November 7, 2007 - Those Who Can't Negotiate, Strike

Thanks 11, 2007

It’s time for my 11th Annual “Things I’m Thankful For,” but I feel a bit like I have already published someone else’s riff on the tradition. I have mixed feelings about that, which is, I guess, one of the things I am most thankful for this year.

I am finding that the theme of the year for me has been trying to find peace with being a senior member of the web class. Imitation is a double-edged sword of flattery – it’s lovely to know they wouldn’t have done it without you, but who wants to continue to toil in the garden when there are so many bugs around eating? One ends up spending all too much time worrying about the bugs and not enough time caring for the nourishment that you intended to be growing. Some would say that worrying about the bugs is a major part of a farmer’s job, but when it starts being more bug than wheat, it could be time to refocus.

I am still thankful for the work of filmmakers. That is the redemption of This Thing We Do. So long as Julian Schnabel is out there making art films in French that Miramax is thrilled to be selling, I am thankful. So long as a script like Nancy Oliver’s for Lars and the Real Girl is out there getting made, even when the financier kinda knows that it’s going to be a hard sell, but Gillespie and Gosling and Mortimer and Schneider and Clarkson and the rest of the team make a move with a threat of sexuality into a true Capra/Sturges classic, I am thankful. So long as Tony Gilroy and George Clooney can use Bourne and Ocean’s to vault a Clooney/Swinton/Wilkinson film with Gilroy doing his best Chayefsky imitation into getting made, I am thankful.

This has been such an unusual year for film. It seems like eons ago when we were being underwhelmed by the four biggest movies of the year – four of the biggest movies ever – while finding the delights of summer in Ratatouille and Superbad and Hairspray, the three most underestimated hits going into release. (Watch as someone comments - as this runs on The Hot Blog for comments- that Hairspray didn’t gross as much as Wedding Crashers while refusing to admit that the film grossed multiples of what they expected or still tarnishing The Rat for not being as big a licensing smash as Cars, albeit a superior film in every way… still trying to tarnish great success.)

And now, in the fall, we survived the Sept/Oct of rationalization for the film/marketing failures of the early awards season before swinging into a season that, indeed, has no frontrunner… but also happens to have more real quality to choose from than we’ve had in years. And for all of the indie/studio wordsmanship, most of it is funded by major studios… the same major studios that are forcing a WGA strike over very little actual money in the scheme of things.

How can we not be thankful that Daniel Battsek has led Miramax out of the Weinstein era into a period of sublime, challenging taste? How can we not give John Lesher his due? Though he might be committing financial hari kari, he has made Paramount Vantage into a place for filmmakers to do work that no one else would finance, this year twice in cooperation with Battsek’s Miramax on No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. (“Is this the film where the Great Actor of His Generation takes a big bite of scenery, chews it to pulp, then spits it in the audience’s face?” “If not, it’ll do until it gets here.”) And the machine at Fox Searchlight is making silk purses out of very tasty sow’s ears on an annual basis, not getting much credit for being The Home of The Chick Flick this year, though the films aren’t so much FOR women, as BY women. (Writer/Directors behind Waitress and The Savages, plus a debuting woman writer of Juno join Sidney Kimmel’s Nancy Oliver script for Lars as four efforts by women that I would be thankful not to have to point to as anomalous in one year… but that I am happy to given that it is still an issue.)

Of course, this is not to leave the newly Linde-free Focus Features off the list of places to be thankful for. The films are still smart and challenging, though interestingly, they seem – as the Weinsteins sometimes do – to be living off of their last great successes this year (Ang Lee, Joe Wright). Then there is the dynamic duo at Sony Classics, who have become the Old Men River of the studio Dependent universe, chugging along, getting praise and punches for picking up the films that no one else wants to take a shot with… and even taking shots by some this season for two films they chose not to release, Southland Tales and Romance & Cigarettes. But at the same time, filmmakers still clamor for their release because when they get excited about a film’s commercial potential, they have the resources to mine an audience.

