Rant: Does A Great Film Need To Be A Masculine Fantasy In Order To Be Great? : Male Feminist Panic

Being a man, feminist issues are inevitably a catch-22. Particularly a middle-class, twentysomething male. Either You're a sackless traitor or an ignorant chauvinist and often both. I think for many of the men who would call themselves feminists, it can be a pose. It can be pretending to be dissatisfied with the privileged position us men hold, in which everything from movies to literature to everything else is geared to our taste, in which our opinion carries more weight and the world works to our convenience. We can say we resent it, we can say we'd rather things were equal, but there's as much truth in that as the lottery winner who says he wishes he could share his winnings with everyone who bought a ticket. Its hard to a fight a broken system when it favors you, and when a more equal system would mean you'd have to work for a living, metaphorically speaking. Its certainly not the Darwinian thing to do, to throw away advantages in the name of altruistic fairness. I think women should be suspicious of men crying feminist because the truth of that statement relies entirely on one's better nature conquering one's impulses. And how does that fight usually go?

And yet at the same time, its something I have always tried to be. I call movies out a lot for crimes of sexism and misogyny, often at the expense of reviewing a movie in a credible journalistic manor. Saying that Transformers 2's plot derailed because the camera was distracted by Megan Fox's boobs or the rampant self-hating misogyny of a Piranha 3D say, in which women are for looking at and ogling, but if they get to close to actually touch you, better kill them horribly because Don't let them take your masculine purity because that shit is sacred and you will BURN IN HELL. Or something like that. These thoughts I reckon kept the apologist feminist in me happy, and meant I could watch Die Hard in absolution. But these days I'm beginning to think my attitude to movie sexism mirrors that of a movie studio's attitude to quality. Just enough to get by and to keep the 'critics' off your back. And I don't think this is just my problem. Sure its to be obvious to say that guilty pleasure cinema has and always will be about male fantasy, tales of adventure and glorified violence that practicality and morality don't allow for. What man doesn't pray for the day he can use righteous violence to solve his problems, the day he can kill something and not have to take the horror and guilt of the act into account, That's what Die Hard, Rambo, Point Blank, The Dirty Dozen, The Big Sleep and The Adventures Of Robin Hood do, they allow us to play this out in a way that removes consequence and we love them for it. Hey, its called guilty pleasure cinema, what else do you want from it. But I don't think it necessarily stops there.

If you look at what the mass voice calls the best movies all time, particularly in regards to mainstream taste, then the one thing that links many of the greatest films of all time is that they are still some rendition of the same masculine fantasy. The kicker being they're self aware. They examine it, call it out. Say how terrible it is, all whilst still fundamentally playing it out. The Godfather for example, is for all its commentary on The American dream and break-up of the American family, still about an innocent man turning to violence to solve his problems, and emerging victorious. We the viewer are meant to see it as tragic, but yet are still encouraged to enjoy the ride, so to speak. Citizen Kane is about a man finding success through the ultimate masculine body, capitalism. Again it points out how tragic it is but not before enjoying Kane's rise. Fight Club is explicitly about a man finding his identity in violence, There Will Be Blood is about the consequences of greed and furious competitiveness, again the male fantasy of crushing one's opposition. You could go on. Its called having your cake and eating it storytelling, in which you justify your transgressions by condemning them. But at the center of all these films is the masculine ID. What we deem to be interesting, what we deem to be fascinating and what we deem to be quality seems to depend on how much something skews male.

Amongst my favorite films are Fight Club, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Pulp Fiction, Platoon, City Of God, Apocalypse Now, The Big Lebowski and Vertigo to name some at random and without exception they have a male lead, and I'd say a good 80% of those film push a world where no women exist at all, at least not in any real capacity. And I think its fair to say these films would be in many people's lists and they are universally deemed to be quality. Yet every one is an examination of male fantasy. It gets to the point, Perhaps because criticism is not entirely an intellectual exercise, and many times it can be simply verbalizing gut reactions to things. But this implies that instinctually, I find the male experience more interesting then the female one.

