"There's Fish for Everything"

Since technical difficulties prevented us from entering the world of David Lynch yesterday, here's a little something to get us started. He's an odd duck, that Lynch, but he's an idea man. Oh yes, an idea man.


Thoughts?

Gandhi & Scarface, together at last

As Rekha and I mentioned, Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton will be showing 33 films in 31 days, beginning May 1. There are some movies definitely worth seeing. An odd mix...The Deer Hunter and Amelie? Brazil and Whale Rider? And don't forget Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on May 30. Yes, Mary, I'm talking to you.

When bad things happen to bad people....

So, if just watching American Psycho wasn't enough to blow your mind I've been reading random interviews/articles about the movie that I think y'all might find interesting. If you check out the salon index for Mary Harron (the director) you will come across a bunch of great stuff. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio was originally slated to play Patrick Bateman and it had (shockingly) a very hard time finding a studio to distribute it. One thing that I really struggle with when it comes to this movie is how to think about a female behind the camera telling a story adapted from such a controversial masculine novel.

In an piece in Salon by Jessica Hundley --
"In "American Psycho," Harron directs a delicately boned, elegantly dressed Christian Bale as Bret Easton Ellis' coldhearted killer. Bale plays the part with bored and haughty bemusement, moving through the film like a smugly satisfied cat. "American Psycho" is not a film one might expect to be directed by a woman, but it is Harron's feminine touch -- and her humor -- that keeps the film's brutal elements palatable. In a satirical take on '80s excess, Bale's rich kid has a sense of entitlement as large as his ego -- yet there's something in his snobbery that is appealing. We can laugh at his cruelty because Harron has created an effective film stereotype: the privileged white Ivy Leaguer every viewer loves to hate".

I'm not really sure this is a very complete thought on Mary Harron directing the movie--what is this feminine touch? Is it possible for a female director to escape a male aesthetic? I also wonder if the fetishization of Bateman is unique to her eye or just necessary for the adaptation?

And finally--as far as the music in the film goes Sarah Vowell has a really interesting take on it in yet another Salon article.

"Ellis writes deftly about people who shouldn't be doing what they're doing, and one way they live with themselves is by shutting off the silence that is the examined life's requisite. You cannot examine your life too closely if you've got "Walking on Sunshine" full blast on your Walkman, as serial killer Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) does in the new screen adaptation of Ellis' "American Psycho." I always thought good people needed good music to make a good life, but do the bad-to-worse characters of Ellis' imagination need music to drown out the sound of their own consciences?"

So, for those of you who found the music intolerable-- here's your defense.

"The genius of director Mary Harron's film "American Psycho" is the way she juxtaposes Ellis' musical tirades into the action. In the movie, she has Bateman delivering his manifestos he's killing people. Harron's comic timing is impeccable. Now, when Bateman's talking up Huey Lewis and the News he's jabbering that their album "Sports" is "a personal statement about the band itself" as he ax-murders a guy. After he's finished the guy off, Bateman absorbs "Hip 2 Be Square" with blood all over his face; he lights a cigar, and -- something Ellis would probably never let him do -- actually listens to the song. Even though sometimes the reader feels like Ellis is letting Bateman get away with murder, the author punishes his protagonist: He has no peace; and despite the fact that Bateman shall have music wherever he goes, it's Collins' "Sussudio," which strikes me as punishment enough"

I'll end here by swearing that I don't write for Salon, and this is not just one big plug for them, but they do have some pretty great stuff.

Polar icecaps? O-ver-rat-ed.

So, this may take us a bit far afield, but I was thinking about commercials as art (as Matt suggests), as a business tool, and how they might relate to the discussion we're having about trailers.

There's a new phenomenon of "user-generated content" on the rise. What does this mean? In places like myspace, it means building your pages to look how you want it to. In advertising, it means companies are letting the consumers suggest and dictate what an ad says or how it looks. Pretty smart, actually. It's a theory akin to voting on American Idol and market test research: let the consumers tell you how they want to be sold.

Of course, kids say the darnedest things. The obvious flipside to letting the consumers do the talking is that some of them might say things you don't like. In Chevy's recent campaign for their Tahoe SUV, they allow users to choose various scenes of the Tahoe driving, one of a few soundtracks, and they let users write the titles that come up on the screen. This has led to some fairly interesting commentary and ad-making. Matt, to me, this really is art. Fight the power. And then get the kids to soccer practice.



Oh, and here's another clip worth looking at when considering trailers. It won a contest to recut The Shining into a feel-good family film. How does editing and music make this classic horror into Mr. Mom? That may be the scariest thing of all...

So, you liked the movie? Wait until you see the trailer!

