Week Of December 27, 2006 - Wed / Fri

December 27, 2006

When I put together a list of 2006 releases that were very interesting, but didn't quite make it, a quick look at the list offered another reality. They all were commercial disappointments.

Now, the idea that commercial success and quality are interlocked is a false one. The best movies often fail and the worst movies often succeed. But there is a truth in box office that few people, critics in particular, even want to acknowledge. A movie that audiences lavish box office upon for week after week - not just opening weekend - has something that is well-liked and generating buzz. Conversely, the movies that don't find an audience in spite of having the opportunity - analyzing the grosses of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is not a relevant exercise - have a legitimately earned lack of interest from "real people."

For me, the most shocking thing on the MCN cumulative Top Ten chart so far is the lack of support for Babel, which mirrors the lack of interest by audiences. The film is running slightly ahead of 21 Grams at the box office, though 21G never got past 411 screens, while Babel got a big 1251 screen push for two weekends and has been dropping screens every week since. For that matter, Babel is well behind 21 Grams internationally. In the end, 21 Grams got 250 points from 40 of 250 critics. Babel currently has 21 votes from our current group of 110 critics for a score of 114.5 points. So Babel could catch up with its older brother. But it was supposed to be the breakout for this filmmaking team.

What concerns me, and somehow also gives me hope, is a strong feeling that critics are working hard these days to find a voice again. The hopeful part is that critics throwing up their hands and figuring there is no safe situation leaves them ready to take stronger positions and to indulge themselves in a more aggressive brand of criticism than we have seen lately. The concern is that there is a near-pride that seems to be developing around the idea of discounting intentionally commercial cinema altogether. Moreover, any form that isn't "Cinematically Correct" is suspect and targeted.

What is the real difference between Children of Men and Notes on A Scandal? One knows that it is a muscularly produced B movie as light as a meringue with a bitter, sweet lemon gel in the middle and the other doesn't.

Thing is, there is nothing wrong with Children of Men being a beautifully made B movie. I wish it was more aware of itself, as the central issue of confusion for the central character, played by Clive Owen - the question of who wants to control the first newborn in 18 years and why - is never made a priority by the filmmakers. Cuaron and Chivo Lubezki were too busy working out the 4 major set pieces whose virtuosity are sure to be discussed in film schools for decades to come. But what about the movie?

The difference between Children of Men and more successful pulp of The Road Warrior or Blade Runner is that those movies are more than the sum of their really cool parts. And what has changed, I think, in criticism, is that "serious" critics now seem to need to feel that acknowledging that a movie like Children of Men is little more than an exercise in style that thrills them is not acceptable.

And no, I'm not calling the critics liars. Cultures develop over long periods of time and what seems like an accusation in a micro view is simply an observation of a tonal wave in the macro view.

I, unfortunately, end up on the other side of the tracks far too often… not in agreement with other critics, but on the side of overstating the opposite side of the situation. I did feel, as I watched it, that Children of Men failed its own premise as it rolled along. A movie that has the Pink Floyd (or is it Stigwood?) pig flying within the same eye's view of Guernica and the nearby one-legged David has more of a sense of humor about itself than most of the people who are raving about it. And maybe I should have clued into that right away. But it took me a few more viewings and a complete dismissal of what I was reading from many critics I admire to get to my sense of the truth.

I didn't intend to go off on a Children of Men digression, but the film is symbolic of what I am trying to express. It is no longer okay, somehow, to say, "Interesting pieces, didn't quite come together, but loved X, Y & Z and wish that the filmmakers had…" Anything less than a rave is a pan. Anything less than a pan is apologia.

I quite like Letters From Iwo Jima. It will be on my Top Ten list. A big part of what I admire about the film is Clint Eastwood's minimalist style, which permeates the tone, the voice, and the look of the film. Yet I somehow felt, reading many of the raves - including Mr. Scott's, that this self-seriousness was something of a qualifier for his highest praise.

