Brannan. I first heard of the blog a few months ago, when I saw some bloggers taking part in one of the Brannans’ blogathons. The subject was the Hays Code, one about which the sisters know plenty: the bulk of their paper discusses the origins of the Code and its effects on Hollywood.

The Brannan Sisters are on a mission to not only educate their readers about the “benefits” of the Code on the American film industry, but to try to bring it back. They have a petition with which they hope to lobby modern Hollywood into making today’s movies more like those of the 1930s and 40s. To further quote them, “With films getting worse every year and the immorality in America rising to terrifying heights, something must be done to regain order. If America is going to change, Hollywood must change first.”

Friends and neighbors, I’ll be blunt. These women are severely misguided and wrong.

Here’s how.

The Binge Experiment

Binge-watching television has become such a natural part of our lives that sometimes we’re not even aware we do it. Part of it has to do with technology, in particular the evolution of home video, from VHS and DVD box sets to the DVR to streaming services such as Netflix. Part of it is the explosion of new cable networks that need something to put on the air before they develop original programming. And of course, part of it is the Internet, where you can upload entire seasons of old and new shows (I’m currently making my way through The Honeymooners on YouTube).

Some people take bingeing way too far, though, and last month I sought to understand why. I studied the binge phenomena in further depth by taking two streaming shows on Netflix, Ozark and Longmire, and watched the first seasons of both, the former one episode at a time and the latter all at once.

But first I asked my friends about bingeing.

Bird Box

Bird Box
Netflix viewing

I first heard about Bird Box on Facebook. Friends would discuss something called “the Bird Box Challenge” and I, naturally, had no clue what they were talking about, nor did I care. I’m not the type to pursue every trend on social media. Then I discovered Bird Box was a movie, and I kept seeing memes of a blindfolded Sandra Bullock in a rowboat. Why hadn’t I heard of this movie that apparently has quite a bit of buzz?

Oh. Of course. It’s on Netflix.

These days, serialized television dramas drive social media discussion more than any one film, so to see this film not only generate talk, but to develop a life of its own beyond the film — especially a movie only available through a streaming service — says volumes about how movies have changed, and are changing. I seriously doubt the filmmakers anticipated how big a hit this would become, and it’s not like it was connected to a gimmick, like The Blair Witch Project, or spoke to a bigger social movement, like the recent gay romance Love, Simon, or was an overhyped genre blockbuster.

It was just this Sandra Bullock horror movie.

Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2
seen @ Movieworld, Douglaston, Queens NY

Superheroes are hot in Hollywood right now, but mostly if they come from Disney (Marvel) or Warner Bros. (DC). When Tinseltown tries to make original heroes, their track record so far has been spottier.

James Gunn made Super when he was an indie. The Uma Thurman comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend barely made a dent at the box office and scored only a 50 at Metacritic. The Hollywood Reporter called it a "sour, joyless affair." The Will Smith vehicle Hancock, from my understanding, had a much better screenplay than the one which made the final cut. And the less said about Superhero Movie, the better.

So what does the Incredibles franchise do that makes it rise above the pretenders and compete with the Marvel and DC characters? It's from Pixar, for one thing; they simply understand storytelling better. Their success rate speaks for itself. Being computer animated doesn't hurt either.

Pixar, and writer-director Brad Bird, just don't settle for good enough. Incredibles 2 comes fourteen years after the original film, and this is sheepishly acknowledged in an intro to the film by Bird and stars Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Sam Jackson. (Is this a Disney thing now? Ava DuVernay did a similar intro for A Wrinkle in Time.)

In this Indiewire interview, though, Bird explains the deal. He describes an overheard phone conversation by the late Steve Jobs in which the former Pixar owner rejects getting a hot pop singer to sing an end credits song because he cared more about making a product for all time, not for the here and now:

...[Jobs] knew that stuff was still going to be looked at later if we did our job right. And I loved his long view because often there's something quick and cheap you can take advantage of to get heat at the moment. And he didn't care at all about that. And that was really inspiring. We're not making it just for now but for long into the future, for anyone who's interested in storytelling.

I2 picks up where the last flick left off (easy to do with an animated film), but alters the group dynamic. Elastigirl is put front and center (she spearheads a proactive campaign to reform the reputation of superheroes), while Mr. Incredible raises Violet, Dash and baby Jack-Jack. When the adults, Frozone included, get in trouble, it's the kids who come to the rescue.

