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The Moviegoer: Last Stand at Beverly and LaBrea

James Rocchi — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:02:56 EDT

(To listen to this week's edition of The Moviegoer, just click the player above.)

Dear San Francisco: It's not you, it's me.

And I know what you're thinking, I do. I've moved to L.A. after five years in San Francisco -- how can that be seen as anything but a betrayal? San Francisco, you had press screenings and you had press tours; you had quiet cafes to write in. But, San Francisco, let's be honest: while you've lured me and others with your promises -- I'm a big city but a cool city! People here ride bikes! There's a thriving artistic community here! -- for the past couple years you've been seen more and more with software engineers and stockbrokers, trying to still seem scruffy and casual while adorning yourself in luxury condo developments and rising rents. And I'd been thinking about trying L.A. for years -- because let's be honest, San Francisco, if New York is the brain of showbiz and L.A. is the heart, then you are, at best, the pancreas: Important but not essential, relevant but not imperative. And after my on-air Film Critic work was budget-cut from CBS-5 in January (apparently, one of the first times in years I've been ahead of the trend), I figured what the hell, and moved to L.A. down at the start of April.

Oh, I'll be back to visit, San Francisco -- for many reasons, and often -- but, for now, I'm settling in L.A.. And on the Thursday of my first real week as a resident here, I looked around my new apartment and realized I felt as lonely as a Kucinich supporter at a Monster Truck rally. So, I did what I often do when I'm feeling lonely (which, intriguingly, may be part of why I feel lonely so often, but we'll examine that another day): I went to the movies. The New Beverly Cinema's close-ish to my new place, and they were screening a series of films programmed by director Joe Dante of Gremlins and The Howling. The bill that night was Mondo Cane -- a mock-shock-doc from the '60s far more notorious than it is actually good, which I skipped -- and, as the late show, the film that caught my eye, which was Zulu.

Zulu's a very old-school action-epic; as Dante noted in his introduction, "You know the movies they don't make 'em like anymore? This is one of them." Inspired by the real-life 1879 battle at Rorke's Drift, where a handful of British troops held off over 4,000 Zulu warriors, Zulu's a rousing adventure story directed by Cy Enfield, featuring a host of great British character actors with gigantic sideburns and stiff upper lips. The men of the outpost are doomed, most probably -- outnumbered, outgunned, far from home -- but they aren't going to give up. I went in part because Zulu's one of my dad's favorite films; I remember watching it with him on public TV when I was growing up, and his love for its mix of fact and fiction, but I'd never seen it on the big screen. The officer in charge of the outpost is Lieutenant Chard, played by Stanley Baker; next in the chain of command is Lieutenant Bromhead, played by Michael Caine, in one of his earliest roles. But all the soldiers get nice moments, including one my dad would quote any chance he could: As the massed Zulu warriors chant, Baker goes to Private Owen (Ivor Emmanuel), earlier pointed out as leader of the men's choir, and asks Owen if he thinks they can do any better. Owen -- exhausted but still standing, bloody but unbowed -- tilts his head and listens before giving his take: "Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind, but no top tenors, that's for sure." And then Owen leads the surviving soldiers in "Men of Harlech," a good, old-fashioned die-with-honor number, a few voices raised in defiance against a multitude.

And, San Francisco, I guess that was part of what I went to Zulu for; now and then, a little fake courage is the kind of booster shot you need to get the real stuff going when you're in a new big scary city. And also, as I said, it was one of my dad's favorite films; he and my mom loved great stories, and that led me to the movies, and the movies led to a career, and that led to you, San Francisco, and now it's led to Los Angeles. And Los Angeles is weird and huge and maddening and sprawling and absolutely alien to me... but sitting in the dark during my first grimly terrified week, watching Zulu, enjoying all the contradictions of movie going -- awake in the dark, at home among strangers, alone in the crowd, enjoying a patently false true story -- I almost, almost, felt at home.

The Moviegoer: Losing the Battle for Box Office

James Rocchi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:22:00 EDT

Moving to L.A. from San Francisco threw off my movie viewing -- or, rather, temporarily reduced it from the ludicrous to the merely insane; I saw a few things during the process of relocating, but there were plenty of things I skipped. One of the films I missed was Stop-Loss, Kimberley Pierce's first film after the excellent Boys Don't Cry, starring Ryan Phillippe as a soldier home from Iraq who's called back to the front thanks to the loopholes and legalities of his service agreement. I could have gone and seen it at any time its opening weekend -- it was screening less than two miles away from my apartment -- but I didn't. Too depressing. Too flashy-looking. Too much like homework. Whatever. I had things to do.

And, in doing so I helped make sure that a well-reviewed film about the central political issue of our time came ranked, at the box office, in eighth place behind a group of card-counters, a talking elephant, a superhero parody, Tyler Perry's latest, a kid-bodyguard comedy, a Japanese-horror film remake and a wildly inaccurate historical epic. I also helped continue a trend: Other films about Iraq or Afghanistan -- Redacted, In the Valley of Elah, Lions for Lambs -- have also made little to no money.

