CMJ
May 22nd, 2002, 06:11:32 PM
Okay...so I'm posting alot of stuff from his column...but he writes great stuff so sue me. :P
*************************
LUCAS BASHING 2: Jeff Wells was kind enough to try to defend the Position of the Week as critics chase George Lucas around the globe with a meat cleaver for making a movie that is (GASP!) popular. Of course, only an idiot – and Jeff is perfectly capable of high idiocy – claims that his position is right because there are a number of people who agree with him that counting heads is no way of proving an argument.
I have been arguing with people for a long, long time. There is a difference between a personal belief and a fact. A personal belief is emotional, often thoughtful and unassailable with logic. A fact can be backed up with history and logic. None of us have to like the facts. Facts cannot replace personal beliefs, but personal beliefs cannot make facts moot either.
I had a piece of pizza with Jeff last night around 11 p.m. I had eaten something else, but watching Jeff eat his pizza made me want a slice. I wanted that pizza. I wanted that texture and taste in my mouth. The fact is that a thirty-seven-year-old man eating pizza late at night is not smart. It’s fattening and will sit there with no late night exercise in the offing. But I WANTED that pizza.
If I were George Lucas, eating that slice would have been an indictment of my entire artistic being. I would be a fat, old man who hadn’t shaved that morning indulging my personal needs while pissing on my readers, who need a light, spry, smarter David/George.
We who decide we are high and mighty enough to deserve for you to read what we have to say about movies live in a constant bind. I have made my bones. I know this business. I know film as well as anyone post-1970 and better than most before that. But I also know that there are very few ultimate rights and wrongs when it comes to what makes people respond.
In this day and age, I am comfortable that $100 million at the box office does not necessarily mean that a film has found a place in the culture… that it has made a deeper connection with more than a percentage of the audience. At the same time, an indie movie that does $26 million – like Memento – may have struck a deep chord, but also in a limited audience. When it comes to my understanding of that connection, my feelings as a film critic are meaningless. When a movie makes over $300 million, something is going on… I don’t care if I love the film, hate the film or haven’t seen the film. Only someone who knows nothing, or cares to know nothing, about box office can claim that a movie like The Phantom Menace made over $900 million by way of inertia. If you do that, you have to throw out every other box office result in history.
People line up “like Muscovites” on opening weekend. I have been writing about that – consistently – for five years. Opening weekend is never about quality. Opening weekend is always about marketing. Occasionally there is a Sunday effect because of quality, but it’s rare. Word of mouth is a weekend two issue. That’s one of the reasons why studios are so first weekend obsessed… they still have control. But movies that people hate tend to die in future weekends.
Why did the “rage” over Pearl Harbor die after the second weekend? Because the box office pretty much died on the second weekend. Even Jeff Wells admits that Attack of the Clones is a better movie than Pearl Harbor. So where was the run of articles about how being tall and good looking and banging Playmates who line up like lemmings ready to fall over his penis made Michael Bay out of touch and more interested in CG than story? People are still attacking Lucas because we all know that Clones not only opened to a massive number, but that it will be playing to millions of people well into August. It offends our sensibilities. And it pisses us off so much that we exaggerate what we know to be reality, even in our own heads.
The Phantom Menace was a bit disappointing. Fine. Have you seen a movie before this summer with two better action sequences – outside of The Matrix, which I still count as the best populist film of the last decade – than the pod race and the Darth Maul fight? I doubt it. But that wasn’t enough.
Let me ask you this? When did Star Wars become the -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR-ing bible?
These are the same people who think Michael Jordan shouldn’t come out of retirement because it would disappoint them to see him playing at less than the best-ever level at which he left. Three things. One, when he came back after baseball, his skills were already diminished, but he changed his game and won more championships. Two, if it were not for his knees, he would have succeeded in what all the naysayers said was impossible, taking the Wizards to the playoffs. Three, why should Michael Jordan spend a single second worrying about how YOU see him?
This is classic critics behavior. We scream and cry about the system crushing creativity and then when anyone does anything out of the mainstream that we don’t control, we rip them new -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR-s for their effort. When are we going to wake up to the truth. ALL studio directors are out of touch with reality!!! People who make millions of dollars a year and have hundreds of people making their visions come true at a cost of tens of millions of dollars are not “regular guys.”
