Soundtrack Saturday: Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe. Nuff said.

Yes, "Roundabout"

The Raspberries, "Go All the Way"

Rod Stewart, "Every Picture Tells a Story"

Spider-Man

Spider-Man
first seen @ UA Union Square Stadium 14, New York NY
2002

When I was a kid, I'd get my comics from a magazine store. I still remember it, too, though I'm pretty sure it's no longer there. It was several blocks south of my junior high school, a small shop which sold cigarettes, candy, soda, and all along one side, magazines and comics. Often times I went there after school, but mostly I went whenever I felt like it. I'd go in, peruse the selection carefully, and happily pay for the ones I wanted most. I didn't time my visits to the new-release day; I went there so often it didn't matter when new releases came in. I could count on my favorite comics being there. In fact, the first comic I remember buying was in a magazine shop - a different one than this, though.

Then, I discovered comic shops. Every Saturday, my father would drive me to this place out in Bayside and I'd go through their new releases. (I wish I could recall how I discovered the place; I might've passed by it one day while going to summer day camp or something.) Shopping in a place devoted exclusively to comics was a very different experience. It felt like I was in a store that was made for me, that catered to my specific tastes, providing me not only with comics I wanted, but comics I didn't know existed.

Comic shops were a vital element in the growth of the comics industry in the 80s and early 90s, but by catering more towards the comic shop audience - the hardcore adult fans who dutifully dropped in every Wednesday for the new releases - and less towards the casual readers, including parents and little children, the industry suffered a major economic downturn in the mid-90s. As a result, many comic shops closed, and the market for comics contracted significantly.

When Hollywood took a renewed interest in making movies based on comics, beginning with the surprise hit Blade and continuing with the blockbuster X-Men, the industry responded to the resurgence in comics' popularity with an annual promotional event called Free Comic Book Day, in which comic shops made a concerted push towards attracting new readers, especially kids, by giving away special edition comics. And what better time to hold the first FCBD, the reasoning went, than the day after the release of the long-awaited Spider-Man film?

On FCBD, I brought my friend Lysa and her son to Forbidden Planet in Manhattan, across the street from the theater where I saw Spider-Man the previous day. I met Lysa several years ago when we were both in an acting class. She actually aspired to be a filmmaker, but wanted to experience what it was like on the other side of the camera as well. We kept in touch long after the class ended, as much as her growing family would allow. I knew her son, who was about 6-8 years old at the time I think, liked comics, so I figured inviting them to FCBD was perfect. They were exactly the sort of people the event was catering to.

I had written about the experience, but unfortunately, I don't recall everything I said about it. I do recall that Lysa ended up getting something Spider-Man-related for her son. I tried to turn her on to some of my favorite comics at the time, but she wouldn't bite. Still, I think she dug the whole scene. There were certainly a great deal more kids in the store, and it definitely had a festive atmosphere - generated in large part, from the movie, which most people loved, including me.

These days, digital distribution has meant one no longer has to exclusively depend on the comic shop or even the magazine store to find the comics they like, as I did all those years ago. But for me, the comic shop has always represented a haven for like-minded fans to meet and discuss their favorite books and creators. Unfortunately, for years, many shops have presented an unwelcoming atmosphere for casual readers and parents due to a boys-club mentality that can be pervasive and off-putting to the uninitiated, particularly women. In the almost-year I worked in a comic shop, I did my best to reverse that trend, though that's a tale for another time.

I think comic shops, at least the ones I've been to in New York and Columbus, have gotten smarter. They know that in order to survive, they need to cater to a wider audience, not just the fanboys, and as long as they maintain that attitude, they should do alright.

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Related:

Avengers
Iron Man 3
Captain America

X-Men

X-Men: First Class
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Guardians of the Galaxy

Can a woman be sexy and "empowered" too?

Hanna director Joe Wright on feminism:

“For me, one of the main issues in terms of womens’ place in society and feminism is the sexual objectification of women... That’s something that feminists in the ’70s tried to fight against but has been totally lost in the 21st century consumer-celebrity world. So for me, when I look at the poster for Sucker Punch it seems actually incredibly sexist, because it is sexually objectifying women regardless of if they can shoot you or not.