Granted, I had a feeling who the villain might have been halfway into the story, but getting to the finish line was thrilling anyhow. Maybe the next time Hollywood tries to make brand new superheroes, they'll keep Bird and the Incredibles in mind.

In all likelihood, I2 will be the last movie I see at Movieworld before they close in a few weeks. I made sure to take a good look around: the movie posters and pictures of vintage film stars that dotted the box office and the walls; the cafe; the video games off to the side; the hub-like concession stand, etc. I really wanted popcorn, but I was told the salt was mixed in with the kernels. (Cinemart is the same way. A pattern?) It was okay, though.

I was more concerned with the large number of teenagers at this screening. For an afternoon show, it was fairly packed with them. I got a seat near the front, not caring about looking up. I wanted as little contact with them as possible, but surprise surprise, they behaved well during the movie.

To play devil's advocate for a minute: the mall above MW totally looked threadbare without Macy's and with Toys R Us on its last legs. The huge parking lot had enough room to hold a soccer game, there were so few cars. The Modell's was open, but it didn't seem like it. Only Burger King looked active.

I understand the landlord wanting to bring in new business here. If it was a choice between saving the mall by vacating MW or keeping MW but watching the mall wither away, I would not want to have made that decision. The issue, though, is whether or not Lowes really needs the MW space in addition to the former Macy's site. The landlord believes so.

Not much more to say. I'm glad MW was around long enough for me to enjoy it.

Where art and politics meet

This one's a little complex. Follow closely.

Pam posted a link on her Go Retro Facebook page to an article about late-night television and how politicized it has become lately, especially in favor of the liberal side:

...Regardless of your position on Obamacare or on the 2016 election, the bigger picture here is how ponderous and self-reverential and sanctimonious our late night shows (and their hosts) have become. Can we get back to entertainment please?  If I want political debates on candidates and issues, I’ve got plenty of cable channels to choose from.

Last I checked, the network late night talk shows were supposed to serve a different purpose. I want a humorous and entertaining talk show at the end of my busy and complicated day. and I doubt I’m alone.

However, in the post-Jon Stewart‘s Daily Show era, these hosts (or their producers and networks) have decided that it’s actually more important for a late night comedian to be important and relevant.  In the immortal words of Casey Kasem: Ponderous.

The pros and cons of post-credit scenes

The Avengers post-credit scene ended the movie on a laugh.

When I saw Wonder Woman, I anticipated a post-credit scene. I stood against the back wall of the Movieworld auditorium, watching the audience slowly file out, as the long, detailed list of names rolled on the screen. A staffer discreetly cleaned up with a broom. A part of me felt slightly ridiculous. I never stick around for the credits (if I'm by myself, anyway), because I'm usually too eager to go to the bathroom.

These days, however, audiences for superhero movies have come to expect some sort of Easter egg scene tacked on to the very end of the film, long after the last production company logo unspools. (In industry lingo, they're called "stingers." They predate the superhero movies by quite a margin.) They usually come in two flavors: a light-hearted, jokey moment, or a tease for the next movie. Are they necessary? No; they're usually a little something extra for the fans, a way of saying "thanks for watching." Could it be, though, that they're drawing more attention than necessary?

Josh Brolin's uber-baddie Thanos has been teased after the
Avengers movies for awhile.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had FIVE post-credit scenes - or more accurately, closing credit scenes. They were interspersed throughout the credit roll. Two of them, arguably three, were teasers for the next movie. In and of themselves, they were funny and intriguing, but I feel like this is a sure sign of success going to the filmmakers' heads. It's self-indulgent.

When Marvel Studios did it with the first wave of Avengers movies, they bonded the films and built up anticipation for the Avengers movie, when we'd finally see all these characters together in one film. Could they have been integrated into the bodies of their respective films? Probably. Would they have generated the same amount of attention? Debatable.

That's what these scenes are about, at the heart of it all: buzz; generating hype for what's to come - because we know there will be more shared-universe superhero movies, from Marvel and WB (parent company of DC Comics), at any rate. It's like they're the US and the Soviet Union, engaged in an ever-escalating nuclear arms race, only the end result here is more like Mutually Assured Box Office.

Some scenes, like the one after X-Men: Apocalypse, can
leave non-TruFans® baffled with their vagueness.

The whole thing almost makes me wish all these superheroes were in the public domain, so we could get interpretations of these characters that weren't shackled to the shared-universe concept. (I know the prospect excited me at first, but that was before I realized what it would lead to.) In the comics, they publish alternate-universe stories, reinterpreting the heroes in different times and places. Imagine if the same were done for the movies: a Superman inspired by the "World of Tomorrow" future of the 1939 World's Fair. A Batman set during the Revolutionary War. A Marvel Universe set in the time of Queen Elizabeth. But perhaps we're not ready for that yet.

