The 44 Times 30 or So: Filling In the Gaps

Fact: I watch an awful lot of movies.

Fact #2: I watch an awful lot of awful movies.

Because of my long-standing fascination with the horror, science-fiction and fantasy genres, I get exposed to far more films of a commonly considered low quality than of high. This is a given, though it is perhaps the more extreme nature of these genres that allows the dross to be far more noticeable than in other, less special effects-heavy genres. So, if you were to peer at a list of the last 75 films I have watched, you would likely notice the bevy (and great majority) of slasher and monster films almost immediately over the handful of pure dramatic or comedic films. That the genre efforts comprise about 3/4 of the list would also stand out. One thing is clear: I definitely have a clear target area.

Why not change that for a while? Why not mix things up for myself for a change?

I was reading George MacDonald Fraser's excellent and very personalized book titled A Hollywood History of the World (William Morrow/Beech Tree, 1988) the other day, and aside from revisiting an old favorite volume, I also sensed a sincere problem with myself, or rather, with my accumulated cinema knowledge. As I poured through a chapter rich with comparisons between actual history and a handful of epic war films released in the '60s, it struck me that my current self had not gathered much more in the way of experience regarding films of this stripe than I had when I first bought and read this book in the late '80s. While one might not consider it a necessary thing to have watched most of the major films within one's lifetime, it suddenly seemed very important to me. Who was I to toss about opinions and engage in film trivia if I hadn't seen so many of the most famous films involved?

While I have seen thousands of films, edging close to 10,000, in my 44 years, have I seen Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at all? Have I actually seen all of Patton? No and no. Here's a shocker: I love Sidney Poitier, but I have never seen In the Heat of the Night or To Sir, With Love. I am a huge Polanski fan, to the extent that I have seen Knife on the Water three times and all of his films from The Fearless Vampire Hunters to the present, but I have somehow missed out on Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac, two of his highly acclaimed early films. Not that I need to see all of these films to feel that I have a fairly good grip on film history, but simply just renting and catching up on them would take so little effort on my part.

Oh, I have seen many of the major films of the span of years in my brief existence beginning in 1964, and am perhaps overly familiar with a certain batch of them. I have seen all of the Beatles films, most of Blake Edwards' and Richard Lester's oeuvres, but there are sincere gaps in my viewing collection. Watching Richard Burton's fairly obnoxious but often stylistically interesting horror experiment, Doctor Faustus, the other day, I was really struck by the fact that the sum total of my experience with Sir Richard hails largely from Becket and Where Eagles Dare, and two more disparate films you couldn't find. Jumping back to In the Heat of the Night, most of what I know of Rod Steiger is negligible, built mostly from bit parts from the last twenty years of his career, included his turn in a crappy vigilante horror quickie called Guilty As Charged that he did in the late '80s.

Cracking another book a few days ago gave me an idea. The book is Danny Peary's Alternate Oscars, wherein the daring Mr. Peary decides to take the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to task for laziness and playing politics, and does a retro-fitting of then-65 years of Oscar history. Peary hands out awards to those that he feels are truly deserving of gold, slipping the statuettes to underrated classics that we now fully honor, and sometimes even rewards some surprising cult choices. The 1956 Best Picture award leaves the dopey but fun Around the World in 80 Days coughing in the dust as the train zips past, and delivers it straight into the hands of John Ford's The Searchers, clearly where it should have been from the start. (The Searchers, perhaps the greatest film of that decade, was not even nominated for Best Picture.) Welles' Touch of Evil defeats Gigi in 1958, and Some Like It Hot not only wrests awards from Ben-Hur and Chuck Heston in 1959, but also gets Marilyn a Best Actress win as well. He even sees fit to get Boris Karloff in the game, giving away Ray Milland's 1945 Oscar for The Lost Weekend to Karloff's breathless performance as the sinister but layered and sympathetic Mr. Gray in Val Lewton's The Body Snatcher.

