Respect

Film criticism is not dying, and will never be dead. That much is clear. Film criticism is also a vital part of discourse. Film criticism is as important as music criticism, book criticism, theater criticism, and the like. But film criticism gets no respect. That's actually not fair; criticism in general gets no respect. Because, technically, anyone can be a critic, the art of criticism (and yes, if you read the right people, you'll realize that criticism is indeed an art) is often denigrated. Not everyone can paint something that Monet did. Not everyone can compose what Beethoven did. Not everyone can make a movie as Paul Thomas Anderson does. But everyone can be a critic, right? Everyone has an opinion, and that's all it takes to be a critic.

Well, no, actually. An opinion gets you halfway there, but you need to do the rest. See, if I can paraphrase Ratatouille for a minute, everyone can be a critic, but not everyone should be a critic. For example, if I see said Pixar film, and someone asks me what I think, me saying "I loved it!" is equal to my opinion. You might have noticed that none of the remaining critics in the print industry will ever write a review that short and, thus, lacking in explanation. I can say that I love Ratatouille, and that might be my opinion, but the art of criticism is telling people why. Great critics love great art, but great critics attempt to convince their readers why the art is great and why they should seek out great art and tell the readers why they think the art is so damn great.

I bring all of this up for two reasons. The first is that, as was announced yesterday, At The Movies, currently hosted by A.O. Scott of The New York Times and Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune, is going the way of the dodo. The show will have its last airing on August 14, and then the show that was made famous by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert will no longer be on the air. For so many reasons, this is a shame. Though I would initially be in the camp of those who believe that the show really died when Gene Siskel did, there's no question that, in all of the channels available these days and with all the crap airing 24/7, there should be at least one half-hour available for even a half-thoughtful look at the newest Hollywood releases.

So where did the show go wrong? I don't need to say a damn thing about Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. Their time at the helm was disastrous beyond belief. Scott and Phillips were extremely knowledgeable (and still are, of course), but without either Siskel or Ebert around, people lost interest. I don't know that Rotten Tomatoes or blogs or Twitter killed the show. Yes, people can read opinions about films, but the great joy of watching Siskel and Ebert, or Ebert and any of the many guests he had, go at it was that they went at it. Even when they agreed, it was fascinating to watch, because the men knew what they were talking about. I was never a fan of Richard Roeper's, but even he knew what he was talking about some of the time. Scott and Phillips came after the two Bens, and it would have been a miracle for them to save the show, which was also placed at the worst possible timeslots across the country. How to watch a show you can't find on the dial?

A disappointing story, to be sure. One of the many choices the executive producers made when Ebert went away for his surgery-turned-permanent absence was having bigger names join Roeper, from Aisha Tyler to Jay Leno to Kevin Smith. But wait, you're asking me, not Kevin Smith! How could Kevin Smith, someone who so despises (while not understanding) criticism, subject himself to being a film critic, if only for a few minutes? Yes, friends, it's true. And yes, this is the other reason I've been thinking about criticism. Smith, an avid Twitter user, went on his most misguided, childish, and hypocritical rants yesterday. You may or may not know that, last month, Smith's first effort as just a director was released in theaters. It's called Cop Out. The film didn't do too well on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, garnering a 19 percent rating from critics.

And yet the film has become Smith's highest-grossing entry, even though it's only made about 45 million dollars. That's not great if you're Michael Bay, but if you're Kevin Smith, that number is gold. So he should be happy. What's more, it was announced this week that Smith's long-gestating movie Red State is going forward, and he's also got a project with Seann William Scott in the works. This is a happy man. Well...no. See, he's on Twitter. And he uses it a lot. And so he went nuts yesterday, because someone mentioned that film critics must be idiots, right? Because they don't have any fun. And movies are all about fun, right? Smith took the ball and ran with it, complaining that the critics who disliked the movie were...well, I'm going to be culling this from the sterling article written by Devin Faraci at this link. So check that out for the full thing.