One thing that occured to me as we were watching a clip from Magnolia this week in class is the amazing phenomenon of movie trailers. When done right they can be brilliant, and in my humble opinion infinitely better then the movie they advertise. I know that they aren't always put together by the director, but the reason I bring Magnolia up is because it has one of the best trailers I've ever seen for a movie. In fact, I think it was much better then the movie it advertised, which I recognize is a weird thing to say but here's why. I think the concept behind the movie is clever, and even experimental in some regards but the finished product is muddled, too long, and incomprehensible at points. The trailer on the other hand is a sleek piece of filmmaking (P.T. Anderson actually put the trailer together) with NO voice overs and Aimee Man's brilliant music enhancing what looks like some powerful scenes. It's too bad it doesn't all come together in the movie, but it doesn't mean that the trailer can't stand alone. So, I tried really hard to dig up the trailer, but with no success. Apparently archiving trailers is not at all the thing. Can I say that trailers stand alone as their own brilliant subsection of film? That they make nods to a plotline, give us the best acting and lines of the film, and do it all in 2-3 minutes? That at times they falsely advertise a film to persuade us it's better in clips and cuts then it is in full lenghth? Sure I can cause it's my post!

I'm a loser, baby.

Today's New York Times featured a piece by Virginia Heffernan that I found fascinating. It was concerned some new DVDs produced by Sesame Street for children under two years old. Oddly enough, some people don't like the idea of 3-month-old babies watching TV. The article is great, but even more interesting to me was the beginning of the article and some philosophizing on the stigma attached to television viewing. Observe:

Self-doubt stymies the television watcher. Go to the symphony, the opera, the theater or the ballet and you're rewarded with a feeling of cultural accomplishment; if you like the production, you feel improved, and if you dislike it, you feel superior. Either way, you've won.

But television is not for winners. Television is for low, exhausted potato people who slouch, and for their children, who are plopped in front of it. Slouchers and ploppers, that's us — and we tend to incur the wrath of more upright types. But, in spite of that generalized scorn and the self-doubt it induces, the loser in all of us plainly can't stop watching television, partly because it affords an opportunity, in our hard-driving world, to waste time and energy flagrantly, to live profligately, to forgo winning. Moreover, great television shows capitalize on this defenseless state, allowing us to grieve, pass imaginatively into unusual mental states, laugh off anxieties, lose ourselves. Television, in fact — to give the experience a paradoxical kind of dignity — encourages us to practice the great art of losing.

I think there's something so on-point about this theory. I praise TV all the live-long day, and yet I'm not just praising it, but justifying my behavior. As Rekha knows, I always say that "reading is my job. I need to watch TV to know I'm not working." But this is a rationalization, isn't it? Do I need to do that? I certainly don't justify my time at the theater, reading books, or browsing art galleries. Not that I actually do those things. I might miss Lost. But if I did do those things, I don't think I'd feel compelled to explain their merits to the world.

This sounds a bit like therapy. But don't worry about me, I'll be fine.

Nobody loves a list more then me (!)

Okay, so to add on a little to Leslie's thoughts on television. I think the revision aspect is huge, and it's things like web forums and blogs that make instant critique possible in the first place. I'm thinking of my favorite tv forum www.televisionwithoutpity.com, which beyond recaps runs a pretty extensive board where people comment on all aspects of the show. Now, I have to say while some of the threads and discussions are troubling in their specificity (like the one on Backup the dog from Veronica Mars) I do think they serve a great purpose for the writers of the show. They get instant feedback from devoted fans who comment on storylines that get forgotten, subplots that don't make sense, and actors/actresses who don't get the job done. I also know for a fact that writers, actors, etc. often check out these websites to get a sense of what people are talking about. What's really great about revising a plot along the way is that it acknowledges the viewer/content interaction. Films exist in a vaccum in that sense, and it makes them less viewer friendly a medium. Okay, having said all that I'm totally with Leslie--movies rule, but so does television, and there are three shows in particular that cannot be missed.
The Gilmore Girls--sure the dialogue is too witty and reference laden, bordering on annoying at times, but it does feature two smart women who get to work, go to school, fight, fall in love and never have to face being the object of the joke.
Everwood--again great writing here, and amazingly enough for a show focused on teenagers really great acting.
Veronica Mars--hands down the best show on tv right now for reasons already mentioned and two words--Daddy Mars.
TV-- Love it, Embrace it, Live it.

Ain't no rot in my brain, yo.

So today Rekha and I broached the topic of television. True, this is a film review class. True, there's lots of crap on TV. True, the youth of America are in danger because of the evil box. Does that cover it? Good. Because I love TV, and I'm here to tell you that you should too.

