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Corliss wonders: Do Film Critics Know Anything?

Jim Emerson

Critical approbation can open some doors, but that’s about it.

Richard Corliss writes at TIME:

In the past five days, five groups — the National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Washington. D.C. Film Critics Association and my crowd, the New Yorkers — have convened to choose the most notable movies and moviemakers. “No Country For Old Men” was named best picture in four of the groups, “There Will Be Blood” in L.A. George Clooney won two best actors awards, playing a lawyer at crisis point in “Michael Clayton,” Daniel Day-Lewis a pair for his oil mogul in “There Will Be Blood” and, in Boston, Frank Langella won the prize for playing an aged novelist in “Starting Out in the Evening.” Three groups selected Julie Christie as best actress — she’s an Alzheimer’s patient in the Canadian film “Away From Her” — and two liked Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in “La vie en rose.” […]

That’s the deal with critics’ awards. They give prizes to whom they damn well please. No problem with that; it’s their gig, and obviously they should pick their favorites. (The choices are fine with me: “No Country,” “Persepolis” and “No End in Sight” are all on my 10 best.) But these laurels factor into publicity campaigns for the Oscars and Golden Globes; often they are the campaigns. It’s the way we critics contribute to the art-industrial complex. Our prizes certainly help determine which films get nominated, setting in motion the next round of ballyhoo before the final prizes are handed out. So almost all the nominees will be from worthy obscurities that can’t draw much of an audience in the theater or, when the awards shows are aired, on TV. […]

Actually, it’s hard to tell which if any of the critical faves will be popular, because most of the big winners (“Diving Bell,” “No Country,” “Persepolis,” “Starting Out in the Evening,” “Sweeney Todd,” “There Will Be Blood”) are November or December releases. Half of them haven’t hit the commercial theaters yet. Maybe the critical establishment has A.D.D.

More likely it’s a combination of the novelty of the new and the deliberate timing of “serious” movies for what has become known as “awards season.”

But I think the key phrase above (and one RC has appositely chosen) concerns how critics’ awards “factor into publicity campaigns.” I doubt that critics, even bevies of critics, have much direct influence on the actual Oscar balloting — or on ticket sales, either, for that matter. But I know for a fact that filmmakers can use the leverage of critical awards in order to pry publicity dollars out of a studio or distributor. Some may even have it written into their contracts.

But movies are personal matters. I don’t put much stock in committee decisions about the “best” or the “worst” — particularly within an arbitrary unit of measurement like a “year.” (That won’t stop me from participating in critics polls, though!) What interests me are the critics’ personal selections, and their reasons for selecting them. A list… well, it’s just a list.

Sarah Silverman: Sell the Vatican, feed the world

Jim Emerson

“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matthew, 19:21)

WWJD? (What would a Jewess do?)

Sarah Silverman has some good points here. In my travels two sights have made me feel physically ill: 1) an exhibition of Spanish Inquisition torture instruments in Cordoba, Spain; 2) the ostentatiously decadent collection of treasures in the Vatican. (Couldn’t help but think of Max von Sydow in “Hannah and Her Sisters”: “If Jesus could come back and see what is being done in his name he would never stop throwing up.”) It may be a coincidence, but it’s disturbing to me that both these revolting sights were connected to the historical institution of the Catholic Church. The first made me ill at the thought of human beings even imagining, much less actually building, such horrendous contraptions to exploit the human body for torture and death (I felt similar despair at Dachau); the second made me sick because of the gaudy wastefulness of it all. Too rich in more ways than one. Why hasn’t this gold-encrusted stuff been sold off to do some good? How does a church, of all earthly institutions, get away with hoarding booty like this? Of course, that’s a question that’s been debated by Christians within and without the Catholic church for centuries:

“Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”

— Martin Luther, Thesis 86, “The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” 1517

(tip: Tony Dayoub)

The Cinephiliac Moment

Jim Emerson

Enlarge image: “It’s… It’s a f- flaw… in the iris.”

