1. A CNN poll names President Bush both the hero and the villain of the year. No mention of who won Best Sidekick.
["Bush won the villain sweepstakes by a landslide, with one in four respondents putting him at the top of that bad-guy list. When people were asked to name the candidate for villain that first came to mind, Bush far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader in hiding; and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is scheduled for execution. The president was picked as hero of the year by a much smaller margin. In the poll, 13 percent named him as their favorite while 6 percent cited the troops in Iraq."]
2. The results of The LA Weekly Film Poll (formerly at the Village Voice, which also spawned a version at Indiewire -- if this keeps up, awards junkies will need a flowchart). LA Weekly's chief critic Scott Foundas pens an introduction.
["Of the more than 500 new feature-length motion pictures released in Los Angeles (and reviewed in these pages) over the past 12 months, among the very best of them — at least according to this paper’s two house critics and the results of the L.A. Weekly’s First Annual Film Poll — were a 37-year-old French wartime drama (Army of Shadows) never before distributed in the U.S. and a three-hour-long Romanian gallows comedy (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) that grossed all of $80,000 during its North American theatrical run. Such statistics will, I fear, do little to disabuse people of the idea that movie critics are elitist scum fatally out of touch with the concerns of the general moviegoing public. But remember that these same critics have rallied en masse behind Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and a little comedy called Borat — both of which rank among the most commercially successful studio releases of the year."]
3. At The Nerve Film Lounge, Bilge Ebiri on The Good Shepherd.
["Many of us have been waiting for an American spy movie that does for the genre what John Le Carre and Graham Greene's novels did for British espionage narratives: bring a refreshing dose of realism and somehow convey the mundane, often dysfunctional lives of international spies, shadowy individuals who have to subsume their identities for what they believe (often halfheartedly) is a greater cause. Despite the advance billing, and some admirable intentions, Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd is not that movie."]
4. The Chicago Film Critics announce their 2006 picks. Best picture: The Departed.
5. The Toronto Film Critics' picks are summarized here. Best Picture: The Queen.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Links for the Day (December 29, 2006)
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17 comments:
If Dubya is both hero and villain, does that mean he's like Two-Face and he flips a coin to decide what he's going to do? Man, the bad side of that coin ALWAYS seems to come up, doesn't it? At least Gerald Ford blasted him, Cheney and Rummy from beyond the grave about Iraq.
Two observations/questions about all these lists and polls--
1. If virtually every major critics' group is giving top awards to the same movies, what's the point of having different groups? How many awards can The Queen and The Departed win, anyway? And among people you know who see a lot of movies, do you know any of them who, when asked to name the best movie they saw last year, will cite either of those films right off the bat?
I don't.
The problem here is that the consensus mechanisms of critics' groups (and critics' polls) are not set up to accomodate films that inspire wildly mixed reactions. Films that were loved or despised last year -- for example, Inland Empire and Miami Vice -- have virtually no chance of winning citations of excellence in any major category, because the love votes and hate votes cancel each other out, leaving the prizes to films that most people in the group thought was good but not necessarily one for the ages. (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Army of Shadows were difficult movies in their own ways, but they weren't as familiar yet disreputable as the above films, and therefore they didn't inspire such drastically divided reactions -- people who adored the films said so, and those who were bored by them didn't say so for fear of seeming unsophisticated, and had no such misgivings about panning a movie version of an NBC cop show and a new Lynch film with a nonlinear plot, shot on a camcorder. At least that's my guess.)
2. I was invited to participate in the LA Weekly poll but ended up not sending in my ballot. At the time I told myself it was because I was busy with Christmas shopping and other holiday-related logistical issues and didn't have time. But the truth is, I'd already participated in the Indiewire poll and felt kind of strange about it because at the time I filled out my ballot, I hadn't yet seen a number of major releases, including Inland Empire and The Good Shepherd, which I subsequently saw and would definitely have included. There are others I still haven't gone to see yet, but need to, before writing up any sort of comprehensive list/piece. It's like final exam time around here.
Extending this line of thinking -- if I haven't seen everything that's generally believed to be worth seeing, can I vote on "The Best" in good conscience? -- leads to paralysis. I am already looking at a House Next Door year-end best list that's substantially different from my Indiewire ballot, and which would be substantially different from my LA Weekly film poll ballot if I'd sent it in. Every week I wait alters the makeup of my own personal survey. And as always, there's that nagging little voice in the back of my head that says, "What if there's some tiny little movie you didn't see, that nobody saw, that's more exciting than anything else you saw last year?"