Alternate Oscars is a fun and mind-warping read, even if it really doesn't matter which rich and famous people collect trophies over other rich and famous people. And Peary does take full advantage of his Monday-morning quarterbacking, giving awards to certain actors with the certain knowledge that he will award one to those snubbed farther down the line. It's something that the real Oscars cannot do (at least not as far as we know), and so the entire affair truly does read as a full alternate history of ultimate Hollywood success. Several of Mr. Peary's books line a shelf in my library, and I would be lying were I say that his style of writing has not influenced me greatly over the years. Likewise, I have used his film choices as a guideline for my own adventures in that time. (His trilogy of Cult Movies books are absolutely vital to any film buff's library. Seek them out at all costs.)

As I read the Peary book in concert with the Fraser book the other day, it hit me that what I really should do is go back to the year of my birth, and concentrate on all of the major films that I have yet to see since 1964. It's a colossal project, and would likely take years to complete (or perhaps, would never be complete, owing both to the constant upgrading of the list each year, and to the fact that many films may never come out on disc), but I felt it a worthier base for film viewing than simply knocking about on Netflix going, "Oooh, that looks interesting..." (A favorite pastime, mind you, but I am sorely in need of some direction right now.)

This is what I have decided to do: Starting with 1964 and up through 1970 (thus far), I initially grabbed the Oscar nominees (not just winners) from these categories in each year: Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Director. This gave me my foundation. Since Peary's book only gives his alternate choices for Picture, Actor and Actress, I mixed in his choices, which do not jibe at all with most of Oscar history, and then also mixed in his alternate nominees for those categories (some of which he never finds a single worthy nominee, harsh that he often is in this degree). At this point, each year had around 15 to 20 solid films from which to begin my new adventures, but I still wasn't satisfied with the mix.

Since I love foreign films, and have been desperate to catch up in that area as well, I grabbed the Best Foreign Language nominees from each year, and then grabbed six more key categories: Editing, Visual Effects (to keep genre films alive on the list at least a little bit), both Screenplay categories, and finally both Music Score categories, since I felt musicals were not well represented at that point, and I feel for a true snapshot of any period, one must see the popular musicals as well. (I left off Cinematography, at least for the '60s, since all of the nominees were already represented on the lists. I may expand this going through the '70s, if only because I am more familiar with the cameramen of that era and don't want to miss a step.) Each year now stands at around 30-35 films per year, which I feel will give me a decent start from which to work.

1964 is a surprise to me, for out of the 32 films on the list, I have actually seen 17 of them and own nine of those on DVD (A Hard Day's Night, Mary Poppins, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Pink Panther, and its superior follow-up, A Shot in the Dark, released just a few months later), and I owned a handful more of those already seen, once upon a time, on VHS. Here is the list for 1964:

Becket
Best Man, The
Chalk Garden, The
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Fall of the Roman Empire, The
Father Goose
Goldfinger
Hard Day's Night, A
Hush, Hush… Sweet Charlotte
Man's Favorite Sport?
Marriage Italian Style
Mary Poppins
My Fair Lady
Night of the Iguana, The
One Potato, Two Potato
Organizer, The [I compagni] (1963)
Pink Panther, The
Pumpkin Eater, The
Raven's End [Kvarteret Korpen]
Robin and the 7 Hoods
Sallah
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
Servant, The
7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The
Seven Days in May
Shot in the Dark, A
That Man From Rio [L'homme de Rio]
Topkapi
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The
Unsinkable Molly Brown, The
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Zorba the Greek

But I am not going to half-ass this project. If I haven't seen any of these films within the last year, then I have to watch them again. Even though I often write with a nostalgic viewpoint, I always base anything I construct upon fresh showings of any given film. For the purposes of opening this project, I am probably going to revisit every film upon it that I have already seen. I am nothing if not meticulous (or maybe a little OCD... which wouldn't surprise my brothers.) However, making things difficult is the fact that a quarter of these films (or just over half of the ones I have never watched before) are current unavailable on DVD. Of course, this doesn't mean they won't get released in the near future, and I know that a couple of them have appeared in the cable listings now and then.

