RANTING & RAVING

Perspective.

That’s all I can see to think about today (Tuesday).  It’s too early to write about the Ides of August, much less any kind of foolhardy effort to define the Oscar race in July… especially when there isn’t a single legit contender that’s been released so far, when last year had Erin Brockovich and Gladiator.  My thoughts on Hedwig and Rush Hour 2 can wait until Friday.  And I’m really not in the mood to beat anyone up.

It’s my perspective, you see.  My focus is narrow and the object of that focus is not ready for Hot Button discussion.  In a period with a limited amount of news (Bingham Ray settling in at UA notwithstanding), there is nothing to stretch that perspective.  Same old, same old.

The question floating in my mind is about how many of us see the same things differently.   Star Wars obsessives vs. Star Trek obsessives vs. Buffy obsessives… Harry Knowles actually seems to care who was cast as Shaggy in the live action Scooby Doo while I threw the whole project overboard when I read that they hired Raja Gosnell to direct a film without a strong movie star at its center… more people out there liked A.I. than are willing to admit it anymore… my 12-tear-old nephew loves The Mummy Returns, Jurassic Park III, The Animal and Rush Hour II… people who defended Clinton after he was proven to break the law now want Gary Condit to resign even though he hasn’t even been charged with a crime…

Go figure.

But what about the more subtle distinctions?  Besides the ugly March/April of my personal discontent, is The Hot Button really any different as an independent than it was as a part of TNT?  Have I changed as a writer?  If I got a job at the L.A. Times, would my work be any more valuable (or worthless)?  It’s an old journalistic homily that it is not the writer, but the outlet.   And for the most part, it is true.  Straight journalism, by its very nature, is about replaceable cogs that serve the machine.   There are bad, good and great journalists.  But, more often than not, greatness is served by the freedom and time that an editor or an outlet allows their journalists.  No Ben Bradlee, no Woodward & Bernstein. 

And what about our perspectives on movies?  Is there, in fact, something wrong with The Fast and The Furious being more profitable then Memento?  More importantly, why do some of us have to insist that someone who liked The Fast and The Furious better than Memento is moronic?  In the next breath, how can I see so much in Eyes Wide Shut while others continue to see so little?  Does my self-defined insight qualify me as a genius?  Do the Kubrick deniers qualify as shortsighted fools?  

But let’s get back to TFx2 director Rob Cohen.  The guy is not a good director, even if he is now a close personal friend of Jeff Wells.  (Sorry, Jeff… I can’t seem to get perspective on your new relationships with mediocre directors.)  But the industry survives with these guys.  How many really good directors are working today in mainstream cinema?  How many actors can really become movie stars?  How many screenwriters are going to follow a Braveheart with something better than Pearl Harbor? 

The answer to all three questions is, “not many.”  If there are 20 true talents out there behind the camera and the major studios alone make 120 movies a year, how can we expect all the films to be artistically valuable?  Of course the studios want to make stars out of the Paul Walkers and Hilary Swanks of the world… if they are within reach of the brass ring, the risk is worth it.  And when a screenwriter becomes well known for a great screenplay and studios then hire him or her to re-write crap for two years at six and seven figures a pop, how can we expect the focus that brought the breakout work to the top of the heap? 

Now, many would say, “If it isn’t great, don’t make it!”  And there is something to that theory.  This was DreamWorks’ early strategy.  Unfortunately, they came to realize, as everyone does, that if you don’t have enough product, your risk increases exponentially… because sometimes, you’re just wrong.  Or audiences are just wrong.  Who is wrong doesn’t really matter.  Having the money in the bank to make the next film matters. 

Back to the self-dissection… does it really matter whether some outlets serve as marketing tools for the studios?  Should we care when we read box office stories on Sunday night and Monday morning in which the level of reportage is for the writer to regurgitate exactly what the studio told him?  (I’d write “or her,” but when’s the last time you saw a box office report written by a woman?) 

Is there some sort of surprise when Universal cross-pollinates with a condom manufacturer or a specific car manufacturer?  If the standard is so low for journalists these days, why be enraged by a money making business trying to make more money?  (By the way, interesting reporting lately on the saga of The Hollywood Reporter’s George Christy, who is still being paid by the trade, while on suspension.  There is apparently little chance of him being discharged, since his “old Hollywood” way of doing business – blindfolds and K-Y – had essentially been vetted by the magazine, which knew of his behavior for years without correcting it.  Oy.  The Reporter can’t fire George for the same reason, essentially, that no one at Sony got fired for “David Manning…” too dangerous legally.)

Perspective.  We are all so good at rationalization.  We are all so ambitious.  We are all talented enough, whether in what we do or in our ability to bullshit our ways into jobs, to have a small piece of America’s ear.  And in the end, the only perspective we really care about is our own. 

So there.

READER OF THE DAY:  Two strong perspectives… don’t assume they are mine… in ROTD.  It just seemed appropriate to have some tough stuff run.   First, Hava Negila has a different view of NetFlix:  “I had to respond to the letter yesterday about Netflix, the newest player in the DVD rental game.  I signed up for them about a year ago and it was great.  Movies coming all the time, flat fee, it was awesome.  Now, a year later, they suck.  More than 50% of the discs I get are damaged or won't play at all.  All the titles in my rental queue are on 'long wait', meaning I will never see them, and their turnaround time is crap.  It's a week now from the time you send in an old one to the time you receive a new one, if you're lucky.  Because of their growing customer base, the quality of their product has gone to sod.  Just had to let people know what was really going on with Netflix.”

And Spanish Sea takes on the New York Times:  “I usually don't write to perform as your amen corner, but here goes: A.O. Scott is a pretentious, muddle-headed fool, who, IMHO, neither understands nor likes movies. Just look at the central assertion of the lead paragraph of the article you linked to: "Film and the novel are cousins not far removed, and the DNA they share is narrative."  Scott compares an entire art form (film) to a single discipline (the novel) within an art form (literature). Does this give the reader a clue as to Scott's value system?

To illustrate: perhaps the feature film and the novel are cousins, but wouldn't the short film have such a relationship to the short story, and documentary to journalism? And why couldn't film be viewed as a closer cousin to poetry, considering that both forms are processed in similar ways? The spectator involved in a film enters something akin to a dream-like state, and the reader of poetry, rather than following a narrative, must allow the mind to immerse itself in the poem's imagery or mood.

David, so sorry to have pursued Scott's literary musings this far. The piece was an abject failure if it was intended to be a serious comparison of the feature film and novel. Rather, it was more of a platform for Scott to trot out capsule reviews of novels adapted into features.

By the way, if Scott is preoccupied with auditioning for heavy rotation in the Times Book Review, then Elvis Mitchell, whose work I've often enjoyed in the past, appears similarly obsessed with hip-hop and club culture, often ignoring the films allegedly under review.

Janet Maslin may have needed a respite, but, my god, there must be a platoon of Internet critics (James Berardinelli, Harvey Karten, Mike D'Angelo just to name three) who write more perceptively film criticism than the second-rate graduate school blather the NYT has presented these last few months.”

E ME:  What’s your perspective?  (See you with a new column on Friday.)