Getting back to the post-credit scenes. I hear you complaining: "If you don't like them, don't watch them!" What can I say? If I lived without the Internet, maybe I would. If it were possible to avoid any and all discussion of them, on- and off-line, from now until the end of time, I might do that. The fanboy mentality, however, has infected moviegoers, and like zombies looking for some brains to munch on, we notice and discuss the minutiae of genre movies, especially things like post-credit scenes. I think the jury's still out deciding whether or not this is a good thing.

The Movieworld staffer saw me and said there was no such scene after Wonder Woman. I thanked him and left. Its absence didn't bother me. Who knows? Maybe it's the sign of a counter-trend.

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Related:
Are opening credits becoming uncool?
The main title work of Saul Bass

Rock 'n' Roll High School

Rock 'n' Roll High School
YouTube viewing

I still remember the first time I heard the Ramones. I was a freshman in high school and my friend Eric played one of their songs for me. I don't recall whether I listened to it on his Walkman (or mine) or if I heard it at his place - might have been the latter - but the song was "Do You Wanna Dance?" I loved it instantly. I had never heard the original version before, but it wouldn't have mattered. Even when I hear their version now, it always makes me happy.

I have a vague memory of seeing Rock 'n' Roll High School on TV, specifically, WPIX Channel 11, back when they still played movies. I remember watching the concert scene, seeing them perform "Teenage Lobotomy," and thinking how convenient it was for the film to provide the lyrics for the song in subtitles. I was too young to know what a lobotomy was, or DDT for that matter, but I still sensed the song was kinda silly, and I dug that.

Seeing them in this deliriously fun movie now, I was reminded for a brief moment that all four original band members - Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy - are playing in Rock 'n' Roll Heaven now (though Marky was in the band when they made this movie, not Tommy) - but only for a moment.

The punk rock "look" is fairly commonplace now (don't get me started on how out of control ripped jeans have become), but seeing the Ramones that way, during their prime, one is reminded of how counterculture that look used to be once upon a time. I mean, between Joey's bangs and his dark glasses and his long hair, one wonders if he even had a face at times. It's like his head was a great big mop of hair with a nose sticking out!

Rock 'n' Roll High School is very much in the spirit of those movies from the late 50s and 60s that exploded in the wake of the mainstreaming of rock, usually with some popular band of the moment, a hepcat Allan Freed-style DJ, stone-faced authority figures, and lots and lots of teens.

Born of rhythm & blues music by black musicians, rock metamorphosed into something bigger once White America grabbed hold of it, and Hollywood was there to take advantage of the new trend: Rock Around the Clock, The Girl Can't Help It, High School Confidential, through the British invasion and A Hard Day's Night and its imitators.

Rock 'n' Roll High School shares with these movies an anarchic, gleeful, fun-loving spirit that embodies rock at its core. In a year in which we've lost two of its greatest practitioners, it's worth looking back to the time when rock meant something special, something important, because all you have to do is turn on the radio these days to realize that time is gone, and may not ever return. And that's sad.

PJ Soles and Dey Young are both total hotties, but I wanna talk briefly about two other cast members I love: Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel. I first discovered this husband and wife duo during my video store years, and seeing the two of them in anything was always a treat. His on-screen persona was like a slightly edgier Edward Everett Horton: fussy and uptight but susceptible to temptation. As for her, well, put it this way: I'm not into S&M or anything like that, but if I were, she's the one I'd want wielding the whip! The two of them together made for a potent mixture of virtue and vice.

So if you're in the New York area, you may have heard about the current exhibit at the Queens Museum devoted to the Ramones. It's glorious. It makes a fella proud to see how four local boys from Forest Hills conquered the world. The exhibit spans almost their entire lives, from candid pictures from their youth to lyrics scribbled on scraps of paper to flyers for their earliest gigs, amps and guitars and leather jackets, original album artwork, gigantic concert posters, photos from around the world, and more, all set to Ramones music constantly playing as you look. I can't recommend this enough. If the Ramones or rock in general mean anything to you, then take the trip on the 7 train and see this show while you can.

Are opening credits becoming uncool?

Dr. Strangelove's opening credits made an eye-catching
use of typography and design.