Yeah, all these lists are rather silly. I basically ignore the lists and read the intros or summaries because a list is mostly just a viewing list, a ready-made Netflix queue. I basically just want to see individuals' lists and reflections. I can't imagine the group lists are very good representations of individual lists other than what Dennis Lim's been doing for so long, you know? Anyways, I wrestled with all that wait-a-week-and-you'll-have-to-change-it mess as well and finally decided: fuck it. I'm no professional (yet?) so what I see is what I get and it's all I can offer so who cares? As long as the individual is actually engaging what he or she has seen, it works for me. And a list isn't really a proper venue for that for me, as evidenced by the thing I keep tweaking for the wrap-up party here at The House.
The point is, Yes. I'm with you. Everybody's got blind spots so stop posing (right?) and lay your cards on the table as honest as possible.
There is a bit of overkill. To cite an example, one group that put out their picks (which as every single list has picked Helen Mirren and also went with Forest Whitaker for actress and actor) was called the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle -- and I know Oklahoma film critics and some of them had never even heard of this group before let alone voted in it. The picks of these lesser groups also make it painfully obvious (as do many 10 best lists) that they are derived from what they've been able to see, not from everything. That's why I always resist posting my lists or awards until I feel I've seen the overwhelming majority of what I think I need to -- and I'm nowhere near there yet.
Also, closer to home -- read Foundas' opening essay. It name-checks House contributor N.P. Thompson for denouncing him this year.
Also, House contributor Jeremiah Kipp's horror movie The Pod made Film Threat's list of the best unseen movies of 2006. The link is here.
I was just yesterday wondering if you guys who do this kind of thing for work worry about not only having to see everything that "must" be seen, but also missing some unknown gem. I kind of figured naw, how could they live like that? But wrong; you're just like the rest of us, as it turns out.
Matt, that's a very good point about the serious limitation of consensus lists not accommodating extreme mixed reaction movies. Especially true, I think, with judgments of recent movies (or recent anything). Time sometimes helps with those things, including the unfortunate tendency of so many to insecurely disregard their gut reaction in favor of a safe sort of below-the-radar response, particularly, as you point out, when it's a film that either superficially reads as crap, or superficially reads as serious art.
Nspector: Yep. Like I keep saying, a critic is basically a moviegoer with a byline -- and, hopefully, a slightly deeper knowledge base than a civilian (though evidence from blogs suggests that ain't necessarily so, either).
Part of the fun of Blogging is being able to peel back the curtain and show that the Great and Powerful Oz routine we critics often pull is just smoke and mirrors. There's a certain amount of faith and fakery involved in the live-from-Mt.-Olympus shtick, and now that print outlets are either dying or evolving, and the Internet forces critics to make direct contact with readers, that routine is much harder to sustain. I'll be interested to see how this profession evolves over the next ten years -- though it might turn into a glorified hobby, who knows?
As a participant in one of those minor critics' groups (the Las Vegas Film Critics Society) with boring, consensus-based awards, I share the frustration. I know people in the group with interesting, eclectic tastes whose picks were in no way reflected in the homogenized choices (Departed, Mirren, Whitaker, etc.) that came out of the group vote. Only two of the group's top ten movies were reflected in my own top ten, and many of the awards went to safe, easy picks that, while good (I appreciate Mirren and Whitaker's work as much as anyone), were not what I thought represented the best work in film of 2006.
The problem is only partly the consensus, though. Yes, it's likely that even people with varied taste will mostly agree on a few popular, middlebrow choices, and my more obvious picks were of course the ones that got the awards. But the other problem for our group, and I imagine other regional groups looking to pad out membership, is that many members aren't particularly dedicated critics or even critics at all, and tend to spend more time watching awards screeners than seeing movies throughout the rest of the year. Not to come off as insufferable snob, but it almost embarrasses me to be associated with people who pick only awards-bait films from the last two months of the year as their examples of the greatest achievement of a 12-month period.
