The House Next Door

I think that critics list gives short shrift to White and Edelstein-two critics with more independent tastes and thinking.

As far as Hoberman, an evidently distinguished critic, is concerned-he does make you "feel" smart, if you're not.

I remember that he once wrote Zeno's paradox is about "evaporation of Eternal Now" or something (whatever that is).

And though I have no desire whatsoever to see Gibson's movie, all the complaints about violence sound a little self-righteous to me-critics have had NO problem with David Cronenbergs and Paul Verhoevens of the world.

I mean, a jaguar eating a man's face? Can it be really worse than De Niro chewing off Illeana Douglas' face in CAPE FEAR??

Absolutely right Mark, and I must add my own mea culpa for neglecting to spotlight Armond's piece on Apocalypto. Slipped my mind in the work rush this morning. I've amended above.

I don't think Edelstein's reviewed the film yet. If he does, I hope you'll post a link in the comments.

I think Denby deserves much shorter shrift. He's never written anything about a movie that made me want to see it -- more to the point, he's never written anything that made me want to finish his column, and that includes the Great Books nonsense he wrote in the NYer a decade ago.

If an indication of a critic's value is making one want to see a particular film, then Armond's Apocalypto piece succeeds in spades. I had every intention of seeing this film, but now I will see it sooner rather than later.

Has any critic besides Armond found a connection between Gibson and Malick? Might it be useful, Matt, Keith, to convene here later on and put that idea to the test?

Personally, I think Armond's piece brings his hypocrisy into sharp relief. The man has bashed Tarantino in nearly every review he's written of late (and, moreover, thoroughly denounced Tarantino's acolytes--isn't that what gave rise to his patented, pejorative "hipsters" label?), yet in the one instance of crossover in their ideologies, Armond gleefully uses him to prop up this week's straw man.

I think his hypocrisy comes into play often when one of his favorites works with one of his favorite targets. It's always fun to see him try to wriggle out of that conundrum. If Samuel L. Jackson ever stars in a De Palma film, look out!

Well here's a surprise to start things off: I thought Apocalypto was pretty fucking awesome. )I feel like I can finally first-view Passion with a bit less hype-juandiced eyes.) It's got some of Gibson's bullshit (the opening scenes focus almost exclusively on some juvenile cock-and-ball gags that I found resolutely unfunny), but aside from that the film (which I think is shot all digital, funny enough) plays like a grand hallucination, something like what I'd hoped John Milius might bring to Rome.

Milius is probably the better point of comparison: this one's got elements of Conan and The Wind and the Lion and - god help us - Red Dawn. It's red-blooded and ideologically crude, but brilliantly done. I'm really enamored of it and I'd like to see it in a better theater than I did today to take closer note of the sound design and of Gibson's visual choices.

It does shame a lot of today's action directors - this hearkens back to a classical style (practically Griffith-like simplicity and, yes, simplemindedness), which makes for an interesting complement with the great Michael Mann's more dissociative accomplishments in Miami Vice (though only the theatrical cut. The "Director's Edition" DVD, which Mann acknowledges on his commentary isn't literally a "director's cut" but a post-release cut, is a travesty.)

Can you elaborate on "travesty," Keith? I'd been waffling over whether to bug Uni for both cuts of Miami Vice. This certainly wouldn't be the first time Mann has mangled one of his movies post-facto.

"Renowned feminist author Camille Paglia has slammed young stars such as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for their recent pantyless antics with the paparazzi."


Why, oh why, is Camille Paglia still regarded as a feminist in some circles?

She hates women.

Sigh.

Keith, I am delighted (and quite surprised) you dug APOCALYPTO so much. I'll save my thoughts for Navel Gazing, but basically I've been going around today describing it to everybody as WERNER HERZOG'S RAMBO IV.

I am wondering, though, why you consider the extended VICE DVD "a travesty." I didn't spot too many changes, and most of them felt like improvements to me.

For example, while I do miss the "cold opening" in the nightclub, I feel like the credit-sequence boat race does a better job of easing the audience into the films langorous rhythyms more effectively than that(admittedly awesome) smash cut ever could. Also, it sets up the recurring water/boat visual motifs a bit earlier and better.

And maybe it's because I'm such a dorky fanboy for the original show, but I got all tingly and giddy hearing the "In The Air Tonight" cover played where it was in the '84 pilot.

On the whole though, this version doesn't seem too drastic a revision.

Bill and Sean-

Per Vice, I'd recommend that you do get the second cut as a point of comparison. I was looking forward to it to see what Mann would do, though I did personally feel - and still do - that the theatrical cut is perfection. Hard to improve on that, but easy to ruin, as it turns out.

The new cut has a very sloppy feel--the transfer is too bright and the sound is off in places. Case in point: when Crockett and Isabella first dance together in Cuba, the transition between songs is no longer smooth. The first song ends and there's this ungodly silence, after which the second song kicks in as if on a skipping record. I checked the theatrical cut DVD and this doesn't happen in that scene.

