He Lives!

I wake, and I know my life has meaning.

Meaning because of one great man... no, "man" is too weak a word. He is more than a man. Children worship him, parents cater to his whim. The whole of springtime is dedicated to his triumph over evil, over death. A reminder of the power of life in the face of cold, icy fingers.

He has been with us since time immemorial... he is still with us now. He lives throughout the world, even down the street. He is in all things, and all things are imbued with his goodness.

I shudder to imagine a life without his glorious presence. How cold, how sad - how lonely. To look up at the stars and think, "Is this all there is?" Billions of years of cold, lifeless nothingness accentuated by a brief flurry of activity - of life... only to return again to the nothing. Such is the life without our lord.

But... he lives! We can gather together in jubilation. We can celebrate his unceasing form through chocolate incarnations! We can seek the sacred eggs that hold the keys to life itself. And after we've sated ourselves with the finest of hams and candies - adorned with only the very finest of mustards - we can lament the sad saps who lack the goodness of we... we can decry the profits of an industry for exploiting our prophets of ministry... and we can rest well, knowing he watcheth over us, knowing he shall vanquish evil for time eternal, knowing that he will return again in the spring. In the spring as he does every spring - a sign of life, of hope, and of peace.

All hail the Easter Bunny. It is we who worship he.

And my usual Easter reference...

New Obsession: Rob Zombie

Within the past few months, I've developed a bit of an obsession with Rob Zombie. I'm not sure where this is coming from - he's far from my favorite musician or director - but there it is nonetheless.

Like most people, my assumptions about Rob Zombie were almost entirely based on his name and his image - two things which tell you virtually nothing about a person. But then again, when he appears on an album cover with a Charles Manson "X" on his forehead, a pentagram in the background, no pupils, and that garish "monster" type of lighting, the reaction is almost predetermined. Having never listened to his music or seen his movies, I left pretty well alone and pretty much forgot about him.

And then I heard "Dragula" in full.

It was used perfectly in The Matrix soundtrack, and watching the video you see someone who's actually doing some interesting things visually and musically... but I still had my reservations. After all - one song doesn't amount to much in this crazy world. A few years after, though, Rob Zombie made himself positively infamous when his House of 1000 Corpses was all but barred from public view until upstart company Lionsgate bought the rights and "dared" to release it. That gave me my first taste of what Zombie was capable of.

Frankly, it didn't impress. The story wasn't particularly inventive, and for a film supposedly so gruesome and grotesque, it didn't seem particularly outrageous either. The film did stick in my mind, though. Sid Haig and Bill Moseley turned in some great work, and a few scenes were genuinely chilling and disturbing. The final product was mediocre, but it was obvious Zombie had potential.

His next film was what really caught my attention. The Devil's Rejects is pretty extraordinary: a sick, unsettling experience nevertheless full of humor and charm... Now I'll admit, there is not a single noble or "good" character in the entire film, but it takes a special kind of talent to make a band of psychopaths watchable... and even, in a twisted way, sympathetic. Despite all the death and mayhem they've wrought, in the end you still kind of like these people for some reason. The Devil's Rejects is not a pleasant film to watch - this is not fun "violence" (quote marks emphasized), a la Quentin Tarantino - but it is a great one nonetheless. There is nothing quite like it.

And that's really what intrigues me about Rob Zombie. At times, his fixation with murderers, madmen, and white trash/hillbilly subculture verges on caricature - almost as though his films are populated by side show freaks - but there is nevertheless a sincerity and deep understanding that sets his work apart. For what ever reason, Zombie understands that dark, grisly world, and he can intellectualize it. That's what differentiates The Devil's Rejects from not only most other films, but even his own body of work: the most disturbing things in the movie have little to do with blood or gore; the most devastating pain is mental in its origin.

His output since then has not been as daring. Halloween was a fairly disappointing venture into typical "slasher" fare; and Halloween II, though full of some great moments and a very good film overall, just came up a bit short... the potential was there, it just got lost in the body count.

Two for four, only one of which is a ringing endorsement. Not a very good average. And yet, as mentioned, there's something intriguing about what Mr Zombie is up to. It's not as though he's breaking new ground, but he's also not being purposely derivative (again, a la Tarantino)... Rob Zombie is trying for greatness, and he wants to do it on his own terms. I respect that. He has a unique outlook, an uncompromising vision, and an understanding of his material which rivals any filmmaker. And yes, I mean any filmmaker. He does not rank among the greats, but this is a man who swings for the fences at each and every turn; he is not content to turn in standard work, and he will play it safe for no one, least of all himself. Makes me excited to see what he'll do next. Bring on Lords of Salem.