I am thankful for the two true indies, The Weinstein Co and Lionsgate, both of which seem to be working on a model of making enough junk to pay for a few aggressive releases of quality pictures each year. They may not be critically acclaimed, but you have to give Lionsgate great credit for creating a market for product for Black audiences with Tyler Perry – whose crossover aspirations may take shape for a film or two at some point, but who really speaks to a culture that is special because it isn’t homogenized – for Geeks, and for Rednecks. Meanwhile, for all the bitching and moaning that we all do about them – thanks for not making Oscar hopefuls Bobby 2: Chappaquiddick and Factory Girl 2: Everyone Wants To Screw Heather Graham – the Weinsteins are still in the Todd business (Haynes this year, Field in the past), they still dance with Moore, QT, and Rodriguez, they have added Denzel to their list of award-chasing filmmakers, and they still can manipulate The New York Times on a spectacular level.

I am thankful that ThinkFilm and Yari and Overture, Emerging Pictures, IFC Films/First Look, and Magnolia, amongst many smaller and emerging companies (some of which surely deserve name-checking that is not happening here because my internet access – my second brain - is limited while writing this column), are still fighting to build, establish, and create new modes of theatrical and non-theatrical distribution.

I am positively giddy that Lunch With David continues to evolve – available soon via QT podcasting – and that it has given me a chance to spend some real time with actors and filmmakers who are so often reduced to soundbytes. iKlipz continues to fund and promote the effort… to the point where we have produced so many segments that we are a bit backed up on the editing. I could do it without iKlipz (as embodied by Seth and Arthur and the guy who brought me in, David)… but I would never BE doing it without iKlipz. The power of the choice they have made to open this door, with me, cannot be underestimated or underappreciated. Production and post are getting better each week, though we are still figuring out what the best ways of capturing the images and feel for the spaces in which we shoot. I like to think I am getting better at the craft of interviewing as we go, learning how to make the talent comfortable and to get out of their way, while also figuring out how to bring my signature to the proceedings.

Right now, I am realizing that what I most love about doing these segments is that it is a chance to really meet these remarkably talented people – and by shooting the conversation, sharing it with others. I fear that the more successful it becomes, the more self-aware the talent will become, creating less opportunity for intimacy. One of the team, in discussing the recent expansion of production quality, laughed that I “want to be famous.” But I don’t think that’s much of the equation for me. What I think I most want is to re-create what I loved as a kid… David Susskind and Tom Snyder and what I saw of Jack Paar and even some Donahue and Merv and Mike. It was what was once so great about "The Playboy Interview." It’s what is so often great about the Faber & Faber books. It’s why I go to The Farmer’s Market many mornings and hang out with The Old Guys, many of whom whose work I grew up on… who changed the world/my world in their small but powerful ways. (Recently, Ronnie Schell turned up… GOD! Ronnie f-ing Schell! All those sitcoms. And I used to watch Good Morning World with him and the late, great Billie DeWolfe – one of the great closet queens of comedy in early sitcoms - and Goldie Hawn. With a full head of white hair, Schell still makes me laugh with pure, simple comic energy… so ready for some smart director to turn him loose on a movie or sitcom…. old school, but so distinct and sharp. And he’s actually a nice guy. But I digress into a childhood reverie…)

It is interesting with LWD, being in the position of not arguing opinion, but just discussing the experiences of others. This opportunity is distinct, I think, from the current tradition of the talk show, which is a 10-minute segment, pre-produced with pre-interviews, and jamming through very predetermined waters. With 30 minutes, there is the chance – though I do not always succeed – at getting somewhere else with the people I am talking to… at reaching them on a more real level.

I am, conversely, so thankful for the people who put up and never shut up – even anonymously – on The Hot Blog, offering their opinions, talking trash, picking fights, and pushing us all out of our complacency on the blog. I learn every day from those geniuses and idiots who have something to say about everything. Most difficultly, I get the unique opportunity to learn from being under sometimes unfair attacks by people who sometimes seem desperate to pigeonhole me… to “win” something by tearing at me… to introducing subtext that doesn’t exist to fairly straightforward offerings. Coming to peace, on some level, with what fights one can and cannot win – a notion I still struggle with daily – is a gift in many ways. Learning that inviting people to offer an opinion - especially in a digital universe where there is little accountability for people who post anonymously, is going to lead to social phenomena that are truly beyond controlling - is a gift.