And I don't agree with these findings, intellectually anyway. And deciding whether something is good or not has to leave base subjectivity at some point otherwise it nullifies the whole process. Traditionally men react to situations with force and women with consideration. Even with this simplified, reductive view of both sexes This makes women much more interesting characters, at least on screen and because I am more familiar with male experience, I should find female characters more interesting, more mysterious and more fascinating. To my mind they are the unknown, and thus more worthy of exploring. Yet cinema and even television tells me the most fascinating characters are those who push masculinity to its limits in any context. Why isn't Volver or Heathers on this list, why not Breakfast At Tiffany's, Spirited Away or Heavenly Creatures. I could barely fault these films (Well, I guess excepting Tiffany's racism toward the Japanese) and yet they don't connect with me in quite the same way. It seems that Intellectual consideration can't compete with gut reaction, and as great as something could be, if it doesn't fulfill that particular ID, that kid who wants to play cops and robbers and annihilate Goldeneye on the N64 and fervently believed that girls had cooties, if he doesn't get what he wants then it can't be mind-blowing in quite the same way. Is that kid secretly in charge of every reaction I have, what I decide is great or awful. Is the only role I perform to justify his likes with long words and an amusingly cynical world view? I'd like to say no.

If only it were just me, but the fact that this is so frequently the case implies that this is everyone. Every male viewer is going to partial to the have its cake and eat films because the service both the boy and the man, whereas Antonia's Line can only ever serve the man. The proto-feminist can fight as hard as he wants, but he is a lie, an imaginary creation made of nothing but air and good intentions. I guess there's the hope that you repeat a lie enough eventually it comes true, that if you keep telling yourself you believe something enough times eventually you'll cave and suddenly Boys Don't Cry will be the best film of the 1990's. But alas, me and the rest of the world of the Y chromosome are probably destined to be biased forever.

I think this is a critical version of survivor's guilt, perhaps because I get what I want whilst women get to tell so few of the amazing stories I have no doubt they could tell, so I'll turn and thrash until my conscience is satiated and then go back to cheering on Commander John Matrix. One can dream.

Oscar Reaction and ranting (mostly ranting)

This is a a difficult argument to phrase, but I'll give it a shot. A good film won best picture tonight. There are times when that hasn't happened, and I suppose we should be grateful for that. But its that old Oscar problem of rewarding the workmanlike over the flamboyant, the familiar over the revolutionary. It never really seems to go away, and it means that when you look back at their choices, and perhaps more importantly what they didn't choose. They always seem out of touch. Oscar seems to bounce between the stubborn and apologetic and can occasionally come across Larry David-esque in its attempts to rectify situations. Annoyed we didn't nominate The Dark Knight, here's 15 nomination for Avatar! you're happy again right? That film is popular! But the problem was it wasn't ignoring the popular movie, but one of the best ones, that just happened to make 550 million or so. Misinterpreting people's frustrations with Oscar seems to be the worst thing about them, because each year becomes about putting right mistakes of the year before and so forth.

But the most persistent mistake I think is the never-ending embrace of the Biopic. I've made no secret that I find the biopic to be the most mundane and ultimately pointless of film genres. Almost all of them are good, but none of them, or very, very few of them, are extra-ordinary. It takes much less work to make them good and they seem to get much more praise for it, seemingly because they're important, unlike pesky original stories. And for Oscar to reward them with such consistency is to a dis-service to film-making. What use is ambition or the ability to tell a story when you can be a filmed version of a Wikipedia page. It means that era-defining films, particularly the daring ones, are always ignored, something we all just accept at this point. And The King's Speech just seems to me to be yet another one of these films. Proficient, well acted and entirely forgettable. The Social Network is of course also a biopic, but it feels so much less like one out of the factory, one that covers things in the same old way with the same emotional arcs and makes an effort to be a film rather then just a piece of visualized information. Its that film, Inception, Winter's Bone and Toy Story 3 that will be revered long after The King's Speech is a footnote on the Oscar IMDB page. That's fine. You can say the Oscars don't matter and that no-one cares and move on with your day right?

Well no, because they have a prestige, a value that all other award shows lust after. They are almost as old as cinema itself, and so they have a legitimacy you can't take away with all your words of scorn and derision. Films can be forgotten or remembered on the basis of this shit. And I know back when I was watching films for the first time, I used the Oscars as a gage of what to see, particularly with older films. So it matters when they make the wrong call and I think this is one of the more egregious examples of that in a while. I was pretty open minded about the winner, I think anything but The Kids are all right, The Fighter or The King's Speech I would have been with. But fuck, yet again we're told the pinnacle of film-making is chronicling figures from history, and if Oscar could just once make it through three years without re-enforcing that message, I'd be a much happier man.