If you look at what doesn’t work about A.I. – and you can find a rabid group of critics who feel the film is an underappreciated masterpiece –you don’t find an aging and disconnected Steven Spielberg. You find the same Steven Spielberg who made all of those movies we liked so much. He can’t help himself. He is a skilled enough filmmaker to deliver what he feels… and sometimes, people may not connect with that. Does that make him “wrong?”
Joel Schumacher made Falling Down before he made Batman & Robin. He made Tigerland after he made Batman & Robin. Can any of these fat-theorists explain that? (Personally, I far prefer Falling Down, but I’m sure J.S. will make more good films and more terrible films before it’s over.)
When Chris Nolan makes a bad movie… and he will… is everyone going to get off of the bandwagon? Is he going to be labeled a sell-out because the very good Insomnia has some story points that are more obvious than the original? I hope not.
Can one be critical of the crowds that did love The Phantom Menace? Sure. That’s your prerogative. Hating people for loving something inferior is nothing new. But to deny that many people – children, teens, college students and adults – loved The Phantom Menace as much as we loved the original series… that’s just pig headed self congratulation.
People who “need” to beat people but who know they can’t get away with beating the wife and kids beat the dog. You may feel like George Lucas -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR- on your rug. But you don’t put a bullet in his head for that. Your kids still love him. And you know that your boss, who takes credit for every good thing you do and blames you for all of his screw-ups deserves to be punished far more than that dog. But I guess it feels good to you to give that dog a kick in the side… lazy mutt, his food costs so much and all he does is lay around all day and -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR- on my rug… after all, you can’t kick the boss…
You guys are just soooo superior to George Lucas!
There is a line in Insomnia, early on, when Al Pacino, playing a top cop who made one haunting mistake talks to an Internal Affairs investigator who is dogging him. He says something like, “You guys just sit behind their big desks all day, getting off on bringing down guys who do the job you never had the balls to do themselves… that’s why I have contempt for you.”
I have to look in the mirror too. And the issue here, for me, and if these other guys could ever admit it, for them - is beyond George Lucas and his movies. It’s about how we behave in our opinionated coverage of an artistic industry. When Frank Rich left the theater critic gig at the New York Times, Broadway didn’t celebrate because the great critic who kept mediocrity from reigning was leaving… they cheered because one man who had gotten too high on his power moved on.
What do we win by singling out George Lucas for personal criticism? More importantly, what do we lose?
*************************
LUCAS BASHING 2: Jeff Wells was kind enough to try to defend the Position of the Week as critics chase George Lucas around the globe with a meat cleaver for making a movie that is (GASP!) popular. Of course, only an idiot – and Jeff is perfectly capable of high idiocy – claims that his position is right because there are a number of people who agree with him that counting heads is no way of proving an argument.
I have been arguing with people for a long, long time. There is a difference between a personal belief and a fact. A personal belief is emotional, often thoughtful and unassailable with logic. A fact can be backed up with history and logic. None of us have to like the facts. Facts cannot replace personal beliefs, but personal beliefs cannot make facts moot either.
I had a piece of pizza with Jeff last night around 11 p.m. I had eaten something else, but watching Jeff eat his pizza made me want a slice. I wanted that pizza. I wanted that texture and taste in my mouth. The fact is that a thirty-seven-year-old man eating pizza late at night is not smart. It’s fattening and will sit there with no late night exercise in the offing. But I WANTED that pizza.
If I were George Lucas, eating that slice would have been an indictment of my entire artistic being. I would be a fat, old man who hadn’t shaved that morning indulging my personal needs while pissing on my readers, who need a light, spry, smarter David/George.
We who decide we are high and mighty enough to deserve for you to read what we have to say about movies live in a constant bind. I have made my bones. I know this business. I know film as well as anyone post-1970 and better than most before that. But I also know that there are very few ultimate rights and wrongs when it comes to what makes people respond.
In this day and age, I am comfortable that $100 million at the box office does not necessarily mean that a film has found a place in the culture… that it has made a deeper connection with more than a percentage of the audience. At the same time, an indie movie that does $26 million – like Memento – may have struck a deep chord, but also in a limited audience. When it comes to my understanding of that connection, my feelings as a film critic are meaningless. When a movie makes over $300 million, something is going on… I don’t care if I love the film, hate the film or haven’t seen the film. Only someone who knows nothing, or cares to know nothing, about box office can claim that a movie like The Phantom Menace made over $900 million by way of inertia. If you do that, you have to throw out every other box office result in history.
