Relevant elements: Wisecracking loose cannon cop archetype, Eddie Murphy in his glory days
Why it resonated: Despite the role being originally intended for Sylvester Stallone (which helps explain my longtime question: Isn't Axel a strange name for an African American detective from Detroit?), this film took the already strong action/cop genre and fused it with the country's hottest comedian to help establish the formula that Jerry Bruckheimer and others would spend the next generation following to the point of exhaustion.
General comments on the film: Seeing it for the first time now, it's hard to determine exactly how much the movie is following the conventions of the genre and how much it is establishing those conventions, but in any case, it checks off nearly all of the familiar elements, right down to the plight of the poor fruit vendor during the opening car chase, during which the film seems to be trying to keep Detroit's automotive industry going by smashing gratuitously into as many huge cars as possible. For a while I thought there wasn't going to be the requisite strip club scene, but how dare I doubt Bruckheimer?
I found this movie's iteration of one of the standard genre roles--the exasperated boss of the cop who plays by his own rules--to be top-notch, so I looked up the actor and discovered that he was a real-life Detroit detective. That was a nice touch. Otherwise, this film is basically a time capsule of 1984's vision of Los Angeles: blonde women with huge sunglasses riding in convertibles along Rodeo Drive, etc. All of that is backed by the constant sound of 1984 behind all of the action: “The Heat Is On,” “Neutron Dance,” “New Attitude,” and the ever-present "Axel F."
Only two things interrupted my comfortable immersion in the genre and time. The first was the typeface choice for the movie's title sequence, which seemed way too old-fashioned-scrolling-Hill-Street-Blues-y for the sharp-edged modern California setting. Speaking of which, the Beverly Hills police department looked like a set borrowed from WarGames--filled with giant blinking computer consoles and high-tech screens--which seemed odd in such a low-crime precinct. Otherwise, watching this film for the first time felt like watching it for the twentieth time. Now I have to figure out how to stop humming that song.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Cultural Gap Film #3: Singin' in the Rain
Relevant element: The title song, along with a few smartly choreographed set pieces
Why it resonated: This functions as a classic example of the grand Hollywood musical, with high-energy productions of songs already popular or intended to become popular, strung together as gamely as possible with an overarching plot. It's a basic formula done very well here: a little song, a little dance, a little cake in the face....
General comments on the film: The elements of this film that struck me most were the self-conscious industry bits. This is, after all, a movie made in 1952 about the advent of talking pictures in 1927. While focusing on a silent film star whose voice would doom her career might seem a bit obvious, the scenes dealing with the silent stars spitting venom at each other while filming a love scene and the sound not syncing with the image are playful and clever. Anyone who has watched early sound films has to laugh with recognition at the ploys the director uses to capture the actors' voices, like putting a microphone in a conspicuously placed bush and anchoring the actors around it.
It's hard not to be won over by the charm of the leads, the snappy old-time-Hollywood line delivery, and the remarkably choreographed numbers with few obvious cuts. The continuity suffers at times, especially in the surprisingly draggy falling-in-love song and the overlong New York/"Gotta Dance" passage, but the films within films and the persistently cheerful energy of the movie dare you to be grumpy about such quibbles.
Why it resonated: This functions as a classic example of the grand Hollywood musical, with high-energy productions of songs already popular or intended to become popular, strung together as gamely as possible with an overarching plot. It's a basic formula done very well here: a little song, a little dance, a little cake in the face....
General comments on the film: The elements of this film that struck me most were the self-conscious industry bits. This is, after all, a movie made in 1952 about the advent of talking pictures in 1927. While focusing on a silent film star whose voice would doom her career might seem a bit obvious, the scenes dealing with the silent stars spitting venom at each other while filming a love scene and the sound not syncing with the image are playful and clever. Anyone who has watched early sound films has to laugh with recognition at the ploys the director uses to capture the actors' voices, like putting a microphone in a conspicuously placed bush and anchoring the actors around it.
It's hard not to be won over by the charm of the leads, the snappy old-time-Hollywood line delivery, and the remarkably choreographed numbers with few obvious cuts. The continuity suffers at times, especially in the surprisingly draggy falling-in-love song and the overlong New York/"Gotta Dance" passage, but the films within films and the persistently cheerful energy of the movie dare you to be grumpy about such quibbles.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Cultural Gap Film #2: Bridget Jones's Diary
Relevant element: The archetypal single thirtysomething woman trying to find happiness in her love life and career
Why it resonated: This was perhaps the first major adaptation of a so-called chick lit novel, and it put forth a main character whose concerns echoed those of the target audience
General comments on the film: Much of the success of this movie relies on the audience's sympathy with the title character as she is put through a ridiculous series of social humiliations. Apparently, many people identified with her struggles to take control of her eating, drinking, smoking, working, and shagging, but I found it difficult to figure out exactly why I was supposed to like her. Yes, she has a horrifying night when she has to introduce her boss at a launch party for a new book (--is it just me or do an inordinate percentage of women in movies work in publishing?), but that seems to be mainly because she is not very intelligent, articulate, or responsible.