A sad realization, though, is that due to the limited sources I have used for creating these annual lists, many genres are not particularly well represented, such as Westerns or horror, and certain well-known entertainments of the period of the type not prone to being critical darlings or award gatherers get passed over completely. And filmmakers considered prime examples of the period get shorted, too: Sergio Leone only gets on the lists because of Peary's adoration of Once Upon A Time in the West, and were I making lists of the most influential films of the time period from 1964-1970, all four of his amazing Westerns would make it without a moment's hesitation. Foreign films of all nations get short shrift on here as well, Jean-Pierre Melville does not announce himself on the lists for even a single film, Truffaut only near the end of the decade, and Godard not at all. Which is unfortunate, since their inclusion would most certainly allow me to automatically indulge myself in their works. Not that I can't anyway, but I like nudges.

Which brings me to my final note. I am not going to add to these lists, even if I feel a film got left off. These annual film lists are only for my guidance, and are not meant to represent the best films of each year, just ones with which to begin filling in my cinematic educational gaps. For instance, I adore Richard Lester's Help! and The Knack... and How To Get It and also own copies of each of them, but just because they are not on the 1965 list does not mean I am going to add them. Conversely, I have a great childhood-held passion for The Great Race, and while no critic of any worth (save myself) would ever include Blake Edwards' epic farce on a best films list for 1965, it is only through the lucky happenstance of it being nominated for a music Oscar that it appears on that year's roster.

So, that is my new focus, though I will still be watching films from all over the place, and even in my preferred genres. I just needed something to mix things up a bit. It had just become monotonous waiting for the next 8 Films to Die For flick to show up, and then one after the other. If not that, just another in a long line of J-horror films that grew increasingly similar to one another. (Honestly, long black hair, attached to a ghost or not, does not frighten me for a second. Unless it is in my soup.)

Once I hit 1993, though, I will have to find another source besides Peary to round out the annual lists, since Alternate Oscars ends with 1992 and the triumph of The Silence of the Lambs. However, I suspect that once I hit the 1980s, when I earnestly sought to begin my movie education, there will be less and less films annually for me to track down and watch. The bulk of the work is going to involve the '60s and '70s, but I am not going to complain at all. It's about time that I got around to watching some of these films.

But, it doesn't mean that I will stop watching an awful lot of awful movies. An awful lot of movies get overrated by critics and the Oscars every year, and I am sure there is plenty of time-wasting and teeth-clenching rubbish hidden within every single one of these annual lists. And if that's the case, well, then I haven't really mixed things up as much as I would have liked. Some things are just not meant to be changed, I guess...

Tweet Emotions: Notes on the Process of Futility [Pt. 3]

So, now I have spent a month establishing myself as yet another constantly tweeting knucklehead, and losing those tweets amongst millions of others, having them read only by a small fraction of the 140 or so followers on my Twitter page, only three-quarter dozen of whom I can claim any sort of real, lasting friendship, work relationship or kinship.

With such a tiny, immediate audience available, why I would think Twitter would be a decent place to push The Cinema 4 Pylon and the writing that I place upon it?

The answer is this: it's better than nothing. Certainly better than my options currently at hand, which is less than nothing. As I said, Facebook and MySpace have proven to be busts for this. Only a few friends are willing to make the journey over to this site, and they are known quantities. Otherwise, I believe those sources are tapped out for the most part (and I used "tapped out" in a more traditional sense, rather than in the sense that lead to a line of idiotic T-shirts). And while I do get some decent comments from complete strangers on the Pylon directly, it is so random and so infrequent as to be not much of a factor. Thus, trying out Twitter seems as worthy an attempt at reaching an audience than any other. The potential for audience gain is immeasurable; the trick is getting people to the site.

I must state something to anyone new coming to The Cinema 4 Pylon, whom I will mostly assume to be those who do not know me in the least: there is nothing for sale here.