But Smith said, among other things, "So many critics lined-up to pull a sad & embarrassing train on #CopOut like it was Jennifer Jason Leigh in LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. Watching them beat the shit out of it was so sad. Like, it's called #CopOut; that sound like a very ambitious title to you? You REALLY wanna shit in the mouth of a flick that so OBVIOUSLY strived for nothing more than laughs. Was it called "Schindler's Cop Out?" Writing a nasty review for #CopOut is akin to bullying a retarded kid who was getting a couple chuckles from the normies by singing AFTERNOON DELIGHT." Further down his screed, and it was even more incomprehensible, he said the following, "So we let a bunch of people see it for free & they shit all over it? Meanwhile, people who'd REALLY like to see the flick for free are made to pay? Bullshit: from now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly; you wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week. Like, why am I giving an arbitrary 500 people power over what I do at all, let alone for free? Next flick, I'd rather pick 500 randoms from Twitter feed & let THEM see it for free in advance, then post THEIR opinions, good AND bad. Same difference. Why's their opinion more valid?"

Hoo boy. Where do we begin with the completely batshit insane, wrongheaded and, more to the point, motherfucking stupid argument Smith has levied. Let's begin at the beginning. He claims that the title, Cop Out, isn't a very ambitious title. I agree. Here's the difference: he shouldn't be making that point. By making that point, he's owning up to not caring about the movie. He directed it, but fuck if there's any ambition behind it. So, in defending his film, Smith has already claimed a lack of interest. He doesn't respect his own work. Next, he says that those who apparently went out of their way to slam Smith (and I'd love to hear some names, because I'm not able to cull any from memory) and the film that isn't very ambitious is akin to bullies making fun of a mentally challenged child. So, now Smith considers Cop Out to be a mentally challenged kid lacking in ambition. Not only is he denigrating his own work, but he's denigrating the work done by everyone else in the movie.

The cynics out there will say, "But, Josh. It's Cop Out. How much work could have been done?" Whatever opinion Smith has of his own movie, and it's obviously very low, here's the skinny: a movie is hard work, even if it's a bad movie. People are paid to make a product. Some are good, some are bad. But work is always involved. I'm willing to acknowledge that fact, and I don't even work in movies. Smith's disrespecting everyone involved in the production by making the comparison, and embarrassing himself by not realizing how self-loathing he sounds. Don't drag everyone down with you, Silent Bob. He then goes on to say that it's not fair that 500 arbitrary people (ooh, Kevin, you need to look at your dictionary again, buddy! We both know you meant a word aside from "arbitrary", right?) get to see the movie free, while those who want to see it for free have to pay. First, the people who write up the movie after seeing it for free are, by and large, doing so because they are paid to do so. And they already spent money on gas or transportation getting there, so it's not like they're going on their publication's dime. Second, there are plenty of free screenings for anyone who's interested in watching it; I've been to all-press screenings and mixed crowds; what's more, when the crowd is mixed, it's heavily in favor of the "randoms".

Here's another thing: people who write these movies up for money don't get paid the same handsome salary that Kevin Smith gets. Let's be clear on that: Kevin Smith is not panhandling. He's got money. Enough money to, say, take an airline aside from Southwest (another rant for another day, readers). So him bitching about the online and print journalists who struggle to get by mocking his movie (or him, apparently, in his delusion) is a real fucking treat. What's more, his final suggestion, that 500 random followers get in free and all critics are barred from the show, is crazy for so many reasons. First: hey, Kevin? Good luck with getting the studios to follow your every whim. Because, as we all know, you're a wildly successful director who can ask for whatever he wants. Or, you directed Cop Out as a director-for-hire to impress studios. Second, good luck picking random followers who will apparently love your next movie, just because they're seeing it for free. That's how it works. People love it because it's free, but critics...hate it because it's free? I don't get that logic.

Kevin Smith has no respect for his movie. He has no respect for his fans (some of whom are--shocker--critics! Interesting true fact: Dogma, Clerks, Clerks II, Chasing Amy, and Zack and Miri Make A Porno: these are the films that all have a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from those pesky critics, and Cop Out is the lowest-rated of his films). He has no respect for film critics, who, again, don't hate him. But, since I'm writing on criticism, I'll throw in a bit of my own, and guess what? Kevin Smith wouldn't tell me to fuck off. See, I paid to see Cop Out. So my opinion, apparently, counts. The movie sucked. It sucked for many reasons: the bored Bruce Willis, the unmanageable performance from Tracy Morgan, the inconsistent tone, the unfunny script, the weak subplot, the subpar directing, and the list goes on. What I did there was very quickly provide a critique of a movie. My opinion is that it sucked. My critique is why it sucked. Not a bad thing. Kevin Smith will move onto another project, another rant, another dick joke. The rest of us will grow up, as he regresses.