The more I think about it, the less I would want her to be my friend, employee, relative, etc. That lack of a reason for me to sympathize with her beyond her seemingly endless capacity for embarrassing herself erodes the foundation of the film for me. At least there was a gratuitous Jane Austen reference.
Why it resonated: This was perhaps the first major adaptation of a so-called chick lit novel, and it put forth a main character whose concerns echoed those of the target audience
General comments on the film: Much of the success of this movie relies on the audience's sympathy with the title character as she is put through a ridiculous series of social humiliations. Apparently, many people identified with her struggles to take control of her eating, drinking, smoking, working, and shagging, but I found it difficult to figure out exactly why I was supposed to like her. Yes, she has a horrifying night when she has to introduce her boss at a launch party for a new book (--is it just me or do an inordinate percentage of women in movies work in publishing?), but that seems to be mainly because she is not very intelligent, articulate, or responsible.
The more I think about it, the less I would want her to be my friend, employee, relative, etc. That lack of a reason for me to sympathize with her beyond her seemingly endless capacity for embarrassing herself erodes the foundation of the film for me. At least there was a gratuitous Jane Austen reference.
Friday, November 5, 2010
"Elephants are VERY BIG. Motor cars go quickly"
The title of this post is a line from one of the most enjoyable artistic manifestos of the early years of the 20th century. There were a lot of manifestos flying around in those days, as creative people broke free of the dowdy shackles of the Victorian age in a variety of nutty ways. Scores of -isms shouted their founding principles, usually relishing just how anti-establishment and avant garde they were.
It didn't take long for these passionate whatever-ists to turn on each other in their lust for idols to smash, and the line above happens to be the Vorticists' snide parody of the Futurists in their perfectly-named but short-lived publication BLAST. (Don't worry, this mini-lecture on artistic modernism is almost over.) The Futurists wanted to blow up the stuffy-old-museum conception of art and tended to write rhapsodically about driving really fast in cars and embracing the thrills of new technology. The Vorticists distinguished themselves from the Futurists mainly by advocating blowing everything up, including the Futurists.
So why am I detailing this century-old modernist smackdown?
The Vorticists' derision of the worship of extreme things echoed in my mind today as I finally got around to trying out Breaking Bad. For those who don't know, it's an AMC series that's a darling of television critics. Since that description fits another series I love, Mad Men, I've been meaning to get my hands on the Season 1 DVDs and give it a shot. After the first episode, I put the disc in its little sleeve, put that in the red envelope, and took it down to the mailbox.
Before anyone gets defensive, let me say that my reaction wasn't based on the merits of the show. It does what it sets out to do pretty well, as far as I can tell. The problem lies with me--specifically, with my allergy to extremism. As I get older, I find I have less and less interest in watching things that are supposed to be compelling because of their grand scale, extraordinary intensity, or extremity of situation. Thousands and thousands of detailed computer-generated warriors are nice and all, but spectacle doesn't stir me. Characters in the utmost far-out stressful situations with swelling orchestral emotional cues just feels like overkill. If the creators of a cultural product are trying to push a particular button in my brain, I'd much prefer they do it with an artful touch instead of a sledgehammer.
Here's why Breaking Bad tripped my circuit breaker: the premise is that a brilliant scientist somehow finds himself working as an unappreciated high school chemistry teacher (all right so far) while also working a second job at a car wash (not too far-fetched) as he turns fifty (fine) surrounded by a bunch of bozos led by his blustery meathead brother-in-law drug enforcement officer (OK, we get that his life is bad), and then he finds out he has inoperable lung cancer despite never having smoked (that just feels like piling on), so he decides to start manufacturing crystal meth (why not?) with the assistance of a rascally former student of his who gets him into a situation in which he is driving a meth lab/RV through a wildfire in the New Mexico desert with no pants on as he tries to avoid being killed by other drug dealers (I'm speechless). Oh, and his wife literally tracks her online auction sales while half-heartedly initiating sex with him on his birthday. And she's pregnant. And their teenage son has cerebral palsy, which draws the mockery of the locals. And I'm probably forgetting something else the writers have heaped on this poor guy just so we know how awful his life is so we can justify to ourselves his decision to go into the meth business.