At his excellent movie blog, girish (aka Girish Shambu) savors those all-important “cinephiliac moments”:

…these are small, marginal moments that detonate an unforgettable little frisson in the viewer. The important thing to remember is that these are not moments carefully designed to exert great dramatic effect—not that there’s anything wrong with those—but instead they are fleeting “privileged” moments writ small that we find ourselves strongly attracted to, perhaps even disproportionately so given their scale and possible (lack of) intention. I daresay an appreciation (enthusiasm? passion?) for such ineffably or uncannily wonderful moments — the kinds of serendipitous just right touches (gestures, expressions, line readings, camera movements, framings) that Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy used to celebrate in “Moments Out of Time” at the end of each year in Movietone News and Film Comment — is what characterizes a real movie lover. It’s the so-called “little” things that mean everything; they transform the mundane into the extraordinary.

NEWS FLASH: BILL O’REILLY CAUGHT TELLING LIES!

Jim Emerson

Look, it’s somebody lying on the TV.

Yeah, I know. Stop the presses. A more startling headline might be: “Dog eats food!” It’s not news that self-proclaimed morality guardian Bill O’Reilly is a source of misinformation next to whom the Weekly World News looks like a Pulitzer contender. Bat Boy has more credibility than O’Reilly.

Now he’s professing to be shocked, shocked about a panel last April at Boulder High School that was part of the Conference on World Affairs. (YouTube clip here.) I was on a CWA panel at Boulder High (about “Borat”) that same week, and I can only imagine what O’McCarthy could have edited from it to make me or any of my co-panelists sound like we were saying something other than what we actually said. Say we quoted something from Borat in the movie. Out of context, O’Reilly could make it appear as if we were saying it ourselves. This one-man sitcom (oh, wait, that’s his term for John Edwards) stoops that low, and lower, all the time, and oops he’s doing it again. Of course, O’Reilly deals only in clips and sound bites. He has no patience for complete thoughts. Perhaps he simply doesn’t have the time or the inclination to read or listen to what actually occurred during the 90-minute panel discussion, but for the record I’m going to re-print his claims alongside the actual transcript of the panel. We compare, you decide. And then perhaps you’ll see why Boulder High students are demanding an apology from Fox and its loudest, most irresponsible (and that’s saying a lot!) Spinmeister. O’Reilly’s yellow-journalism depends on distortion and misrepresentation. The easiest way to counter it is to let the facts speak for themselves.

O’Reilly introduced the subject by mentioning that the president of the University of Colorado has “finally” recommended that professor Ward Churchill be fired: “But there is another educational outrage in Boulder that makes Churchill look insignificant. At Boulder High School students were ordered to attend an assembly where a bunch of so-called educators encouraged the kids to take drugs and to have indiscriminate sex.” First, students say “ordered” is not true — or, to use more appropriate high school language, attendance was not mandatory. But on top of this, now we are also supposed to believe that O’Reilly’s prolonged campaign of outrage against Churchill (which he mounted on 25 “O’Reilly Factor” shows between January and May 2005 alone) was, in retrospect, “insignificant,” because… why? You decide.

O’Reilly, a secular-aggressive, does not mention that the topics for the Conference on World Affairs panels at Boulder High are selected by the students themselves, and that the panels are produced by the students, and that questions from the audience are encouraged. This event was also introduced by a student, who said: “…Boulder High is the only High School that helps plan and host panels for this Conference. As students here at Boulder High, we try to create panels that will discuss topics and issues very present in the lives of students here today. [indecipherable] and myself are the creators and producers for today’s panel, STDs, which stands for Sex, Teens, and Drugs.” The panelists were provided with the results of a student body survey in which a third of Boulder High students said they’d had sex, and half of those had done so under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some might believe that was a matter of concern, worth addressing in an open student forum.

(Aside to O’Reilly: “STD” is also an acronym for “Sexually Transmitted Diseases.” See how the title turns “sex, teens and drugs” into “STDs”? That was the subject of the panel, that drugs and sex can be dangerous and have dire consequences for people in their teens.) As he makes clear again and again, facts and context don’t matter much to O’Reilly, for whom an hour-and-a-half panel is too long to say what he wants it to say so he can criticize it for saying what it doesn’t say.