Last fall the Indiewire blog The Playlist offered their choices for the 50 Best Opening Credits of All Time. Many of the ones you'd expect, both classic and contemporary, are there: Dr. Strangelove, Do The Right Thing, Vertigo, The Pink Panther, Watchmen, Seven, etc., as well as several Bond movies, of course. Many online cinephiles also know about the website The Art of the Title, which celebrates the very best in title sequences, past and present. Clearly, there's a segment of film fans that really appreciate a well-done opening credit sequence. So why does it seem like more and more films these days eschew the opening credits altogether?

I don't have exact statistical figures to back this up, but if you've gone to enough movies recently, you've got to have noticed: a lot (though certainly not all) of contemporary films tend to favor the bare minimum for opening titles, namely, a few producer credits ("Lotsa Dough Pictures in association with Big Explosion Studios present an Alan Smithee Film") and then a title card, and then boom, the movie starts, and you don't get to see the full credits until the very end.

The impression I get is that it's so you won't have to wait a minute longer for the movie proper to start, so you can be thrilled with its scintillating dialogue, amazing acting and sparkling visuals. I tend to associate this trend with Oscar contenders - there's something about it that adds a veneer of faux-gravitas to a dramatic movie - but I've seen it done for comedies and action movies as well.

The detailed and stylistic credits of Seven established the mindset
of its serial killer antagonist.

As with many things in modern film, I blame George Lucas. I've read testimonials about what it was like the first time audiences in 1977 saw those words - STAR WARS - and the weekly serial-inspired opening crawl, pop up on the screen, followed by the first shot of the giant Star Destroyer firing on the tiny spaceship. I imagine it must have been breathtaking. Kubrick opened 2001 in a similarly bombastic, overwhelming manner nine years earlier, of course, but it's A New Hope that everyone remembers more. So yeah, there's no doubt that starting without opening credits can give your movie the opportunity to start on just the right tone.

But there are good reasons not to abandon opening credits altogether. For one thing, and this is certainly something I've experienced on many an occasion, from a movie-goer's perspective, the opening credits are, or at least should be, a kind of last-chance buffer for latecomers to arrive and find their seats. Seriously, if you haven't arrived at the theater by the time the opening credits end, then as far as I'm concerned, you deserve to miss the movie! 

These days, in particular, with all the pre-show ads and the parade of trailers that precede the movie, arriving on time shouldn't be a problem, yet all too often it still is for some people. Well, the opening credits are kinda like the final hurdle to clear. You can make it before they finish and still have it be a minimal disturbance to everyone else at best - and you probably won't miss much, plot-wise.

The main titles of Watchmen established the differences in this
alternate reality where history looks the same, but isn't.

More importantly, though, opening credits have been used to do things like convey important plot information, get inside the head of important characters, establish a mood or an attitude important to the movie, or simply to have a few laughs. 

I don't think these things should be minimized. They're fun, they're artistic, and they're an expression of the character of their respective movies. Going without them every so often can seem dramatically different, but they have a value to the overall movie, and I'd hate to think that modern filmmakers might be moving towards this trend too much.

Thoughts?

Yuletide links

This is it! The bell lap, the ninth inning, the final month of this grand experiment called The One Year Switch - and what happens? Computer problems! Don't ask me how, but a screw in my laptop came loose (yes, I know; I've had a screw loose for quite some time), which led to a crack in the outer frame. That might not have been so bad except for the fact that finding replacement parts wasn't easy or cheap because even though I've only had the laptop for seven years, it may as well be seventy. Nobody makes laptops like mine anymore.


The repairman cut me a slight deal on the price, but that doesn't change the fact that my plans for the final two months have capsized. I've been writing this and the past several posts on my cell phone, and yes, typing with one finger is as tedious as it sounds. Did I mention I also have a cold? I'm still hoping to get my 1000th post in this year, but if I don't, it's no big deal, I guess. Like I said before, once I get my laptop back, I'll go back to the previous posts and add links and pics.

I'll wrap up the Switch with a final post game show piece on January 6, 2016 before returning to the original format, meaning new and old movies concurrently. Sticking to the classics all year long (more or less) has indeed been a challenge, but I've learned a great deal about the movies, and about myself too, I think. It's certainly made me understand my classic film blogger friends a little better - but I'll save all that summing up stuff for next month. If you've stuck with me this far, I can't thank you enough.

So for this final month, I've got one last blogathon for the year; the final two profiles; my Citizen Kane post (hopefully); and my 1000th post (really hopefully). Also, I'll deliver my one and only full-length new release post, for Star Wars Episode VII, because there's no way I can avoid writing about that one, Switch or no Switch.