The conceit of the Man of Power being paralleled by the Man of No Power through the movie is as old as the Hollywood Hills. And I am fine with the film using it. But the film has no great political context. It does not bring us into the military era in a specific way. There is both the subtle and the melodramatic. But somehow, those standards are imposed on other films - films that don't fit so well into the Cinematically Correct - and are abandoned as issues in regards to Letters From Iwo Jima.

Why?

I think the honest answer is, from whichever critic, "Well, I liked this film/genre/sense-of-importance better than the other, so the standards I use to analyze it are different."

The thing is, there is no "right." Criticism is opinion. Good criticism is educated, thoughtful opinion with a clear point of view and hopefully, some skill in putting words together. But it is still, at its core, an opinion.

Some people love chorizo, some people don't. But the food critic has, I believe, a fundamental responsibility to have a broad enough palette that they can overcome their personal preferences and understand the success or failure of foods that have ingredients that are not their favorites.

When I watch Gordon Ramsey or Top Chef or some similar show on TV (Angelinos, especially ones who work at Paramount, probably know that Betty from Grub is on the show this season and likes to tell stories about it when you show up for their great lunch), it often occurs to me that as much as I enjoy cooking, my palette is just too simple for me to ever become a great chef. I can make really tasty things inside of my palette.

Filmmakers often struggle when they have expended the breadth and width of their palette and still want to work. A guy like Robert Zemeckis has a taste for endless variety and keeps using his long-honed skills in a variety of genres. Oliver Stone is still struggling to get out of the Vietnam era. He knows how to direct, but what does he have left to say?

Critics cannot reasonably afford themselves the luxury of a narrow palette. Yet, someone like Pauline Kael is remembered for the details of his palette and her inflexibility. Anthony Lane is revered for being acid-tongued and generally uninterested in films themselves aside from the platform they afford him for his witty craft. And Armond White has become nearly legendary for his gift for narrowing a film down to a strong political position that often has nothing to do with the film itself.

We still have the adults in the room, from Roger Ebert to Joe Morgenstern to David Ansen. We don't always agree with them, but they seem to have a calm, mature perspective on all films, as willing to go down the road of genre films, art films, and even Hollywood product and judge them on an even keel. Each, as all of us do, has blind spots. But you read these guys without an eye for the fireworks. And you respect the work. In these three cases, most people also are fond of the individuals in a real and almost unexpectedly passionate way.

I actually feel the emergence of Dargis and Scott at the New York Times is a great thing for film criticism. They are both serious people with serious ideas and both can write brilliantly. But in no other major media outlet have I seen more evidence of this contempt for a significant portion of films that are released by studios by the very nature of those films. And what is the alternative? Rolling Stone's Peter Travers giving pull-quote reviews to virtually every movie in release each year so that his claims have only the meaning which 1.5 million copies an issue can suggest?

The challenge of the modern critic is not Dreamgirls or Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest or The Pursuit of Happyness. In that regard, a large percentage of us have already failed. And in that lies the civil war between the working critics.

The real challenge lies in The Good German and Marie Antoinette and The Prestige and The Science of Sleep. How do we deal with films that fail, but offer something that any cinephile should partake of?

How do we speak to The Dead Girl, a film not as underdog as one struggling to get a release or an opportunity to be seen by the Indie Spirit committee, but still in desperate needs of critical support to find any momentum? How do we deal with The History Boys, which delivers a narrow slice both of conversation and of filmmaking style?

How do we do right by movies like Candy or Factory Girl or Idlewild which really don't work, but suggest ambitions that must be celebrated for the quality of film in this country to thrive?

And do "serious" critics have to beat up commercial cinema simply to prove that these other films deserve a place at the multiplex?

Like Political Correctness, Cinematic Correctness is both heroic and villainous. Hurting films, like hurting words, must somehow be both protected and destroyed by the keepers of the flame.

Someone asked on the blog about how my review of Children of Men was "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. It was "fresh" because I said it was "fresh." I had all kinds of issues with the film and particularly with how it was being hyped by certain media. But I still think that if you care about film, you should see it. "Fresh."

"Rotten" would have been just as easy… maybe easier. But it would have been wrong.

E Me.

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