Elsewhere everything went pretty much as expected, the only surprise really being Fincher losing best director to Tom Hooper. I think this is possibly a much greater outrage then the best picture thing, but I'm too burned out on resentment to say anything else at this point.

10 Days of Horror: What's the draw?

Said straightforwardly it seems like a remarkably simple question. The obvious response is to say that they're the fictional equivalent of the roller-coaster or the bungee jump. Selling you the illusion of danger from a place of complete safety. But in many ways, the origin of the genre comes from a place much less to do with adrenaline and more to do with psychology. Horror movies act as a safe environment in which our darker impulses and fantasies can be released, exorcised and eventually cleansed. In most horror movies, our surrogate is rarely the hero of the piece, rather we enjoy and are entertained by the terror and violence the villain unleashes and often we are on his/her side until the finale in which our moral indiscretion is appropriately chastised with the villain being defeated by someone who nine times out of ten is virtue incarnate, or at least becomes that way during the course of the movie. The villain punishes us for who we are and the hero is who we aspire to be.

So in that sense horror movies, or at least the less complex mainstream ones, represent our own guilt and need to be punished for all our sinful and impure ways. In the same way victims are often representations of wrong doing we experience in reality, rather then the exaggerated monsters that punish them. They may be promiscuous, amoral and jerks in some shape or form, not black and white evil, but the guy with the knife, or the ghost in the closest or the zombie that walks the earth is out to cleanse all forms of human imperfection until what is left is only the most resourceful, most noble and virtuous. In many ways horror films act is a compartmentalized version of a biblical judgment day, in which the villain is subtextually not the villain at all and instead a version of Loki, who in the context of a movie is perfectly justified in killing of whores and bullies.


We only change allegiance when the villain goes after our final girl, our final boy or whatever. The character who represents what we in the audience are supposed to aspire to and thus by passing this twisted form of judgment they defeat it. This is to say that horror movies, in their own indulgent way, are conservative morality tales, tauting age old Christian values and grotesquely punishing those who don't follow them. Just as the Bible does. The simpler horror movies at least. The Halloween's, The Scream's and the Nightmare on Elm Street's of this world.

But its clear that these movies only explore darkness and malevolence in order to exorcise it, and in that sense are much less subversive then they appear. We see these movies because whether our intellect and rational consciousness agrees or not, we subconsciously crave punishment for our indiscretions and thus seeing this done in horror movies is quite cathartic, however childish that world view might be. But the thing is once you've seen this play out more then a few times, it is inevitable that you are going to clock on to this not so subtle form of moral conditioning. Thus to ensure its own survival, the simple horror movie discovered post-modernism and irony, in a display of resourcefulness to put Neve Campbell to shame. By making light of itself, with horror comedies and spoof's and even to the particularly well educated satire's ( Although a satire is basically a spoof with the addition of subtlety, but usually their making the same points.) They could secretly push the same agenda under the guise of self-deprecation, its like Stringer Bell says, if product goes stale you don't start anew you just repackage. I may be the first person to compare the selling of drugs to horror movie subtext, and I feel good about it. Anyways, People are stupid and you should treat them as such. Meaning we can take what we always took from these films and have our own familiarity appeased too, thus selling us the same thing and allowing us to feel superior about it. The greatest trick that a perpetuator of morals or business can pull is making the individual thinks he matters, because they are much more likely to bite your ideology/merchandise if they think that they do.