Links after the jump, plus something extra: I thought you might like to see all the banners from this year. They've been fun to make and I hope you liked them.

Whiplash

Whiplash
seen @ Lincoln Plaza Cinema, New York NY
10.12.14

I was thirteen years old when I entered high school and took the freshman drawing class. I majored in art, you see, and it was my specialized course of study throughout high school. The teacher I had, to quote the Eagles, had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude. He was this middle-aged sourpuss of an instructor whom everyone dreaded. He was acerbic, bitterly sarcastic and merciless. In his class, everything had to be done his way if you expected any chance of passing. I hated the guy with a passion.

But he was one of the best teachers I ever had.

One of his assignments was a still life; fruits and vegetables in front of drapery, and I worked big - probably 18" x 24". I worked super hard on it. It was my first few months in this prestigious high school that lots of kids aspired to get into, and I was anxious about doing well and seeing how good an artist I could be. The finished product was one of the most sophisticated works of art I had done in my brief life, and I was certain the teacher would like it.

He hated it. I don't remember his exact words in describing it, and I don't remember the level of sarcasm he threw my way in critiquing it, but I do recall feeling irritated and deflated and embarrassed - until he explained why my still life was no good.

The Devil's Rain

The O Canada Blogathon is an event devoted to Canadian actors and films, hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the links at either site.

The Devil's Rain
seen online via YouTube

The first impression most people have of him is that acting style of his. It defined his most popular role when he was young and in his prime: a kind of stop-and-start cadence in which he'd carefully punctuate... certain...words, andthenspeedup! In that sense, he was a bit of a throwback to movie actors of the past, whose distinctive voices and mannerisms marked them from one movie to the next - unlike today, where actors are generally expected to be more chameleon-like in their roles.

I can't say that it ever bothered me. I noticed it, of course, but I don't recall ever thinking it was that unusual an affectation. I suppose I might have thought it had more to do with his signature character than with the man himself, but I couldn't make such distinctions back then. It was enough that I even knew his name.

He has such a strong sense of himself. Some who have worked with him have called it ego, and perhaps they're right. I would guess that he'd say that one needs a healthy dose of bravado to survive as long as he has in show business. Still, he has rubbed some people the wrong way over the years, and while that's unfortunate, to say the least, I try not to judge him for it. After all...

...no one could take on a ship full of Klingon warriors like he could.

Play it again, Sam (and again and again)

...Going back to the same pop-culture fare for seconds, thirds, and thirtieths isn't so abnormal. If anything, my re-consumption habits are tame compared to some of you, who have have read Harry Potter more than 10 times, watched Friday more than 100 times, and spent more of your waking life with The West Wing than Aaron Sorkin. Musicologists estimate that for every hour of music-listening in the typical person's lifetime, 54 minutes are spent with songs we've already heard. Forget the next big thing. We're all suckers for the last big thing. 

Pop culture is a relentless machine of newness and manufactured surprise. We queue around the block for new comic-book-movie installments and crash HBO Go to watch season finales. And yet, I have spent 100 hours of my life watching a movie I could perform verbatim in my living room. Why do we spend so much time with stories whose endings we already know?

Well, I'm certainly no stranger to this phenomenon, and I imagine most people who love movies feel the same, though a topic like this obviously goes far beyond just movies. There are a couple of other reasons why repeat consumptions of pop culture is so ubiquitous that the article doesn't go into, that bear mentioning here. One is financial: when you can't afford to spend as much money as you like on new CDs and books and Blu-rays, you may find yourself with little choice but to return to the older ones you already have in order to pass the time.

Another reason is critical. There are those who advocate repeat viewings of certain movies in order to get at certain truths, or perspectives, or themes that may have eluded the viewer the first time but are worth the effort at discovering. This may apply more towards the pop culture aesthete as opposed to the casual consumer, though. Many people watch movies for no other reason than enjoyment, and may not be that interested in anything more. If they don't like a given movie, they're not likely to return to it because so-and-so said they're missing out on something deeper.

Chasing Amy is a movie I return to a lot, for many reasons, both critical and personal. I saw it when it was first released, I own the Criterion DVD, and it's a movie I feel I know inside out. Using the criteria cited in the article at the top, I wanna see if the reasons given for repeat consumption line up with my attachment to this movie. I suspect they do, to one degree or another, but let's look anyway...