On a show posted on YouTube May 18, 2007, in the middle of a one-sided “discussion” of the Boulder High panel with a shock jock from a Denver/Littleton Clear Channel AM station (KHOW), O’Reilly said: “It is hard to believe that in America today you can have a town as out of control as Boulder. You know about the Midyette baby — took 14 months to get an indictment on a murder case there. You know about JonBenet Ramsey. And now we have Boulder High School. But it doesn’t seem that the residents of Boulder care if their high school tells their kids to go out and have sex of all kinds, at all age, and to use narcotics. They simply don’t care in Boulder.”

That’s right — there’s a baby death, a child murder, and now a panel discussion. All in Boulder, the Gommorah of the Rockies! O’Reilly sounds like an insane person, but is there some kind of conscious or unconscious association he’s trying to make here? Turns out the only parent to have complained about the panel was Priscilla White. You may remember that she and her husband Fleet had their friends the Ramseys over for Christmas dinner the night JonBenet was murdered, and were called to the Ramsey house early the next morning. Fleet White was with John Ramsey when the latter found JonBenet’s body in the house. At first the Whites defended their friends; later, they turned against them. Is that what why O’Reilly related the murder of JonBenet to the panel at Boulder High? Are the Whites Friends Of Fox, feeding them material? What is the connection O’Reilly was trying to make between the murder of a child and the panel discussion?

Two things that must be known right now, today

Jim Emerson

1) Milestone 20th Anniversary: Yes, this very day is Milestone Films’ 20th Anniversary Day on Turner Classic Movies, which means you have an opportunity (Wednesday, June 23, 2010, into the wee small hours of Thursday, June 24, 2010) to see such restored essentials as Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep,” Kent Mackenzie’s “The Exiles,” Mariposa Film Group’s “Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives,” Henry de la Falaise’s “Legong: Dance of the Virgins and Roland West’s “The Bat Whispers. Check your local listings, dammit.

And keep an eye out this year for the Milestone 20th Anniversary Road Tour, bringing 35mm prints of these and other great and near-great films to a town near you (no need to lock up your daughters). Much gratitude and affection to Amy Heller and Dennis Doros for more than 20 years of great work — and hearty congratulations! (Adam, you are indeed a fortunate son — in a good way!)

Preview of Coming Attractions

Jim Emerson

FYI, I’ve still got lots and lots of Opening Shots stacked up to publish, including (off the top of my head): Truffaut’s “Day for Night,” Paul Schrader’s “Cat People,” Joe Dante’s “the ‘burbs,” Bob Zemeckis’s “Used Cars,” Tarkovsky’s “Andrei Rublev,” Peter Weir’s “Picnic at Haning Rock,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch Drunk Love” and many, many others. Just haven’t been able to work on this stuff as much as I should because of daily reviewing obligations. But I’m gonna try to get to another batch this week, if I possibly can…

Off to CWA

Jim Emerson

I’ll be in Boulder this week for another round of the Conference on World Affairs.

I will be part of these panels, on such diverse topics as dogs and international politics (that’s one subject), ad hominem mouthpieces in the media (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly), the politics of “Avatar,” blatant and condescending forms of racism, and why we go to the movies. My pal Julia Sweeney will be joining the ranks of participants. And I get to be on two panels with the fantastic Ike Wilson, who’s also delivering the keynote!

Oh yes: Ramin Bahrani will be returning for the Cinema Interruptus (last year he guided us through his own “Chop Shop”) — this time exploring, shot-by-shot, Werner Herzog’s “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” with Herr Herzog himself, Roger Ebert (who, I hope, will be using his Mac voice), the audience, and me. I plan to handle remote control responsibilities to the best of my ability (pausing for questions and comments, rewinding and re-playing) — but, for the most part, I intend to shut up and learn something. And, as usual, I know I will. And, whenever I get a chance, I will be posting (and tweeting) about it…

Opening Shots: The ‘Burbs

Jim Emerson

From Dennis Cozzalio, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, Glendale, CA:

The opening of Joe Dante’s cruelly misjudged and overlooked comedy “The ‘Burbs” begins with a vertiginous and hilarious parody of the God’s-eye view shot. Fade in on the familiar Universal logo—the planet Earth spinning, surrounded by incongruously Saturn-like circles of galaxy dust, particle and stars. But the world looks a little off, a bit more animated, more cartoony than usual.