With all of these conditions as the starting point for this character, there is literally nothing he can do in the show that can connect with me on a human level any more. His situation is so over-the-top that it's cartoonish, which is not what I want out of a drama. How much more interesting would it have been if he decided to start making meth because he felt like life had cheated him in just one of those ways? Preferably one of the smaller tribulations. His choice has less meaning because of the extremity of his problems.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I feel like real human life is interesting enough without amplifying things so much that our receptors get flooded. That's part of what makes Mad Men work so well: it sharpens our focus to the point that we find meaning in seemingly insignificant details and happenstances of the world they create. Sure, there will be a runaway lawnmower in the office every once in a while, but a shared glance or a spilled milkshake actually carries more power for the viewer than a shower of blood.
I know it's easier to guarantee an emotional reaction from an audience if you blow their doors off, but the kind of reaction you're likely to get is outsized as well. The degree of difficulty in getting people to sympathize with someone plagued by troubles at a Job-like level is not very high, and that sympathy doesn't seem to add up to much to me because it's so obvious and loses any fine-tuned connection with the humanity of the viewer.
Elephants are very big indeed, but we don't need something to be the size of an elephant to be able to be interested in it.
It didn't take long for these passionate whatever-ists to turn on each other in their lust for idols to smash, and the line above happens to be the Vorticists' snide parody of the Futurists in their perfectly-named but short-lived publication BLAST. (Don't worry, this mini-lecture on artistic modernism is almost over.) The Futurists wanted to blow up the stuffy-old-museum conception of art and tended to write rhapsodically about driving really fast in cars and embracing the thrills of new technology. The Vorticists distinguished themselves from the Futurists mainly by advocating blowing everything up, including the Futurists.
So why am I detailing this century-old modernist smackdown?
The Vorticists' derision of the worship of extreme things echoed in my mind today as I finally got around to trying out Breaking Bad. For those who don't know, it's an AMC series that's a darling of television critics. Since that description fits another series I love, Mad Men, I've been meaning to get my hands on the Season 1 DVDs and give it a shot. After the first episode, I put the disc in its little sleeve, put that in the red envelope, and took it down to the mailbox.
Before anyone gets defensive, let me say that my reaction wasn't based on the merits of the show. It does what it sets out to do pretty well, as far as I can tell. The problem lies with me--specifically, with my allergy to extremism. As I get older, I find I have less and less interest in watching things that are supposed to be compelling because of their grand scale, extraordinary intensity, or extremity of situation. Thousands and thousands of detailed computer-generated warriors are nice and all, but spectacle doesn't stir me. Characters in the utmost far-out stressful situations with swelling orchestral emotional cues just feels like overkill. If the creators of a cultural product are trying to push a particular button in my brain, I'd much prefer they do it with an artful touch instead of a sledgehammer.
Here's why Breaking Bad tripped my circuit breaker: the premise is that a brilliant scientist somehow finds himself working as an unappreciated high school chemistry teacher (all right so far) while also working a second job at a car wash (not too far-fetched) as he turns fifty (fine) surrounded by a bunch of bozos led by his blustery meathead brother-in-law drug enforcement officer (OK, we get that his life is bad), and then he finds out he has inoperable lung cancer despite never having smoked (that just feels like piling on), so he decides to start manufacturing crystal meth (why not?) with the assistance of a rascally former student of his who gets him into a situation in which he is driving a meth lab/RV through a wildfire in the New Mexico desert with no pants on as he tries to avoid being killed by other drug dealers (I'm speechless). Oh, and his wife literally tracks her online auction sales while half-heartedly initiating sex with him on his birthday. And she's pregnant. And their teenage son has cerebral palsy, which draws the mockery of the locals. And I'm probably forgetting something else the writers have heaped on this poor guy just so we know how awful his life is so we can justify to ourselves his decision to go into the meth business.
With all of these conditions as the starting point for this character, there is literally nothing he can do in the show that can connect with me on a human level any more. His situation is so over-the-top that it's cartoonish, which is not what I want out of a drama. How much more interesting would it have been if he decided to start making meth because he felt like life had cheated him in just one of those ways? Preferably one of the smaller tribulations. His choice has less meaning because of the extremity of his problems.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I feel like real human life is interesting enough without amplifying things so much that our receptors get flooded. That's part of what makes Mad Men work so well: it sharpens our focus to the point that we find meaning in seemingly insignificant details and happenstances of the world they create. Sure, there will be a runaway lawnmower in the office every once in a while, but a shared glance or a spilled milkshake actually carries more power for the viewer than a shower of blood.
I know it's easier to guarantee an emotional reaction from an audience if you blow their doors off, but the kind of reaction you're likely to get is outsized as well. The degree of difficulty in getting people to sympathize with someone plagued by troubles at a Job-like level is not very high, and that sympathy doesn't seem to add up to much to me because it's so obvious and loses any fine-tuned connection with the humanity of the viewer.
Elephants are very big indeed, but we don't need something to be the size of an elephant to be able to be interested in it.
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