Wednesday, 9 February 2000

RANTING & RAVING

I'm just a jumble of emotions coming from all directions today.

I got an e-mail from an often silly friend of mine, reminding me that everyone was now waiting for Steven Spielberg to die because he had a kidney removed, which must mean cancer and therefore he'll be dead before 61. I responded that if it was cancer, which it probably was, that radical treatment like removing the entire kidney probably was meant to keep the disease from spreading and that it may well have worked, given Spielberg's young (in health terms) age. I didn't even bother to explain that my father lived for nearly a decade with the use of neither kidney, starting at the age of 70, and that he would have lived longer had it not been for serious heart problems, which he would have survived had the surgeon who did his triple-bypass not mis-stitched one of the valves.

But I digress...

Why do we live in a world that is so happy to jump to a conclusion about Steven Spielberg's life and death?

If Steven Spielberg dies tomorrow, he will have had virtually every opportunity in life, due to his own efforts, short of a long life. It would be tragic, but in many ways, a small tragedy. For Steven Spielberg has lived a full and complete life that, in retrospect, anyone would have been happy to have had the chance to live.

And then, I look at the news and Derrick Thomas, an NFL linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, is dead at the age of 33, two weeks after his car flipped over in icy conditions. One of the most physically powerful and skilled men ever to have played professional sports, a sure Hall of Famer, dead at 33. Just like that, he's gone. Breaks my heart.

And it puts things in perspective. And it enrages me even more about so much of the crap that comes down the pike in this business we call show.

Don't these vultures have anything better to do with their time than to pick the bones of everyone else out there? We sit around and we talk about how great the old days of Hollywood were. How people made these great movies that moved and surprised us. Then we rip into guys like Martin Scorsese, who has more talent than most movie writers can comprehend, much less obtain for themselves, for "failing" with Kundun or Bringing Out the Dead. So, what's the failure? "I was bored" works for the public. The people who pay to see movies have every right to judge a movie that they paid to see on any of the most irrelevant, minor, moody criteria. Those of us who presume to have something to say that is worth your reading time do NOT have that freedom. We are failing you by being petty and moody.

Keep in mind that the same people who are ripping Scorsese now are the ones who were ready to bury Steven Soderbergh for Underneath and Schizopolis. The same ones who flip-flopped on Soderbergh before and after the grosses for Out of Sight. The same ones who will raise him to the heavens for Erin Brockovich. And what do these people always forget? That there is a line that runs through all of the work of artists...yes, there are people who qualify...and that every bit of work informs the next. Just because it takes a brain the size of a pea to go from writing about Cybill Shepherd's love life to writing about Julia Roberts' love life is no reason to assume that people who do aspire to more have so easy a leap.

Which brings me to Scream 3, which left me absolutely stunned as I walked out of the theater when I saw it on Monday at my expense. What a turd of a movie! Scream 3 is the very movie that Scream so brilliantly deconstructed. Yes, Scream was brilliant. It was funny and smart and defiant and set the bar so high that Scream 2 had to be a letdown (which it was) and Scream 3 was a real challenge. A failed challenge. Miramax claimed that they were keeping all Internet press out of preview screenings because they were afraid of giving away the last 20 minutes. Well, I paid to see it and I still won't to give away the last 20 minutes other than to say, "SO WHAT?!?!?!" The ending of the movie belies what the movie itself says about the end of a trilogy. Worse, it compares itself to Star Wars when it knows full well that "Luke, you are my father" was spoken at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. The ending of the first Star Wars trilogy doesn't come from left field... it is explained and deepened by the smart resolution. Scream 2 didn't set up anything and Scream 3 delivers nothing.

YET...

The movie is getting softballs thrown at it because it made a lot of money this weekend. Between Arlington Road and Scream 3, I don't quite understand why anyone would want to work with Ehren Kruger again (though he may be a great guy, and who knows how his work was bent in two projects that were both twisted severely by the producers involved), yet I'm guessing that Scream 3 will net him more seven-figure screenwriting deals. Because why bother judging talent...the bottom line is the judge, right? Oops, let me go trash my Van Gogh...it must be crap.

Which circles around once again to that issue of "The Internet". It is time that all of you publicists who read the column (though presumably, if you are willing to put up with me every day, you are a bit more thoughtful than to deserve the accusation I am about to unfurl) get the hint. The Internet is no more a monolith than any other form of media. You are right, just because someone unleashes an I.P.O. that says "movie" somewhere in its plans does not mean that you should take them seriously as a media outlet, giving them complete access and undying respect. But it's as though many of you have given up your right to make judgements at all. How many times have I heard, "We're not doing XXXX for the Internet..." And worse, it's as though many of us on the 'Net seem to think that just because we have an outlet, we still carry the same clout we did at other media outlets. Wake up, folks. If you are on the Web, you are in the business of building something, not taking the ride. It doesn't matter how hard you work. If you want a free pass, go work for some publication that gets everything it wants because it acts as a promotional publication that pretends to have an edge and some independent thought.

"No, it's not over..."