My esteemed colleague Edward Copeland is still soliciting ballots for his poll to determine the worst best picture winners of all time. Here is my ballot, ranked in order from 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst.
1. “Crash” (2005) Anything but this.
2. “Around the World in 80 Days.” (1956) A deal memo in Technicolor.
3. “The Greatest Show on Earth.” (1952) Makes the circus seem boring.
4. “Gentleman’s Agreement.” (1946) Feh.
5. “Grand Hotel.” (1931/32) Lumpy porridge.
6. “All the King’s Men.” (1949) A ninth grade term paper on Southern political corruption, read aloud by professional actors.
7. “A Beautiful Mind.” (2001) Quite bad. Somehow its innate belief in its own decency makes it worse.
8. “Going My Way.” (1944) A quivering slab of raw heart, lightly glazed with banter.
9. “Rain Man.” (1988) Piercing and lovely for the first hour. Then they go to Vegas and it turns into just another gleaming, shitty ‘80s movie.
10. “Gladiator.” (2000) Aspires to be “Spartacus” by way of “The Godfather,” but its production values, moral intelligence and strong cast can’t overcome a certain trash-and-flash factor. Ridley Scott directed it, but brother Tony's spirit hovers nearby.
Qualifiers: I have never seen “Cavalcade” or “The Broadway Melody.”
The final deadline is March 31. For a list of previous best picture Oscar winners, click here. In the interests of promoting a safe and secure democracy, Mr. Copeland asks that you email your 10 ranked choices directly to him, at eddiesworst@yahoo.com.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Worst picture
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106 comments:
I think it's weirdly appropriate that A Beautiful Mind should itself be a deeply schizophrenic movie; I mean for God's sake, Ron Howard actually seems to think that we should feel sad in the scene where Nash 'says goodbye' to his mental delusions, personified by a cute little girl. What's the point of being sane if you can't have cool spy adventures and hang out with Paul Bettany?
Also, I know this is an incredibly nerdy thing to say, but it really bugged the shit out of me that except for that one scene in the bar very early on, Howard managed to get all the way through a movie about a mathemetician without describing what sort of math the hero devised and what it was good for. In a movie about a mathematician, the math was incidental; the movie was only interested in him for being schizophrenic, and rather than ignoring that, it falsified it.
I just saw a pretty fascinating nonfiction film tonight, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," that deals with very simiar subject matter. It's as emotionally involving as Howard's movie, and it bothers to explain the creative aspect of its main character's life and thus explains why the movie even cares who he is. Yet it never deceives or sugarcoats or distracts us from the sad truth of Johnston's devastating mental illness. An excellent movie, sort of the anti-'Beautiful Mind."
Matt,
I don't know how much you care, but sometimes you get a little careless with your links. For example, the first two links for this post. It's not that big of a deal because presumably anyone who really wanted to follow the link can just manually correct the url. But for your info.
I thought I already fixed those. Am repairing now.
I could've seen The Devil and Daniel Johnston in class last summer with the filmmaker present but we took a vote, and the majority voted for the option that took the least amount of work and thought.
Sometimes I seriously do not understand other film students.
"Shakespeare in Love" and "Chicago" are infinitely worse than "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Going My Way," both of which can at least be watched without vomiting.
arnaux: If you want to quibble, do it in the form of a ballot. This is Eddie's poll, not mine. Help him out with some input, and send your 10 ranked choices to the address at the end of the item.
Grand Epic: When I was in film school at SMU, the overwhelming majority of people in the program, particularly in survey classes, resented being made to read about movies, think about movies, write about movies or learn how to make movies. They only wanted to sleep through movies or, if the urge struck, watch movies and snicker condescendingly at any behavior that wasn't cool by the standards of 1987-1992 (my college years). So i know where you're coming from.
Matt, how dare you mention Tony Scott's name in connection with GLADIATOR?
I know we've discussed this before, and I will concede that Tony's movies are base, shallow and usually obnoxious - but they're never puffed up to the same degree of self-importance that Big Brother's always get saluted for.
For starters, Tony Scott would never release a film that's so goddam fucking long... there are at least 4,000 subplots that go abso-fucking-lutely nowhere that Little Brother would've thrown right on the Avid scrap-heap.
Say what you will about the younger Scott, but he's quick and dirty -- which is what we really want from our whores, isn't it?
It's the other girls we marry.
Yes, I always like to drop by and "class-up" the discussion.
I'll concede that Ridley has perhaps too high an opinion of himself, but Tony's Scott's movies go too far in the other direction. They are unnervingly proud of their skankiness. They seem to be shot with a special camera system, Skankvision 9000, that amps up the skank factor. I think that accounts for the haze in every frame of a Tony Scott film; it's not a smoke machine, it's the skank floating in the air. After stuff like MAN ON FIRE and REVENGE, I felt like I needed to go get vaccinated or something. Peckinpah is Merchant-Ivory compared to that guy.
And still my boyfriend loves Top Gun. :-)
Finally, someone willing to admit that Grand Hotel (regardless of the mighty Garbo) was popular trite even for its day!
I agree with "Gladiator" -- yet is it truly any worse than "Spartacus"?
Too bad the list is limited to English language films. There was an Asian nightmare I struggled through a few years back called "Yi Yi" -- it came complete with overemphasized comedy relief in the form of a chubby geek named "Fatty," or some such nonsense. Three hours of hollow tedium (one of those deals where I'm supposed to find some blank-faced tyke endearing, like in the equally hateful "Kikujiro"), it was the first time I ripped the DVD from the machine and sent it flying across the room.
Flickhead: Actually, I think both SPARTACUS and GLADIATOR suffer from the same central problem, which is a tendency to want to have it both ways -- to be sophisticated and rabble-rousing, complex and stupidly fun. I'd give SPARTACUS an edge, though, because it's visually superior -- Kubrick seems incapable of framing an un-thoughtful shot -- and because its hypocrisies are nowhere near as severe as GLADIATOR's. (I love it when Russell Crowe lectures the arena mob on their mindless thirst for violence -- "Are you not entertained?" -- in a movie that stylizes many of its deaths in the manner of a FRIDAY THE 13th movie.)
But yo, what's up with the hate for YI YI? I really liked that movie, particularly its Neorealist approach to acting, framing and natural sound. It felt real in a good way, I thought. It reminded me of a Czech new wave drama, or THE BEST INTENTIONS or FANNY AND ALEXANDER -- very earthy and sweet. Three hours might have been excessive, granted, and the easygoing tone is an acquired taste, but still. Throwing the DVD across the room? I don't think I'd do that unless my monitor was showing freaky ghosts.
Thanks Matt for the shoutout -- I've already received a few new ballots, but I'd love more just so the results will seem slightly more accurate. I'm just amazed so far that so many of the winners have received at least one vote. I wonder how many of the 78 will get at least one mention before we reach the end.
Forgot to mention -- I did see The Devil and Daniel Johnston too and found it fascinating. 2005 was such a great year for documentaries really.
I saw THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON yesterday evening and I am still thinking about it. The movie oversells the title character at times -- at one point, an interview subject seriously suggests that he's a greater artist than Brian Wilson, which is just ludicrous, and the movie doesn't bother disagreeing. But for the most part, it strikes the right balance, demanding respect for Johnston's talent, mourning the unrecognized aspects of that talent, and never flinching from the fact that he was just flat-out dealt a rotten hand by life.
PS, Edward: Any votes for "Casablanca"? I can't imagine anyone listing that as one of the worst, but I know there's a small but vocal contingent that considers it way overrated.
Grr! I just accidentally deleted the greatest blog post--my magnum opus--because the stupid blog posting mechanism wasn't working properly! So you are now reading a far inferior piece! Damn you, blogspot! Damn you all to HELL! ("Of course he deserved it," says Blogspot, "and I hope he burns in Hell!")
