HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE commenter on superhero comics vs. their movie adaptations.

Turning the floor over to Jay Shooke--context is a HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE website commenter discussion re Joe Queenan's dismissal of the superhero film genre in THE GUARDIAN:
This is the kind of whining that comes from having no awareness of the comics industry at all. Like its already been mentioned, comics haven't been "cheap" or disposable for 25 years, or since they changed the distribution model to the direct market. Comics are now niche collectibles, printed on extremely high quality paper, cost 3 to 4 bucks a pop, and only available at small specialty stores. But that's besides the point...

The problem with superhero movies (and I want to make this distinguished, comics are a vast medium that tell many, very disparate types of stories) is not the source material being vapid or inferior, but in the poor adaptation of them. Comics, even superhero comics, have been home for some of the most out-there, cerebral and and almost inaccessibly dense genre stories being published. Writers like Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Jonathan Hickman are pushing incredibly daring and literary ideas, they just happen to be illustrated by some intensely eye-popping illustrative and graphic design work. Its the studios dumbing down the source material to hit all four quadrants [meaning every age level of moviegoer], and that's when you get repetitive narratives and senseless violence.

I get the complaints against the assault of cape movies every summer, but there's a reason they keep getting made. People love em, and its certainly not just geeks keeping them afloat. The most popular comic books are lucky if they sell 90k copies every month. Man of Steel is going to make around 300 million dollars domestic, so obviously its not just the basement dweller set making them happen. Average people want to see grand spectacle and larger than life characters when they plop down 12 bucks, and this is the type of movie that delivers that.

   

More discussion of ZERO DARK THIRTY as Oscar campaigning reaches climax.

Entirety of Tom Shone's recent THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS blog post:

"While I found the depiction of torture to be upsetting–it seemed to me that Bigelow and Mark Boal presented it in a way that leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether or not it was worthwhile or reprehensible..." — Mike Fleming, Deadline Hollywood

Notice the baseline assumption behind Flemings comment: the torture worked. Whether it was worthwhile or reprehensible is for us to decide. This is why Boal has done such damage. Because millions now believe that torture produces good information. The baselines of public debate have, for many people, been permanently altered. 

 

Entirety of Jeffrey Wells' recent HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog post--titled "It Can't Happen Here...Or Can It?":

It's absurd, I realize, to speculate or fantasize about the absolute finest film of 2012 actually winning the Best Picture Oscar...ridiculous! The best films don't win the Oscar, dummy -- the most popular ones do. And yet Zero Dark Thirty is turning into a highly popular film with $75 million tallied + 9/11 families expressing their support + Leon Panetta giving it a thumbs-up + Martin Sheen going "homina-homina-homina...I've changed my mind!" + the Stalinist haters having been marginalized by common sense and routed by public scorn. Tables turnin', cut down to size, how ya like me now?

 

My take: I'm going with Tom Shones.  The Mike Fleming quote is inadvertently spot-on regarding ZERO DARK THIRTY's explicit desire to put torture/rendition into an apolitical vacuum.

 

I wonder if Mr. Boal/Ms. Bigelow were influenced not only by their CIA sources but also Sony exec Amy Pascal in proceeding with this "for us to decide" approach--to make it "acceptable" for a mainstream audience.

[Remembering the sexual politics of Sony's remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, where Rooney Mara was on top of Daniel Craig until Craig flipped Mara over to assert the dominant male/female sex position--a marked difference from the original Swedish film version.]

 

And, though I read Wells' blog, it's rather silly/unbecoming of him to persist in the claim that people unswayed by ZERO DARK THIRTY's filmmaking/screenwriting are merely "Stalinist haters."

 

Regarding Steven Spielberg during the run-up to LINCOLN's release.