With more complex horror films, however, its a different game entirely. Rather then trying to put you in your place, ethically speaking, they are more about exposing uncomfortable areas of your psyche and dis-affirming formula and the comfort that it brings. they're about making you realize things about yourself and what you believe that leave you in a place much less entertaining and much more terrifying. Both in terms of what's on screen and the crisis of identification you have with the monster rather then then hero, and in many cases the revelation that the hero is secretly the monster all along. Or they are forced to become one. There is morality in these kinds of films, but its more convoluted and the right choice isn't paved in bright lights. For example in Rosemary's Baby, forced to choose between her love for her child and the knowledge that it is very very evil. She chooses love over right and wrong. And can we really condemn her for this? Not in all honesty anyway. Similarly in films that focus solely in the villain, and there is no redeeming hero to speak of, American Psycho for instance, or Portrait of a serial killer. We are given no choice but to experience the world through a monster's eyes, and in many ways we are behind them every step of the way. It acts as a particularly twisted form of wish fulfillment that nobody wants to openly acknowledge, but every-one feels. There's a reason why a large percentage of all fiction, rather then just horror, focuses on violent confrontation in some shape or form, it just sugar coats it with moral justification. Batman beats up bad guys because its the right thing to do. Neo and Trinity kill shitloads of cops because it the right thing to do. Jack Bauer tortures and kills millions because its the right thing to do. We create this double standard because violence is something we all want to experience but don't because of the icky moral complications. So in our fantasies we create worlds where there are no implications and violence is the right and just thing to do. The horror genre is the only one to openly and consistently call bullshit on this, because in these worlds violent fantasy has consequences. People bleed when you cut them, and scream when you hurt them. They don't coddle you for what you experiencing and force you to face it and what it means.

So, for all the criticism it gets and all the protestations of crassness and inadequacy, quality horror films present a fantasy that does not exalt or celebrate or rationalize your dark impulses. A mirror is held up to all the twisted shit you allow you inner sicko to enjoy and you're forced to face up to this, so by facing darker desires honestly, and not burying them in a pit of moral panic like the Hostel's and the thousand other generic horrors out there, they have a much more valid point about the nature of human darkness and in a tribute to our own weirdness, we appreciate them for their honesty.

RANT: Did the Dark Knight ruin the Blockbuster?

So here we are at the end of a summer which can only be described as a slight disappointment. It didn't really have a great movie in it, more like a selection of OK to good ones. Of the Blockbusters I think I'd have to say that Star Trek was the best, but I didn't like that movie as much as this would suggest. Apologies for the unintentional rhyme. The Hangover was refreshing, a comedy that was actually funny with some interesting characterizations (loved Zach Galifinakis), Drag Me to Hell was a horror movie with some personality which set it apart from the droves of sequels and remakes of classic horror movies. The studios approach the horror genre with a conveyor belt mentality of low quality, low budget movies. Its no wonder it never gets taken seriously anymore. The remake of Last House on the Left was passable though I suppose, mostly thanks to a strong performance fro Garret Dillahunt. But this is a digression, because the main point is that the big money pictures really let us down . I guess Watchmen was supposed to be the piece de resistance of this year, but some poor casting and a director with no personal vision led to that movie being as sterile as hell.

The reason for all negativity can be simplified into what I'd like to call in full acknowledgment of my own smugness the Dark Knight effect. Basically, the TDK revealed a laziness in all summer movies that we were either unaware of or had become sub-consciously accustomed to. It is no longer OK for them to hide under the moniker of 'fun'. I don't use this in a negative sense, because a blockbuster that is genuinely entertaining is an awesome thing, but the trick that they pulled was to defend low quality with the term fun, with big movies hiding behind it as an excuse to be shite basically. And people took it, because they didn't know better. But now TDK has shown us how good a blockbuster can be the same plasticated movies just don't cut it anymore. That blockbuster template of a committee of screenwriters making films of no personality, the over-reliance on CGI, that we've seen in full force for ten years or so and thus doesn't pack the same punch as it used to. Its beginning to grow cold. I'm pretty sure critics wouldn't have laid in to Transformers 2 like they did this year two years ago, because that was what the average summer movie was like. But now it won't do. And seemingly the better ones won't do either. Star Trek was good, Terminator Salvation was a valiant misfire, that at least tried to be something. But all I can be is disappointed by these movies now and that is Christopher Nolan's fault entirely. He raised the bar and now more movies fall under it then they used to. Its a sad state of affairs indeed.

RANT: When director's egos ruin their career

It occurs to me that James Cameron hasn't made a film in 12 years. Not since he embarrassingly declared himself the king of the world in response to Titanic's monstrous success, has he given us another movie. Granted, a man deserves to revel in his success for a while but this gap suggeststhat Cameron pretty much feels he made a movie that can't be topped. Its a shame for two reasons. Firstly, Titanic is far from the career defining masterpiece he seems to think but more pressingly because it maybe prevented Cameron from making his career defining masterpiece. His success seemingly took away his drive, and thus left us with no new Cameron film for a decade and some change, in which time he could have made two great films. It is a lesson in why directors need always be on their toes, and Cameron is certainly not the only example of a career derailed by an ever expanding head. One needs only to look at Quentin Tarantino, who not only makes film irregularly but seems to get worse with every release. His smugness, no doubt magnified by the 90's referential revolution he inspired, is most evident in Death Proof, which he seems to think can fly on his dialogue alone. It Can't. Its painful lack of direction and poor acting left any Bande a Part fanboy disappointed at what their messiah had evolved into. The problem was that he clearly wasn't all there, and as can happen when one believes entirely in one's own hype. In other words, his ego K.O'd his commitment and any sense of effort and thus we got a half-assed movie not worthy of his name.