Speaking of burns, or rather, Mr. Burns: Your defense of Tony "Cuisinart" Scott is qwazy! The man needs Ritalin! He's not quick and dirty, he's A.D.D. and dirty. Why shoot a scene when you can cut it up worse than a victim in a giallo? If whores were like Tony Scott, they'd come to the Sean Burns mansion and clean your house, paint your walls, change all the lightbulbs--twice, fold your laundry, build a bookcase, and then run the New York City Marathon, all while you're clinging on her back for dear life, happily humping away and trying to last longer than a shot in a Michael Bay movie.
(You're not the only one who can class up the joint, my kindred spirit, Sean. I say we should take our show on the road. Odie Fiddles While Sean Burns...)
I love lists, so I am going to E-mail the esteemed Mr. Copeland. But I take issue with you picking on Going My Way, Matt. It's no classic, and Double Indemnity should have won that Oscar, but it's diverting and watchable. For picking on Father O'Malley, expect me to sing the rap version of "Swinging on a Star" to you when I see you next. Complete with 80's style beat boxing and big-assed video hootchies, dressed like stars, droppin' it like it's hot behind me.
Not to tip my hand, but what about Oliver?! Asking Carol Reed to direct a musical is like asking Jackie Collins to write for Sesame Street. Oliver made my ears bleed, dear God! It's louder than a Joel Silver picture and the sound at my screening of The Prince of Tides.
Funny you mention The Greatest Show On Earth. Until a few weeks ago, it was the only Best Picture winner I hadn't seen. Now that I have, I realize I was happier when I was ignorant of deMille's abomination. I just thought I didn't like it because I was biased: I hate the circus and clowns terrify me, especially if they're played by Jimmy Stewart. Thanks for putting it on your list and restoring my sanity yet again.
My favorite Oscar winner is still All About Eve. There's a very good book on that by Sam Staggs, which spent 361 pages trying to convince me that my improper love of said Bette Davis classic meant that I should be flying out of the closet faster than a pair of Manolos on Sex and the City. The Inside Oscar books are also great for all things Oscar, good and bad, but the second one is inferior to the first.
Casablanca IS overrated. But it's still a damn good movie, and it deserved its Oscar.
I have a stupid question. I haven't seen The Greatest Show on Earth, but it it a coincidence that Heston on that movie poster bears a strong resemblence to Indiana Jones? The IMBD claims that this movie was the first Spielberg ever saw. Interesting -- if it is true (the IMDB isn't always accurate), I wonder if Spielberg, Lucas and Ford were slying spoofing (rather than paying unironic tribute to) the type of action hero Heston used to specialize in.
That's weird -- I answered your post, but I don't see it here now. Anyway, no votes for Casablanca so far, but there have been votes for Schindler's List, The Apartment and Gone With the Wind.
Edward: Sorry about that. I don't know what's going on. Blogspot has been acting strange during the last 24 hours. I double-checked all my links in this item to make sure they worked, then VirgilX told me a couple were busted, and after I fixed them, they somehow became unfixed a few hours later. Then I had trouble posting comments on my own site -- a couple of my remarks above had to be submitted and resubmitted before they took -- and Odienator lost a whole, long post and had to rewrite it. Bizarre. Gremlins are afoot.
Driving Miss Daisy, anyone?
Whither, Mrs. Miniver? *(Which I confess I have never seen, but is, by all accounts, unwatchable).
paynomind: It's been a hell of a long time since I saw MRS. MINIVER, so it's not fresh enough in my mind to critique in any definitive way, but I remember it being corny, sincere, in-your-face patriotic (it was a World War II movie) but generally watchable. I am sure other readers of this blog might beg to differ.
Miss Daisy is Crash for the 80's. "Oh, Hoke, you are my best friend" translates to "Oh Hoke, nobody's here to wipe my ass at this nursing home." The performances are fine (even Ackroyd, whom I thought was very good), but the movie left me choking on the bitter taste in my mouth. Maybe it worked better on stage. And it won the Pulitzer, lest we forget.
Mrs. Miniver is corny WWII propaganda, and it doesn't stand up to multiple viewings, but I don't think it's a bad movie.
Mrs. Miniver is a snooze. As for the broken link, I bet part of that is my fault, because when I update the title of the thread (to reflect how many days are left in voting) it changes the entire thread name, so that may be what is messing you up. Sorry about that. I plan to keep it the top post for awhile, so it might be safer just to refer to the blog's generic name so it doesn't get undone in the future)
Edward: Thanks for the tip. I'll go ahead and change the links to your main page just to be sure.
Odie: If whores were like Tony Scott, they'd come to the Sean Burns mansion and clean your house, paint your walls, change all the lightbulbs--twice, fold your laundry, build a bookcase, and then run the New York City Marathon, all while you're clinging on her back for dear life, happily humping away and trying to last longer than a shot in a Michael Bay movie.
Got any phone numbers for these girls? I could use a new bookcase.
Agreed Tony's last couple of films have been ADD-afflicted to the point of being visually incomprehensible.
But I'll vouch for CRIMSON TIDE and THE LAST BOY SCOUT any day. Especially the latter, as one of the things I adore most about BOY SCOUT how unnervingly proud it is of it's own skankiness. (It's also got probably my favorite sad sack Bruce Willis performance.)
It's pretty funny that this is an Oscar thread, yet somehow the conversation keeps circling back to Tony Scott. I think there's a message to Hollywood in there somewhere.
Sean: And you're right about THE LAST BOY SCOUT. I feel like Bruce Willis' character represents the living, breathing spirit of Tony Scott. The male characters are all surly pigs, the women are receptacles with dialogue, and the whole movie smells like cigarette smoke, piss and gunpowder. To paraphrase comments about SHOWGIRLS and BASIC INSTINCT on another thread, the movie's so macho that it almost seems a campy sendup of macho. Almost.
PS -- if anybody reading this voted AMADEUS as a worst best picture, I'd love to hear an explanation. I know it's bad history, but I never tire of watching it. It strikes me as pretty close to perfect. Cinematic and theatrical, musical and philosophical, and really funny.
The brothers Scott seem to be engaged in a back and forth over who can make the worst film possible these days and I'd have to give the edge at the moment to Tony (aka the original Michael Bay). Kingdom of Heaven may have been turgid and preachy (the director's cut is supposed to be a masterpiece according to those who've seen it; time and Netflix will tell) but Tony managed to make a film about a former model turned bounty hunter featuring Mickey Rourke, Christopher Walken, celebrity hostages, and peyote dreams staring Tom Waits into one of the most boring films of recent memory. That right there speaks volumes.
And like Bay, the younger Scott's films are needlessly long despite the average shot only lasting a couple of frames long. Isn't editing supposed to shorten things?
I'll leave on this final note: Gladiator (theatrical version) is only 9 minutes longer than Man on Fire. I ask you, what's the greater sin? Making a Roman epic with delusions of grandeur or stretching out a 90 min, down and dirty genre/revenge piece to an ass-numbing 2 and a half hours just because you don't know when to quit? Top Gun was a long time ago my friend.
By the way this log-in system is killing me. I've been trying to sign in for like 30 minutes now.
Andrew: I wish I knew what the problem was. Perhaps someone more knowledgable in all things Blogspotty can explain it.
Is it always this difficult, or is there something about this particular day?
First time I've encountered it. It had to do with the "word verification" type-key. My mastery of the English language isn't exactly staggering but I'm pretty sure I can replicate the letters above in the box below. But no dice. I guess every post will be an adventure.
Funny you should mention Amadeus, Matt. I just received my first ballot that had it on it.
