Day in and day out, Bill Gibron and crew offer up insightful and in-depth film criticism, covering a wide range of cinematic issues from the historical to the front page entertainment headlines, in the seven-days-a-week “Short Ends and Leader” film blog.
BLOG MISSION: SE&L is a daily dialogue on the role film plays in our personal and pragmatic existence, offering unique perspectives on the industry, movies as art, as well as a glimpse into elements outside the mainstream. We highlight theatrical films that you may have missed, forgotten gems that deserve another look, and addictive guilty pleasures. Adding in weekly guides to what’s new on DVD and films worth catching on the small screen, SE&L is a comprehensive forum for the discussion, and dissection, of movies and their meaning.
Here we present some of the recent highlights…
Short Cuts – In Theaters: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Stop with all the spoof talk, already. The latest masterpiece from Brit wits Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the spectacularly anarchic action buddy cop caper Hot Fuzz is more than just a simple-minded lampoon. Such a categorization limits what the amazing movie manages to achieve, bringing it down to a level of creative crassness that the duo manage to transcend time and time again. The truth is, Wright and Pegg have much larger funny business fish to fry than merely taking on the Bruckheimer/Bay gonzo gunplay dynamic. There is more to their satire than flying bullets, fisticuffs and testosterone-laced fireworks. No, this exceptionally talented duo is out to undermine their very own Englishness, to poke fun at a country that still views itself as a bastion of good manners and inbred etiquette.
The Front Page: SE&L’s Summer Sleepers 2007
Every year they beach themselves on the shores of our aesthetic, dozens of summer blockbuster belugas looking for as many adolescent audience members and merchandising tie-ins as they can get within the mandatory opening weekend window of opportunity. And like the proverbial lemmings to the motion picture precipice, we march right up to each and every one and dive right in, struggling to sample their focus group inelegance. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with a big, dumb action film or outrageous special effects extravaganza, but sometimes you need a little movie meat to supplement those huge helpings of high concept carbs.
It just doesn’t seem right. Oh sure, all the creative forces seem to be in proper alignment, and there’s a Great White Way full of good will banking on the fact that it will work. But with the memory of John Waters’ brilliant original still fresh in one’s mind, it’s hard to fathom how a big screen musical version of Hairspray will actually succeed. And before you scoff at such a suggestion, here’s a couple of words for you to contemplate — The Producers. Mel Brooks’ Broadway smash, winner of more Tonys than any other show in theater history, was positioned to be the song and dance delight of 2005. It too also had its foundation in a much loved comic masterpiece. But somewhere between the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, the film adaptation tanked. Guaranteed Oscar bait magically transformed into a clear critical condemnation.
Smokin’ Aces is a movie that desperately wants to be liked. Not by your typical mainstream moviegoer, however. No, Joe Carnahan’s follow-up to his well received Narc is feverishly adamant about being adored by the frantic film geek contingent –- the mélange of messageboard taste makers who determine their own individual aesthetic criteria by what Quentin Taratino determines is cool on his MySpace page. It’s the cinematic equivalent of the slightly introverted dork who walks around the high school cool kids bragging about his accomplishments and contacts. By faking and fronting, this movie hopes to grab their attention and earn an uneasy place in their crime genre lovin’ hearts.
Dear Weinstein Brothers. We know things aren’t going particularly well for you right now. After severing ties with the notoriously bothersome House of Mouse and striking out on your own, you’ve found nothing but roadblocks in your Neuvo Miramax highway to success. Your recent releases have all underperformed, and now, that 2007 tent pole, the fascinating Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez retrofest Grindhouse is being buried under a bounty of bad press. The entertainment community, desperate to see you fall on your flabby behinds, has come after you like sharks on a wounded whale, and the foreseen flopsweat is ripe with potential failure. It’s gotten so bad that you’ve even been thinking of taking both movies, expanding their individual running times, and releasing them as separate cinematic experiences.
It’s sad but true –- mainstream movie critics hate horror. Not in the conventional way, mind you. No, the standard print or online journalist hates motion picture macabre in a manner that seems inherent to its very makeup. It’s like how little kids hate vegetables or teenagers hate authority. Put something scary out into the marketplace and watch the negative notices pile up. Don’t believe it? Well, let’s look at the stats, shall we. Picking the major theatrical releases of 2006, and finding the ones that specifically deal with standard genre themes, the results are absolutely shocking. There is a definite anti-terror sentiment. Even recent outings by James Wan (Saw) and Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes 2) remain with low double digital decisions on the webs’ review database, Rotten Tomatoes.com.
Depth of Field: Michel Gondry’s Science of ‘Sleep’walking
Director Michel Gondry has long made a career of re-hashing his particular brand of French surrealism. He’s given us a number of mildly interesting music videos (from such cutting edge acts as The White Stripes and Bjork), as well as the intriguingly dreamlike features Human Nature (which is sorely underrated), and the surprisingly popular Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (for which Gondry somehow managed to take home an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay). The biggest problem with being a whimsical man-child (which Gondry clearly identifies with through his work) is that it permeates everything you create: every precious maneuver becomes repetitive, every fantastical sequence becomes obnoxious.
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