A Self-Education in Film: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death

It's only taken me 25 years and change to come to the realization that there may be no greater pleasure in the life of the filmgoer than to watch a film from the Archers, especially an Archers movie from the 1940s. The Archers, made up of the writing/producing/directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, have never been the most popular filmmakers, despite making so many great films and influencing so many classic American filmmakers, from Steven Spielberg to Francis Ford Coppola, who managed to revive Powell's career by putting him in residence at Zoetrope.

The Archers, during the 1940s, were about as amazing as it gets, in terms of cinematic output. 49th Parallel. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. A Canterbury Tale. I Know Where I'm Going. Black Narcissus. The Red Shoes. The Small Back Room. And, in the middle of this, from 1946, A Matter of Life and Death. This romantic fantasy did not break the mold; it is the mold. When we watch movies these days and wonder why they (they being Hollywood, or filmmakers in general) don't make movies the way they used to, this is the kind of movie we hearken back to. This is the movie that epitomizes what defines classic filmmaking. The stylistic flourishes here are present in all aspects, and yet are never in-your-face. It's hard for A Matter of Life and Death to not be in-your face, what with its plot and storytelling devices, and all the more successful by not rubbing your nose in it.

The movie opens with a tense and somehow sweet sequence in which two characters meet cute, as Roger Ebert would put it, over the most uncute situation: the female lead is June, a cheery and cute radio operator from Boston working in Britain during World War II. The male lead is Peter, a Royal Air Force squadron leader who expects to be dead in about five minutes. His plane has been shot at, all but one of the squadron have parachuted to safety, the other man is dead, and his parachute is shot to pieces. Before Peter jumps out of the plane (he'd prefer not to blow up), he talks with June and, crazily enough, falls in love, even if it's just with a disembodied voice. Still, the time comes for him to jump, and he does so.

And then a funny thing happens. Peter wakes up. On the shore of the beach he jumped into. Alive and unharmed. What's more, Peter has landed in the same place where June lives; with a new lease on life, he runs to her and they begin their affair in earnest. The problem for Peter has ended temporarily, but is just beginning for his celestial conductor, a fop from the French Revolution who was meant to claim Peter's body for death as he jumped out of his plane. Thanks to all the fog, though, he missed Peter and has to reclaim the man for death. Peter, though, chooses to appeal with the highest court of all, so he may continue to live with June. Thus, all that's left to wonder is if Peter and June will make off or not (take a wild guess).

What makes A Matter of Life and Death so charming, so livable, and so enviable to anyone with a mind to make movies is not just the script, full of whimsy and life, but the actors, all of whom seem to so embody their characters that you wonder how they can do so much with seemingly so little. David Niven, future Oscar winner, plays Peter as a smart and dashing rogue, a man troubled by what appear to be realistic hallucinations in the form of his conductor, but not too troubled to ask for some tea or watch a game of ping-pong. Kim Hunter, another future Oscar winner, plays June, the personification of the phrase "cute as a button". What red-blooded man wouldn't want to move heaven and earth to live out a second life with her? Their chemistry, while never reaching the erotic peaks attained in the next film from the Archers, Black Narcissus, is still white-hot. In a winning and unique performance as Dr. Reeves, the man who ends up being Peter's worldly and ethereal counsel is Roger Livesey, the same man who played Colonel Blimp. Here, he doesn't age, but his wit, his smarts, and his camera obscura, a device which allows him to see all, if from a darkened vantage point, make the character as instantly iconic as Blimp or Thomas Colpeper from A Canterbury Tale. Other notable performances come from Marius Goring, as the French conductor; and Raymond Massey as the prosecuting counsel for the case of Peter's life, a true American patriot felled by the first bullet of the American Revolution.