Edward: If anybody includes comments with their choices, you should run a select few when you publish the results. I'd be interested to hear a spectrum of opinion on this. No matter who you are, there's one thing you can count on: the thing you hate will be loved by someone else, and vice-versa.
Had to cast in my two cents on the brothers Scott (not to be confused with The Brothers Quay). I used to adore Ridley and would like to still, but I found Matchstick Men VERY hard to defend and Kingdom of Heaven mind blowingly banal (not to mention completely wrong headed). I, too, would like to believe that the director's cut of KOH will turn out to be some kind of masterpiece (not to be confused with Some Kind of Wonderful) but I have great doubts since there's only so much that can be fixed with added footage--now removing some might not be a bad idea. The director's cut of Legend, after all, turned out to be great. I persist in thinking that the schizo nature of Gladiator suggests a richer register of meaning and I posit that Hannibal is hugely underrated. It may be one of the two or three best things he's done. Oh, and as for those who doubt Scott's subtextual awareness, what about all those European actors in Black Hawk Down?
As for Tony, I agree with everyone on Last Boy Scout. It is an absolute filthy delight. No pretense there and really the absolute apex of that kind of storytelling ("Touchdown, motherfucker", indeed). The only time he falters is when he tries to be civilized (i.e. Spy Game, which was soooo boring). And I adored Domino; it was one of my ten favorites last year. Yes, it's garbage but can there be an apotheosis for garbage? If so, this is it. The last half hour should go in a time capsule labeled "When PostModernism Began to Deconstruct Itself". I give it a five on my finger scale.
Nathaniel: Would those five fingers be shaped into a fist?
Some have included comments which I plan on using, but most are just the lists.
Miss Daisy is Crash for the 80's. ... Maybe it worked better on stage. And it won the Pulitzer, lest we forget.
I've seen Driving Miss Daisy on stage. It's still boring and banal, though the final scene works better live.
One of the many upsides of this past fall's Shane Black re-discovery (or more accurately a chance for mainstream critics to reiterate what the fanboys had been saying for years) is that he's been liberated from the "oh he's an overpaid hack" clique and his writing's starting to get the attention it deserves. But when I think of Last Boy Scout, the moments I remember fondly (the cutting one-liners, the casual, almost every-day misanthropy, the alpha-male alcoholism) it's of a piece with everything Black's written. When I think about the parts of the film I mentally (and sometimes in actuality) fast forward through it's usually the overblown, bombastic but never especially interesting from a visual standpoint action scenes which are of a piece with 90% of Tony's career (to be fair, Crimson Tide may be my favorite submarine film that doesn't star a bunch of pasty Germans). If you want to throw in LBS as a high mark of Scott's career that's fine, but let's not overlook the real driving force behind it.
Ridley for me is pretty hit or miss but even when he fails I can still appreciate what he's going for. I despised Hannibal but I think he went about the material in exactly the right way. The only way to save a story that dumb (the novel put me off of popular literature for years) is to go the operatic route mixing viscera with European elitism for what was really an art house attempt at a splatter-film that was doomed from the outset. I also have to say that Black Hawk Down is my favorite film about contemporary warfare and got a bad rap for being jingoistic and exploitive in the wake of 9/11. That film still scares me more than most horror films.
Sticking with Ridley Scott:
"Oh, and as for those who doubt Scott's subtextual awareness, what about all those European actors in Black Hawk Down?"
What about those European actors? I didn't like the movie, more because of the horde of undifferentiated African actors swarming across the screen (nightmarish is right - but in a politically exploitative way, I thought) and it seems like casting a group of British/Australian/wherever actors just makes the movie into even more of a White Man's Burden story.
But I really liked Hannibal. I enjoyed its climactic fireworks moment more than the identical moment in V for Vendetta, mainly because of an even stronger sense of subversive glee.
And back to the Oscars thread, I liked Gladiator, because I took its 'hypocrisy' over the enjoyment of mass-media violence as a kind of savvy cleverness. As far as I was concerned, I got to have my gory, violent cake, and eat some political guilt over manipulation too...for me it's all summed up in Joaquin Phoenix's wonderfully grotesque reaction shots in the goriest of the combat scenes.
Where Rain Man is concerned, Matt: You are far too kind. It's a completely dated, dramatically phony waste of time, playing out more or less miserably ignorant of who the real oblivious social retard is. Not to mention as irritatingly self-absorbed and totally undeserving of my sympathy as the same sham actor.
Jeff writes: "And back to the Oscars thread, I liked Gladiator, because I took its 'hypocrisy' over the enjoyment of mass-media violence as a kind of savvy cleverness. As far as I was concerned, I got to have my gory, violent cake, and eat some political guilt over manipulation too...for me it's all summed up in Joaquin Phoenix's wonderfully grotesque reaction shots in the goriest of the combat scenes."
I see where you're coming from, but that brings us back to an issue that was discussed at great length on this blog whenever A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE came up.
To wit: if a violent movie KNOWS it's trying to eat its cake and have it, too; if it celebrates extravagantly nasty violence, unreal and even cartoonish violence, and then circles around and asks us to feel guilty for enjoying it; if, in other words, a violent movie is, whatever its aesthetic merits, fundamentally full of shit in this particular respect, i.e., wishing to exploit violence and reprimand us for enjoying the exploitation, then is the movie in question is aware of its own hypocrisy, then are we free to relax and enjoy it?
I don't think so. I've gotten some puzzled reactions to my opinions on violent movies. At the risk of oversimplifying a huge issue, I tend to subdivide my reaction into three very broad categories, keyed into four general types of violent movies.
1. UNREAL VIOLENCE, UNREAL CONSEQUENCES. If the movie treats violence as an abstraction, as being "not real" in some way, and consequently soft-shoes past the emotional aftershock of violence (like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or HARD-BOILED or DIE HARD), I can enjoy it without guilt.
2.REAL VIOLENCE, REAL CONSEQUENCES. If the movie treats the act of violence and its psychological repercussions realistically (for instance, much of Peckinpah and Coppola) I can enjoy this type of film without guilt as well, because there is no fundamental hypocrisy at play. it's striving for some kind of physical or psychological accuracy and can be judged against that goal.
3. UNREAL VIOLENCE, REAL FALLOUT. Many of Cronenberg's movies fall into this category. Ditto Park Chan-Wook. The violence is somewhat abstracted but still very brutal, and the reactions of participants, victims and bystanders, while also stylized, reflect some degree of psychological reality. Sometimes there's a guilt factor, sometimes not, it depends on the movie. But it's easier to split hairs over this type of violence than...
4. REAL VIOLENCE, UNREAL FALLOUT. A lot of the 80s superviolent action pictures fall under this heading. Much of Stallone, for instance, and some Schwarzenegger. Technically realistic violence, but everybody just kind of shrugs it off as if it's a videogame or some other simulation. Total garbage, total exploitation. High guilt factor.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that these four categories are going to fall apart upon close inspection, but I've never laid them out like this before, so consider this a work in progress. I await your nitpicks, amendments and what-the-fucks.
I was kind of winging it on that last comment. Sorry for tangled syntax. Hopefully you grok my gist.
anonymous: Haven't seen RAIN MAN in years. You may be right. I remember being touched by the first half, that's all.
Hello, Matt. Since this thread has been totally hijacked, tell me, is William Moynahan, screenwriter on Ridley's "Blood Meridian" project the same Moynahan who used to write for The Press?
I'm not looking forward to that one. Much as I love the novel, Scott directing the film fills me with dismay. I was hoping Malick was in line for that gig, even as I knew that was unlikely, since I can't imagine Malick signing on for a job he didn't begat.