The boat race does exactly what you say... eases people in. And I think that does a disservice to what Mann achieved in the theatrical cut, bravely shaking up expectations right off the bat. The boat chase plays as nostalgia to me, more so in light of the change that really pushed me over into the hate column: the placement of the re-covered "In the Air Tonight" over the final shootout standoff scene.

In many cases, this change rendered the dialogue inaudible (or ruined its threat) and it played, unfortunately, as a cynical throwback to the TV series, fucking with what I see, in the theatrical cut, as a perpetually present-tense mood. I also couldn't forgive Mann's deletion of Isabella's scene in Crockett and Tubbs' hotel room ("I thought we had to meet The Man?"/"You do."/"When?"/"Right now."). It just jumps to C&T in the car going to meet Montoya. And his additions (especially the attempts to make Trudie and Isabella more vulnerable) just didn't jive with the world I thought he'd created.

It's a more conventional action movie in the director's edition (I have a feeling Mann re-edited some scenes in order to "achieve" this). where it's, to my mind, a poetic dream film in the theatrical cut. Mann's Inland Empire, far as I'm concerned. That it seems so technically shoddy as well (especially in sound design) makes me wonder if Mann intentionally defaced it to make a point. I have a feeling it was re-edited with the studio's intention of making it more palatable to the masses, but maybe Mann is having the last laugh. First thing he says in his commentary that the extended cut is NOT technically the director's cut.

Watching the theatrical cut again only strengthened my love for it. I hope to write about it more at length sometime soon and I think I'll write also about the Director's Edition to note the changes more definitively and - perhaps - coherently. :-)

Just watched my theatrical cut DVD and my replay-brain proved my doubts right: it is one hell of a present-tense (yet nostalgic) nightmare. The screenplay is still skeletal and a little by-the-numbers but the direction/vision/collation is enough to trump those shortcomings.

My friend lent me the director's cut: I'll get back to you.

No smash-cut opening, no sale. That's the best goddamn movie moment of the year, as far as I'm concerned.

Damn straight Bill.

I do highly recommend everyone checks out the DVS audio track on the theatrical cut DVD. It's a descriptive track for the hearing and visually impaired where an emphatic voice narrates all the onscreen action like a novel. God bless anyone who opens up the world of film to those who might not be able to experience it otherwise, but damn, I haven't laughed so hard in a long, long while.

The guy even narrates the Universal logo! ("Now! In a black sky a sliver of sunlight crests the earth! Rays of light shoot off the continents and a three dimensional word orbits the planet! Universal! ... A web address appears: www.universalstudios.com!") It only gets better from there.

Bill-

Also wondering if you could elaborate on your knowledge and opinions of Mann's "director's cuts" and if all of them do indeed screw up the theatrical versions. I know he did ones for "Miami Vice", "Ali", "Last of the Mohicans", and "Manhunter."

I really liked the "Manhunter" director's cut; made the movie great for me, though I hear this film's been screwed with a lot, even in the theatrical release DVD. I didn't remember the "Mohicans" theatrical release much so his additions/deletions on the DVD didn't bother me. Never seen "Ali", have to fix that.

Oh, those DVS tracks are da bomb. The one for The Grinch is hysterical as well--makes you realize just how alien that movie is.

Matt wrote a little about the Mohicans DC in these parts, if memory serves. My biggest issue with it is that it drops the Clannad song, which was quintessentially Mann. (It's replaced with a lot of discomfortingly stark foley that brings to mind the audio gap you described.) The restoration of Chingachgook's prophetic final speech is great, but I feel kind of like saying to Mann about most of his films what Friedkin used to tell William Peter Blatty: "It's in the Louvre!"

Manhunter was a mess when it first came out on DVD, because somehow Will Graham's monologue ("As a kid, my heart bleeds for him. As an adult, I want to blow the sick fuck out of his socks") got left out of both the theatrical and director's cuts. It might've been restored for the MGM reissue, I'm not sure; don't have that disc. Other than that, the DC doesn't harm the movie much, but I find the theatrical cut has a bit more faith in the audience, exposition-wise.

Ali was radically restructured for the Director's Cut. Mann's rationale for that one is that Ali was rushed into theatres, and so he considers the DC more of a fine cut to the release print's rough cut. But again I found the original more suggestive, even Malickian; there isn't any dialogue for the first 20 minutes of the movie! However, I saw the two versions so far apart that I'd probably embarrass myself trying to annotate the differences in any detail.

On a side note, when I got a chance to hang out with a very well-known editor who related some fascinating secondhand anecdotes about Mann's perfectionism. Apparently a scene for The Insider was completely reshot because Mann didn't like one of the actor's neckties.

I don't know; I don't see Gibson's action here as being any better than what he's done in the past. Seems to me this is mainly Tarzan of the Jungle goes Rambo with a generous helping of Cannibal Holocaust. Borrows a great deal from Last of the Mohicans too, I thought.

Plus the racist glow of the picture made me feel very uncomfortable to be wearing brown skin.

And just now I find an article on how someone feels about his treatment of the Mayans. Maybe I'm not crazy to feel threatened.