So why are the Iraq movies failing? A few possibilities:

1) It's Too Soon

At Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood, an unnamed studio source explained Stop-Loss's low opening week box office in no uncertain terms: "No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It's a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that's unresolved yet. It's a shame because it's a good movie that's just ahead of its time." Following this logic, I guess we can't expect an Iraq or Afghanistan movie to do well at the box office for the next ... what, 8-10 years? This argument also raises why people would pay at the box office for what they could watch at home on the news for free. (This suggests, of course, that people watch news reports from Iraq. ...) Of course, there were plenty of films made about World War II during World War II, and they did okay business. So, maybe it's not too soon. Maybe it's because ...

2) They're Not Good

Redacted: Preachy, clunky and over-the-top, with De Palma recycling one of his own films. Lions for Lambs: Painfully earnest and talky, with Redford shooting everything with the cheap, clammy look and feel of an incredibly self-righteous production by the Max Fischer Players. In the Valley of Elah: Riddled with junk storytelling, belabored coincidences, obvious symbols and the creepy intimation that everyone who goes to Iraq and is lucky enough to return winds up a permanently-damaged sociopath -- plus, some of the worst writing imaginable. ("They shouldn't send heroes to a place like Iraq," one character notes, mournfully. Aaah, the mark of Paul Haggis: If you worry about the audience missing the subtext, just make it text.) Stop-Loss? Haven't seen it. And while a few interesting fresher talents are warming up to shoot stories about Iraq (Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Greengrass, Ed Burns & David Simon) it's worth noting that Redacted, Lions and Elah are all made by directors whose best years may be behind them or (in Haggis's case) never happened. Maybe people aren't rejecting Iraq movies; maybe they're just rejecting bad Iraq movies. But the public sees bad movies all the time -- I call on Optimus Prime as a witness -- so that can't be it, either. Wait, what if it's because ...

3) It's Too Late

If you're against the Iraq war, why see a movie about it that only rakes up all your anger and resentment about being lied to? If you're in favor of the Iraq war, why would you see a film that suggests it's a horrible thing? And if you have family actually serving in Iraq (and if you do, please let me note firmly and fervently that my thoughts and best wishes are with you and them), why would you go see an actor -- Ryan Phillippe or Derek Luke or whoever -- going through a fake version of the real mortal danger your loved ones face all the time? But people don't only go to the movies to see things that are pleasant, or solely to hear positions they agree with; what if it's because ...

4) Buying a Ticket Would Be Buying In

We're at war, and yet we're not paying higher taxes. We're not being asked to ration vital material. If you don't have a loved one or friend in service in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's no reason to think about the war -- we're deferring paying for it on the national equivalent of a credit card, and the American economy is humming along with plenty of tax cuts to encourage us to keep shopping. (Of course, the fact that those tax rebate checks will probably be used solely to pay off credit card debt or buy things made abroad means that the slight cough under that hum is just going to get louder, but never mind. ...) As Tommy Lee Jones pointed out in a surprisingly blunt interview with the Harvard alumni magazine 02138 recently, "We had the draft in '68, we had a bullshit war, and it ultimately ended. And there were terrific repercussions throughout the government. The Bush administration has escaped those repercussions because the American people have a way to turn their head and say, "It doesn't really affect my family. My daughter is in no threat of having her legs blown off. My son is in no threat of coming back with no face, no ears, no nose --- because he didn't volunteer." If somebody were making them incur those risks, the votership might change radically." If you haven't been asked to pay for a war with money or blood, why would you pay at the box office for the simulation of it? I'll probably go see Stop-Loss -- at some point, a matinee when I can fit it in my schedule -- and the ugly reality is that'll be the most money and the most time I'll have invested in the Iraq war in a long time, and the most money and time I'll have to put toward the Iraq war for a long time. That's not merely sad; it's shameful. And the only cold consolation I can apply to my sad, shameful misery is the undeniable, inescapable fact that I have plenty of company.

The Moviegoer: No War for Old Men

James Rocchi — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:03:00 EDT

Recently, the winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, came to DVD, and I've had the chances to re-watch it several times since I first saw it at Cannes in May. We've also recently marked the fifth anniversary of the beginning of major combat operations in Iraq. And the one had me thinking about the other. Looking at any film for the presence of symbolism and metaphor for its times is one of those exercises so simple it can possibly slide over the line to simplistic, but even back in December (when I first wrote some of these notes below down) it was easy to see No Country for Old Men as a striking and cautionary tale about the challenges democracy is facing right now. And as we pass the fifth anniversary of the War in Iraq, I think we've all been thinking a lot, lately, about what exactly five years of this war -- a war ostensibly started to make us safer -- has actually done to eliminate the threat of terror. Over the months, my repeated viewings of No Country for Old Men led me to a very different reading of the film than the one I had at first, and increased my already substantial admiration for the film.

Of course, it's got to be said that the elements in play that led me to this perspective may not be intentional on the part of the Coens or Cormac McCarthy; at the same time, I think that how No Country for Old Men offers as many -- and as rewarding -- readings as it does is a great indicator of why it's going to endure. Tommy Lee Jones's Ed Tom Bell is a Sheriff, the classic Western hero (which is to say the classic American hero), but his time-honored ways and methods can't cope with the seemingly irrational Chigurh (Javier Badem). Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss isn't motivated by tradition or law; just capital and expediency. But he's not prepared for Chigurh, a man who can't be bribed or threatened or worn down or outrun.