KJ: It's actually William Monahan, and yeah, they're the same guy. I didn't know him, but we did share newsprint for a while.
PS -- At the House Next Door, there's no such thing as hijacking a thread. The conversation goes wherever it feels like going, so no apologies are necessary.
I'm a little bit embarassed to admit I prefer Enemy of the State/Man on Fire-type Tony Scott. (Note: I never saw Domino). It's gimmicky stuff, I know, but I like what he's doing with bringing certain experimental ideas into mainstream cinema. The editing, lighting, film stock (xpro) all help to make this sort of interesting to me. I couls see it being boring or just pretentious to a lot of people, however. I also don't understand the appreciation of Last Boy Scout, which seems to me just a typical Hollywood buddy actioner.
I'm glad to see that I'm not hardly alone in really disliking "A Beautiful Mind." It's just such a trite, predictable and silly view of schizophrenia.
Now, should we be voting for movies that are simply bad? (In which case, what the hell happened to Titanic?)
Or movies that did not deserve their awards, because something much better was also released? (In which case, Rocky edging out Taxi Driver AND Network AND All The President's Men is pretty special.)
Tim: Not to speak for Mr. Copeland, but I think everybody who votes can make up his or her own criteria for what constitutes a "worst" best picture. You could rank purely on the basis of watchability, or you factor in other things like cultural relevance, acting quality, etc. Copeland welcomes comments and explanations in addition to ranked titles. Just think of it as the Village Voice Film Poll after a bottle of Cuervo.
When you're done, email your ballot to eddiesworst@yahoo.com. Cutoff is March 31. I eagerly await Copeland's summary, which I suspect will be as enlightening the Warren Commission Report, and a hell of a lot funnier.
Sean: I don't have any numbers, but I do have an extra bookcase from the last time I ordered from the Scott Free Ho Service. You're welcome to come pick it up.
I've been having problems with Blogspot all day as well, and I believe the reason is that they have a caching issue. I won't bore you with all that technobabble. Besides, it costs money to get me to talk techie to you ($5.12 the first minute, $2.56 each additional minute).
The Last Boy Scout is indeed skanky and filthy, but I do like Willis' performance. They kill Halle Berry, which in my book is unforgivable, but the Tae-Bo guy, Billy Blanks, also gets his cap peeled (literally and figuratively). That's worth an extra half a star nowadays.
Enemy of the State and Top Gun are the only Scott movies I liked. I still say he's an attention deficit disorder having 4 year old of a director, and his brother's best days are long behind him (but there's hope).
Where and when does Gladiator tell me I'm supposed to feel guilty for liking the carnage? When Russell Crowe says "are you not entertained?" I said "yeah, shut up and kill some more people! Start with the guys who made all that shitty CGI in this movie!"
Violence in movies is violence in movies, and no matter how gruesome it is, it is nothing in comparison to violence in real life. So, while the four types of violence listed by MZS is interesting in theory, I'm not convinced I need to make any distinction. It goes back to that adage about not being able to make an anti-war movie because war is exciting. Violence, for whatever sick reason, holds a visceral thrill embedded deep in the animal instinct of nature's worst creation (human beings). That's why dumbasses like to drive slowly past traffic accidents.
You can't make an anti-violence movie. You have to show the violence to get your point across, and that defeats the purpose. Are you saying, Matt, that an anti-violence movie is possible? Even The Wild Bunch is pretty fucking exciting. I get the theme of it, but it's still pretty fucking exciting.
I'll add to this freewheeling thread.
First, all those British commercial guys, Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne, and both Scotts look really similar to me. Back light from windows, forground dark and musky,lots of smoke and haze, a bigscreen, longer lensed flat look. What was in the water over there in the 70's?
On violence, those are some interesting catagories Matt threw down. That stuff is very tricky. I question whether 80's Stallone and co. should be in the realistic violence column. I've often tried to explore my feelings about film violence, but I could never draw a firm line or make any rules, but I persist in trying. I will go on record as liking some of the most violent movies put on film. Other times screen violence really puts me off.
Why do I love Sergio Leone, but with most comic book movies I become nauseated.
One carbonated blood geyser at the end of SANJURO is great. A hundred blood geysers in KILL BILL that are obviously intentionally fake I don't like.
I delight in watching Toshiro Mifune despatch forty or so villains with his sword in the space of fifteen minutes, but in some later samurai pictures I find the violence stiffling and unpleasant.
Don Siegal can build an exhilirating crescendo of cathartic sadism when Dirty Harry plunges his knife in the killer, or steps on his shattered leg, that gives me a pleasure mixed with a little uncomfortableness, but the 3 stooges have disturbed me since I was a kid, which is silly to me.
I have no problem at all with GOODFELLAS, but the realistic hit jobs in CASINO stayed with me, and depressed me for months and made me question Scorsese's intentions.
The preachy antiviolence film that revels in its violence, I can despise with an almost white hot intensity, something like MAN BITES DOG or CLOSETLAND produced by Amnesty International. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE comes dangerously close to this territory for me.
I'm not a gore hound at all, so I never need to see a H.G. Lewis type movie again. I saw one, and the early taboo breaking exuberance, with someone languorously massaging some stand-in hamburger meat like he was a baby with a new toy seriously disturbed me. If any of you buffs out here like that sort thing, you will have to explain it to me because you scare me.
Then again, I'm ashamed to admit that I think SAVING PRIVATE RYAN works best as a kickass action movie.
I don't think I've ever liked a cartoon with blood in it. Maybe that's a rule.
Anyway, you get the idea. I'm confused.
Odie writes: "Are you saying, Matt, that an anti-violence movie is possible? Even The Wild Bunch is pretty fucking exciting. I get the theme of it, but it's still pretty fucking exciting."
Actually, it is possible to make a violent movie where the violence itself is not like a gory amusement park ride -- where it's reflective and sad rather than jack-you-up exciting. GODFATHER II is in the ballpark, and so are TWILIGHT SAMURAI and DEAD MAN WALKING, to name just three.
That said, the only way to totally avoid the possibility that violence will be entertaining -- i.e., superficially exciting apart from its narrative function -- is to not show violence, or to show it as obliquely or distantly as possible. Everything else involves some element of risk, some possibility of being misconstrued, of the violence being "enjoyable" when the filmmaker intended it to be ugly and appalling, or just neutral.
So yeah, the issue is context, or if you prefer, semantics.
But context is important, because that's what helps us figure out who we are and what values we hold and whether we think a movie is succeeding or failing in its goals, whatever they might be.
I do I think there's a distinction, or there should be a distinction, between violence that gets a visceral reaction out of people (that's a reflex, like when somebody raps your knee with a tiny hammer) and violence that's meant to be enjoyed. That's the distinction I'm getting at. Odie, I appreciate you playing devil's advocate here, but surely you're not saying that you process the violence in STRAW DOGS in exactly the same way that you process the violence in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? The context does affect your reaction somewhat, right?
And yes, real violence trumps anything in fiction. No doubt. That's why I can watch Peckinpah all day, but I get queasy donating blood.
Wagstaff: I'm flailing around here, too. I've been writing about screen violence for going on 20 years but I have never come up with a coherent system to quantify my reaction to it. We're all spelunking now.
Odie: Besides, it costs money to get me to talk techie to you ($5.12 the first minute, $2.56 each additional minute).
Woah, that's a far more reasonable rate than I tend to get for the phone calls I usually make at this hour.
Andrew D: If you want to throw in LBS as a high mark of Scott's career that's fine, but let's not overlook the real driving force behind it.
Hey man, you know better than most folks here that I'm one of the original old-school Shane Black fanboys. But try comparing Tony's sly understanding of the BOY SCOUT script's tone with the self-consiously cartoony mess Renny Harlin made out of THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT - this boozy boys-locker-room romantacism is a tricker balancing act than Little Brother gets credit for.