- The simple reason: one simply likes it. No argument here. From a critical point of view, it remains director Kevin Smith's best movie, in my humble opinion. It takes the lessons he learned from Clerks and Mallrats (good and bad) and applies them towards a story where his raunchy humor and geek sensibility is wedded to a sensitive, modern love story about trust and friendship and discovery in a relationship. It's an unconventional romance which doesn't end on a happy note but does leave the protagonist changed. It's a rom-com that doesn't feel like it's been market-tested to death or made to fit into a certain demographic, and it features characters I feel like I could know in real life. Plus, it's funny as hell. 

- The nostalgic reason. Omigod, definitely this. When I first saw Amy, I was beginning to discover and enjoy independent films; I was an aspiring comic book creator, just like the protagonists; and I was in love with a girl who was out of my league, just like Ben Affleck's character. In watching Amy, I'm automatically taken back to this period in my life because this movie encapsulates so much of what was important to me back then!

- The theraputic reason. This one's a little harder to quantify, if I'm reading this right. Amy ends on a melancholic note, and I accept that because it's the ending that makes the most sense to me, given everything that leads up to it. Do I hope things will end differently sometimes? Do I try to imagine how it could've worked out had one or two things changed? I'm not sure. It's not something I can remember dwelling on to a great degree, but it would not be out of character for me to occasionally wish for a different outcome. Still, I think my general cynicism tends to overcome my optimism, most of the time. It's hard to address this one because it's not like I come into Amy the same way I do to a love-conquers-all kind of movie where the outcome is never in doubt.

- The existential reason. This sounds a little bit like what I said about finding new truths upon re-consumption, but I think this is meant to be on a more personal level instead of a critical one. There are times when I find new perspectives in old movies, and that's certainly possible for me with Amy. Maybe it'll take another viewing or two. I dunno.

One thing the article doesn't go into in detail, which is quite surprising, is the connection to all the reboots and sequels that dominate Hollywood these days. Sticking with the familiar is a formula that currently pays dividends for the major studios because it minimizes financial risk, but I imagine it's also possible that they're feeding the urge for nostalgia that permeates a good deal of our culture. The biggest filmmakers - guys like Nolan, Cameron, Tarantino - seem to be the only ones who mainstream audiences will take a chance on when it comes to original ideas, and even they're not guaranteed studio support sometimes. It's no wonder we end up consuming the same product again and again.

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Related:

Is pop culture reaching a critical mass?

A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night
seen on TV @ TCM
6.2.14

I was a schoolboy when I heard my first Beatles song; "Love Me Do," I think it was. From there it wouldn't take long... Oh wait, lemme start over...

Actually, I'm not quite sure which Beatles song I heard first, but I do remember at what time in my life their music began to have an impact on me - high school. It was my buddy Eric who introduced me to classic rock in general, and the Beatles in particular. I clearly remember afternoons after school rummaging through Tower Records, comparing albums - and I do mean albums, the big black discs, though by this time I was more into cassettes for my newly-bought Walkman and wondering about the future of these strange new golden platters called compact discs.

Fast forward a bit to 1995. I spent that summer working as a sleepaway camp counselor, and there was a ton of Beatles hype in the air, in anticipation of the Beatles Anthology. Campers as young as seven and eight knew the songs, and I remember being shocked that they were not only as familiar with them as they were, but that the music spoke to them like they spoke to me almost a decade ago.

There have been numerous essays describing what the Fab Four meant to America, England, and the world at large, and chances are you've read a fair amount of them. What do they mean to me? I imagine my story's not too different from yours. The unpretentiousness of the music. The phenomenal creative output over such a shockingly short period of time that made them far more than a trendy boy band. The hair. 

A Hard Day's Night captures the Beatles during the early days of their successful arrival in America, and while it may have been a cash grab designed to capitalize on their immediate success, the Beatles themselves don't come across as fabricated. You can tell that they're amazed at being at the center of such a phenomenon and that they still don't quite believe it's real.

Fame these days comes so cheaply. We take for granted how relatively easy it is to get noticed, and not just through the traditional media of music or television or movies, but new media like the Internet. Someone makes a video (or gets captured on video) and it's put on YouTube and a million people watch it and boom! That person is famous for a minute or two. But it's hollow, and it's fleeting, and ultimately unsustainable for 99.9% of those involved. How many of us could cope with real fame, like the kind the Beatles enjoyed for so long? This movie, fictionalized as it is, provides a clue, and while we know now that the four of them weren't always as buddy-buddy as they seem here, we still accept the legend.

