Week Of August 28, 2006 - Mon Love / Wed / Fri

August 28, 2006

I just sat and watched the Primetime Emmy Awards…

I have no real rooting interest. I liked The Girl In The Café, but I didn't think it was world beating. I never saw Elizabeth I… my loss, though I am sure HBO will soon give us the opportunity yet again, especially with Helen Mirren in line to add an Oscar to her new Emmy. I don't watch 24. I do watch The Office, though as much as I enjoy every episode, I don't know that it would make my Top 20 Ever sitcom list. (Maybe it would… never have made one).

But what hits me at I watched was a sense of joy and of a new season to come. The same is true of these weeks of preparation going into the Toronto Film Festival. And this hit me…

I love this game.

I really do. I just plain love the movies. I love the idea of the movies. I love that someone is crazy enough to invest tens, scores, and hundreds of millions of dollars in order to entertain me, you, and anyone with a few bucks in their pocket and a few free hours in their schedules.

I love that after a year of utter mediocrity, Toronto and the months to come represent the possibility of the best that cinema has - and ever has had - to offer. I don't need to linger in the shit of the summer to temper my enthusiasm for this fall. I want to fall in love over and over and over again.

I want my eyes to brim over with tears in the presence of greatness. I want to be shocked. I want to laugh hard. I want to not believe what I just saw, excited about the privilege of experiencing it again. I want my favorite magicians to dazzle me in new and old ways. I want to be shocked to see the magic coming out of the hands of the newcomers.

I want to dance in the streets to the rhythms of Little Children. I want to scream to passersby that Borat is a movie that will make you laugh so hard that you won't know what you were laughing at… until you see it again. I want to whisper cautiously in the ears of people influential and simply interested that they must see Julia Loktev's Day Night Day Night and allow themselves to see a woman with a bomb in a bug city as a human and a horror and a human and a horror again.

I want to boil over with joy while seeing wonderful work from people I know a little too well to allow 100% pure objectivity. I want to scream with shock to see great success for people whose work I have never liked, much less loved, before. I want to explore international films that I haven't had access to before and might not have again.

I want to not be embarrassed about my love or my rage.

My rage…

It also struck me on Sunday night as I wandered into an absolutely ass backwards story in The Paper of Record about movie stars being worth less and onto The Drudge Report screeching about 22 seconds of a 5 minute opening tape piece on the Emmys.

As anyone who has read me regularly or who has felt the sharp edge of my poison pen knows, I am not shy about going negative. And there is so much to go negative about. But why? When is negative negative and when is negative positive?

There are two kinds of negative… news and opinion. And neither tends to draw my ire. What makes me rage to my core is the mixture.

If it bleeds, I am fine with letting it lead. But if your idea of news is sticking a fork into the subject and twisting it around until you can draw enough blood to claim to have made a discovery, then fuck you and the fork you rode in on. You are no longer a journalist… you as an assassin… an assassin trying to kill an industry that I - for all its scars, warts, puss, and excrement - love.

If you want to take the position that the corporations of this industry are out to spin, manipulate, and take advantage of the vulnerable, fair enough. But let's not forget that human beings are under those villain's capes and Snidely Whiplash mustaches.

It is NOT us versus them. It is us versus anything that gets in the way of the pursuit of art. And that can - and does - include the artists almost as often as it does the companies.

And it is not always appropriate to live in a world of "versus" at all. The same way each of us has priorities and makes choices about the compromises and passions of our lives, this is true of the many people who make up these movie corporations as well. This doesn't make bad behavior good, but it doesn't make all behavior bad.

And I will admit to this… as the business of entertainment journalism continues to push harder for black & white thinking - pro or con, smash or bomb, honor or outage - I find myself not only irritated, but feeling threatened. How does one fight trash? If truth - or the honest pursuit of it - is not as respected or audience-drawing a tool as hysteria and high drama, what hope does anyone who believes in the pursuit have?

I'm sure there are those of you who are sniggering and thinking, "You don't have the ultimate truth, Dave!" And I don't. All I can ever be sure I have is the intent to seek truth. And when it comes to my many opinions, I know full well that I will always find a healthy group of people who sincerely and intelligently disagree.

But that is not the point. The point is that no matter how ugly the truth may be, the beauty that still manages to blossom amid the ample fertilizer can not be forgotten or there will be nothing left to discuss.

I loved seeing Jerry Bruckheimer and Brian Grazer taking the stage at the Emmys. Brian is a wacky guy and you can hear a new piece of gossip about him every day, but he is a relentless engine hoping to do good every day of every week of every month or every year. I love that he is fighting, fighting, fighting… and that his partner in a long career is the straightest working arrow in Hollywood.

I love that Yerxa & Berger have what many will end the year thinking is the best drama of the year and the best comedy of the year.

I love that Scorsese has a movie coming out that is being sold commercially first and with the idea of awards an absolute afterthought.

I love that Francis (is there more than one) is working on cutting down his movie, shot overseas on a small budget with unknown actors and bringing all he has to bear on the effort.

I love that Stephen Frears just keeps making great fucking movies, no matter how many times he is disappointed by the standards of Hollywood.

I love that Allan King has a documentary premiering at Toronto at 76 years of age and that Epperstein/Tucker have documentary there that is an hour long because an hour was just the right length for their film.

I love that John Cameron Mitchell finally made his second film and that it answers the question of whether he is really a filmmaker with a definitive "yes," even as it repels 80% of its potential audience simply by being the style of film that it is.

I love that Verhoeven went home… that DePalma made a movie about a Hollywood murder in Germany… that Amy Berg will make her first trip to Toronto with her first movie, a pedophile priest story that will rock audiences in any country… that Silberling made a comedy that has nothing to do with death… that Will Ferrell is chasing awards… that Fox Searchlight is doing as it sees fit with The History Boys… that Katherine Heigl wore that dress that made all the other women looks like little boys to the Emmys… that Kate Winslet exists… that people keep on trying against such long, long, long odds…

You're goddamned right I am rooting for them. I want them all to succeed. And I don't even care if they have horns under their $350 haircuts.

Louis Armstrong turns up on the iPod… Louis DePalma turns up on my TV… Jerry Lewis turns from the nutty professor into the asshole slickster on a movie screen… There is so much to know, to discuss, to gossip about, to parse and to consider. But if we lose sight of the music or the laughs, what is getting us out of bed in the morning? The joy of anger? The love of rage? The heartbeat of "I told you so?"

I wake up in the morning for love. Or I might as well just stay under the covers, no?

E Me.

---

Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri
Week Of June 12, 2006 - SIFF Mon / SIFF Wed / Fri
Week Of June 19, 2006 - Cinevegas Mon/Deliver Us Wed/Prada Fri
Week Of June 26, 2006 - Pirates Mon / Super Again Wed / Fri
Week Of July 5, 2006 - Wed
Week Of July 12, 2006 - M. Night Mon | You, Me & Wed | Monster House Fri
Week Of July 17, 2006 - 8 A Year Mon / Water Wed / Revamp Fri
Week Of July 24, 2006 - Comic-Con Mon / Gossip Wed / Fri
Week Of July 31, 2006 - Mel G Mon / Talladega Wed / Fri
Week Of August 7, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of August 14, 2006 - No Column Mon / Wed / Snakes Fri
Week Of August 21, 2006 - Snakey Mon / Anniversary Wed / Scoundrels Fri