Wednesday, 17 January 2001

RANTING & RAVING

"My stomach, like my heart, is full tonight."

These goofy words were part of an overall rave for Finding Forrester, written early in November, printed just before Thanksgiving (THB 11/20) and taken off the site a couple of days later, at the request (according to Sony) of Gus Van Sant himself. The 1292 word review was one of my more personal indulgences, about as first-person as I ever get. Seeing Finding Forrester was, for me, a lovely, intimate experience and I decided to share that with the readers. I also wrote in some specificity about Sean Connery's performance, Van Sant's visual style and the connection between Forrester and Good Will Hunting. But there is no doubt, there were florid passages and indulgences throughout.

The review was also the first one to hit. That was not a huge priority to me. Not being number 27 was important to me, but I didn’t need to be first. As fate would have it, I was also the first person to write about Cast Away, just a day before the Finding Forrester review ran. But unlike Forrester, the studio was not unhappy that I was writing about that film. However, many critics and entertainment writers were.

I thought this was all long behind me, but surprisingly, Film Comment took my Forrester review, chose less than 50 words and apparently decided to try to make me look as silly as those 8 words above are when read out of context… maybe even read in context.

Of course, writing this column about 300 times a year, I am hardly in a position to complain when others choose to write about the failings of my work. I feel free to write about everyone else in my business, so I certainly should be able to swallow my medicine when the time comes. And I am. Frankly, I am kind of honored that Film Comment would bother to run funny pull quotes from my work. I grew up on Film Comment and have always looked to it for the kind of depth and insight that I couldn't get from many other outlets… without the snobbery of some of the other high-enders.

And I have no fear of my position in this game, having been out on front on some very good movies this year, starting with Erin Brockovich, four weeks before the film’s release (THB 2/22). My comments then? "Erin Brockovich is not only the best movie of the year so far. It's not only a movie that marks Steven Soderbergh’s ascendance into the pantheon of the great living directors. It's not only a movie that may be the rare March release that becomes a dominant player in the Oscars a year from now. It's not only a movie that in other hands would be a small $50 million hit, but will, with this team, likely gross about $125 million domestically." I was dead on financially and it looks like my Oscar guess will come true. Other passions this year have been more controversial, but I am comfortable that I am on the right side of the Quills battle and was ahead of the curve on Traffic, Cast Away, Finding Forrester and Before Night Falls. We'll see how The Dish plays out. And I don't think there was a more complete deconstruction of Gladiator anywhere (in no small part thanks to readers’ additions to the question marks behind the film).

But enough of me defending myself. That wasn't the point of writing this. The point was to speak to the strange feeling of being judged from an unexpected angle. I had a similar experience, also with Film Comment, when I was tied to Jeff Wells and, by association, accused of doing things in this column that Jeff does in his and I have very carefully avoided myself. Awkward. The writer of the piece was very pleasant when we discussed the issue, but the proof was in the writing. Issues of my clothing choices when I appeared on Ebert were jeered at by some of you, but I was out there and I chose to make myself open to attack.

The thing is, I am eternally amazed at how thin-skinned those of us on this side of the e-journalism business are and how quickly we forget how uncomfortable back-of-the-hand criticism can be. I am amazed how thin-skinned I am sometimes. But I'm wrong… we're wrong. The entertainment media has fought, across the board, to become a part of "the story." We're not, really. But so long as we are out there doing what we all need to do to fight for attention, we are fair targets.

I try to keep my criticisms in context, but I'm sure I've been cheap and thoughtless more than a few times over the year. And not just guilty of doing that in the context of celebrities, but in the context of other journalists. Yet it is a part of this column that is unique and it is, in the end, simply telling the truth. Quote whores are easy targets. But when we sit around and dissect others in the game and then refuse to put those thoughts in print while we smash and crash movies and movie stars as though nuclear secrets were in play, we are hypocrites. And for me to complain about Film Comment… that would be hypocrisy.

Sundance is about to begin and we are anxious to take roughcut to a new level. Let us use my silly hyperbole as frontlets between our eyes. Rise. Rise. Rise above.

ROTD: JerM writes: "In response to your reader of the day yesterday who claimed there was a surplus of excellent films, I wholeheartedly agree! Even though I completely disagree with his picks for the best of the year, 2000's films were fantastic... even better than 1999's in my view. The entertainment media seemed to decide en masse that the year was a wash, and critics and columnists alike have adopted that sentiment, much to the chagrin of this moviegoer who had a hell of a time at the theater this year. To those who are in doubt, here’s my top 10 list for the year… None of the films mentioned yesterday are the same… Clearly, there were many, many worthy films released.