Jack Cardiff's cinematography, mixing Technicolor during the scenes set on Earth and black-and-white during the Heaven-set sequences, is splendid and stunning. Here was a man who knew how to make the world come alive, color or not. One of the most haunting shots of the film comes early and is set in Heaven, as some of the recent dead peer down through large holes, facing towards them. Still, the color photography is as lush as anything he ever put on screen. His work with Powell and Pressburger is second to none. The work done by Powell and Pressburger is second to none.

I realize that I'm too late to this party; frankly, if it wasn't for the diligent and tireless work done by Martin Scorsese (yes, Martin Scorsese), and the mention of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp courtesy of Roger Ebert in his Great Movies column, I don't know if I'd know much about Powell and Pressburger. I've discovered their films and am happier for doing so. The stories they tell are fully lived in. Without seeming like they're working on it, these two men built characters, towns, lives, worlds. From fantasy to fable, the war to the ballet, the Archers set their sights high, and often hit their targets. A Matter of Life and Death is one of their finest efforts.

A Self-Education in Film: Miscellany

In the past few days, I've seen a few more movies I wanted to discuss, but none would have done well to have lengthy dissertations of sorts, so I'm going to run through each of them here, with one exception, which you'll find out about above. I feel like this may be how the series continues; some movies are going to constitute lengthy pieces, while some just aren't. This isn't to say that any of the movies I'm about to talk about are bad, or didn't work for me on some level (though one of them...well, didn't work for me a lot); it's just that some movies inspire a lot, and some don't. Read on, then...

Black Orpheus (Directed by Marcel Camus): This Oscar-winning film from Brazil is a fascinating look at what Carnival looks at, up close and personal. It's also a unique retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Euripides, two star-crossed lovers who end up...well, how many star-crossed lovers do you remember making it out alive? Yes, as with most myths, it's a tragic tale, and I always find myself resisting movies where the characters live in the modern day, but act out stories of old, which inherently require them to act unlike modern people (this is just about the only reason why I couldn't stand A Serious Man). That said, the soundtrack is infectious, the imagery is striking, and the final 30 minutes do their damnedest to evoke sympathy and tragedy.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Directed by Peter Yates): Having heard quite a lot about this movie finally getting its due on the Criterion Collection, along with the tantalizing prospect of Robert Mitchum as the title character, I checked this movie out during the week. A few things fascinated me: first, that the movie evoked The Wire more than anything else. Obviously, one came first, but in watching this movie, which is ostensibly about what happens when a low-rent criminal attempts to turn into an informant so he won't go to jail, I was compelled to notice that so much of the movie is about side characters, or sequences meant to build tension while also informing the audience what these characters go through in their daily lives. Mitchum is excellent, if low-key (and oddly reminiscent of Bill Murray), but Peter Boyle and Richard Jordan deliver equally impressive supporting turns.

Shane (Directed by George Stevens): I'm not sure if it's that I don't like Westerns in general, but there's something about this movie that didn't work for me. Obviously, one of the statements the film is making is about what it means to be a man. How do you prove your manhood? Are you more or less manly by not fighting someone, even if that someone deserves a big punch in the face? The theme is fine; however, there's just something a bit too slow-moving about Shane, despite the notable and menacing supporting turn from Jack Palance, and Alan Ladd's unwavering stolid nature, even in the face of violent ranchers. Still, the subtle romantic subplot would work more if the characters were more resonant, or even felt more three-dimensional. The cinematography is excellent, though; my issue, as it is with most movies, comes with the script.

Ordinary People (Directed by Robert Redford): So this is the movie that beat Raging Bull 30 years ago. It's hard not to watch this movie without that mindset, and I admit to going in thinking bad things about the family drama focusing on a teenager trying to absolve himself of guilt because his older, more popular brother died in an accident. And here's what: this is a good movie. But it's not better than Raging Bull. That said, it's more than obvious why the Academy awarded one movie and not the other; as with another movie that beat out Martin Scorsese, the Academy loves when its most famous actors direct, and do so well. You could watch Ordinary People and not figure that Robert Redford directed, because there is no style. It's well-made, but not uniquely so. Some of the great directors have a stamp; you know you're watching a Spielberg movie, a Hitchcock movie, a Kurosawa movie, a Powell-Pressburger movie, and so on. You don't know you're watching a Redford movie. Not a terrible thing, but not worth awarding. Also worth pointing out: the one truly great performance, from Donald Sutherland, didn't even get an Oscar nomination. Give me a break, Academy.