As for HANNIBAL, well that's one of the movies that's on my private list of stuff I wish Brian De Palma had directed. I always thought it an odd choice to give a gross-out comedy to a director who has no sense of humor.
And BLACK HAWK DOWN scared me too... but for other reasons. Thanks to the magic of the Internet about once a year or so I'll get another frightening email about my PW Review, in which I said it was "just like STARSHIP TROOPERS, except with black people instead of giant bugs."
Odie: I said "yeah, shut up and kill some more people! Start with the guys who made all that shitty CGI in this movie!"
And while he's at it he should also go after whoever stitched together the hilarious stuffed-animal Frosted Flakes tiger that Russell wrestles with.
My friend Rob actually leaned over in the theater and asked: "Did you win that at the fair, Mr. Crowe?"
Odie, I appreciate you playing devil's advocate here, but surely you're not saying that you process the violence in STRAW DOGS in exactly the same way that you process the violence in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? The context does affect your reaction somewhat, right?
No, not at all. But while Raiders remains the best time I've ever had at the movies, I found its Ark of the Covenant violence far more disturbing than, say, The Wild Bunch because I wasn't expecting that level of graphic violence (exploding heads in a PG movie--only Spielberg could get away with that).
If I'm going to see a movie with a high violence content, I think I go in with a steelier countenance. Remember, I was raised on horror movies, and I grew up in a violent neighborhood, so perhaps I am not as disturbed by graphic content as some people. I've seen people shot in the head for real--I can handle prosthetics.
In fact, I'm more disturbed when a movie doesn't show it to me, leaving me to my own imagination to conjure up the missing images. Stuff like the opening shark attack in Jaws, or Leatherface hitting that guy with the sledgehammer, then shutting the door behind him in 1974's version of Texas Chainsaw bothered me more than anything I've seen in an Italian horror movie.
I agree with you completely about context. Straw Dogs' violence is more disturbing in tone than my favorite non-Terminator Ah-nold movie from the 80's, Commando, even if Ah-nold kills a lot more people.
I'll tell you what bugs me, though: violence for no reason at all. "Uncalled-for violence," if you will. The movie I always cite in trying to explain this phenomenon is John Landis' Into the Night. There was no reason for that movie to be as incredibly over the top violent as it is. "People don't get their heads blown off in comedies," I wrote in my review (a line I rehashed when I wrote about A Life Less Ordinary). Stuff like that deserves a category in the MZS History of Violence Scale.
It's a slippery topic to get a handle on, and I am flopping around like a fish here as well.
Wagstaff: As for H.G. Lewis: allow this gorehound to explain: his movies are awful, and the gore is cheap but incredibly nasty. But Lewis' films weren't meant to be watched. Their purpose was to get the girl with you at the drive-in in the 1965 car you borrowed from your Dad to bury her head into your chest. You could take it from there.
Sean: That tiger in Gladiator was GRRRRRRR-EAT!
You think you get scary E-mail about a comment like your Black Hawk Down review, you should have read the fun stuff I got when I opened my Deep Impact review with "Deep Impact is the movie that answers the question 'What would happen if an African-American got elected President?'" I responded to every "you racist bastard" E-mail with the link that sent them to my picture.
I never bought that criticism of Black Hawk simply because of how thematically limited the film is. It is, approximately 20 hours in the life of a group of men being assaulted on all sides by an enemy they don't know or understand and the only objective is to get themselves and their buddies the hell out of there alive. We don't need a sociology lecture that can be distilled down to "hey, poor Africans under the control of warlords are people too" and the film's attempt at real time doesn't even really allow for such a conceit (although I can already see the development meeting where some exec chimed in "can't one of the young corporals bond with one of the young Somali’s so we know they're not all bad").
If the film were making a grand summation on the brutality of war or were more closely exploring the events leading up to military action you might have a point but that's clearly not what BHD is going for. In fact the film rings most false when it takes time out to make summations on why the soldiers fight and what brotherhood means and so on and so forth, adding a level of dime store psycho-analysis that's not needed. Whether watching a bunch of American getting shelled for two hours makes for good cinema is subjective, but the film meets the goals it established for itself and I think works on that level.
I think Ed Yang is terrific. And Yi Yi is good without being close to his earlier, and finer works.
The difference is what you picked up on Matt, the easy going tone. Some of his earlier stuff was a little more clinical in focusing on images and sound, and emphasized the darker material a little more (though it had its sweet/bittersweet sides as well).
Without considering the other foreign language competition during Yi Yi's year, I'll view it as a lifetime (so far) achievement thing.
The movie I most remember from my movie appreciation class would be L’Avventura. Though I think we caught some Fellini, Hitchcock, Trauffaut. Wow, I am surprised how little I remember. It was many years ago, however.
And, yeah, down with Gladiator.
Ooh, I'll say A Talking Picture is a decent antiviolent movie.
Odie, I guess that was my mistake all along. I watched the GORE GORE GIRLS without the girl.
Andrew: It is, approximately 20 hours in the life of a group of men being assaulted on all sides by an enemy they don't know or understand and the only objective is to get themselves and their buddies the hell out of there alive.
But you see, I don't think the movie goes that route at all. If this is the case, then why keep cutting back to the Sam Shepard interrogations with the warlord? They're obviously intended to give a broader political context that the screenplay is too lazy and stupid to investigate.
I'm all for something like BLOODY SUNDAY, a film that just drops you into a situation verite style and makes you sort it out for yourself, but this is not a tactic I see repeated in BLACK HAWK DOWN - especially when you've got bullshit like Hartnett's final groaner inspirational speech. "This war wasn't meaningless... it changed me." Oh, well good for you, then!
Also, I think BLACK HAWK DOWN is a complete disaster on a formal level. At no moment did I have the slightest idea where anybody was in relation to one another, and the soldiers were so poorly defined I thought I saw Ewan McGregor get killed at least three times before I realized he was still back at the base -- talking about "coffee," as according to his single designated character trait.
The problem I have with Black Hawk Down is all about context. It's a film about a small group of victimized white guys embattled by a swarming mob of a monstrous African 'Other', with very little explanation of the context of the situation. It's an heir to Romero's zombie movies and first-person shooter video games. The narrowness and specificity of the story are an excuse, especially given that the movie is what? Two and a half hours long?
Sean: Also, I think BLACK HAWK DOWN is a complete disaster on a formal level. At no moment did I have the slightest idea where anybody was in relation to one another
I had the same problem. I felt that all Scott the Elder wanted to do was one-up Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan opening sequence. He fails miserably, and the movie, as Jeff said, feels like a first-person shooter--the BET network version of DOOM. I assume that the sloppiness of the OSCAR-WINNING editing was excused by the critics because it was "supposed to be disorienting." Bloody Sunday and SPF achieve a sense of lost bearings but allow you to at least try to regain yours.
And I'm going to apply my pimp stick to the next Hollywood executive who decides to cast Josh Fucking Hartnett in another war movie. He turned Pearl Harbor into Tora! Tora! Tora! meets The O.C. and his speech in BHD sounded like a rejected Gomer Pyle USMC script. Send him to war if you must, but not onscreen.
Wagstaff: Odie, I guess that was my mistake all along. I watched the GORE GORE GIRLS without the girl.
You wouldn't have gotten five minutes into that movie if you had the girl. Isn't that the one with Henny Youngman?!!! He must have been senile when he took that role. Matt, you should do a 5 for the day: What the Hell Were They Thinking When They Took This Role?
That's a great idea, Odie. Definitely on the agenda!