Found this on Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE site's comments section (after a thread discussing Steven Spielberg being interviewed by Lesley Stahl on 60 MINUTES); it's a commenter named "cinefan" responding to a Wells remark (partially quoted):
"He's basically in love with the mystique of being a working journeyman -- a guy who loves to make movies in order to make more movies. He loves the joy of crafting more than the finality of art that comes from the heart. He is more enterprising than thoughtful or deep."
The funny thing is I agree with everything you say here but still love his films and him as a filmmaker. For me, he's simply a virtuoso filmmaker who makes entertaining and intelligent adult films (action and otherwise). No one has ever directed action sequences more elegantly or skillfully. If a Spielberg film lacks the philophical depth or complexity of, say, a Kubrick or Malick film, then so be it. Each filmmaker is unique and should not be denigrated based on the style of filmmaking he or she excels at.

Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood apparently getting a mixed-use venue makeover.

Here's Jeffrey Wells take on the Elie Samaha/Don Kushner purchase of Grauman's Chinese from Warner Bros./Viacom: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/04/graumans_chines.php

Contrast the above with LA TIMES lapdog Richard Verrier's article:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/04/graumans-chinese-theatre-is-.html

Key passage from the Verrier article:

The single-screen Grauman's -- known for its giant, red Chinese pagoda, signature Chinese dragon guard dogs at the entrance and cement block footprints and hand prints of famous Hollywood figures -- was declared a historic and cultural landmark in 1968.

Neither Samaha nor Kushner were immediately available to discuss their plans for the theater, but one person familiar with the matter said the theater will continue to screen movies and host premieres and that the new owners plan to upgrade food and beverage services.

It's a fact of life that old movie palaces die in Los Angeles to be reborn as churches, nightclubs or concert venues.

So let's say RIP to Grauman's Chinese as it was and await the new era with mixed emotions.

When anger and resentment go too far: film critic bans commenter for salacious remark about the former's personal life.

Precis of the events you will read about below:
LexG is a gadfly (working in the post-production part of the film Industry) who posts to a lot of film blogs (including Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE--where I post as well).  Lex has a horndog persona (in LexG world, Megan Fox and Kristen Stewart are the Ultimate Women)--occasionally, he'll say something fairly interesting and cogent.  But he's an acquired taste for most.
Glenn Kenny used to be a film critic for PREMIERE magazine; now his reviews can be read on MSN.com.  Glenn has a blog called SOME CAME RUNNING, where Lex was a commenter until recently.
Two years ago, Glenn played a small and memorable role as an adult-film critic in Steven Soderbergh's THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, which starred adult-film actress Sasha Grey.  In a fit of lack-of-manners, Lex wrote a somewhat offensive remark regarding Glenn (and somehow relating to Ms. Grey), which I won't quote here.  Lex's banishment came afterwards.
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/08/right-as-usual-sir.html
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/08/anxiety-of-potential-influence-and-vice-versa.html
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/08/on-appearing-to-have-struck-a-nerve.html
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/08/as-iggy-pop-said-in-the-leadin-to-louie-louie-on-metallic-ko-i-never-thought-its-come-to-this-baby.html

Steven Spielberg needs more of the public's love--so he's remaking HARVEY.

The 1950 comedy/fantasy film HARVEY, from the Mary Chase play, isn't all that familiar to today's audiences (I don't think I've seen anything but clips). But it had James Stewart as a lovable alcohol-challenged man who alone saw a six-foot-tall rabbit named Harvey--and the film became a hit in its day.

Now Steven Spielberg plans to remake HARVEY for his next film as a director:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/08/dusty_rabbit_ea.php
http://www.movieline.com/2009/08/is-there-any-actor-who-could-make-spielbergs-harvey-remake-interesting.php
And it's safe to conjecture that Elwood P. Dowd (the protagonist of HARVEY) will be sober.

Here's a spot-on quote from Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE column linked above:
"Spielberg almost always puts on the waders and sloshes right into the swamp. He's always looking to touch or melt hearts, even when the film would be better off without this. He'll never know from subtlety."

RIP cinematographer/director Jack Cardiff.

The famed cinematographer (and sometimes director) Jack Cardiff, who lensed films as diverse as THE RED SHOES, THE AFRICAN QUEEN and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, has passed away at the age of 94.