A less renowned and no doubt less thought of example of this is Donnie Darko helmer Richard Kelly. Yes it may be jumping the gun a little to call him a great director, but his film, as any emo student will tell you, is a visually accomplished debut brimming with promise. The film becomes the shit amongst the younger population of most white, English speaking countries and thus the world is telling Kelly he is the next whizz kid on the cinematic block. And what is he to do but believe that he is in fact the next whizz kid on the cinematic block. Que Southland Tales, an overblown under-written mess. Directors of the world; the only way to stay at the top of you're game is to develop inferiority complexes, and fast. No matter what anyone tells you, always think you can do better otherwise you'll make your own version of Death Proof and the humble viewing public don't need that shit. They really don't.

RANT: A passing thought on why Christmas movies should go shove it.

Christmas; Its the most wonderful time of the year. You get an assortment of cheap free crap that you neither need or want. You spend time with those beloved relatives with a terrific time had by all until all the screaming begins. 'That was my Cashew nut you motherf******' or something to that effect. Its a time when fake smiles and superficial cheer do they're very best to repress all your cynicism. They never win.

Granted, there's a Grinch like quality to me, I'm green and sound remarkably like Jim Carrey, but the resentment is there burning under the surface. Of course from the movies regarding christmas time you wouldn't know this. Because every year they release a movie that sounds an awful lot like this. The grumpy cynic who hates christmas, in an always awesome one-track way, has his heart of stone melted by the love that does so emanate from the season. Of course that cynic can be expanded to a married couple, or they can reverse the story and have the protagonist as a crazy eyes christmas lover who insists on spreading the christmas cheer to all around, at first to a community's annoyance. But after some delightful PG-13 antics the hearts, they are warmed. The worst thing about this is the entirely cynical way these movie suits try to make me happy. Not for the spreading of joy is this done, but for the accumulation of enough dollars to tide over a third beach house in Malibu. They also could give a damn about making a good movie, so on this oh so special boxing day, I say screw christmas movies. Screw them right in the eye. ( Hope y'all see da irony of these being posted on boxing day, and not christmas when it should so blatantly have been posted. My bad.)

To all a good night.

A TV Diversion rant: What's up with Heroes?

Anyone who's seen this show in its horrible third season knows how scatty it has become. Its painfully aimless, shooting for so many targets at once it ends up missing them all and embracing shitness that was merely hinted at in season 2. It was never that great in the first place, to be fair, but was an enjoyable enough guilty pleasure. The kind of thing that you could just kick back in front of without committing to much brain and enjoy. The fun factor is not to be under-estimated. So what has made it presently such a chore to watch, what has it lost since the beginning?

What made season 1 good?

. Simple. It was breezy and really only had the one on-going plot line, more about the characters.

. All the characters had more personal stories. Not everything was about the big picture.

. It had wonderfully to the point villainy in Sylar. He was iconic, dangerous and a terrific adversary. Never close to being matched in later seasons. Even their lame attempts to redux Sylar fell flat.

. It had a direction, and you get the sense that they actually had a long-term pan. Syke.

What made later season so horrible?

Lameass villains. Every single one was a dud, from the nightmare man to Arthur Petrelli. Adam Monroe had some mild potential, but was painfully wasted.

. Lameass new characters, The mexican twins who spent a season running around with no real point.

. Lameass recycled plotlines. The world is coming to an end, what's new. Come up with some new ideas, guys. Villains don't need to destroy the world to be threatening.

. Lameass writing. Poor episode to episode quality with writers having no real clue how to write stand-alone episodes.

. Lameass repitition. If I have to hear that dude say I did it to protect my daughter one more time I'm gonna find a way to kill Claire just to shut him up. Say a different line already.