Chigurh is inventive, bold and resolute; he has a value system, even if we can't understand it. He will kill on principle, and does not care if we find those principles hard to comprehend and accept. He also doesn't have much respect for the principles and codes of the West; as he asks Woody Harrelson's Carlson at gunpoint, "If the rule you followed brought you here, then what good was the rule?"

Ed Tom is the past -- tradition and honor. Moss is the present -- greed and self-protection. And neither of them can face what's coming, or are willing to. Ed Tom talks a mean game, and he's folksy as hell, but he doesn't really do anything to stop Chigurh from finding and killing Moss, and he doesn't go to Odessa to find Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) and keep her safe afterwards, either. Ed Tom can't even imagine someone using a cattle-killing gun as a murder weapon anymore than we could wrap our heads around the use of hijacked planes as weapons, even with warnings in advance.

Moss can run, and Moss can hide, but after a lifetime of thinking he's pretty damn tough, he finds out -- the hard way -- that he's wrong. There have been some theories put forward that Chigurh is the spirit of death itself in the film, but Chigurh isn't some ghost. He's shot by Moss, hit by a car; he's flesh and blood, just a man. Ed Tom or Moss could have killed him -- if they had been willing to "push all their chips in," risk their lives in the struggle, let go of the things they thought mattered.

In his essay The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, written during World War II, Orwell states, essentially, that England must win the war against Germany, and England can. But the essay's not a pep talk; instead, it's a serious critique of English society -- and a blueprint of how that necessary victory will also take a wholehearted revision of the entire fabric of English life: Eliminating class divisions so that fighting men can serve with honor as equals, regulating industry so that national defense and collective interest can't be put aside in the name of shareholder profit, changing England's relationship with its colonies so that England doesn't appear to be the same kind of exploitative overlord as Germany and Italy are in their colonies, and so on. Some of these things happened, some of them didn't, but Orwell's argument -- that new dangers and new enemies require new ways of thinking, new levels of total commitment and new perspectives on what we're really fighting for -- was fascinating and thought-provoking then, and now. And it's possible to see No Country in a similar light -- not as a revision of the Western or an endorsement of it but rather as a serious critique of the West.

Sheriff Ed Tom can't change who he is as a man or a lawman -- can't "put his soul at hazard" -- to stop Chigurh, and so he doesn't. Llewelyn Moss can't let go of his new riches to stop Chigurh, and so he dies. Sheriff Ed Tom and Moss (and, to some extent Carson) relied on historical reflexes and prior understanding to try and deal with a new type of present threat, and their inability to adapt -- their lack of either imagination or resolve -- led to their failure. And Chigurh may be wounded near the end of the story, but even wounded, there's no reason to think he's going to die, or stop; he'll keep killing anyone who crosses him, keep committing murder in the name of his philosophy and principles. But Sheriff Ed Tom gets to retire to his Texas ranch, do a little riding. Mission Accomplished. And yet he provides the final note of the film -- haunted by restless sleep, relating a dream to his wife at the breakfast table, a dream featuring a vision of Ed Tom's father riding ahead with a horn full of fire, "like in old times" as Ed Tom watched him go by. And Ed Tom might as well dream of the past, because a lack of imagination and determination and sacrifice means a nightmare still haunts the present. His father rode ahead with the fire. Will Ed Tom -- will we -- be strong enough to follow that example and do what will truly be required to keep the darkness at bay?

The Moviegoer: Juno, Hillary and Frontlash

James Rocchi — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:40:00 EST

The past two weeks have seen two different contests with little, and much, in common: The 80th Academy Awards and the not-so-super Tuesday primaries in Vermont, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas. Both were sold with a fair degree of hype, both had surprises and both had definitive winners. Juno won Best Original Screenplay honors for Diablo Cody; Hillary Clinton 'took' Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. But as the proverb reminds us, the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong; winning doesn't mean you should have won. Juno MacGuff and Hillary Clinton don't have much in common, but they've both provoked powerful antagonistic reactions from many observers in their respective spheres. This has led the divergent supporters of both these recent victors to suggest that there's a backlash against them. But I would suggest that the phrase 'backlash' carries certain connotations, and implies the victim is suffering the brunt of an irrational hatred that goes counter to earlier approval; an irrational hatred that may, in fact, be all the more bitter when that earlier approval curdled in the heat of public enthusiasm. ("Yeah, I liked Feist's The Reminder, but when they started using "1234" in the iPod ad, I stopped liking her. ...")

I would suggest that in both these cases, 'backlash' does not, in fact, describe what many people are feeling. Many people are not bearing a hypocritical grudge against Juno and/or Hillary as part of an irrational hatred; many people have a highly legitimate, well thought-out, principled, rational dislike of Juno and/or Hillary. But those concerns and criticisms are grouped together under the category of backlash, and thus rejected, rebuked, denied and dismissed. But many of the concerns and criticisms people have for both are not, in fact, backlash; they are frontlash, and they are worth examining.