“I have a kind of immediate, knee-jerk reaction to such iconography...I remember when the Spice Girls came out in the mid-’90s and it was all about girl power, but one of them was dressed as a baby doll, do you know what I mean? That isn’t girl power, that isn’t feminism. That’s marketing bullshit. And I find it very, very alarming.”

I swear I wasn't gonna get involved in all the talk about Sucker Punch and whether or not it succeeds in its attempt to make girl-power cool again. I haven't seen it; I have no intention of seeing it, but what I want to talk about goes beyond that one movie.

I believe women deserve equal rights in all things. Does that make me a feminist? I dunno. I believe feminism is way more complicated than that, so I can't say for sure. Still, Wright's statements did strike me as a bit odd. He goes on to say in the interview that his character, Hanna, is more empowering than the women in Sucker Punch because she doesn't dress like a slut. Now we know that different people find different things sexy. People's tastes go from Keira Knightley to Gabby Sidibe and everything in between; that's a given. However, for argument's sake, let's agree that the women in Sucker Punch are, in fact, sexy.

Without getting into Sucker Punch's quality as a movie, why does there have to be a disconnect between the way a female character acts and the way she looks? These are action movies we're talking about here, so they're fantasies to a certain degree anyway. Why shouldn't the women in them have the total package - brains and looks? More to the point, why should an "empowered" woman, however you define that, not only be denied her looks, but be judged on them alone?

I have no problem with studios using sex appeal to market female characters in an action movie. It's a proven incentive guaranteed to generate interest at the very least. Wright, however, seems to be saying that an "empowered" woman shouldn't also be sexy because that's just "marketing bullshit" - as if the two can't and mustn't coexist. I think you and I both can think of examples throughout film history that prove him wrong. (I don't wanna bring Hanna itself into the discussion because both the character and the actress, Saoirse Ronan, are underage.)

Like I said, I don't claim to be any kind of expert on feminism, but it seems to me that to reduce a conversation about female empowerment down to looks misses a great deal more to the subject.

Thoughts?

Eight Men Out

Eight Men Out
first seen in Queens, NY
1988

Baseball has always meant a great deal to me, especially as a child. I could write a book about the year 1986 alone and how the Mets' championship season coincided with profound changes in my life. When I think of baseball, I think of my father, as many American men of a certain age do. He would watch the games on TV, but he could never abide by the commentary of the announcers, since, to him, they tended to say more or less the same things all the time. (This attitude of his would extend to other sports as well.) He and I went to games at the old Shea Stadium and he taught me the rules of the game and how to appreciate it, but he also helped make me aware of the danger of idolizing these athletes too much, a lesson that it took me a long time to learn.

Even back then, I was aware of the fallibility of professional athletes off the playing field, even if I was too young to fully understand the ramifications. To pick one notable example from the Mets of the 80s: pitcher Dwight Gooden was Rookie of the Year in 1984. He was a dominant strikeout pitcher favorably compared to Bob Feller, Bob Gibson and Nolan Ryan. Many thought he would follow in their footsteps, but rapid success combined with great youth led to a drug habit that diminished his potential. When he came back from rehabilitation in 1987, I remember having mixed feelings. There were those in the local press who felt he had let the team and the fans down, and tried to castigate him for it. I didn't feel betrayed so much as confused. How could Gooden do this? Why? I felt it was my duty as a fan to be supportive of Gooden and the team, come what may, but I understood the dangers of drugs as well, and I knew he was wrong to have succumbed to them. I was disappointed... but I did my best to maintain my loyalty.

Of course, Gooden was far from an isolated case. Over the following years, I'd witness more ballplayers cope with similar problems. In addition, there were labor disputes with management, which took up more space in the sports pages. And, of course, other professional sports had similar issues. The more I read about all of this stuff, the more it irritated me. When the World Series was canceled in 1994 due to a protracted labor dispute, that was the last straw. I quit following sports altogether. By that point, I truly had felt betrayed. If they could do something as drastic as canceling the World Series, I thought... then nothing means anything.

