Week Of November 27, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

November 27, 2006

Slate's Bryan Curtis seems to feel compelled to dismiss Chris Guest's entire oeuvre - not to mention to misstate his bio - because he didn't like For Your Consideration. Does this make any sense to any of you?

"Guest rarely chooses satirical targets that present much of a challenge. Aging rockers might deserve our everlasting scorn. But what about small-town actors, dog-show contestants, and folk musicians? I don't think Guest disdains his characters, as some critics have suggested, but I do think he's aiming a bit too low."

Well, if he doesn't think that disdain is involved, why suggest "everlasting scorn?"

It's a fascinating thing, which includes the current Borat backlash, that critics of satire seem to be endless arguing both abusiveness and that the "targets" are too slight. But is satire only to be brought out for the president? Would these same people savage Michael Ritchie for daring to follow The Candidate with Smile and The Bad News Bears?

Now… is either of the follow-up titles as "important" as The Candidate? No. Not in my opinion. But it doesn't prevent them from being treasures either.

Of course, as has become a disturbing trend, the real issue with many of the critics of these films is not the film - one of hundreds in a year - but the rage over critics and e-journos daring to enjoy these movies more than they do.

"But my biggest complaint goes to the very heart of Guest's method. To read his reviews, you would get the idea that improvisation is a funnier-and more authentic-form of comedy than conventional mirth-making."

"To read is reviews?" Is Mr. Curtis kidding?

I have no problem with the assertion, "I would argue that Guest's method often begets a kind of dullness."

That is Curtis' position. That is the job of a critic. But when - he asked rhetorically - did an assertion of a feeling about an artistic endeavor become so much about the show of hands.

Consensus is not a valueless thing. I am happy to have Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. But taking a critical position based on one's perceived notion of consensus is insanity. And had Curtis bothered to check RT before getting so upset that Guest was "getting away with it," he would have seen a 53% rating for Guest's latest film.

So why stab it with his steely knife? Must he really try to kill the beast?

I can't say I am guilt-free in this issue. Earlier in my life online, as RT and other tools developed, I am pretty sure that I would use the arguments of others to bolster my opinions. But I am long out of that game. My opinion is my opinion, for better or worse. I listen to others for perspective. Sometimes it affects me. Sometimes not. But it makes me no more or less right to be part of a majority. And when I start considering taking my frustration with a raft of what I consider wrongheaded criticism on a movie, I get a little queasy, I check myself, and I try get away from my worst tendencies.

This issue comes up a lot during awards season. And ironically, there is one form of consensus that I do find to be legitimate, within limits. And that is our Movie City News Top Ten chart at the end of the year. And I think that phrase is key… "the end of the year." Even critics get better with perspective. And when they do their Top 10s at the end of the year, they show more perspective. Historically, in these last five years of doing the chart of charts, there has been no Oscar nominee ranked lower than 18th amongst our 250 or so lists. In one year, the Top Five were out, the next Five were in. Last year, 5 of the Top 8 got nominated.

And again, it is not about assigning rules to how The Academy picks movies or to say that Academy members follow this more than their hearts. That's where people go awry, trying to set these arbitrary rules.

As noted last week, I have been considering a column on the failure of the auteurs who got their career biggest budgets this year and how this will cause a detrimental effect on how studios few risky projects and edgy filmmakers for years to come. But of the seven films I feel qualify for this ignoble designation, I am a true fan of every one of the filmmakers. I am rooting for them. And I don't consider any of the films a complete failure. But they will all come up short commercially and ultimately fall short of their artistic goals, some much more than others. So what's a guy to write?

I have found four exceptions to this idea this year, though three are veteran indie types that have some studio experience - Scorsese, Stone, Lee - and the last was actually so cheap that it doesn't qualify as a big risk, Larry Charles' Borat.

There were also seven pricey flops - or flops to be - that are challenging, ambitious material from directors who are really inside the system - All The Kings Men, American Dreamz, The Black Dahlia, Blood Diamond, Catch A Fire, Lady In the Water - plus Neil Labute's The Wicker Man, which was a remake and, I believe, heavily financed by foreign presale.

In one of the seven films I am concerned about, there have been some rave reviews from some very writers who, to throw another broad comment on the fire, seem to hate everything emotional in movies and who look past the major flaws in the storytelling in this film because they get hot over virtuoso production. Again, that is the Bryan Curtis Conundrum. How can I assure myself, much less you, that I am not reacting to the excessive praise?

In another case, the experimental nature of the film, in spite of great cost and lots o' marketing, is something that I actually would like to embrace and promote, not tear down. But the marketplace is the marketplace. And even in the aesthetic discussion, the film is not satisfactory in the end.

Somehow, it reminds me a little of the apologetic pans of Bobby, so thrilled by the effort and so disappointed by the result, aside from stock footage of Robert Kennedy speaking in public.

Still, I will make the effort to dive in on Wednesday. And I will continue to struggle with my tone and theme until I actually go to web-print.

And for the record, Christopher Guest was a writing/performing star of the legendary National Lampoon stage show, Lemmings, that launched Chevy Chase, John Beliushi and others, won an Emmy for The Lily Tomilin Special in 1976, and has chosen a low key existence for a long time, not been limited in his choices. I consider the soft-spoken Guest not only to be a comic genius, but the one guy who was involved at different times with most parts of the seminal 70s political comedy movement. That still doesn't require one to embrace For Your Consideration, which I, like Mr. Curtis, consider the weakest of his and Eugene Levy's "improv" movies. But it should command the respect of anyone who is interested in being fair to Mr. Guest's history.

E Me.

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