Tim: As Matt said, everyone has their own criteria for determining the worst. Some base it on what the films beat, others just do it because they hate the movie. My own criteria was measuring each of the 78 winners only against one another to determine my 10, leaving aside what should have won in any particular year.
P.S. I did receive your ballot -- thanks.
As for "Black Hawk Down," my biggest problem with the film was that the way it was film and cast, I really couldn't tell any of the characters apart, so there was little investment for me as to who lived or died. Not to pick on Malick again, as I'm prone to do, but I had a similar problem in "The Thin Red Line" where I could only tell Ben Chaplin and Adrien Brody's characters apart by the size of Brody's nose.
First, I'd just like to say the comments section of this blog is routinely fantastic.
Second-- MSZ, do you take requests? Can you do a DePalma post? I'd be curious to hear where you come down on the DePalma spectrum...I know we got some of it with the Charles Taylor thing, and there was the comment about Snake Eyes being one of your fave Steadi movies...but I'd love to see the post and then the ensuing comments section.
And maybe a post on people's FAVORITE Best Picture winners...since the eventual winner always seems some sort of compromise, which ones actually deserved it...
Tuck, I'm planning to do the best of the best pictures survey in April, once the worst survey wraps up.
Ed, When I see Hollywood come out with a string of deep sea movies(it happens) I always think "you producers are paying the stars millions of dollars, and then you cover their faces?" Having all the actors wearing steel helmets and the same garb is just part of the combat film. There are some subtle ways for filmakers to distinguish the actors, but I would rather do the work myself if they're going to get too tricky. And yeah, Odie, Spielberg was a master(as usual) at the end of SPR at giving you a bewildering array of locations and vantage points, but never confusing the viewer as to where he's at. It's a little like the climax at the end of KELLY's HEROES.
Tuck: Thanks for the kind words. The comments section is the most fully realized aspect of this blog, so I appreciate it.
I will get around to De Palma one of these days. He's worth a week, not just a day. I don't love everything De Palma has done, but he's made five or six movies that I never tire of watching: CASUALTIES OF WAR, BLOW OUT, DRESSED TO KILL, BODY DOUBLE, THE FURY, CARLITO'S WAY and RAISING CAIN. And parts of MISSION TO MARS and THE UNTOUCHABLES are also tremendous. And FEMME FATALE is moving up the list as well; of De Palma's later work, it seems the most fully realized.
The Blog-a-Thon queue is getting mighty crowded, but perhaps at some point later this year, a De Palma blog-a-thon might be in the cards, yes?
I want to know when we get a David Lynch blog-a-thon on the agenda or someone old school like a Wilder, Hawks or Hitchcock
Don't say the word "Wilder" around Odienator, the great director's most devoted acolyte. His eyes roll up and he starts speaking in tongues. The only decipherable words are, "cookiewise and otherwise."
Pleases me no end to see not one but two R. Crowe films on your list. I honestly believe he is one of the worst actors of our generation.
But to include Gentlemen's Agreement, and then flippantly write it off with a simple "Feh"? Come on Matt...give us more than that. While it may not have aged all that well, it's a far better social commentary than last year's Crash. And while Peck as a Jew might be tough to swallow, I still think the film has an important place in American film history.
When Fernando Trueba accepted his Oscar for Belle Epoque, he said if he believed in God, he'd thank Him, so instead he would thank Billy Wilder. Wilder called Trueba the next day, as the legend goes, and said "Hello. This is God."
Yes, Billy Wilder is my favorite director (Hitchcock is second) and I certainly would start foaming at the mouth at the Wilder Blog-a-thon...until someone mentions Buddy, Buddy or Avanti. I'll never forgive Mr. Wilder for showing me Jack Lemmon's stereotypically flat naked ass.
P.S.: Cookiewise and otherwise.
Gentleman's Agreement is beyond dated. While it may have seemed groundbreaking at the time (like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), both films were really playing it safe. In fact, Crossfire -- which was nominated for best picture opposite Gentleman's Agreement -- is a much better film about anti-Semitism from that era. Agreement is also one of the earliest examples of the trend of movies about abused ethnic or racial groups where the "hero" doesn't belong to that group as in Mississippi Burning, Cry Freedom, etc., etc.
Edward: That's why I said, "Feh." Yeah, Filmbrain, you'r right, that's too glib a response. The movie deserves a certain respect for being the right movie for a particular time and place. But i don't think much of it as a movie. Too much earnest speechfying, not enough cinema. A position paper more than a movie. If we're gonna lay some love on message pictures, I'd rather go with "Gandhi," which was just as square and preaching-to-the-Hollywood-liberal choir, but which also featured a great lead performance, some stirring epic passages (remember Gandhi's train tour of India in the film's first act, and the massacre at Amritsar?) and on top of all that, a script that's about Gandhi and actually has the stones to make Gandhi the main character! (As opposed to, say, a white reporter who thought the world of Gandhi.)
Again, "Gandhi" is no masterpiece, but it's more of a movie than some of the films that won.
Gentleman's Agreement isn't good, but I have no desire to beat up on it. Ask me someday and I will explain how Gentleman's Agreement is like Virgil's Aeneid. Also, I don't really remember, but was Peck's character a Jew or just pretending to be so he could expose the problem?
Wagstaff writes, "Ask me someday and I will explain how Gentleman's Agreement is like Virgil's Aeneid."
Consider yourself asked. This I gotta hear.
Wagstaff --
Peck was only pretending to be a Jew, but even so.....could he be any more gentile?
I second the Aeneid motion. Very, very curious.
EC: In fact, Crossfire -- which was nominated for best picture opposite Gentleman's Agreement -- is a much better film about anti-Semitism from that era.
Yes, but interestingly enough, the source material had nothing to do with Jews. The Hays Code made them change the subject to anti-Semitism on film. If memory serves me, the original source material was about homophobia.
I did not know that. Very interesting.
Yes. Crossfire is based on In Cold Blood director Richard Brooks' novel, The Brick Foxhole. The title of that book alone probably sent Hays Code Hollywood into a tizzy.
Drats! I lost this a few minutes ago and had to leave work, so this will be the shorter cliffnotes version.
Maybe I read the Aeneid and saw GA around the same time, but it goes like this:
Many have noted how Aeneas grows less sympathetic through the course of that epic. We feel for him as a man up to and during the Dido, Carthaginian fiasco. After Dido's tragic death, which gets him out of a pickle, there is a breaking point, and Aeneas henceforth becomes less a man and more the embodiment of a nation. He hardens into the shell of his ideals. The poem ends brilliantly with Aeneas killing Turnus (who is more human by this point) in a very emotionless, cold blooded manner.
I saw this character arc in GA. At first, some friends and family sympathize with Peck's cause. As the movie goes along, most of the dramatic tension arises from people telling him enough is enough and to quit as Peck hardens into his idealistic crusade at the expense of everyone he knows. Indeed, his cause is just, and at first people are with him, but they drop out one by one, until even his wife is begging him to stop. This audience member had some sympathy for both and wanted them both to compromise a little. But by the end, Peck is too hard (it's fun to write that) The movie to me was about this hardening more than anti-semitism.
Quickly re the end of Kelly's Heroes and SPR. Putting a guy in a tower is a useful way to orient the viewer spatially. All positions can have the tower in the background and the tower can see all positions. I don't remember a tower in Black Hawk Down.
Matt -- to go back to something said a few comments back about films that have a legitimate anti-violence message, or use violence properly, I'd throw in perhaps an unexpected one — CAPOTE. True, it's not an action movie. But the flashback shots of the Clutter family being killed were absolutely chilling, and as disturbing as the book's descriptions (a book I never want to read again, for that very reason.) People in the audience I saw it with were moaning with unease, squirming in their seats and covering their eyes. Me, too. To me, that's the way to use violence, not as a cartoon bloodbath or a jaded audience grabber, but truthfully and with full realization of its effects on human beings. (I remember another movie set in the Midwest, something by a certain Mr. Malick, that also presented murder and killing for what it really is.)