The camera begins to move in on the planet as the words “A Universal Picture sign dissolves away. The camera moves down closer and closer and closer onto the planet’s surface, onto the recognizable shape of the United States. Even closer now, dropping down into the Midwest somewhere, perhaps Illinois-ish. Closer. Closer. Now a city is recognizable. A neighborhood. A street. The camera continues “craning down from above the rooftops (obviously a miniature set), swooping left and down across the front of a row of houses.

Suddenly, Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which has had up to now a liltingly comic grace, turns mock haunted-house creepy with a thunderous, sinister organ chord as the camera glides over to a dwelling that looks a scosh more gothic than its surrounding neighbors. Just as suddenly, flickering flashes of light are visible through the windows into lining the goth house’s basement foundation, and crackling electrical sounds are heard accompanying the flashes. Something mysterious, and very un-suburban, is happening down there…

JE: Thanks again, Dennis! You submitted this along with several others back in July — and I had frame grabs for it and “Used Cars” ready to go before my “hard drive fatality.” Gotta go back and order “Used Cars” from Netflix again. Meanwhile, a happy belated birthday to Joe Dante ! Check out Dennis’s Dantean appreciation — as part of Tim Lucas’s recent Joe Dante Blog-a-Thon.

Also don’t let 2006 expire before you take Professor Dave Jennings’ Milton-Free, Universe-Expanding Holiday Midterm. It counts for 25 percent of your final grade this quarter.

(And, Dennis: Thanks so much for the Christmas gift!)

Reality and fiction in ‘Borat’

Jim Emerson

View image Yes, they were fully paid for damages.

Salon has a work-in-progress round-up of the stories behind various staged and/or improvised scenes in “Borat.” (See Comments discussion below.) Here’s one I was particularly curious about:

David Corcoran, the most outspoken of the three [University of South Carolina Chi Psi frat boys], spoke with FHM about the experience. “This guy said they were filming a Kazakh reporter who wanted to hang out with frat guys,” Corcoran said. “They met 10 of us and I guess chose the three who wouldn’t recognize Borat.” The producers paid for the three men to drink at a bar, and then had them get in the RV and “pick Borat up … as if he was hitchhiking.” Once in the RV, he says, Borat showed them naked pictures of his sister and confessed to beating women.

Two of the guys — identified in court filings only as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 — are now suing 20th Century Fox and One America Productions, the production company behind the film. The suit claims all three were told at the time that the film wouldn’t show in the U.S. and their identities would be kept secret. They’re seeking unspecified damages for “humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community.”

Can these guys sue themselves? Will they call Mel Gibson as a character witness?

Fey on Palin on Letterman 10/17/08

Jim Emerson

“Not since ‘Sling Blade’ has there been a voice that anybody could do…. Anybody can take a swing at this voice.”

“You have to be able to goof on the female politicians just as much, otherwise you really are treating them like they’re weaker or something.”

Also, she gives credit to Seth Meyers for being the primary writer of the Palin SNL sketches. Classy broad.

(Ebert on McCain on Letterman, plus clips, here.)

Fight of the Century: John Cassavetes vs. Eleanor of Aquitaine

Jim Emerson

Hep Kate: “‘Faces’? How’s this for a face?”

Gosh, ever wonder how entire groups of people often wind up making unsatisfactory and unwise collective decisions? Sometimes it’s just a matter of a few wayward votes. (Even on the Supreme Court, where there are only nine.) I came across this story about the New York Film Critics Circle balloting in 1968, which boiled down to a fierce battle between John Cassavettes’ “Faces,” Anthony Harvey’s “The Lion in Winter”… and the dark horse, Carol Reed’s “Oliver!” (which won the Best Picture Oscar that year). Keep in mind, this was the year of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Petulia,” “Stolen Kisses,” etc.

Now that we know how, last year, “Brokeback Mountain” actually won the popular vote while “Crash” was really selected Best Picture by the now-retired Sandra Day O’Connor (I made that up), here’s something to help keep Movie Awards Season in perspective, from the 2003 edition Tom O’Neil’s Variety book, “Movie Awards.” After voting six times, resulting in dead heats or technically inconclusive results, the NYFCC gang indulged in a record seventh ballot:

The results were surprising: The rival pics [“Faces” and “Lion”] received 11 votes each, “Oliver!” took 1 and there was 1 abstention. The crix had accepted the tie and already moved on to decide another category when someone noted that, according to the group’s bylaws, “Oliver!” should have been dropped from consideration after the last ballot. The judges then backtracked and conducted an eighth polling and “Lion” re-emerged the champ, 13 to 11.