People line up “like Muscovites” on opening weekend. I have been writing about that – consistently – for five years. Opening weekend is never about quality. Opening weekend is always about marketing. Occasionally there is a Sunday effect because of quality, but it’s rare. Word of mouth is a weekend two issue. That’s one of the reasons why studios are so first weekend obsessed… they still have control. But movies that people hate tend to die in future weekends.
Why did the “rage” over Pearl Harbor die after the second weekend? Because the box office pretty much died on the second weekend. Even Jeff Wells admits that Attack of the Clones is a better movie than Pearl Harbor. So where was the run of articles about how being tall and good looking and banging Playmates who line up like lemmings ready to fall over his penis made Michael Bay out of touch and more interested in CG than story? People are still attacking Lucas because we all know that Clones not only opened to a massive number, but that it will be playing to millions of people well into August. It offends our sensibilities. And it pisses us off so much that we exaggerate what we know to be reality, even in our own heads.
The Phantom Menace was a bit disappointing. Fine. Have you seen a movie before this summer with two better action sequences – outside of The Matrix, which I still count as the best populist film of the last decade – than the pod race and the Darth Maul fight? I doubt it. But that wasn’t enough.
Let me ask you this? When did Star Wars become the -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR-ing bible?
These are the same people who think Michael Jordan shouldn’t come out of retirement because it would disappoint them to see him playing at less than the best-ever level at which he left. Three things. One, when he came back after baseball, his skills were already diminished, but he changed his game and won more championships. Two, if it were not for his knees, he would have succeeded in what all the naysayers said was impossible, taking the Wizards to the playoffs. Three, why should Michael Jordan spend a single second worrying about how YOU see him?
This is classic critics behavior. We scream and cry about the system crushing creativity and then when anyone does anything out of the mainstream that we don’t control, we rip them new -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR-s for their effort. When are we going to wake up to the truth. ALL studio directors are out of touch with reality!!! People who make millions of dollars a year and have hundreds of people making their visions come true at a cost of tens of millions of dollars are not “regular guys.”
If you look at what doesn’t work about A.I. – and you can find a rabid group of critics who feel the film is an underappreciated masterpiece –you don’t find an aging and disconnected Steven Spielberg. You find the same Steven Spielberg who made all of those movies we liked so much. He can’t help himself. He is a skilled enough filmmaker to deliver what he feels… and sometimes, people may not connect with that. Does that make him “wrong?”
Joel Schumacher made Falling Down before he made Batman & Robin. He made Tigerland after he made Batman & Robin. Can any of these fat-theorists explain that? (Personally, I far prefer Falling Down, but I’m sure J.S. will make more good films and more terrible films before it’s over.)
When Chris Nolan makes a bad movie… and he will… is everyone going to get off of the bandwagon? Is he going to be labeled a sell-out because the very good Insomnia has some story points that are more obvious than the original? I hope not.
Can one be critical of the crowds that did love The Phantom Menace? Sure. That’s your prerogative. Hating people for loving something inferior is nothing new. But to deny that many people – children, teens, college students and adults – loved The Phantom Menace as much as we loved the original series… that’s just pig headed self congratulation.
People who “need” to beat people but who know they can’t get away with beating the wife and kids beat the dog. You may feel like George Lucas -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR- on your rug. But you don’t put a bullet in his head for that. Your kids still love him. And you know that your boss, who takes credit for every good thing you do and blames you for all of his screw-ups deserves to be punished far more than that dog. But I guess it feels good to you to give that dog a kick in the side… lazy mutt, his food costs so much and all he does is lay around all day and -DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR--DO-NOT-SWEAR- on my rug… after all, you can’t kick the boss…
You guys are just soooo superior to George Lucas!
There is a line in Insomnia, early on, when Al Pacino, playing a top cop who made one haunting mistake talks to an Internal Affairs investigator who is dogging him. He says something like, “You guys just sit behind their big desks all day, getting off on bringing down guys who do the job you never had the balls to do themselves… that’s why I have contempt for you.”
I have to look in the mirror too. And the issue here, for me, and if these other guys could ever admit it, for them - is beyond George Lucas and his movies. It’s about how we behave in our opinionated coverage of an artistic industry. When Frank Rich left the theater critic gig at the New York Times, Broadway didn’t celebrate because the great critic who kept mediocrity from reigning was leaving… they cheered because one man who had gotten too high on his power moved on.
What do we win by singling out George Lucas for personal criticism? More importantly, what do we lose?