When I finally saw Juno -- after its rapturous reception at the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals -- I felt a little of what I call Peggy Lee effect: Is that all there is? Juno seemed like a nice little movie, and I choose both those adjectives quite specifically. Much like Garden State or Napoleon Dynamite, Juno was hailed as a terrific independent film by people who don't normally see independent films. And putting aside the legitimate question of just how 'independent' Fox Searchlight is, I will note that while at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, I saw a platoon of young people dressed in the track uniform of Juno's school, a funny breezy bit of visual marketing -- which, of course, was not grassroots pluck but rather Astroturf P.R. bought-and-paid-for from the Murdoch empire's coffers.

And these things have nothing to do with the merits, or lack thereof, of the film itself, but looking at those, what is Juno in fact being praised for? For quick, quotable dialogue that's going to age about as well as a Belgian waffle, like "Honest to blog," "This is one doodle that can't be undid" and "For shizz, I am up the spout?" For presenting us with a young woman, smart, clever and quick and centered, who is not smart, clever, quick and centered enough to arrange some -- or any -- kind of contraception before a premeditated sexual act? (And I know -- pills fail, condoms break, nothing's infallible -- but the fact Juno's script never mentions the title character's contraceptive responsibilities or choices in relation to sex is a cop-out. Or, put another way, when Knocked Up is more sincere about sexual responsibility than your plucky little celebration of quirk, you're in trouble.) For reminding us that here in America, things tend to turn out okay if you're White and well-off? For the amazing story of Ms. Cody herself? (Saying that the press wouldn't be going quite so mad for Ms. Cody if she weren't a striking young lady with a compelling back story isn't sexist; it's confirming the unconscious sexism of most mainstream press covering entertainment.) For Juno's fantasy of friction-free-feminism -- Hey, ladies, everything works out okay just super, because you're awesome! -- which looks like the wish-fulfillment dreams of a privileged child compared to the adult realism of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days or Persepolis? (Recent ads for Persepolis have used a pull quote comparing the film to Juno; this is like seeing an ad suggesting that you may like filet mignon, as it contains beef, just like a Big Mac.)

As for the frontlash toward Hillary Clinton, it is entirely possible that her chances are enhanced and assisted by the history-making potential precedent that, if elected, she would be the first woman president. But voting for Hillary Clinton solely out of the hope she'll be our first woman president is as intrinsically wrong as voting against solely out of the fear she'll be our first woman president. And contrasting the fuzzy hopes about Mrs. Clinton as president against her prior votes and record evokes the classic feminist slogan about Margaret Thatcher: "She may be a woman, but she ain't no sister." Much of Clinton's campaign is built around her hope of passing universal health care; much of her recent rhetoric has revolved around reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement. Should it not be noted that Clinton already tried and already failed to create universal health care? Should it not be noted that NAFTA -- a gift to corporations and stockholders who profit from lower wages and safety standards in Mexico, a curse to Canadian and American workers who have seen wages drop and jobs disappear -- was passed during her husband's administration? At what point does the desire to extend a second chance shift into the possibility of getting fooled again? Clinton speaks of 'experience,' but what in recent American history -- in economic policy, in foreign affairs, in domestic politics -- would suggest that having had 'experience' in defining those things is something to be rewarded?

Of course, the stakes in the two divergent contests are different; Cody's win may mean she'll get further work (and that we'll be cursed with at least four Juno-like movies in theaters within the next year), but it does not mean that Ms. Cody will have to take any unexpected 3:00 a.m. calls about political crises. (Also, Ms. Cody's win did not involve her or Fox Searchlight suggesting that an Oscar victory for Tony Gilroy's screenplay for Michael Clayton over her work would endanger your children's lives.) But if you are one of the many who are not excited about Juno or Hillary, the next time someone asks how you could possibly be against those two plucky can-do underdog stories and alleges you're just recently become part of the backlash, look them in the eye, explain how you've been part of the frontlash for a while, and then tell them why. Juno may now be enshrined in Hollywood history, but the election's a long way off, a lot more than a gold statue's on the line, and a little well thought-out, principled, rational dislike might still have an effect.

The Moviegoer: Six Ways of Watching the Oscars

James Rocchi — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:50:00 EST

1) As a Glimpse into the Mindset of an Academy Voter

The dirty little secret of the Oscars is that while they're often derided and dismissed as the self-celebration of a liberal elite, they're actually more conservative than you might think. The average Academy voter is white, male, older and wealthy, and has been insulated in show business for years; the average Academy voter will almost always pick a period piece over a modern film, or pick a feel-good movie that speaks to Hollywood's past over a movie that asks questions about the here-and-now. For the past several years, I've made Oscar Predictions for Cinematical from the perspective of that average Academy voter, who I choose to personify as Ernest Borgnine; when making Oscar pics for what will win (not what should win) I simply ask "What Would Ernest Borgnine Do?" This is why, for example, Pulp Fiction loses Best Picture to Forrest Gump, or Traffic loses to Gladiator. I don't think anything can derail the No Country for Old Men juggernaut at this point -- and I don't think that any film should -- but if Michael Clayton or Atonement take Best Picture, you can thank Borgnine. (This also helps Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's chances, as a Best Original Screenplay award for Juno isn't just a validation of that film's charms but also a validation of Cody's own, cinematic, obscurity-to-fame journey; often, the Oscar's not for the story in the movie but the story of the movie.)