Directors I Gave Up On: Kevin Smith

There was a time when I actually was a pretty big Kevin Smith fan; and to this day, I still stand by a portion of his work. No matter what he does to further derail his career, for instance, Chasing Amy is still an excellent movie. And for all their faults, I love Clerks II and enjoy the sentiment behind Dogma. So what happened? How did I go from an outspoken fan (I even bought some of the infamous "inaction" figures and a T-shirt) to a soft-spoken critic? Really, not much changed with me - Smith kind of did this to himself.

The problem is Kevin Smith's sensibilities apparently never matured past middle school, and to this day (now in his mid-40s) a vast majority of his humor remains scatological and sexually immature. Much time is devoted to semen and questions of sexual identity. Not to sound as though I'm above a good dirty joke, but after a while it just starts to feel... well, dull.

What happened really is that audiences pigeon-holed him... and then he pigeon-holed himself. With the string of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma, Kevin Smith established himself as a sharp-tongued, subversive independent - sharing his frank, unromanticized view of the world on a range of topics, not the least of them pop culture and religion. But he always wanted to expand and try something new. Professionally, this included branching into different media altogether (the early 2000s saw a failed animated series, and he has penned and continues to pen a number of comic books), as well as more diverse and mature material. Clerks and Mallrats were about disenfranchised youth, whiling away the hours with inane conversation. Chasing Amy was a departure, and at the same time a return to form. Mallrats - despite its third nipple gag and Porky's-inspired laissez-faire nudity - felt like an attempt to sell out and make it big; Chasing Amy was smaller, quieter, more realistic - a candid look at the vicissitudes of love. Dogma saw a further expansion of his creative talents: with its mix of humor, drama, fantasy, and faith, it is undoubtedly Smith's most ambitious film, and it obviously came from a very personal place. Dogma also marked the first time he ventured out of the "View Askewniverse" - bringing in such heavyweights as Alan Rickman, George Carlin, Linda Fiorentino, Matt Damon, even musician Alanis Morissette and cinematographer Robert Yeoman; while not his best film, it is perhaps his most impressive achievement.

Dogma is also an important demarcation point, in my opinion, because it's after Dogma that we can really see Smith start to struggle with his place in the filmmaking community. It seems he wasn't sure what to do: the kid from New Jersey who had cut his teeth in low-budget fare and had found success with some of the unlikeliest of subject matters, who always had an opinion, suddenly seemed at a loss for words... So he went back to the well and reintroduced the central characters of Clerks, this time in animated form. The show was quickly cancelled (only to find cult success on disc), and he promptly followed it up with the ultimate self-serving/self-abasing tribute: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. Now, let me make clear that I still enjoy his output to this point. The Clerks cartoon is extremely funny - same with Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back - but they're also incredibly derivative, to say the least. They are not the work of a man challenging himself with new subjects, characters, or interests: they are the result of a man at a creative crossroads, who ultimately retreats back to familiar, redundant material, rather than risk failure.

He did take a chance, however, and unfortunately failed miserably with the complete public trashing of Jersey Girl, a film which really isn't all that bad but is memorable simply for its mediocrity. I mention it here because this seems to me to be Smith's breaking point. He had weathered criticism, insecurity, and financial ruin, but never before had it all happened with the same film, and never to this severity. He bounced back with Clerks II, making arguably his best film despite "retiring" the Askewniverse, but even with that success you could tell he was just throwing his hands up, uncertain of what to do and apparently employing a kind of shotgun approach to his career. He followed that quickly with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, a cry for attention that audiences mostly ignored... After that came Cop Out, an absolute disaster commercially and critically. Smith proponents argue that the film would have been better had he written it himself, but they are clearly grasping at straws: whatever script Cop Out had was obviously ignored in favor of improvisation, and it seems like Smith had either no control over the actors, or he didn't really care about the final product.

Smith's most recent title, Red State, is supposedly his final film - but, then, he has made such claims before. This fascinates me. According to interviews and his own web site, Smith is taking himself out of filmmaking - ostensibly because there is no future in the film world, and he would like to devote himself solely to web-based media. If this is sincere, more luck to him, but this to me sounds more like a man giving up, not taking a stand.

I think the failures and the vitriol got to be too much for him. When he was younger, Smith used to tour with his movies and do his famous Q&As for free - just because he had so much fun doing it... then he started to charge for it... then he started to charge more... and then he started to become hostile. Smith makes it no secret that his humor was developed as a defense mechanism for his obesity, but over the last few years he's started to get kind of nasty and impatient with people, even his fans. He would say things in a kind of frank (even somewhat rude) way, but there was always a winking assurance that no matter what was said, it was all in good fun... lately, he's lost the wink, and sometimes it seems as though his goal is simply to shock, or (worse) to hurt.