Blogging – which is not column writing or editing a news site – is both a high and low form of communication. I am proud to say that I do not edit comments on The Hot Blog. As a result, the comments are like an ocean that the readers and I both get to ride daily. There are lulls and squalls and hurricanes and sandbars. I am the master of my domain (name)… yet I am vulnerable to being brought to my rhetorical knees by any idiot or bright light from anywhere on the planet at any time of day or night.

I am thankful, profoundly, that my ideas are weighed by others at all. Some may find them light while others find them weighty. The lesson of serious discourse – and I believe that a discussion of movies can be serious indeed – is that the power is in the idea and not the individual. This is a hard lesson to learn and remember daily.

I am thankful this year that Roger Ebert is back in the game, feeling better, fighting some ongoing challenges, but getting so much done. Knowing what I do of the man, removing The Thumbs from circulation was no small event and no small act of courage for an individual who has made a life of dogged consistency. Still, his exuberance for the work, after a year of being forced to the bench, is a reminder to us all of what it is all about. Through Roger, I also met the ever remarkable Dusty and Joan Cohl, who have also had a profound effect on my life and work. I am so grateful for having them on my side… when I am not being told how I screwed up.

I am thankful to other film writers, who I shouldn’t start naming for the inevitable failure to name one or more who I really want to thank, but who indulge me and allow me into their camps and thoughts and conversations about this art form I so dearly love, often reminding me to reach higher – and lower – as I travel this road.

I am thankful to all the supportive publicists and studio execs and talent coordinators and assistants and people who generally protect their forts, whether they be the films or the talent or the shows on which I occasionally appear to spout off. I am not as predictable as some, but over this last decade and change, we have come to an understanding about the territory I work, walking the line between expressing my truth pretty relentlessly and not wanting to ever embarrass someone who has been willing to let me in or to enter my little world as a guest.

Of course, I am thankful to the entire family of people who add to Movie City News, The Hot Button, The Hot Blog, The MCN Blogs, Lunch With David, Gurus o’ Gold, Gurus 2.0, the upcoming Year End Critics Top Ten, etc, etc, etc. As the sites have grown, the family has become larger annually… and more precious to me.

It’s a funny thing, especially with Gurus, how we all can join to make something that really does, as the old ad used to offer, "make its own gravy"… yet we can all be competitors, in healthy and unhealthy ways, and supporters, in healthy and unhealthy ways, and neighbors, really… in most case, even more so than friends. We are a community… a real one. One of these days, someone will put us all in a house and make a really irritating reality show out of us all… The Gur-eal Life.

Len Klady and Gary Dretzka have been here at MCN from the start, with Doug Pratt adding his part from early on… these guys don’t get nearly as much love as they deserve, as comfortable to MCN readers as an old sofa. They are the foundation and I am so thankful for that, delivering like the pros they are, week in and week out. And I am thankful for the New Kids – Noah Forrest being the latest – that have come along for the ride. I like to think that we have contributed to their futures as they have to ours. And the occasional contributors, like Larry Gross and Andrea Gronvall and the wild-n-woolly Stephen Holt, who add such great flavors to the stew when they kick something into the discussion.

I want to especially thank Ray Pride, who not only edits Movie City Indie brilliantly, but has started searching out and posting a large percentage of our front page links this last few months and in the process, established a part of MCN’s future beyond the personal touch of my partner, Laura Rooney, and myself. I love the site, but it has always been bigger than me, and it, like me, will grow better as it matures in its own right. Ray has helped us move in that direction.

Speaking of which, thanks to all the writers we link to… and especially the ones who help us make sure we are aware of their work. We seek the best of what is out there and sometimes, we need a little push to find it in a sea of information.

And of course, my thanks to Laura, who is indeed the Ginger to my Fred, doing MCN backwards and in heels.

I live a charmed life. I really do love my work and I have had the special opportunity in life to adjust what I do, for a decade now, to what best suits my energy and interest. This is a great indulgence and “thankful” doesn’t really capture the depth of how I feel, when I am not distracting myself with complaints.

You, if you are reading this, are a part of that freedom. And I thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

E ME

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