A link to Jeffrey Wells' post on Cardiff at HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/04/eye_of_cardiff.php

Mike Nichols' legendary flop THE FORTUNE--and the renewed interest in it.

On paper, THE FORTUNE looks like a must-see. It was a "smart grownups making slapstick" comedy starring Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Stockard Channing. The screenplay was written by Adrien Joyce aka Carol Eastman--also the scribe of the classic FIVE EASY PIECES, which starred Nicholson. And the director was Mike Nichols.

THE FORTUNE, released by Columbia Pictures, was critically panned upon its release in 1975. And, aside from a recent showing on Turner Classic Movies (plus some upcoming screenings in NYC as part of a Mike Nichols retrospective), it's pretty much unavailable in the USA. And, like a lot of unavailable films with A-list talent, the want-to-see factor is multiplying faster than rabbit reproduction.

Here are two links to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE posts discussing Nichols and THE FORTUNE: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/04/nichols_chat.php
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/04/forgotten_fortu_1.php

Critic Erik Childress on the continuing trainwreck of AT THE MOVIES.

Thanks again to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE for providing this link to an article by Erik Childress, which, while a bit long, comments on Ben Lyons (the smarmy one) and Ben Mankiewicz's (the smarter one) sitdown with an Associated Press TV scribe to spin AT THE MOVIES as turning the corner and heading towards success: http://www.efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=2689

The article also reminds readers of Ben Lyons' Greatest Hits during his critical career for E! and Disney, including his "One of the Greatest Films Ever" blurb about the Will Smith remake of I AM LEGEND.

After having my head explode and my stomach turn from witnessing young Lyons' terminal glibness, I quit watching AT THE MOVIES months ago.

One final comment about the Childress article:
Apparently, Lyons father, hack critic Jeffrey Lyons (who still has a TV show carried by NBC affiliates), once called Roger Ebert a "putz."

The mind boggles when you consider what Ebert has achieved vs. what Lyons and his nonillustrious son don't even try for.

Ben Lyons--is he the superstupid future of film criticism?

Searching my distant memory, there are a couple of things I recall from Pauline Kael's "The Current Cinema" columns of THE NEW YORKER.

One--She wrote about a NY PBS station's shoddy treatment of silent films broadcast (i.e. not showing them at the proper speed). Ms. Kael talked to station management and received an answer like "So we'll do this for you and the three people that care."

Two--Ms. Kael quoted Frank Yablans (a producer who was an ace marketer of not-always-classic films like SILVER STREAK, CONGO and the legendary MOMMIE DEAREST) as saying that film critics needed to be replaced every few years. Presumably Yablans meant that critics/reviewers who stay on the job too long wouldn't be as receptive to below-average current product as the go-along/get-along types who need to write favorable copy and get those Movie Star interviews for their employers.

Yablans probably would have loved someone like Ben Lyons in the 70s/80s.

Ben Lyons, son of the famed mediocrite Jeffrey Lyons (who once co-hosted a post-Siskel/Ebert SNEAK PREVIEWS with Michael Medved), cheerfully gives Disney/ABC the kind of knowledge-challenged down-with-all-things-current-as-long-as-they're-mainstream wet kisses each week on AT THE MOVIES.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wells of HOLLYWOOD-ELSEWHERE for posting this link to a LOS ANGELES TIMES article critical of Lyons the younger: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-lyons28-2008dec28,0,5374132,full.story

If one were to actually complain to a Disney exec about the hiring of woefully underqualified Ben Lyons (in terms of glib careerism, Lyons outpaces even Richard Roeper), what would the response be?

Perhaps this: "So what? You're one of the ten people who cares."

Roger Ebert on film criticism making way for more celeb gossip.

Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog for alerting me to the following blog entry from Roger Ebert about the latest blow to film criticism--the Associated Press wanting its film-related articles to be no longer than 500 words: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html

Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).

The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.