All of this frustration and anger culminated in Red State - itself a very angry and spiteful film - and then compounded when critics and audiences again ignored and/or decried it. Smith's original intention for Red State was that he would finance the entire theatrical run independently, eventually selling rights to the highest bidder in a highly publicized auction... but when the bidding price wasn't as high as he'd hoped, and the film hadn't generated the type of interest he'd planned for, suddenly the auction was withdrawn, he kept the film to himself, and he seemed to give the metaphorical finger to anyone and everyone who questioned him.

Within just a few years, Kevin Smith has gone from the everyman filmmaker - living proof that you could accomplish something kind of extraordinary simply on wit and moxie - and then lost it all... Actually, worse than that - it's not like Smith gave it his all and had it taken from him, he simply gave up. This ribald raconteur had a gift, but he lost it to anger and ego.

As if it weren't obvious already...

As if you couldn't tell, I haven't had time to write in a while. Okay, that's not true - I haven't had time to write recreationally. I was in a pretty good rhythm there for a while, but this current school semester has really taken the wind out of my sails and pulled me back down to Earth (not to mix metaphors). So this is just a long overdue announcement that posts here will be much more infrequent until things slow down a bit. I only have three classes (and an online course - but it hardly counts), and even dropped my work hours to part-time for the first time since I was sixteen, but my energy isn't what it used to be. I have class three days a week, and I am absolutely exhausted. Something had to give - and this blog is it.

I'll still post things every once in a while to try and throw a little content out there for you, but we're talking maybe once a month.

It's all about priorities - I'm trying to do this right. See you when I see you!

When did Oscar become Irrelevant?

Before anyone slams me on this minor logical fallacy, let me concede that Yes, Indeed, You're Right that the Oscars are still the only awards show worth a damn. I readily admit it. I mean, when's the last time anyone bought a CD solely because it won a Grammy? Or watched a TV show because it won an Emmy?

That being said, however, I think anyone who pays any attention at all to these sorts of things would readily admit that the past few decades have seen a sharp decline in the value of Oscar. Notice the key words: sharp decline. Because really, when you get down to it, the relevancy of winning an Academy Award (or even being nominated) has always been relative to the quality of the film itself (obviously) but also (more importantly) to those it was going up against. For example, it doesn't mean much to say that a mediocre film like Slumdog Millionaire wins Best Picture when you consider it went up against other mediocre films; on the other hand, when you say The English Patient won over Fargo, or Forrest Gump won over Pulp Fiction, then you're actually saying something - because the losers are clearly more deserving than the winners.

That's all fine and well, you're saying, but who really cares? Exactly! That's my whole point - Oscar used to mean something, and now no one really cares. Producers and money men in Hollywood are trying to make Oscar matter again, but therein lies the problem: Oscar has lost traction with cinephiles because they're too quick to placate general audience sensibilities (Titanic is an easy example - why did it win, if not for the billion dollars it made?). On the other hand, though, audiences get irritated when they can't stand the nominees, or don't even know what the nominees are. So I can understand why pandering, maudlin films like Titanic, or on the opposite extreme (ie, a movie which uses a lot of the same tactics but doesn't make much money and is still considered "edgy" or "indie") Slumdog Millionaire are nominated. I can stomach that. But I can't stand it when movies like that win, no matter how popular they may be. And this has only worsened now that there are ten nominees. Now any movie has a chance.

So here are some suggestions.

Basically, if you really wanted to look to a moment in history and say, That's it! That's when Oscar started whoring itself to the masses!, then I think the most obvious choice is 1980 - when Ordinary People won over Raging Bull. Ordinary People is a fine film in its own right, and the Academy had made questionable decisions before, but that was the first year in which the unequivocally better film lost simply because it was too edgy, too different, too dark... basically because it was too anti-audience. Since 1980, it has been the exception more than the rule for the best film to win Best Picture; since Ordinary People, it's more often the audience favorite than the critical favorite - though if you can find a film which audiences love and critics are okay with (ie, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, The Departed, etc), then it's hardly even a contest.

The first step, then, is to take this award back from the public. The whole idea of the Oscars is to salute the best of the industry. Innovators, originators - these should be the people getting accolades. The Oscars, quite simply, need to be more selective. I'm not saying impose a salary cap, or neglect a film on the grounds that it's too successful - but we need standards here. High standards. At its best, cinema is a marriage of art and commerce - something which unites us and we can all "get" or relate to in some way, but which also challenges us. Like a great novel.