It took years, but eventually I put my grudge away, and while I no longer follow baseball with the same fervor I once did, I'm more able to appreciate it as a game, without the craziness of steroid scandals and tabloid gossip to distract me. Watching more minor league games has helped.

When my father took me to see John Sayles' Eight Men Out, I knew it was based on a real story - the Chicago White Sox of 1919 and how they conspired to throw the World Series for money. I vaguely remember being surprised that scandal in professional sports reached so far back in history. Still, it made me wonder how the conspirators were able to live with the knowledge of what they'd done, especially given the fact that this was during a time when baseball dominated American life to a much greater degree than it does today.

That danger my father warned me about - the danger of putting professional athletes on a pedestal, or any celebrity, really - is a great one, and one we need to remain on guard against, because if you put someone in that position for long, they'll feel like nothing can hurt them, and that they can get away with anything.

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Related:
Frequency
Game 6

Soundtrack Saturday: Crooklyn

Underrated Spike Lee movie, perhaps because it's personal and not political. I used to date a girl from Brownstone Brooklyn and seeing this always makes me think of those beautiful houses in Flatbush.

Sly and the Family Stone, "Everyday People"

Jean Knight, "Mr. Big Stuff"

The Five Stairsteps, "Ooh Child"

Dolemite

Dolemite
seen online via YouTube
3.31.11

Blaxploitation! Not long ago, I used to think that this sub-genre was a bad thing, but that's only because I didn't fully understand it. I suppose I was misled by the very name, as if black actors were somehow being coerced into making sub-par movies. I dunno for sure, but now, of course, I know better, and it seems to me that the term "blaxploitation" ought to be replaced with something else. There's something about the root word "exploit" that, within this context, seems to have a bit of a negative connotation. When I think of black people being exploited, I think of the slave trade. I think of powerlessness, when in fact the sub-genre was empowering to an unprecedented extreme.

I suspect a major reason why blaxploitation has become as well-appreciated as it has become by a wider (read: non-black) audience is because there's nothing quite like it anymore in mainstream film. Hollywood no longer feels inclined to make movies like this (or much of anything that reflects the black experience), and so these films have become an anomaly from an earlier time. And taken on their own merits, a number of them are a lot of fun to watch. Stickin' it to the Man, makin' it with groovy chicks, lots of fights - they're not too different from traditional action movies in that respect, but when filtered through a black perspective they take on a different look and feel.

They can't all be Shaft, however. I was not prepared for the level of awfulness that is Dolemite. I had never seen it before, but I figured it was at least as entertaining as most blaxploitation movies - and in its own way, it is. But not the way it aspires to be. I hesitate to call it Mystery Science Theater 3000-level bad because it's the wrong genre, and I'd almost be willing to give the horrible acting and even the laughable fight scenes a pass on account of the unintentional-humor factor, if it weren't for the complete and inexcusable sloppiness of the filmmaking. Are you telling me that no one noticed the guy lying on the ground holding the boom mike was still in the frame? No one noticed him in the dailies? In post-production? No one thought the audience would notice?

Actually, that boom mike makes several appearances over the course of the movie, to the point where it should've been credited as a cast member. If I were to attempt to offer an in-continuity reason for it, I suppose I could say that Dolemite, being the BAMF that he is, feels the need to record his everyday activities for posterity, because, y'know, everything he says and does is important. But alas, this was long before the advent of reality television, therefore incompetence on the director's part is the only other logical explanation.

Dolemite and films like it are wish-fulfillment fantasies to a certain degree, so the idea of a fat, ugly man having women crawl all over him and fulfill his every whim are part and parcel of that fantasy. I get that. Rudy Ray Moore tries his best, but he "acts" like he knows the whole thing's a put-on. The only time he seems genuine is when he recites his spoken-word "poetry" (you can't really call it rap).

And by the way, why did no one point out to the director the difference between nudity the audience wants and nudity the audience doesn't want? Hot, sexy chicks in bed with Dolemite - yes. Bald, flabby, pasty-looking bad guy dudes - HELL NO! This is not an arty European film!

Like I said, the unintentional (or perhaps it was intentional? Who knows?) humor of Dolemite almost makes it worth watching, if you're into that sort of thing. One could make a drinking game out of it: take a shot every time you see the boom mike, or a poorly edited jump cut, or a silly-looking O-face, or a judo chop that wouldn't hurt Peewee Herman, much less any of the bad guys in this film. Watching it this way can only improve it.

