I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that my cinematic
critiques have generated some positive feedback. I
feel like Sally Field after she received her second Oscar:
“You like me! You really like me!” Anyway, enough
of my gushing; let’s get down to the e-mails:
“Frain”
writes: GREAT reviews again!! I agree with
you about “Ray”—it definitely could have used
some snipping here and there—and I think it would
have been just as good if it had just a bit shorter!
Haven’t
seen “The Incredibles”, but I doubt I will.
Do
you ever get e-mails responding to your reviews? (Like
this one? LOL.) Just wondering—take care.
Frain
issues a common complaint about contemporary movies:
overlength. In Hollywood’s “golden days,” the studios
dictated the length of the film, not temperamental directors.
This resulted in films that were perfectly attuned to how
long an audience would sit on their collective tush.
The film moguls from the 30’s-50’s had an uncanny knack
of gauging how long an audience would watch a movie before
ennui set in. Not so today. Now, most spoiled
directors have the contractual right of the “final cut,”
which means that they determine the running time of the
film. Add to that the fact that many films are rushed
through the editing room to meet a release date, and you
have overlong, self-indulgent, bloated films. A key
example of this would be an overrated film from 2003: Pirates
of the Caribbean. What should have been a very
entertaining kid’s film was turned into gargantuan and overlong
marathon, clocking in at 2 and 1/2 hours. A half hour
or more could have easily been cut, resulting in a better
film. This wouldn’t have happened in the past; unfortunately,
in today’s self indulgent climate, it happens far too often.
As
to Frain’s question if I got correspondence regarding my
reviews, the letter that follows shows that I do.
It too is complimentary, shoring up the shaky self-esteem
of this author. (Just kidding about this; if anyone
wants to take me to task on my opinions, feel free to e-mail
me.)
In
re to my “2004's Best Films” article, JP writes:
Hey,
Steve:
Here
are my top ten of 2004 (in no order at all):
The
Incredibles
Spiderman 2
Ray
The Aviator
Sideways
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Million Dollar Baby
Kill Bill Two
Harry Potter And the Prisoner of Azkaban
I Heart Huckabees
And
Team
America World Police (one of this author’s top 10), is the
WORST film I saw in a theatre this year.
If
you run a movie for 100 people, you are really running 101
movies—the one each of them is seeing in their heads
plus the one on the screen.
P.S.:
Very well written review of “Aviator”, btw.
Since
JP has done notable production work on films in the past,
I was very flattered by his letter. His disagreement
with me on Team America, shows how subjective top
ten lists can be. Speaking of disagreements, though,
I respectfully take issue with some of the choices on his
list (and, for that matter some of the choices on Dileep’s
list). I feel that such films as The Incredibles,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kill
Bill: Vol. 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban and House of Flying Daggers aren’t
good enough to be on a top ten list. If these films
were made in the 70’s (the last truly great decade of cinema),
they would be considered “throwaway” films, and would never
be considered for a top ten list then. The problem
is, starting in the eary 80’s, the studios were taken over
by conglomerates, and the quality of films have been in
steady decline ever since. I suppose in this new millennium
of lowered expectations, films like The Incredibles
come across like instant classics, but in days of better
filmmaking, that wouldn’t have been the case. It’s
that same mentality that causes mainstream critics to overpraise
obscure and pretentious foreign language films. These
films aren’t on the level of such great foreign directors
as Kurosawa, Truffaut, Bergman or Fellini—they are
more like something on the level of a film that details
the plight of an Iranian pig farmer. It’s just that
the major studios churn out so much crap that these films
look good by comparison, and are consequently overpraised.
At
least that’s my take on it.
See
ya soon.
Steve
can be reached at steve@babblog.com. |