10. East is East – Om Puri and Linda Basset turned in the year’s most overlooked great performances in this hilarious, insightful comedy. A massive hit in Britain, the film was somewhat ignored by audiences when it released here early this year. By focusing on the specific, arbitrary rules of a Pakistani, the film showed how arbitrary most parents’ ideals can be.

9. Time Code – True, Mike Figgis’ great experiment is not an unqualified success, but it’s so far from a failure that it deserves recognition. The split-screen shooting, which initially might seem a gimmick, quickly becomes a revelation. (I remember audibly gasping the first time two images combined to form one.) Few commercial directors are as actively trying to redefine and reinvent the form as Figgis. Gimmicks/ innovations aside, the film is a hilarious send up of both Hollywood-style politics and Atmanesque busy narratives.

8. The Virgin Suicides – Sofia Coppola’s debut, like Time Code, amazed mostly by not being the disaster most expected. The key to watching the film was to realize it wasn’t the story of the titular Lisbon sisters; rather it was the story of the boys who fetishized them. Like The Ice Storm, the 70’s setting was never exploited, yet was omnipresent, leading to one of the year’s best looking and sounding films.

7. Dr. T & The Women – A hugely, hugely, underrated gem chronicling what it takes for one man to reach his breaking point. Altman’s techniques (long shots, people chattering over each other) were tremendously effective in establishing the escalating level of external stress on Gere’s character. The comedy wasn’t focused on punch lines, so it flew over most people’s heads. The film’s twin miracles that cap it off were as brilliant as those in P. T. Anderson’s Magnolia, if a bit easier to swallow.

6. Best in Show – The year’s best ensemble in the year’s best comedy. Disposable, to be sure, but that’s hardly a bad thing here…

5. The House of Mirth – Gillian Anderson is devastating in Terrance Davies’ brilliant adaptation of Wharton’s great trash novel. The film is absolutely stifling at times, but it couldn’t be handled any other way. Laura Linney, with great economy, turns in her best performance this year, and Dan Ackroyd shows a mean streak he never even hinted at before. Soap opera-style tragedy at its absolute finest.

4. Beau Travail – Claire Denis had never really made a huge impression on me as a filmmaker. Her loose adaptation of Melville’s Billy Budd, however, was nothing short of a masterpiece. The film, like The Virgin Suicides, turns the audience into a fetishist, but here the subject is male. Few movies look at men as a sexual objects, so the role reversal feels astonishingly fresh. Even more fresh though is the antidramatic approach to the story that somehow encapsulates more details than any mere plot ever could.

3. George Washington – Easily, the directorial debut of the year, David Gordon Green’s beautiful George Washington has often been compared to the works of Malick, but Malick was never this willing to celebrate his characters’ emotions. When one child says to another, "I hope you live forever," we see love at its purest form. By viewing a group of characters that are equally afraid to grow up or be called children, we come to understand a world that can’t be fully explained even by its residents. By defining the dreams and aspirations of the people that populate it, this masterpiece does what Unbreakable failed to do… it creates a real-world superhero that we can believe in too.

2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – What else is there to be said about Ang Lee’s supreme beat-em-up? More than anything this year, the film speaks for itself.

1. Dancer in the Dark – Hugely misinterpreted, Von Trier’s best film is not so much an anti-musical as an examination of why we go to the theater to watch the light on the screen dance in the dark. Contradictory in every way, the film exposes itself as a sham through its cliché-ridden plot, but uses filmic techniques (hand-held camerawork, naturalistic acting & lighting) that make us believe the sham is real. The film isn’t a prison drama so much as it is a meditation of escapism. It asks, "Why do we believe…?" and Von Trier uses every trick in his book to remind us. Bjork gives a truly astonishing performance (inspired, along with its tales of on-set turmoil, by Falconetti’s).

I don’t think any movie in my top 10 (CTHD excepted) has grossed more than $20 million. To those who are complaining about a lousy movie year, maybe you should look at how many films off the beaten path you’ve sought out… You might be surprised to find it’s be a great year after all…"

E ME: Sundance time is here. Take a look at the roughcut film guide and give me some suggestions.