2) As the Death Throes of a Wounded Industry

When -- not 'if,' but when -- Jon Stewart pauses, deer-in-headlights style on Sunday after a bit bombs, it'll just be a reminder that the Oscar show was cobbled together in a rush after the end of the WGA strike. When the relatively low box-office take of the Oscar nominees is discussed, it'll be a reminder that the movie industry can't figure out how to get grown-ups into the theater. When Variety publishes its round-up of the awards (in an edition made significantly thinner by the absence of the "For Your Consideration" ads that fatten the magazine and the bottom line during the prelude to Awards season), it'll be a reminder that that publication is for sale. Every moment at the Oscars can, potentially, be viewed as a reminder that the landscape of entertainment is changing fast, and that no one knows how to fix it, and all the glitter and glamour is just artfully choreographed re-arrangement of the deck chairs on the proverbial sinking ship.

3) As a Exercise in Pure Number-Crunching

Every seasoned Oscar-watcher knows certain formulas for predicting the winner. Movies without Best Director nominations rarely win Best Picture, for example, and there's a strong correlation between the awards given by various critic's groups and other professional associations and Oscar success. FilmJerk's Edward Havens has done the math for us all this year, and his article makes for a fascinating read that pokes around under the hood of the Oscars -- and also serves as a handy cheat sheet to blow out your office Oscar Pool.

4) As the Worst Possible Kind of Entertainment "Journalism"

Seriously, what the hell is Joey Fatone doing hosting any kind of coverage -- even coverage as dim and dull as red carpet arrivals -- that involves art and culture? What qualifies Fatone to do this in any way, aside from his own experience of celebrity acquired as a boy band member? Do the people who produce Oscars coverage truly fear that if someone competent and informed asks an intelligent question of the stars on the red carpet, the ground in front of the Kodak theater will open up and swallow all of L.A.? If the Academy wonders why viewership is in decline for the Oscars in recent years -- which it is -- they should think about the possibility that liveblogging offers people who enjoy movies more than celebrity to follow Oscar coverage from writers and journalists who actually know what they're talking about (I'll be following Greencine, Hollywood Elsewhere and Cinematical's liveblogging, for a start) as opposed to the numb, dumb fashion discussions and hey-how-are-ya's? of Fatone or Billy Bush.

5) In the Context of What Wasn't Nominated

Watch Away from Her and explain to me why Gordon Pinsent wasn't nominated as a Best Actor contender. Watch I'm Not There and explain to me why Christian Bale isn't nominated for a real, raw performance that blows Cate Blanchett's showy work off the screen. Watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and tell me why that film isn't nominated for Best Picture. Watch Things We Lost in the Fire and tell me why Benicio Del Toro isn't nominated for Best Actor, or watch A Mighty Heart and tell me why Angelina Jolie isn't nominated for Best Actress. And how can a film as creative, as innovative, as expressive and magnificently obsessed as I'm Not There not earn Todd Haynes a Best Director nod? Any film critic worth reading has a list of frustrations and coulda-shoulda-wouldas like the one above; track those lists down, make a few viewing choices based on them, and you'll witness some amazing art and entertainment.

6) As, Shockingly, a Guide to the Best of Movie Making

There's the old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day. And the Oscars -- no matter how imperfect, shallow, doddering and unjust you and I might think they are -- still honor some amazing creative work; if Sunday's airing of a clip from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly inspires people to see it, wonderful; same for Persepolis, or There Will Be Blood or even No Country For Old Men. In fact, if you want to know the most sure-fire way to put together a slate of fascinating films -- a group of movies that, when watched, will give you not just a glimpse of the best possible moviemaking but also into what Hollywood was thinking about any given year -- all you have to do is watch the 10 Best Screenplay nominees from a given year, Adapted and Original. The Academy Awards aren't perfect, and they aren't simple. What in life is?

The Moviegoer: School Shootings, Violent Entertainment and Other Funny Games

James Rocchi — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:28:42 EST

I had already been thinking about violence in entertainment since I saw Funny Games at Sundance; Michael Haneke's English-language remake of his own 1997 film is a grim piece of moviemaking, and one designed to start arguments about why and how we watch violent films. And then the NIU school shooting last Thursday brought all those thoughts to the front of my brain, with Illinois legislator Rep. Robert Pritchard imploring us to examine a "culture of violence" in movies and videogames, and Fox News guest and headline-grabbing hack Jack Thompson suggesting that violent videogames played a role in events at NIU. Anytime there's a mass shooting, it seems, the discussion comes up as to whether or not violent culture leads to violent acts.