The Manchurian Candidate (Directed by John Frankenheimer): This was easily the most chilling film of the final three, all of which I TiVoed from Turner Classic Movies, the movie that made the most impact. Based on the novel, and later remade (into a decent film, by the way), this movie still resonates. Could Angela Lansbury's conniving wife be any political figure of recent memory? It's hard not to watch the Red Scare being brought up and not think of people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, people who could easily echo the dialogue and not with any irony. The world has always been a scary place, and politics is dominated by the people who will make it scarier. All of the performances, especially Lansbury and Laurence Harvey, are great; the best sequence does come early on, when the unit of soldiers lead by Frank Sinatra are captured by the evil scientists who brainwash them into thinking they're sitting in on a local meeting of old women talking about flowers. Still, this is (I know, big shock) a great film.

A Self-Education in Film: Matthieu Kassovitz's La Haine

Civil injustice is more common than it should be, in that it occurs anywhere at all in the world. This much we know. We know it happens here, on our shores. We know it's happened across the world, but being a relative neophyte, I was unaware of the problems plaguing the suburbs and slums of Paris, at least circa 1995, though from reports I've read, things haven't changed nearly enough in the past 15 years. Thus, if it wasn't for the fact that two of the men in the picture above are recognizable from their work in more well-known foreign and American film and TV, I'd almost believe that La Haine, Matthieu Kassovitz's blistering and painful drama, was a documentary. It's not just that the film seems so real, it's that every detail is so pitch-perfect (or feels that way; again, I'm a know-nothing when it comes to this issue), and that every statement is voiced in subtle ways, not hitting us over the proverbial heads.

Like other urban dramas, such as Boyz N The Hood, this movie is racially charged, the threat of violence hovering over the entire city of Paris like a flood of mosquitoes. That La Haine was shot in black-and-white only compounds the ominous idea that terror is just around the corner. The cinematography in the film, by Pierre Aim, is exceptional and one of the best reasons to watch the film. One particular shot that struck me occurs near the middle of the film, as one of the denizens of the slums sticks his boombox out his bedroom window, playing loud and abrasive hip-hop for all to hear. The camera, craning past the complex of buildings, watches impassively, gliding across the roofs, as the music, the loud and forceful message of freedom blares its way past the ghetto, right into the ears of every man, woman, and child walking the streets of Paris.

Also walking those streets, simultaneously friendly and foreboding, are Vinz, Said, and Herbert, played by Vincent Cassel, Said Taghmaoui, and Hubert Kounde, three teens who appear, to all who walk by them, to be thugs of the lower order. Vinz is the hothead of the three, having potentially torched a local building the night before the movie takes place. As they travel from back alley to warehouse, art show to apartment, these three friends experience high tension throughout a tumultuous 24-hour period. Cassel and Taghmaoui play the two characters who assume they're far smarter than they actually are, whereas Kounde's character is slightly, if only just, aware that their lots are going to stay exactly where they are. Vinz and Said talk a big game, but Hubert knows they're never leaving their slums. The class system is still very intact in Paris.

But what of their friendship? Said, despite not being as quick to anger, often is pranked by his friends; when he and Hubert are viciously detained by police officers late in the film, their connection with Vinz is frayed. Vinz, fashioning himself as a Travis Bickle for the 1990s, is focused on the now, concerning himself with bluster about killing cops should another of his friends, Abdel, die at their hands after having been detained by cops the night before. A crucial scene in a bathroom also proves that these three--big shock--act tough even though they're still kids around the playground beneath the chatter. La Haine is an arresting experience, shocking, visceral, fascinating, and captivating. That said, such a film seems almost like an artifact in a time capsule, if only because....well, things HAVE to be better than they were in 1995, right? Right?