1. "Let's put a smile on that face": The Dark Knight trailer debuts.
["Evening... commissioner."]
2. "Does Size Matter?": Tom Hall of The Back Row Manifesto addresses an all-too-real truth of criticism, with There Will Be Blood as prime example. Related: Slant Magazine's two opposing takes on Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, from Ed Gonzalez and Nick Schager.
["Is it possible that, in the age of "user controlled content" and Attention Deficit Disorder, asking adults to sit still and engage deeply with a movie is simply too much to ask? Have our narrative clocks been reset by YouTube, TV and Hollywood junk? Is the critic actually doing the viewer a favor by raising the red flag that, god forbid, one might need to sit in a theater and engage with a movie? Why is two-hours the gold standard for movie-going, other than the fact that exhibitors love it because they can squeeze more screenings into a single day? Have we been physically conditioned by the financial concerns of the theater owner? What is the value of using the runtime as some sort of critical barometer of anything at all?"]
3. More from Slant: the Year in Music 2007.
["When it rains, it pours. Rihanna's third album in just over two years spawned her biggest hit to date, the ubiquitous "Umbrella," a track that eschews the typically materialistic tone of so many of today's popular hits and which was our indisputable pick for Single of the Year in a very strong year—so strong, in fact, that we've included 50. The year may not have been quite the hip-hop wasteland that 2006 was, but the genre's biggest commercial successes were still, by and large, artistic dead-ends; a handful of late-year releases, including albums from Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah, partly made up for the likes of "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" and "Ayo Technology," but it's Aesop Rock's much lower profile None Shall Pass that stands as the year's most compelling hip-hop record."]
4. "‘The Kite Runner’ soars as an adaptation of the book": House contributor N.P. Thompson reviews for Northwest Asian Weekly.
["Having skimmed, but not read, Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel, “The Kite Runner,” I’m at a loss to say how faithfully the Swiss filmmaker Marc Forster and his American scenarist David Benioff have translated the spirit of the book to the screen. Even in my nodding acquaintance with Hosseini’s prose, I detected a lyricism that defies easy transport. Forster’s film, nonetheless, manages to be mostly good, sometimes very good. At its best, it’s an eye-opening account of displaced Afghans trying to make their way in a foreign society (ours) that has little use for them and no comprehension of their plight."]
5. "Out, Cold: Margot at the Wedding, The Golden Compass": Fernando F. Croce's Nicole Kidman extravaganza.
["Nicole Kidman Week. I caught Margot at the Wedding and The Golden Compass back-to-back, a double-feature that illustrates the formidable glacial reserves of her screen presence (and possibly accounts for the tenacious cold I have been nursing since). Kidman is too tense for comedy, yet the more I watch her, the more I'm convinced that the fembot in that remake of The Stepford Wives may actually have been her ideal role -- I swear you'd hear a metallic "ping!" if you flicked your finger at her."]
Quote of the Day: Dale Peck
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Otto Preminger as Mr. Freeze in Batman.
Clip of the Day: And whaddya know... the entirety of Preminger's LSD epic, Skidoo.
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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.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Links for the Day (December 17th, 2007)
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6 comments:
I don't know Peck, and I don't know the context of the quote -- is it meant as criticism, or is it just stating a fact? Without context, I can't even speak to the truth of it - what narratives is he referring to?
Opportunities to overcome provide great fodder for cliched screenplays. But the reality of cancer is usually not one of epic battles but daily skirmishes and incremental gains and losses. No one in his right mind who has ever had cancer, or loved someone with cancer, would ever call it "a gift". Let's face it, Carpe diem is a lesson that can be taught many ways; cancer would be a rational person's last choice.
I believe Peck is responding to the self-help view of a disease, the way it can be marketed and sold to a mass body (a fine line walked between the disingenuous and the genuinely insightful/helpful).
I feel like Matt's review of Atonement touches on this sort of issue from a different situational perspective, selling a disease of the spirit for mass consumption, for a false sense of healing. A disease of the body can similarly become a product that shortens perspective rather than enhances it, which isn't to say that there aren't texts out there (like Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor" and "AIDS and its Metaphors") that absolutely do the latter.
A fine line, like I say, for each of us to determine for ourselves.
As for criticizing a film's length, I always go by (and I can't remember who said it) no bad film is too short and no great film is too long. I think saying a film is too long is just another way of saying that parts of it bored the reviewer silly. I also remember the Pauline Kael quote (again, I forget about which film): I know which parts to cut, I just don't know which ones to leave in.
I know which parts to cut, I just don't know which ones to leave in.
I believe that was Heaven's Gate.
I'm a bit confused about that first link. So, this is all happening in Dylan's head, right? And the Folk/Christian Bob is telling Relationship Bob -- who's gone off the deep end post-Blood on the Tracks (note the nod to his Street Legal, Rolling Thunder whiteface period!) -- that he's Gotta Serve Somebody and fall into line? Strange, but I like it.
Seriously, though, I'm really enjoying Heath Ledger's Killing Joke Joker thus far. (Jack Nicholson was a huge disappointment back in '89, I thought.) Between this and news of Peter Jackson's Hobbits today, it's been a great week for my inner twelve-year-old.
I remember when "Crash" came out, I was telling people it was manipulative and their rejoinder was "Aren't ALL movies manipulative?" to which I replied, "Yes, but you're not supposed to notice."
In other words, complaining about a movie's length beforehand is poor sportsmanship, but if you're complaining about it after seeing it, there's gotta be something more specific that you're taking issue with. Critics are lazy?
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