Oh, and I'd love to see a De Palma blog-a-thon someday. Maybe it should be tied in to the release of BLACK DAHLIA.
THR-HB: I believe the release date is October 13. I think a De Palma blogathon would be a smashing idea. Call for one and I'll second it. The long lead time gives people plenty of room to think about what they might like to do, a definite improvement on the Altman blogathon, which barely gave people enough time to boot up their computers.
Someone said they would like if Brian DePalma directed HANNIBAL. (Actually I'm amazed so many people seem to admire that film. Come on, people, it sucks!)
I think Roman Polanski would have been perfect.
The problem with HANNIBAL, I realize in retrospect (this is also the problem with the book), is that it could have been a truly GREAT thriller IF the sick pedo-freak Mason Verger had been a sympathetic person. A completely innocent, loveable, good person who crossed paths with Hannibal and was tortured, maimed, but not killed.
Then you have a RIGHTEOUS avenger who the audience can feel for. Hannibal was a bad guy in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and should stay one. And as Mason, you could cast a Jack Lemmon/James Stewart sort of star: somebody with that sort of everyman appeal but then complicate it as Lemmon did in SAVE THE TIGER and Stewart in VERTIGO. Watch the loveable "everyman" come apart.
Then Clarice would have to choose, does she help Mason take the law into his own hands, or does she help Hannibal evade the horrific revenge Mason has in store for him?
(Not the stupid "pigs" plot: you need something simpler and not so silly.) She actually would have a real ethical dilemma instead of the phony one that was presented.
Then you have the makings of a classic thriller: as Shakespeare said "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds". Thomas Harris should have portrayed Mason Verger as a "lily that festered," instead of the "weed" he gave us. By giving us a loathsome "weed" he drains a potentially fascinating plot of all tension and interest. And then with someone like Polanski at the helm, he would never make the mistake of overrating Hannibal's appeal as I feel Ridley Scott did. (I would even go so far as to say that the unpleasant aftertaste HANNIBAL left may have cost him the Oscar, as Steven Soderbergh took Best Director even though GLADIATOR won Best Picture.)
I don't get it. A sympathetic victim and a bad-guy serial killer? How would that be different from 95% of all movies in the genre? By making Verger the bad guy, they complicated sympathies in just the right way, in my opinion.
Anyway, I think the revenge plot in Hannibal is not what it's ultimately about...It's a pretext to set the plot in motion, not the end-all.
I'm not sure Hannibal could have been a good movie, though at least did leave out some of the novel's weakest moments (Nazis made Lecter eat people! That's why he's a cannabalistic murderer). I do wish it had kept the book's ending though. As I was reading the novel, I thought it would be funny if Hannibal and Clarice ended up as a couple in the end -- which they do, albeit through brainwashing. It was the most appropriate dark-humored ending -- and why Jodie Foster dropped out in the first place. Too bad Hollywood didn't have the guts to go with it. Also, the movie drops the ball by having Mason's doctor assistant be the one who kills him and completely eliminates Mason's equally evil sister who is the one who does the deed in the book.
What I love about Hannibal is the very fact that Clarice is the only noble and virtuous person in it. Everyone else, to one degree or another, is morally compromised, and that's being kind. Clarice represents an ideal and that notion links this film up with many of Ridley's earlier great works--films like Alien, of course, for its compicated ideas about heroism, valor and female empowerment but also Legend for its fairytale burnished idealism, Blade Runner for its moral seriousness and Someone to Watch Over Me (a great, underrated masterpiece) for its quietly devastating assessment of modern sexual politics.
Hannibal is a freak show and is meant to be. It means to confront the "fans" of Lecter with their own questionable complicity in his actions, their desire to let him and themselves off the hook due to their respect for his intellectual authority and superiority. If anything, Scott is suggesting that intellect without character is profoundly dangerous. BTW, though Scott's commentaries are always worth listening to this one is a special gem. He lays out his intentions and defends the film in a very convincing manner.
Oh, and one other thing about Black Hawk Down. I don't believe for a second that we're meant to take this film without a large dollop of irony. Scott is too smart for that. His use of so many very European actors makes a subtle point about imperialism and how easy it is to get support for it via the pretext of a noble cause. Also, as others have pointed out, the troops are almost interchangeable. This is the argument many have used about how the African side of the conflict is portrayed. My assumption has always been that rather than making a simplistic black and white movie, Ridley is trying to show how conflict of this sort becomes black and white for those involved. It has to, I guess. Also, much as I didn't like his use of Michael Bay-ish close ups and quick shots during the arena scenes in Gladiator, I did like his handling of space in BHD. It felt right for it be as chaotic as it was and for our sense of establishing proximity to be thrown off. There is, in fact, a very carefully deployed spatial logic that delimits our perspective. It does not call attention to itself but it is there if you seek it out and it reveals the rigorous nature of Ridley's design--chaos out of order.
"His use of so many very European actors makes a subtle point about imperialism and how easy it is to get support for it via the pretext of a noble cause."
How so? Loading your movie with non-Americans isn't of itself making any sort of interesting point. Was Christopher Nolan making some profound point with BATMAN BEGINS because most of the cast were Brits? Was Anthony Minghella making a point by casting Jude Law and Cate Blanchett as Americans in THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY? No, it just so happens a lot of the finest acting talent of today is non-American.
"What I love about Hannibal is the very fact that Clarice is the only noble and virtuous person in it."
Which is precisely what's wrong with it. How can she NOT run off with Hannibal if everyone else is so rotten? It's not a difficult choice to make if "everyone else... is morally compromised". Also, Mason Verger (in stark contrast to Francis Dolarhyde and Jame Gumb, and even Lecter in the previous stories) comes off as a really over-the-top James Bond villain, Dr. No times ten, complete with sinister pet (the eel... which makes me think of Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth), a physical disfigurement, and a needlessly elaborate method of dispatching his enemies (I'm going to feed you to my specially bred race of Sardinian pigs, Mr. Bond! HA HA HA HA HA!!) of the sort hilariously parodied in the Austin Powers flicks (which are smarter and more entertaining than Ridley Scott's movie). Harris turned Lecter into a slightly more vicious James Bond (complete with snobbish, finicky tastes in food and alcohol, a fondness for good suits, snarky one-liners as he dispatches his enemies, and yeah, there's even a Bond girl, Clarice). Mason Verger, unlike the complex and poignant Francis Dolarhyde, is just a more revolting Dr. No or Goldfinger. (Hell, the gigantic butch lesbian Amazon sister in the book might even be Grace Jones from A VIEW TO A KILL!)
"A sympathetic victim and a bad-guy serial killer? How would that be different from 95% of all movies in the genre?"
Because of what the sympathetic victim DOES with the audience's initial sympathy. VERTIGO looks at first like any other thriller, but it isn't - because James Stewart plays a good, decent man who is destroyed by his own obsessions. Mason Verger as I imagine him would be suffering from a form of post-traumatic shock, unable to let the past go just as James Stewart couldn't. Thus Stewart's "Scottie" - a GOOD and quite loveable man - because of this ends up destroying the woman he thinks he loves, and his own future. For that matter, OTHELLO is moving precisely because Othello really is a great and noble figure; if he'd been as cold and callous as Iago from the start, the disintegration of his character would not be nearly so moving.