There are a ton of great reasons to love TV. When considering the quality and depth of storytelling available to television writers, it's easy to see how TV has the potential to work in ways film can't. Characters' relationships, personalities, and weaknesses can be established early and cashed in on later. Story arcs can be stretched over several episodes, keeping the dramatic tension over weeks, not hours. And finally, writers have the ability to assess viewer response and alter content. If something doesn't work immediately, it can be tweaked, new stars can be added, and new directors can be brought in. Shows that take advantage of their medium really have the capacity to tell stories other forms just can't. So with that in mind, here's a list of essentials, as far as I'm concerned: The West Wing (Seasons 1-4), Veronica Mars, Lost.

* The West Wing: This is a no-brainer. It's simply the smartest, wittiest, fastest-moving, most engaging and relevant thing that's ever been on television. Period.

* Veronica Mars: This one is brilliant for its misdirection. To the untrained, disinterested eye, it may seem like just another show about a girl living in SoCal being snarky. And she is. She's the ULTIMATE snarky girl in SoCal. But she also solves crime while being snarky, clever, and just plain cool. As our friends at amazon.com say, "Veronica Mars is The O.C. as penned by Raymond Chandler. Veronica is Nancy Drew by way of Lauren Bacall, while Neptune makes Peyton Place look like Mayberry."


* Lost: As I mentioned in class, this show is X-Files-meets-Gilligan's Island-meets-awesome. The sci-fi, conspiracy-theory laden, character-driven drama raises as many questions as it answers, some deep, some merely entertaining. The tone and content bounces between high and low, and the way each episode focuses on a single character's backstory pre-plane crash keeps the plots fresh and ensures that we don't have to look at the same dirty people in their fraying clothes every minute of every episode.

These shows are the places to start. I know it sounds like hard work, and maybe you don't think you have the time to devote to such a noble calling, but trust me. It will all be worth the sacrifice.

And the Oscar goes to....

Okay everyone, we officially have another blog up and running that you should all check out. Shana's blog is http://crashtalkforum.blogspot.com, and as soon as technically inclined Leslie adds it to the links list you guys can access it via our blog.

POW! WAM! SOK!

No one in the class seemed interested in taking up the taped review idea, but this clip of Ebert & Roeper reviewing Batman Begins is a great example of how that can work. Ebert spends the first part of the segment summarizing the film and naming the actors, then he and Roeper converse back and forth about what works in the film.



Christian Bale = Greatest. Batman. Ever. Discuss.

It's the Writing, Stupid

Okay, so I came across a really interesting blurb today in the L.A. Times about the Writers Guild choosing the 10 best written films ever.In order they are: Casablanca, The Godfather, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, All About Eve, Annie Hall, Sunset Boulevard, Network, Some Like it Hot, The Godfather II. Okay, so aside from the couple that I haven't really heard of I'm totally diasppointed in this list. I don't think the subject matter of many of these movies (the mob, male violence, a really silly identity swap, and woody allen just being himself) really merits much attention. But, even more annoying to me is the lack of current movies on the lists. People are always saying that the best of American cinema is over, and everything that's current is derivative. I totally disagree, and if I could make my own Top 10 list I would definitely include Sense and Sensibility, Adaptation, Gosford Park, and maybe even Rushmore (I know you guys are gasping in horror right now). American movies are as good now as they ever were, and dare I say it better? I also think there are a lot more women and cultures represented in American cinema, which is a great thing insofar as it reflects the society that we live in. Maybe I should just stop this rant and get my writers guild card already.

Mass Multicultural Film Festival

So, turns out there is a very cool event happening for roughly the next month that you guys may be interested in. Check out the link http://www.umass.edu/film/festFrame.htm for the list of movies and where they're happening. I think most of the films they're showing are pretty hard to come across in theaters anymore.

Movie Capital

Jill is currently working on her blog, Movie Capital, which focuses on all those contempo-classics that she's been shamefully derelict in viewing. Still getting off the ground, but the idea is totally A+. Unfortunately this is a pass/fail course. Bummer.

Experimental Writing

It seems that a number of students in our film class are choosing to blog for their final project. Awesome. I, myself, do not blog. But maybe I do now. If this counts. Which I'm not sure it does. Anyway, it seemed to me that perhaps a convenient way of linking us all together would be to have an all-class blog that provided the links to everyone else's. I'll list those in the sidebar to the right as I get them. I think it's important that we interact with one another's blogs, even if you've elected to do another type of final project. After all, the whole purpose of posting one's thoughts online is to make them available to a larger audience--an audience that reads AND responds to our ideas. A truly democratic medium and all of that...

Also, if you'd like to extend class discussions here, that could be another use for this. It would also be way cooler than WebCT, and feel less like homework and more like mindless internet time-suckage. Which is awesome. So, anyone want to keep talking about Bottlerocket? Or genre? Or the gender in film? Let's do it here. Or not. Whatever.