. Lameass overuse of 'look we killed a major character...except no we didn't'. Nobody likes this device. Nobody except the smug SOB writing it. F*ck your fake cliffhangers man.

Still season 3 did give us this awesome clip. So there's that.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gKL8dENAAYk

RANT: Movies are great, but...

Books are better. This seems to be the prevalent thought, that movies are but mere dolly mixtures compared to the rich meal of a book. They are a one-night stand compared to a novel's intimate relationship. I have more of these but it seems I should get to the point, which in fairness I won't get to until the end of the post, but I should get to discussing the point rather then continue padding my introduction with witty but irrelevant one-liners. Ok. I'm going to argue the above statement as if it were in the form of a question, and hopefully put aside my bias ( This is a movie site where nothing but shit about movies is ever posted) and come to a somewhat systematic logical conclusion. A petty question, for sure, but it needs to be answered regardless.




Books are better:
Someone with a unique ability to get to the crux of matters once said that with a film you see someone else's imagination but with a book you utilise your own. And nothing is quite as vivid as one's own imagination. Thus books benefit from reader interaction, it'll tell you all about it but what you see is as much your creation as it was the author's. A film, no matter how good, can't be this involving. Sure you can use the power of the unseen etc, but a world is created in film that you are simply a witness whereas a novelised world is your's to create. Thus books benefit from their inferior technology. Lovers of language will almost inevitably side on that of literature also; Can the visual medium of film compete with the thrill that reading good writing can bring? Well how can it? Similarly, the length of a book and the detail which it can delve into and the characterisation it can pursue can't be equalled by most films purely because of the practical issue of time. Unless your watching Spiderman, which will by 2011 have spent over 10 hours of film exploring the character of Peter Parker. Ultimately, books draw you in and give you a more complete ride. For the most part they don't have commercial expectations to meet or the limitations of what can practically be done on their back. They're free to tell any story anytime with their only concern being good, or at the least entertaining. Is Film such a free flowing medium?




Films are better:

Your own imagination is over-rated. Someone else can make it better in every way and the thought that nothing is as good as it is silly. How many times have you read something and think you've understood, only for someone else to express their interpretation in a way that makes you realise how lame you actually are. Film is that persons's views contained in a majestic cascade of amazingness that combines what all other mediums do best and mesh it into one. Ok that may have been a smidge enthusiastic, but the point still comes across I think. The Argument that film can't do character as well as books essentially means film can't do character for as long as books, but as for the quality, well that's a different matter. For a book is limited to words and phrases, can it really be better then seeing that character come to life in voice and visage. And visual expression and tone of voice, so crucial to communication in real life, can say in a second what a 2 page rant on a person's thoughts and feelings can say in.. well 2 pages. To clarify, in a film characters are given new dimensions of what they can be. For lovers of the visual image its no contest, but for the word freaks out there the competition is less simple then I made it above for the sake of that argument. Look how successfully Chuck Palanhiuk's prose came to life in Fight Club, and also how intensely it accompanied the images. Film, through voice-over and dialogue can be easily as well written as a novel, just a lot less rambling. Which is surely a gift sent from above.



Conclusion:
Answering this question is about as pointless as trying to telekinetically type this essay, because its so subjective to individual opinion. There are things that each medium can do better then the other, but the assumption that books are better just coz, is a little simple. They do stop alzheimer's though, so there's that. Books may be healthier, but movies are more enjoyable. The Dolly mixture to the nutritious meal. You know which one you enjoyed more.

HORROR WEEK RANT: As bad as they say?

We all know the drill. Horror films are deritive, exploitative and formulaic and have nothing of substance to offer beyond the disconcerting jolt or shock. They have as much right to be considered great cinema as porn does, as they both explore the same thing. Is this true? Well to a certain extent, as there's no denying that horror is there to appeal to our baser instincts. But isn't everything. If a film doesn't trigger at least one base emotional response then it seems that critics and audiences have very little use for it. If it doesn't make you laugh or cry or experience 'growth' then its a failure. It wouldn't matter if it was making excellent points about the nature of reailty or religion or some such intellectual endeavour, if there's no emotional connection then f*ck that sh*t. We celebrate when these more innocent emotions and feelings are manipulated by films. But when darker ones are brought to the fore, as in horror, we condemn it. I don't know if its the fact that we are unable to admit, for all its depravity, that violence is a form of entertainment that in cinema we undeniably enjoy. Whether its to do with the excess of the genre, that in many places deals with disgust as entertainment. Which at first thought seems silly, but frankly its only a couples of shades difference from embarrasment as entertainment. Something anyone who has ever watched the Office, or This is Spinal Tap will testify to being awesome.