As a film critic, I can only say one thing in response to those cultural pundits on the right and left who suggest that mass shootings are inspired by movies and videogames, which is, simply, "You're wrong." And that may seem a little sharp, but now and then a little sharpness is the only way to even scratch the stone-solid wrongheadedness of some people's thought processes. There are a variety of exercises in logic one can run though to demolish the theory that violent entertainment correlates to violent activity in a matter of seconds. Various mechanisms distribute American pop culture throughout the world, whether legal ones like multinational theatrical and DVD distribution or illegal ones like DVD piracy and peer-to-peer downloading. American pop culture is viewed and appreciated (or, in some cases, viewed and despised) worldwide by a large, avid audience. And yet, Western democracies like Germany, Canada, Australia and Britain don't have a statistically-similar rate of mass shootings or gun murders. Economically and demographically similar audiences are watching these films, and yet, viewers in other nations aren't making the leap to arming themselves and shooting people as the final possible act of film appreciation.

And, as I've joked with gallows humor before when this line of argument comes up, if you're suggesting that a violent pop culture causes violent activity, then when we follow that suggestion to logical conclusions, there shouldn't be a single person alive in Japan. And I know that joke may seem fairly broad and easy, but like every joke there's a kernel of truth in it; the extremes of some Japanese pop culture are far more violent than any American equivalent. Cultural conservatives on the right and left, though, can't explain why the gun-toting action of some Anime and films like Battle Royale isn't being re-created in the streets of Tokyo on a regular basis.

I didn't grow up in America, so I have no great or grand investment in the Second Amendment as an iconic principle of the American character. However, I'm in the process of becoming an American citizen, and I've been able to read English for a long time, so I feel like I have as much right to assert my position on the matter as any taxpayer. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purposes of a well-regulated militia. (And, much like some of the other language in the Bill of Rights, the times have changed; in my neighborhood, I'm more worried about getting tagged with a stray bullet than I am about British soldiers.) In a perfect world (which is to say, my perfect world and not yours), if you're a private citizen who'd like to own a gun, great; join the National Guard. You'll have access to it when you're on maneuvers and deployed. Otherwise, you don't. And as for hunters and rural farmers who "need" firearms, I'd be willing to make a compromise for them: they can own one single-shot, bolt-action long rifle with no magazine whose ballistic signature is already on file at the local police station -- which would also be the only place you can buy and store your bullets. (I once had a lengthy discussion about this with a cabbie in Vegas who was an avid hunter; when I suggested that if he truly loved hunting he could enjoy it just as much with a bow and arrow or single-shot bolt-action rifle, he countered that he wanted more firepower than that, because "I hate to see animals suffer." "Well," I noted with careful timing as we arrived at my destination, "then maybe you shouldn't be shooting them.")

Other than that? Stop selling guns, stop selling ammo -- smash the molds and melt the inventory, with a very short amnesty period for people to turn their guns in, after which possession of a gun, never mind use, brings a life sentence. And I know this penalizes 'law-abiding' gun owners -- but, seeing as how robberies and thefts from 'law-abiding' gun owners are how so many murder weapons come into the hands of criminals or the mentally ill, I don't have a lot of sympathy for that as an argument or a philosophical principle. Maybe you could talk me into seeing things that way. Maybe my thoughts about guns are a bunch of crazy jibber-jabber, and you can explain to me why they're naive or impractical. I don't know. At least we'd be talking about it.

But when tragic events like the NIU shooting happen, we don't talk about the guns. We talk about the media, or the killer going off their medicines, or how there were no warning signs or how there were plenty of warning signs. My jaw dropped at a quote in a story about the NIU shooting, as internet gun seller Eric Thompson, who also sold equipment to the Virginia Tech shooter, expressed his shock after learning his store had sold Glock magazines and a holster to NIU shooter Steven Kazmierczak: "I'm still blown away by the coincidences. I'm shaking. I can't believe somebody would order from us again and do this." You sell gun accessories, and yet you can't believe someone would use them to do what they're made for? And if you're so shaken, why are you still in business?

No, guns don't kill people. But they make it a lot easier to do so, especially at a moment's notice as the result of some insane impulse; we can't legislate against someone wanting to pick up a gun, but we can make it less easy for them to have one, or four, or more at hand when they reach out for one. And gun companies don't kill people; they just make a lot of money as their products are used to kill people. If Kazmierczak had stepped into that class with a golf club or a knife or a baseball bat or a length of chain, many would still be hurt and some might still be dead. But he stepped into that class with three pistols and a shotgun, all of them legally obtained, and it makes me nauseated and ashamed that the first unbidden reaction I had to the NIU shootings was that five victims and the killer's own suicide seemed like a 'low' death count. And yes, we need better mental health funding in this country, so that the cracks people slip through are smaller. And we need to have constant serious discussions about what our entertainment says about us, and what that means. But at some point, someone -- I don't know who, but I strongly doubt it'll be any of the current presidential candidates, some of whom would rather offer prayers and more prayers than policy initiatives, some of whom would rather write books instead of laws -- someone needs to stand up and say that the very American principle of private gun ownership is leading to a very American practice of murder and tragedy. Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Thompson and others on the right and left suggest we need to look at the "culture of violence." But we've been talking about the culture of violence in relation to mass shootings for years and years now; when do we start really talking about guns?