[The second screen capture comes from the site Movieline.]

Five ways for theaters to get butts back in seats

AMC Entertainment’s “Fork & Screen” theater program is the equivalent of business class on an airplane: not quite as posh as first but offering plenty of amenities. For a few dollars more than the price of a regular ticket, AMC patrons are treated to upgraded seats equipped with a personal call button they can use to order food and drinks. The menus include everything from jazzy cocktails to appetizers (the crab Rangoon dip is recommended) to pizza and pasta.
As moviegoers start to ask not just “What’s playing?” but also “What’s on the menu?” theater circuits -- even the two biggest chains, AMC and Regal -- are aggressively experimenting with upgraded services in the never-ending search to boost traffic and improve the bottom line in the fight to get audiences to leave their homes. Catering to audiences’ appetites is also seen as one of the best defenses against letting Hollywood studios dictate the rules in a new world order of VOD and windows.

I will attempt to resist going for the "make better movies" cheap shot in discussing the struggle to boost movie attendance. Truth is, if I could watch first-run movies on demand in the comfort of my own home on my digital HD flat-screen TV with surround-sound, I'd do it. (Y'know, if I, um, had any of that stuff.)

Improving the menu is certainly a good idea, as are reserved seating and even wait service, and while I, as a moviegoer, wouldn't take advantage of those options every time, it might be nice for a super-special movie, or for a date night. Last week we talked about variable ticket-pricing as an idea, one I do believe ought to be experimented with in some form.

Still, there are some more fundamental issues with the moviegoing experience that I feel need to be addressed if theaters - and by extension, studios - want more patrons.

- Enforce a zero-tolerance policy on cellphone usage. I don't think I have to explain this one, do I? If it means installing infra-red cameras in auditoriums, if it means having ushers patrol the aisles every fifteen minutes, if it means generating a small electromagnetic pulse, theater staff seriously need to curtail cellphone activity during a film and make it stick. It'll mean hurt feelings for some people, but you can always call the cops if somebody gets violent.

- Provide a babysitter service. You can charge an extra dollar or two for it, but it's as simple as providing a chaperoned room with toys and maybe a Spongebob DVD or two for the little brats to watch while their parents are watching Saw 28 or whatever. Make it clear that this is a house rule for any film rated PG-13 or higher. Also, and this needs to be enforced at the box office, if a parent with toddlers wants to see a PG-13-or-higher movie and is unwilling to use the babysitting service, then they can't get in. Period.

- Provide some healthier snack options. Recently, theaters have bristled over the possibility that they may have to disclose calorie counts for their snacks, popcorn in particular. While we acknowledge that concessions in general are huge money-makers, and in all honesty I wouldn't want popcorn to disappear from theaters, no matter how many calories they may contain, I see no problem with also offering things like fruit, yogurt, power bars, and similar items for those that want them. It's an idea whose time has come.

- Always provide a 2D option for 3D movies. Some theaters don't do this. I'd imagine most of them are smaller and want to maximize the amount of 3D showings, but not everyone is interested in seeing movies in 3D, especially if they're Clash of the Titans-style transfers from 2D. If it means having 2D screenings only on weekdays before 5PM, that's fine, but always have that 2D print available and make sure the patrons know which one they're paying for.

- Start the movie on time and keep out any latecomers. I don't think I'm the only one who despises the way theaters will say a movie starts at 7:30, then shows 20 minutes worth of ads and previews. I have grudgingly learned to accept that pre-show commercials and fluff programs like "The 20" are necessary evils, but I don't wanna see them once the time on my ticket is reached. Also, people are always gonna arrive late. I get this. Let the trailers serve as a kind of grace period for latecomers to straggle in, but once the lights go down, that should be it. Let the ushers close the doors after the opening credits (if there are any) and keep out all latecomers. Offer them a full refund on their tickets, offer them a gift certificate for their next visit, but keep them out.

I think implementing these ideas will go a longer way than installing a wine bar. If you've got similar ones, fire away.