That’s when the meeting became “most heated” and “extremely acrimonious,” according to later press reports. Variety reported that “Faces” advocates Renata Adler and Vincent Canby of the Times “staged a mutiny” and were joined by new recruit Richard Schickel of Life [the august newspaper group had just begun accepting members from lowly, glossy magazines], who denounced the group’s old members as “deadwood.” The fight became so fierce that some members “had tears in their eyes,” noted Variety. Four of the new members banded together and resigned.

The New York Times reported, “The resignations were withheld pending a meeting of the organization to discuss a possible change in voting procedure.” Meantime, the rebels remained in the conference room of the New York Newspaper Guild and continued to vote in subsequent races.

“Lion” won no more awards from the Gotham crix that year, with current Oscar nominee Alan Arkin (“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”) and Joanne Woodward (“Rachel, Rachel”) taking acting honors (instead of Peter O’Toole or Katharine Hepburn), and the screenplay award went to Lorenzo Semple, Jr. for “Pretty Poison.”

Chop Shop: Of hopes and hubcaps

Jim Emerson

Alejandro Polanco plays… Alejandro.

My review of “Chop Shop” is in the Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com. Here’s an excerpt:

Three shots into Rahmin Bahrani’s “Chop Shop,” and you’re already pulled into its world with an effortless economy and precision that leave you no doubt you’re in the best of cinematic hands.

As day laborers stand by the side of a busy road, we don’t see the road, but we can hear the traffic. Their heads turn as a truck pulls up off-camera, and they rush over to be chosen for work. The driver, speaking English, selects a few guys and tells a kid he doesn’t need him. Just as the truck pulls back out onto the highway, the kid hops into the pickup bed. He needs the work. Wherever this is, it’s a Third World economy.

Second shot: The truck rolls past the camera, and we see the kid sitting up in the back. Third shot: The truck pulls over, and we notice the Chrysler Building, then the Empire State Building, in the distance. The driver gets out, lifts the protesting kid out of the back of the Chevy, gives the kid some money out of his own pocket and tells him to buy himself breakfast. Then the title of the movie appears….

The scary parts (part 1)

Jim Emerson

When kids tell you about movies, they almost always take care to warn you about the scary parts. Everybody seems to go through at least one phase where the scary parts are just too much and the only solution is to flee the theater or switch to something else on the TV.

I understand. I’m going through one of those phases right now, and the movies that scare me the most are designed for kids. The first time I tried to watch “WALL-E” on Blu-ray (which was also the first time I’d seen the movie), I could barely handle it when the big rocketship nearly landed on WALL-E and he trembled in fear. He didn’t know what was going on! Not long afterwards I had to turn it off when EVE shut down (in accordance with her “directive”) because it was just too sad. I was feeling too much. For animated robots. Pathetic.

Jean-Luc Godard invents totally newdistribution and exhibition paradigm

Jim Emerson

From an interview with JLG at Cinemasparagus, regarding the director’s preferred distribution and exhibition method for his latest (and allegedly last) feature, “Film socialisme,” which premiered a few days ago at Cannes and which can be seen in its entirety, backwards and compressed into 67 seconds, above:

I really would have liked to have a boy and a girl be involved, a couple who had the urge to show things, who were kind of involved with the cinema, the sort of young people you might meet at small festivals. They’d be given a copy of the film on DVD, then be asked to train as skydivers. After that, places would be randomly chosen on a map of France, and they’d parachute down into those locations. They’d have to show the film wherever they landed. In a café, at a hotel… they’d manage. People would pay 3 or 4 euros to get in — no more than that. They might film this adventure, and sell it later on. Thanks to them, you get a sense of what it means to distribute a film. Afterwards, only you can make the decision, to find out whether or not it’s able to be projected in regular theaters. But not before having investigated everything for a year or two. Because beforehand, you’re just like me: you don’t know what the film is, you don’t know what might be interesting about it. You’ve gone a little outside the whole media space.

(translation: Craig Keller; tip: girish)