The Moviegoer: Roger Ebert's Not at Sundance, Except When He Is

James Rocchi — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:35:16 EST

Roger Ebert is not, in fact, up in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival right now. I am, screening films and working in the cold, and while there's plenty of old friends and new about -- every press screening at Sundance is like a high school reunion, if only for the A.V. Club -- I was thinking of Ebert this week for fairly obvious reasons. I've met Roger often over the years, and for some reason -- some stupid internal mechanism of self-deprecation, I would wager -- I always, always assume he will not remember me, or who I am. He does, of course, because he's a gentleman, but in my mind I tell myself that Ebert's mental file of "white dudes with glasses who are film critics and like to wear sweater vests" must be full to bursting, so I always re-introduce myself when I run into him. But I have friends who know him well enough, and one of them told me a few weeks ago "Ebert won't be at Sundance; he's having surgery on the 24th, for his voice."

I saw Roger at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, briefly, at a press screening of Reservation Road out near Yonge and Eglinton. He was accompanied by an aide, and could not speak, but I re-introduced myself for the 20th time and we chatted as casually as you can chat with one of the titans in your field when they can only pass you notes. And we didn't chat long, because it is occasionally hard to have the courage to speak to people when they look like they might not be feeling their best. I recall thinking, with no small amount of sadness, that Roger looked unwell, and that he didn't need to have his time wasted by awkward small talk with some distant, not-quite associate. And, yes, sad as it is to admit, I felt conflicted and depressed about the thought of him -- someone whose voice I've heard since my youth -- unable to speak as a side effect of the surgery he's had to deal with as part of his current bout with cancer.

That night I logged on my computer and went by his site, and after reading his postings from the Toronto Film Festival I felt even more of a fool. I thought of blind Milton dictating Paradise Lost; I thought of Beethoven, composing even as he went deaf. And while you can laugh off those two reference points as hyperbole -- or, more graciously, as extreme examples -- they still came to mind. No, Ebert could not speak, but that did not mean he had nothing to say. The speaking voice I knew from my childhood was silent, but his voice as a writer that I later came to appreciate, and still try to understand and follow to this day, was not only still there, but stronger. And the joy in the work, the delight and charm and clearly communicated insights in the reviews and reports, was a pleasure to read. In a field so often defined by the smirk of show-off cynics, by the buzzy drone of 'entertainment journalism' or by the incoherent grunts of fake pop-culture populists, reading Ebert's work since his return to his writing desk has been a place to find wonder and delight and the plain-spoken intelligence that has consistently, constantly marked his place in the field. And reading his reports and reviews that night, I had a reminder of things that really matter.

A few weeks later, I got giddy e-mails from friends, as Ebert had quoted a brief snippet from my Toronto International Film Festival review of Rendition in his own. And really, what could be a nicer thing to hear -- that a person you admire in your field found something to like in your work? Friends joked that I could get t-shirts of the pertinent paragraph made up, or a tattoo, and I laughed, but the truth is that I store my memory of that privileged moment -- and the brief, yet gracious note he sent in response to my acknowledgment of his piece that morning -- in my mind alongside other things that keep me going when things are not good, or when my writing feels unworthy, or when the words and words and words feel like nothing more than words and words and words.

And when I heard Roger wouldn't be here at Sundance this year, I felt a moment of sadness; if I had said anything to him (after introducing myself unnecessarily once more) if he had been up here, it might have been this: Thank you, not just for one review where you quoted what I'd written but for every review you've written that made me want to write. And I wouldn't have said that to him, face to face, but I can say it here. I'm typing these thoughts that have been on my mind as a brief break from typing about movies at Sundance. And I've felt Roger's presence here even though he isn't here: In the films and filmmakers that have come from a tradition of independent American cinema that Ebert cultivated, and still helps build and grow, through his support for films he thinks deserve it. In the foreign films that are hoping to take root in the rocky soil America offers their chances, soil that would be so much more barren and harsh if Ebert had not done so much to help it become more nourishing through years, decades of support for excellence and enthusiasm. In the work of many of the writers here, many of whom I'm lucky enough to know, because years ago one man proved you could write about film without being a tedious academic or a banal shill and demonstrated every week, every year, that you can write about film with good humor and real insight and verve and vigor and principle and good manners. In some of the web-based video clips of interviews I've seen filed from up here, because Ebert demonstrated long ago, alongside Gene Siskel, that you could do TV about movies and still say something honest and real.

I didn't want this piece to become an open letter -- that most tiresome of the clichés in the columnist's arsenal -- but I'm writing this on the 24th, and I hope Roger's surgery went well today, and I hope he regains his speech; I miss the tone of appreciation in his voice when it speaks with praise, and the musical baritone notes of his disapproval. But even if it doesn't, I know that he will still be writing, which means I will still be reading. When I was younger, long before I started writing about film, I was in London, and touring St. Paul's Cathedral. I was stopped and moved by the words above the crypt of the great architect Christopher Wren, who built so much of that majestic city: Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice -- "Reader, if you seek his monument, look about you." And I've been thinking about that and thinking about Ebert, because if you seek Ebert's voice, you can find it about you -- and not just here in Park City, either. It's in the struggling theaters in your town that play smaller films, it's in the breadth of choice of films in theaters or on DVD, it's in the landscape of films and film criticism that would be very different, and not for the better, if Ebert had not helped create and drive and support a different way of talking about film through strong and elegant work for years. No, he's not here in Park City, he's not here at Sundance. But he is, and we're lucky for that.