Music has always been a big business in America, and it's a completely different one today than it was fifty years ago, but the music of the Beatles have remained a constant, whether it's used to sell sneakers, mashed up with modern rock bands or rappers, heard on a scratchy LP or an MP3. I think that in one way or another, they'll always be a part of us.

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Related:
Lovely Lily

Man on Fire

Man on Fire
seen on TV @ Spike
12.18.13

Director Tony Scott died last year, as you probably know. I had nothing against him as a director; I really like Crimson Tide and True Romance, and I can watch most of his other movies if there's nothing else on (they certainly get played on cable often enough), though he was rarely someone I went out of my way for. 

He tended to be flashier than his brother Ridley, and his films were almost always heavy on the testosterone (though he did do The Hunger with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon before he got his rep as an action director, so there's that).

Like I said, though, his films were entertaining, especially if all you wanna do is kick back with a few of your friends for a couple of hours and get your fill of high-powered action and suspense. Scott's films may have had tortured, convoluted plots at times, but unlike Michael Bay, I rarely felt like Scott was insulting my intelligence in terms of story or characters. A movie like Top Gun seems campy now, in retrospect, but I remember when it first came out. It was the perfect film for the Reagan 80s, and its iconography still looms large today (for better or for worse).

Scott made five movies with Denzel Washington, including four of his last five features. I didn't see Man on Fire when it came out, but I had heard it was pretty good, so when I saw that it was on TV last night, I gave it a shot. It's basically a revenge flick, but Denzel is pretty hardcore in it, to a degree we rarely see in his action movies. 

I mean, he tortures dudes, blows up cars with a missile launcher, takes all kinds of damage and delivers some damage of his own and I'm not talking about the "safe," semi-glamorous type, either. This is a brutal, hard-R movie where people die or get hurt in gruesome ways. But they all deserve it, so it's alright, kids!

I got the impression Scott was trying to experiment with his visual style in Fire. He pulls out all sorts of weird and wacky stylistic stunts - jump cuts, negative imagery, slo-mo, monochrome - all in this bizarre kind of hodgepodge that, I gotta say, didn't add much to the story. In Enemy of the State, this sort of thing made a kind of sense; that film was about modern surveillance techniques in a digitized world, and having a heavily stylized look was more appropriate, but here it just gets in the way and calls more attention to itself than it should. I liked Fire in spite of all that stuff, not because of it.

One thing I can respect about Scott's films is that they kept alive the paradigm of the 80s-model action film: stunt-heavy action, clear-cut good guys and bad guys, and A-list superstars. That last part is especially important. Superstars are less of a requirement in action films these days, it seems, and to someone like me who grew up with the Arnie-Sly-Bruce paradigm, this strikes me as a bit disappointing. I admit that these kinds of action movies hold less of an appeal to me today than they did when I was thirteen and they were all the rage, but at the same time, I'd hate to see them go away. 

Scott was one of the last action-movie guys who consistently cast A-listers, and I suspect that was a big part of his appeal. Now he's gone, and the current paradigm is computer-generated superheroes where the characters are the attraction, as opposed to the stars. Times change, I know that, and what's cool one year is passe the next - law of the jungle - but it's a little disappointing all the same.

So here's to you, Tony Scott. Thanks for keeping on as long as you did.

"Nothing ever ends."

Simon Kinberg and his Genre Films banner have signed a new three-year first-look deal at 20th Century Fox. Kinberg is heavily involved with next summer's X-Men: Days of Future Past and the studio's upcoming Fantastic Four reboot as both writer and producer. The new deal will allow him to expand those franchises into full-blown universes, with the hope of creating for Fox something akin to the Marvel model of interlocking movies. 

"I have a lot of ideas on how to built those brands and do what everybody is thinking of these days: Be like Marvel," Kinberg tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I want to be able to build stories over multiple movies."

I first started reading comic books around the time that crossovers began to take off. At the time I didn't question it, and besides, comics were cheaper then (50-60 cents), so I could afford to buy a bunch of them all at once every week. In the early 80s, Marvel had a mini-series called Secret Wars, which starred the major heroes and villains and instituted "major" (at the time) changes, so if you wanted to know how such-and-such and so-and-so happened, you had to read the mini-series to find out. At DC you had Crisis on Infinite Earths and the same principle applied, though I didn't read DC back then.

But then crossovers became commonplace, first in the X-Men titles and then the Spider-Man titles and so on and so forth. After Superman "died," there was a big long arc about his funeral, and then there was an even longer arc involving the "replacement" Supermen that lost me completely after awhile. I got tired of trying to figure out which story comes after which and who was where doing what, so I dropped it. Over time, this trend expanded into other media, like television and books, and I went through the same cycle: liked it at first, grew tired of it after awhile, dropped it.