So, if we can get over our natural leaning toward repression and view these films on fairer terms, are they still terrible As even the most nihilistic, scariest psychopath in the world will still think that Resident Evil: Apocalypse is shit, right. Yes. Yes he would. Because the problem with the genre is the sheer amount of crap that comes out of it. It produces as many masterpieces and great films as any other genre, but it produces a hell of a lot more crap. And people tend to identify it with this drivel rather then with its shinier moments. You think horror, you think straight to video slashers starring Clint Howard. You think Americanisations of The Ring or The Vanishing. One has to accept that the median level for horror films is low, but it seems a shame to judge a genre by the worst it has to offer, but this is what we seem to do. And we let this negative attitude seep into how we view the better examples.

To conclude the argument for saying horror has nothing to offer can be refuted along the same lines as the one that says movies now are much worse then they were 60 years ago. There are much more films being made now then there were then, which means more good and more bad. But we seem to focus on there being more bad films then there being more good ones. Ditto with horror movies.

RANT: The WTF movie

The WTF movie is the cinematic equivalent of an extremely eloquent speech about nothing. People in the audience may think it to be profound, but when asked they'll have no idea why. It just is. When watching films like Mulholland Drive or to a lesser degree Donnie Darko, we experience the same reaction. A bemused sense of awe. So much so that people often name these films amongst their favourites, better then many that may have impressed them in a more traditionally coherent way. Is it because their better or because they make us think that they are? Lets do a rational and entirely unbiased weighing of arguments, because we love those so.





WTF MOVIES WILL BLOW YOUR MIND:

1) They dare to be different. we know what we expect to see when we see a film. A beginning, middle and end mapped out as clear as day, the resolution to all conflicts tied in a bow etc. The genius of the WTF movie is it dares to not patronise us by making everything black and white. Leaving as much as it can to the interpretation of the viewer, and even making certain things indeciferable. So soul-crushingly talked down to are we by most movies, we revel in the confusion and the mystery that these movies provide. We don't know whats going on, but we love it.

2) Harder to do then you might think: There is a reason that there are only a handful. Because for every Picnic at Hanging Rock there are several The I Inside's. For every Don't Look now There's an infinate number of Gothika's. The point being that these movies are very, very hard to execute. It takes a large amount of cratsmanship both visually and on the page to leave an audience joyously mystified, and too much smugness or incoherency will lead to communal audience yawning. The trick, or so it seems, is too present it as a technically solvable puzzle. Something that seemingly can be figured out, but not by you.

3) Audience participation: The birth of the inter-active movie. In our eyes, the purpose of these movies is not to sympathise with characters or marvel at the photography, but to figure the things out. Thus we pay more attention then we otherwise would and start websites called www.otnemem.com . Its hard to care this much about Dances with wolves isn't it.





WTF MOVIES WILL WASTE YOUR TIME

1) Smoke and mirror theory. A credible argument potentially pointing out what these movies actually are. A cheap magic trick. Wow your audience with enough rabbits pulled out of hats that they'll cease to give a crap about those small little things like characters or logical consistency. Cynical, but there most definately an element of truth to it.

2) Not as good as you originally think. First viewing of these films is usually great without exception, but watching these films repeatedly shows that without the pretence of the puzzle that maybe they don't do the simple things as well as other films. Like isn't the acting in Mulholland drive a teencey bit stilted, or the time-travel segment of Donnie Darko a teencey bit banal. Watching them again usually makes them weaker, whilst films without that WTF factor often get better on repeated viewings, coz sometimes the simple outlives the convoluted .


3) They're good because of something other then the Puzzle. Come for the puzzle, stay for the good storytelling. Or good acting, or some specific proficiancy in some other specific area. The point is made right. The greatest WTF movies do other stuff great also, like Memento's intelligence and attention to character, or Eraserhead's twisted look and sense of Darkness. A movie doesn't survive by simply being a interesting puzzle. It would simply go the way of a rubix cube. Thrown away in a mixture of frustration and disgust.