Nathaniel, I really admire your ability to argue your points, even though we often disagree. But to me, HANNIBAL is repellent studio trash, basically a high-toned slasher picture. I have a problem with serial killer movies generally (MANHUNTER and SILENCE were halfway defensible, but only halfway) and this one in particular seemed beyond the pale, both poorly made (except for the photography and Liotta and Giannini's performances) and revoltingly crass and cynical in how it cheated to make Lecter himself more sympathetic. (SILENCE also erred in this respect, coming very close to making Lecter a wise and wisecracking antihero, a la Freddy Krueger in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET pictures).
My objections are outlined in my original 2001 review of the movie. Click here if you're interested. I didn't care for RED DRAGON or THE CELL either.
Funny, yesterday morning I was thinking that maybe I should bust out a seperate post arguing the merits of Ridley vs. Tony Scott, but I can see by this comments thread that it's not necessary. Y'all beat me to it!
Oh, interesting review, MZS, thanks! BTW I like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, but I think it was a fluke of the right people coming together. Even the minor parts, like Ted Levine and Brooke Smith, were perfectly cast. However, give me a break, there's only so much you can do with the Lecter character. Harris is apparently (groan!) writing yet ANOTHER Lecter book. Let sleeping cannibals lie, I say.
Actually, now that I think about it, the over-the-top, gross-out story Harris came up with COULD have worked if they'd made an all-out comedy.
John Waters could have directed instead of Ridley. With Patty Hearst or Ricki Lake as Clarice, maybe? Chyna the wrestler as the steroid-abusing lesbian? (Too bad Divine isn't still around to play Hannibal: the brain-feast is pretty much in line with PINK FLAMINGO's dog shit feast.) If Waters had directed and pushed the lunatic story to the ultimate comedy extreme, that could have been a demented masterpiece worth seeing!!
Like Nathaniel, I like Hannibal because it's so amusingly trashy, and I think Scott is much more aware of the ironies he's working with here than he was in BHD; it's a nice notion to suggest that Scott was working on a more ironic level in that movie, (sort of a more subtle Starship Troopers?) but I don't think the movie supports that reading very well.
Re: The Silence of the Lambs, I think Mr. Demme was probably surprised himself at how Hannibal turned out to be the suave hero of the movie and that's why he's basically withdrawn from the movie ever since. Old-fashioned liberal guilt.
I think Lecter was actually scary in Silence of the Lambs, but after that through parodies and the later films (Hannibal, Red Dragon), Hopkins' version got transformed into more Borscht Belt comedian than frightening killer. They should have a drummer doing rim shots after most of his dialogue.
I thought Hannibal was dreadful, but if I have to vote on Scott v.s. Scott, I'll vote Ridley all the way. He puts a movie on the screen. Blade Runner has a lot to recommend it, but I'm not a big fan of it, so I'm in the small minority there. What about The Duellists? Pretty good, though miscast, and a great Conrad story.
Re: Virgil and GA. Maybe I was overbilling that. I said how it was like it, not how it was different. Okay, so I'm more of a long jumper than a spelunker or..er..something.
To go back to your actual 10 Worst Best Picture list: very sad to see Going My Way on it. (Your name doesn't look Italian.) Nice to see some tepid support for it up-thread. Maybe it's an east coast thing. Definitely a period piece, but when that 90-year old mother comes in at the end--well, I guess you just have to know how the Irish feel about their mothers. What can we say--Leo McCarey's soft side.
Wagstaff, I'll back you up re: Blade Runner. It's a movie of about half interesting, thought-provoking content and half mind-crushing boredom. I'm looking at you, five-minute-long scene of Harrison Ford blowing up photos!
m.a. peel: GOING MY WAY isn't an awful movie. Corny and inelegant, but not awful. This was a case where the movie just seemed undeserving in light of other movies released that same calendar year. The list includes DOUBLE INDEMNITY, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, GASLIGHT, JANE EYRE, THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM, THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK and SINCE YOU WENT AWAY. All superior movies, and many of them are just as entertaining.
PS -- German boys love sentimentality, too. We just cry on the inside.
Choosing between Scott brothers is like choosing between cholera and malaria--just my opinion. As for Thomas Harris, he's a sad case: a man who has let a minor character destroy his brilliant fiction. His publishers seem to have forgotten that what made the first two novels in the series great were the protagonists. Will Graham is one of my favorite contemporary fictional characters, in any genre, and he pretty much established the profiler-who-indentifies-with-the-killer-too-much prototype that shows up five times a week on network television. He also got referenced in the coolest possible way: sharing a name with Clive Owen's character in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. As a reminder to the FBI shrinks that evil can't always be explained away, Hannibal is a brilliant creation; as a killer dandy traipsing around the globe, defeating an even great evil, he's just dull.
Hi Matt -- I have seen your name on many great comments around the blogosphere, and wanted to say thanks for this post, even if you did list "Grand Hotel." I have sent in my ballot and posted about my choices over at my own place. My number one was "Going My Way." William Wyler admitted "Mrs Miniver" was propaganda, but "Going My Way" is ten times worse. Thanks also for defending "Yi-Yi," which I thoroughly enjoyed for much the same reasons you listed. I hope this fact won't leave Filmbrain too disappointed in me. As for "Gentleman's Agreement," it's dated all right, but there's a very good performance by John Garfield in there, as well as Dorothy McGuire. And certain scenes retain their bite, as when Peck tries to check into a hotel. I'm enough of a sap to give credit for a heartfelt social message, as long as my intelligence isn't insulted.
Kelly's piece and the ensuing discussion have gestured toward politics without actually discussing them much at all. Kelly's piece invokes fears about 9/11 and Iraq, but fails to mention the two political touchstones which correspond best to these celluloid nightmares--- namely the torture cells at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Does Kelly omit these issues because by his own admission, he's writing for a conservative paper? Or is it because he sees no connection between the tortures in HOSTEL or THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and the charnel houses of US foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere? I for one am becoming dispirited by the odd combination of public fascination and national denial which attends our national relationship to torture.
HOSTEL, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS and the SAW films join FOX TV's 24 in exploiting the currency of torture for dubious effect. 24 is probably the most noxious offender, because it places this torture in a specifically political context-- in a narrative of righteous national revenge.
As for HOSTEL, even though Roth talks a good game about real violence vs. reel violence, I don't think there's a shred of political consciousness in his film. This is especially alarming because his subject is a torture theme camp for rich tourists, set in the wild capitalist environs of Slovakia. Watching the film, I was reminded that Slovakia was one of the countries suspected of housing a CIA "black site" for US interrogation. I wonder how many of the teenagers packing the theaters know that the US tortures people in secret prisons. How many of those in the audience will be next year's recruits? Are these valid questions to raise?
But HOSTEL's problem isn't just that it's apolitical. It's that the
violence and torture in the film seems to lack any real moral
weight.
WOLF CREEK also presents torture as "entertainment" (as do
most horror films), but at least I never feel that I'm meant to
laugh at the victims or their plight. Kelly is right about WOLF CREEK-- it is a great film, expertly crafted and seething with existential dread. That being said, WOLF CREEK isn't a political film, but it does encourage us to empathize with the victims and the hopelessness of their situation, which may be a poltical act in these times.
The bottom line seems to be that people are fascinated with torture. It's human nature. I just think that the exploration of such themes in popular culture needs to be informed by political and moral concerns, not tossed in as another ingredient for timely effect.
One last thought: I've always preferred horror films which genuinely disturb, which provoke existential, primal terror. In order to be genuinely scary, a horror film has to violate our sense of order and trouble us morally. This is why I prefer Spielberg's JAWS to his JURASSIC PARK. In the former film, innocent people (including children) die. In the latter, almost all of the victims are people who "deserve it."
I really enjoy your blog and hope that you continue to keep it fresh with content and new material.
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