I still wanna see this though.

And now look where we are: the Marvel movie model of crossovers is catching on elsewhere (I should've seen this coming, I really should have), and once again, I find myself going through the same cycle: liked it at first, have grown tired of it, now dropping it. It used to be that arcs were the exception rather than the rule: Empire leading into Jedi was mind-blowing at the time, as was Wrath of Khan leading into Search For Spock and The Voyage Home. Most of the time a sequel meant a brand new story with the same characters, but not anymore - and I totally understand the appeal. I really do. 

But you know, not everything has to be an ongoing, serialized mega-story. There's value in doing a "one-and-done." When I took part in NaNoWriMo last month, I saw lots of writers who claimed their work-in-progress was one in a series, because, y'know, ongoing series are the way to go in books now, especially genre books. Some people claimed to have plans for as many as four or five books in their series, and I would look at them and wonder, well, that's great and all, but shouldn't you worry about getting this one book done first before you plan your Tolkien-like epic? As I have learned, and am learning, writing a single novel is hard enough on its own without planning a whole bunch of them - especially when you have no guarantee that your first book will sell well enough to justify sequels.

With genre movies, though, it's different, particularly those that are made from pre-existing source material, like comics and young adult novels. They have built-in audiences who will lap these movies up regardless of quality (though, to be fair, the quality has been decent overall - so far). As a kid, I would've freaked out at the prospect of an ongoing series of movies based on Marvel comics with continuing stories. I would've thought it was pure heaven. However, like the kid who loves ice cream and pigs out on gallons of the stuff all at once, there can be too much of a good thing, especially when these movies come out on a regular basis every year.

So the more I think about it, the more I think my genre movie burnout has as much to do with fatigue as with apathy (though that's definitely a big part too). I see now, as I write this out, that this is a cycle that I've gone through in the past, and while I did enjoy Avengers, and I may see the second movie when it comes out, as well as this new Fantastic Four movie (because they've always been my favorite super-team), I find it harder and harder to justify investing in ongoing arcs anymore, even if the rest of Fandom Assembled is loving it. It's too much for me.

Thoughts? (A cookie if you know where this post's title comes from.)

Smokey and the Bandit

Smokey and the Bandit
seen on TV @ AMC
12.5.13

I talk a lot about the livable streets movement and how toxic America's car-centric culture is, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm anti-car. I appreciate them; they're certainly important and they've helped me get around plenty of times in my life (when someone else is driving). I can appreciate a beautiful looking car. And a movie with a good car chase is always gonna be entertaining.

That said, I admit that I had never seen Smokey and the Bandit prior to yesterday. (Don't think I've ever seen Cannonball Run either.) No excuse other than that I just never got around to it... but damn if this isn't one helluva fun movie! It's the kind of film that I wish I could've seen - or been allowed to have seen - when I was much younger.

I used to watch The Dukes of Hazard as a kid, and I can see now that it was very directly inspired by this movie. If I were to watch it now, I imagine I'd be embarrassed by it, which is odd because I didn't feel that way about Smokey. (Well, I guess it was embarrassing enough to see that the beer of choice was Coors.) I guess context may have something to do with it; looking at the film as an adult as opposed to a kid.

I know CBs were a big deal in the 70s. My family never had one, so I never knew what that was like growing up, but seeing it here, it made me think that this must have been like a primitive version of Twitter: everyone's got an alias, there's a distinct vocabulary and language common to the medium, and there's a strong sense of community. I can see why CBs were as popular as they were.

I've only been in a truck once in my life, but unfortunately, I didn't go riding around in it much. I visited my friend Becky, who lives upstate, and she had a neighbor friend who drove a truck. The front part was parked outside his house, without the cargo part, and he took me for a brief ride up and down their rural street. I remember climbing into the seat and being intimidated by the size and the sheer power of the vehicle, and this was just the front part! Nothing quite like stepping into a bus.

In my links post last week I mentioned Retrospace's new movie podcast and their first subject, the film Convoy. One of the points they bring up in discussing that film is that truckers were little different from hippies in the sense that the ones in Convoy, at least, were "stickin' it to the man," and Smokey has that same spirit, even though you'd never confuse Burt Reynolds for a hippie. I'd imagine that ties very deeply into the independent spirit that drivers and especially truckers had back then (and maybe still do; I dunno).

Also, Sally Field is totally hot.