Conclusion:

I feel I have to do the honourable thing and sit on the fence. Some people like these more then others, I personally love to watch a movie smarter then I am, but a lot of people don't and just find them frustrating and a chore. Great movies are great movies though, and this bizarre genre mutation has most definately produced some of those.

WTF Movie Checklist (to watch if you're not currently confused enough for you're liking) :
Memento
All David Lynch Films but The Elephant man or the Straight story
Donnie Darko
Picnic at hanging Rock
2001
Don't Look Now
Suspiria
Brazil/12 Monkeys
Akira
The Fountain
Naked Lunch
Being John Malkovich
Spirited Away
Solaris (1972)
and more to be found out by you who has both more space and time.

RANT: The decline of the romantic comedy

It may seem unmanly to admit this but I love me some quality romantic comedy. It's one of the few genre's where character drives the story rather then plot or action, and thus when done right can be terrific to watch. So why, as all other genres and sub-genres continue to evolve and improve, has this one died a mawkish, mushy death. I'd feel safe in saying there hasn't been a truly great film of this type since Amelie and to find one in the english language one would have to go back even further. For all the stick the horror genre gets for being run of the mill and conveyor belt-esque, at least every now and again it produces something like the Blair Witch project or The Descent. Why has this genre become such a cesspool of mediocrity?

1. Lack of bite: More swearing, and more realism. I'm usually an avoid realism at all cost kind of guy, but these films exist in such a poncy, fairy tale dream world that it would be good to see one set in a more realistic context. People saying F*ck occasionally wouldn't hurt either.

2. Sentimentality: the CV of the modern romantic comedy invariably involves forgetting to be funny in the final third, forsaking for painfully fake scenes of unearned sentimentality. Stop doing this. Now. Not everyone likes the Notebook. And the people that do don't tell anyone.

3. Male characters are more important then you think: To be fair, the same criticism could leveled at action movies treatment of women, but thats not what we're talking about. Imagine When Harry met Sally without Billy Crystal. It would be half the film it is, in both literal and metaphorical senses, because of the wit and maturity he brings to the role. Stop casting vacuous pretty boys who can't deliver lines properly because there cheaper and get someone who can actually create a character. And stop casting Edward Burns.

4. Be more funny: The most obvious and most prevalent. Be funnier.

5. F*CK weddings: If I see another wedding as a plot catalyst I'm going to hunt the plural you down and make you watch this generic crap on loop until you die. It's lazy, not even that good and just generally lame. This is essentially asking you to show more originality, and not be so painfully lazy, but I think F*CK weddings is a more impactful sub-heading.

Some people may be thinking but what about 40 year old virgin and knocked up, but they've gone the other way, being hilarious but not creating credible female characters. Which although mildly sexist is still better then what the female orientated movies have been serving up. But it doesn't have to be this way.

RANT: Christian Bale's great films, weak roles policy.

Before I go on I'd like it on the record that I think that Bale is one of this generation's greatest actors. His Patrick Bateman is one of the best breakthrough performances. Its distinct, entertaining, terrifying, intelligent and several other superlative adjectives that will have to be implied for the sake of time. But he seems of late to be content to play a gracious second fiddle, albeit in some great movies. Lets take a look.

1. I'm Not There: Plays the flimsiest Dylan incarnation, barely getting any screen time. Better roles go to Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett and the Child Dylan.

2. 3:10 to Yuma: Plays the stoic rancher to Russell Crowe's scene stealing bad guy. Crowe gets the best lines and the more interesting character. This movie has a ridiculous ending though.

3. The Dark Knight: Shocking, given he has the title role and all, but that's the way it goes. Heath Ledger as everyone knows is astounding and remaining crumbs got to Aaron Eckhart. Bale's Batman takes a backseat. He had the run of the ball in Batman Begins though.

4. Public Enemies: I know this isn't out yet, But Johnny Depp has the Dillinger role, while Bale gets the fed tracking him down. I can't say for sure, but I would bet enough money that this continues the pattern.

There are some exceptions to this rule, but they seem to be in smaller films, like Rescue Dawn or The Machinist. In which Bale shows audiences how great he can be when given a great role. But if he is to take what I think is his rightful position as one of the best he needs another Bateman. Another performance to blow us all away. But something tells me that it won't be in Terminator: Salvation