The Moviegoer: Manufactured Perspectives

James Rocchi — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:28:00 EST

If Dickens were a film critic, then late December every year would have seen his editor coming around saying words to the effect of "Charles, 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,' sure, but can you split that up, pad it out, give me some space-filler for the week after Christmas?" After the usual end-of-year list-making, I found myself, as ever, just a little bit taken aback by the force and fervor of countering salvos from people out there in the ether who disagree with your subjective opinions. I know my friends who write for newspapers get their share of bizarre letters; I know that being on TV statistically increases your chances of being murdered. But I found myself asking, as I often do when my opinions garner the kind of spittle-flecked crazy talk that my end-of-year 'Worst' list did, what is it specifically about the internet that makes people jerks? And couldn't Al Gore have foreseen that when he first invented it?

I was also thinking about this outside of my job duties as professional movie watcher because I had one of those birthdays over the holidays -- one of the tipping point birthdays, the arrival of an age where you're not old, but you can sure as hell see it coming, even though you have to squint. And it occurred to me that there were plenty of things I grew up with that the subsequent generations did not have the chance to experience (8-tracks, Manimal, Ronald Reagan) and that there were many things the subsequent generations grew up with that I did not have the chance to experience as part of my youth -- most notably, the internet. And when you think about it, what the internet really offers at the worst is a heady cocktail of instant gratification (Google searches, bit torrent, VOD, etc.) and absolute anonymity (blog commenting, p2p networks, cryptography, etc.) You can say anything you like, instantly see it out in the world, and it probably won't come back to you. In other words, the internet offers everything that a grown-up person should not, or would not, want. Future generations will spend their entire lives swaddled and coddled in the clawing arms of those two horrible forces, and that makes me a little sad. And then I realized I had found myself worrying about the kids, which of course means that I am, in fact, old.

The cure? I went and saw a movie. Many people ask what the point of Top Ten and Bottom Ten lists is, but for me, I read them to track down stuff I missed -- films that may not have played here in San Francisco, that I may have missed at one of the film festivals I was lucky enough to cover this year, or that may have just passed me by, or slipped my mind. This year, I found myself reading other people's 'Top Ten' lists in one browser window and adding films to my Netflix queue in the other. (Up next: Day Night Day Night and Tears of the Black Tiger. No, not as a double bill.) And early in the year, the Red Vic, San Francisco's plucky worker-owned rep theater was showing one of the films I missed from 2007, Manufactured Landscapes, on the big screen.

I'm not going to go on at great length about Manufactured Landscapes, but I will note in a sidebar that you should get a sense of the gloom inherent to San Francisco's turn-of-the-year rainy season when I tell you that sneaking in a matinee of a documentary about a photographer devoted to large-scale photographs of massive modern construction projects, electronics and scrap recycling work camps, mining sites and industrial fabrication areas -- in China -- made a break from the damp and dark. Documentarian Jennifer Baichwal followed photographer Edward Burtynsky for the film, and if the movie isn't as impressive as Burtynsky's actual photos are, it's close -- a great, gripping look at the realities of global commerce and the scale of progress. And not to be overly simplistic, but watching Chinese workers reclaiming valuable materials from circuit boards that had been shipped over from North America to be recycled, melting high-tech down over open fires, simultaneously made me think that if rudeness on the internet is my biggest problem, my life is pretty much a cakewalk, and also that I never want to buy anything, ever again. Once you watch where things come from, and where they wind up -- and think about the oil required to get them across the ocean twice -- it's a bit harder to get excited about that 150-inch TV everybody loved at CES.

It's striking when a movie says more, even indirectly, about the nature of modern commerce in 90 minutes of near-silent footage than you've heard from the clichés and homilies and pre-spun phrases of all the presidential debates so far. Manufactured Landscapes starts with a simple shot that becomes astonishing, as the camera slowly moves right-to-left across the production floor of a factory in China. It keeps going. And keeps going. And keeps going. The shot goes on so long that your mind starts to wander: What are they making? And what are they making per hour? Why aren't Americans making what they're making? Would what they're making -- oh, I think it's steam irons -- really cost that much more if they were made in America? But your mind isn't wandering at all, really; in fact, just the opposite happens. And as the camera moves right to left, you take in the epic majesty and life-sized drudgery of the iron-makers, and marvel at all this effort and industry marshaled so that you and I can save a few bucks when we go to Wal-Mart to buy something. Joe Wright's five-and-a-half minute-long Dunkirk retreat tracking shot in Atonement is one of the more talked-about scenes of the year; it certainly demonstrated that Mr. Wright had the vision and the resources to craft a genteel spectacle that evokes the all-encompassing terror and surreal beauty of a past war. But Ms. Baichwal does something more impressive just by finding the right real place at the right pace, and captures the all-encompassing terror and surreal beauty of right now. Mr. Wright takes five-and-a-half minutes and gives you something to wonder at in Atonement, but Ms. Baichwal uses her steady, unblinking eight minutes at the start of Manufactured Landscapes to do something even more impressive; she gives you something to atone for.