I don't know that there's a solution for this other than to get rid of consensus-based awards and/or regional critics' groups, but for all its flaws, the LVFCS and its awards have done wonders to legitimize film criticism and film critics in this town, and to bring us a measure of respect from studios and trade journals. I imagine it's much the same for those in, say, Oklahoma or Dallas-Ft. Worth. In the age of perpetual decline in respect for film critics, sometimes these stupid awards are all we have standing between us and total obsolescence.
George Lucas says Indiana Jones IV is back on.
This just seems like an awful idea. I know you're a prequel fan, Matt, but Harrison Ford is just too damn old for this. I wish they had recast the role and made it more like the James Bond series in fluidity.
If they really do film the fourth Indiana Jones movie, they had better set it during the early 60's.
I believe the tentative title will have to be Indiana Jones & the Assisted Living Facility -- those chases using walkers should kick ass.
If Rocky can drag his decrepit, steroid filled ass back into the ring, then Indy can have another adventure. Indy has guns.
And for the record, the title is Indiana Jones and The Last Geritol and features a key performance by Wilford Brimley as a villain who chases Indy for not taking his diabetes medicine every day. The climactic chase is on those Li'l Rascal gocarts, and there will be a massive marketing tie-in between the film and Viagra. Script by Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron.
Nothing wrong with a fourth Indiana Jones with an ancient 64-year-old Harrison Ford. They'll either make it work or not. And you people making bad old people jokes -- careful. God punishes that.
I would call 'The Departed' my favorite out of the films I saw this year in the theater (I fell short compared to many in terms of number of films seen) and an improvement on the original 'Infernal Affairs' (which always struck me as a badly directed film with an ace plot and performances; Scorsese rectified the first bit, retained the second, and improved on the third with the addition of the Baldwin and Wahlberg characters). I'm not in the camp who believes it's a 'return to form' for Scorsese. I think 'The Aviator' was a nice confluence of biopic and personal obsessions, 'Bringing out the Dead' is underrated, and...well...'Gangs of New York' had Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill the Butcher = Al Swearengon's psychotic cousin?).
'Miami Vice' is a pretty terrific film, one that I appreciated more on a second viewing. I still think the high-def video has its drawbacks in some scenes, but overall it reminded me not of a film but of an album called "The Present Lover" by the Finnish dance producer Vladislav Delay, under the Luomo moniker. It works in a commercial genre (tech-house) but strips away the meat typically found in your average house album, leaving behind snippets of longing vocals, snatches of melody, and beats. 'Miami Vice' plays like that, and my favorite shot of the year just might be when they're setting up the deal with Nicholas, and Sonny inexplicably gazes across the ocean. Foreshadowing or longing? Both?
'Army of Shadows' is really quite excellent though I feel as though the effusive praise for this film faintly damns the rest of Melville's work. His best film is still 'Le Doulos', as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that'll be the next one to see a revival release.
Matt,
I have often wished that some critics poll would take up the writer/editor/blogger Jesse Walker's habit of using new year's as an excuse to write about his top ten films...from 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago (His current list is here; I forget how far he goes back in time he goes.). Hindsight and time might serve to blunt some of the concensus effects that bother you, though of course other flattening effects (less thoughtful critics picking popular favorites) might emerge.
Anon
I've been thinking on and off for days now about this whole consensus thing. It's insidious. It's everywhere.
Sometimes it may be a positive phenomenon. For example, in American national politics, one could argue the effect at work there -- the electing of essentially moderate politicians -- is a good thing, a safeguard against extremism.
But, turning to what really matters in life -- good art -- the consensus mechanisms so often make for disappointing results. Not that I want to take anything away from the value of work that many can agree is good or great; I do not believe that means that the work is automatically mediocre, or safe. A crowd pleaser can be great.
But any consensus mechanism functioning properly is, by its very nature, guaranteed not to reward work that stirs the most evenly divided opinion, which, as already discussed, is sometimes going to be the most innovative, the most exciting, the most great. The mechanism also, of course, eliminates work that is overwhelmingly thought to be bad -- generally a good thing, except that the "mistakes" in that case may be the most grievous of all.
But, hey, this is life, human nature, whatever. True greatness is often mistaken early on for the opposite. For the most part, in practical life, this is a necessary safety mechanism of sorts: it's often not worth the risk. And with art, well, that's just the way it is. It can really stink, though, if you're either on the short end of the consensus stick, or a lone champion of something you know is great.
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