How to do this? What's Step One-A? Go back to five nominees. Ten nominations is a stupid idea - that's why it was abandoned decades ago; it needs to be abandoned again. Maybe even go to three or something. The whole idea here is to be more selective - so that what you're nominating really represents that paragon of cinema for that particular year. Actually - here's a decent idea - if you absolutely insist on ten nominees, then combine all Best Picture categories. Do we really need four "best film" categories (to say nothing of the short films)? Foreign, Animated, Documentary, put it all under one banner - Best Picture. I realize the Academy is unfairly biased toward studio-financed, live-action fiction (we'll deal with that below), but like I said - this is a much better alternative if you insist on ten nominees.

Step Two - revamp the membership. You know the term "Oscar bait"? Yeah, that's a pretty recent coinage. The whole idea is that major studios have at least one project each year that they release at the end of the year because it's their "prestige" film. For example, DreamWorks released Transformers: Dark of the Moon in the summer because its the sort of tentpole dreck that will bring in tons of money, but waited until December for War Horse, the Oscar hopeful. Anyway, the whole meaning of "Oscar bait" is that you essentially trick Academy members by exploiting their sensibilities... and you do that by making a stereotypical Oscar film - ie, one that has strong production value, talented technicians, and a fairly warm/simplistic story and tone (preferably one with humanist leanings), albeit one most likely fraught with difficulty or peril. The structure of virtually every Oscar movie is the same - and they all tend to follow that classic screenplay structure they teach in intro writing classes.

So how do you fix this? After all, it's not like there's anything wrong with a formula - it's the execution and the quality that matter most. Raiders of the Lost Ark, for instance, has a very simple and familiar structure, but it's still a great film. As Roger Ebert says, It's not what a movie is about, but how it is about it. And you can't disqualify a film simply because it follows a familiar structure; and conversely, I wouldn't rush out to give movies like The Tree of Life or Enter the Void Oscars simply because they're extended experiments... The key is balance. You want to encourage innovation - and the best way to do that is to get some new blood into these powerful positions. The Academy doesn't disclose the names of its members, but they do disclose their boards of "governors" (ie, the people in charge) - and all of those governors are people who've been doing this for a long time. I think a Sight and Sound model is more appropriate: essentially, expand membership to include professional film critics. After all, critics see more movies than anybody, and they tend to be immune to Oscar bait. Not all the time, but they have a much better sense when it comes to that particular odor. But Jacob, you say, the whole point of the Academy Awards is that the industry is rewarding itself - how can critics judge categories like Art Direction or Makeup when they have no experience in that field? Fair enough - if it bothers you that much, only allow them in on the "major" categories (ie, Picture/Director/Writing/Acting/etc); and if that still bugs you, just let them focus on Picture.

Step Three - get off the high horse and nominate the best, no matter what. This last one seems contradictory... after all, I've been lamenting that the Academy should be more selective and high-brow in its selection process, yet here I am preaching acceptance of everything. A simple difference: there's selectivity, and then there's pretense. I don't know who said it (I believe it was Jim Emerson), but one critic summed the Oscars up as "Not representing 'The Best,' but simply 'The Most'" - which I think sums everything up perfectly. That's the whole problem. This is especially true in the Acting categories - generally, the nominated actors are indeed very, very good, and they do turn in some great performances - but they're rarely the best, simply the most. The most emotional, the most intense - you rarely see quiet/understated performances. Almost never.

The simplest way around this would be to implement Step Three from above, but the idea is basically that movies of all genres are worthy. Did you know Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture? Same for Jaws. When's the last time a straight genre picture (horror/thriller/action) was nominated? When was the last time a straight comedy was nominated? Is "high drama" the only thing worthy of an award? I don't think so. We need to get back to that sort of thinking.

My pet example is The Big Lebowski. Admittedly, not a great movie (great moments - but ultimately goes on too long), but the cast is perfect. Seriously, perfect. Jeff Bridges gives arguably the greatest lead performance ever in The Big Lebowski, but there's no chance in hell he'd be nominated for an Oscar. Are you kidding - a foul-mouthed stoner who cares only about bowling and his rug? There's no way that would be nominated - and that's the problem! Bridges created a character - a flesh-and-blood/three-dimensional/complicated and interesting character - and he never misses a beat. Truly an award-worthy performance. Argue it if you want, but just go back and watch it - every facial expression, every body movement, every tonal inflection - it's perfect. Much better than Crazy Heart, a typical "I messed my life up but I'll turn it around" movie if I've ever seen one.

So that's it. I realize most probably stopped reading a while ago - in a blog of fairly niche topics, this is perhaps the most narrow - but like I said way back at the beginning: I love movies, and I want them to mean something. If the very best don't mean anything, then we're in trouble.