Any promotion that I do to get people to this site is solely so I can have you read what I have written. All of my writing is from my heart, and is not meant to promote anything else except for my opinion. That is it. The Cinema 4 Pylon, as I have stated numerous times before, is nothing more than my notebook, filled only with film non-reviews (though most would think they are actually reviews, criticism of film criticism itself, tributes to my favorite films, records, comics, books, etc., and attempts to begin discussions on just about any topic that catches my fancy at the time.

There are no ads on here at all. No Google Sense, no AdWords... nothing. I do not allow them on the Pylon, even though I have had a couple studios contact me to ask if I would place ads on here, owing to the fact that I primarily write about movies and video. And I will never allow them on here. I am not against commerce, and on another site built for mass appeal rather than personal depth and growth, I would certainly consider it. But the Pylon is not the place. It's about keeping my opinion pure. And myself in the process.

The problem on my end is producing material worthy of having more people tuning in to it. If you dig back a couple of months on here, you will find a series of articles reflecting my dissatisfaction with myself (you will find I am my own harshest and most terrible critic) over the work I had done on the site since September, when I still reviewed for Spout and last believed myself to be firing on all circuits, and just before I hit my latest deep and sincere bout with depression. And since taking myself to task, I have done relatively little in the way of "reviewing," instead throwing most of my concentration into my real world employment (I get paid to work for a soccer organization, co-edit their website, and write and associate edit the organization's membership magazine, which goes to 90,000 homes quarterly).

It isn't that I haven't been writing; I just haven't been concentrating on my own work, fairly putting it on the back burner, and only working on it sporadically. What I have been doing, though, is watching droves of films, all based around the moment when I will be ready to plunge headlong into writing more again. Also, in the meantime, I started goofing around on Twitter, TwitPic and Blip.fm -- all in the last month -- and I will not lie to say that they have had some small, detrimental effect on the way I approach writing these fuller pieces of late. Once you start thinking in 140/150 characters, it is hard not to do so. It's like when I play a video game too long, and then go to bed, but the game is still playing out behind my eyes, and I can't get to sleep. I keep working your brain through escapes to get me to the next level. The same with Twitter, where I can't even eat a burrito or lose it later through other means without working through a dozen different sentences to place on my Twitter page. After a single month, it has evolved -- or de-evolved -- my grey matter.

But, assuming that my work once more reaches a level where I am halfway satisfied with it, the question remains: why should you come here? What is in it for you? The truth is, this site is no good for those looking for a quick fix, seeking out a place for pocket-sized opinions and celebrity gossip. You will only get something out of it if you are the sort that isn't looking for a "This film sucked!" approach to criticism, though I do hold out the possibility for you that on the day that there is a film that sucks so mightily that I cannot blurt out anything else but "This film sucked!", the reason for my not posting more than three words regarding the film's failure as entertainment on any level is because I ran out to get my first driver's license, purchase a car, purchase a house with a garage, drive my new car home legally, lock myself and the car in the garage, and then turn on the engine so I can rid myself of the memory of said suckhole of a film.

My approach to film criticism has very little to do with the way it is practiced popularly, and rarely has much to do with the overall excellence of a film. It's a small part of every piece I write, to be sure, but its not the most important part. My chief thrust here is criticism as self-held therapy. When I talk about a film, it is usually because I am trying to understand what I see or don't see in it, how it affects me personally, how what I bring into the film emotionally and experientially affects the way I see the film, how what I have seen before affects the way I see the film, and how the current film fits thematically into the massive pile of films I have already seen. For me, as always, each film watched -- feature-length, animated short, etc. -- is part of my personal conceptual continuity; every film, no matter the quality, as equally important to my overall artistic sense as the next. And none of my approach depends at all on worrying about spoilers or sneak peeks or pirated advance copies, etc.

If this seems like pretentious hooey to you... well, goodbye. I don't need you. I have told you already that this site is primarily for me to immerse myself therapeutically through the cinema. If knuckle-headed fanboy stuff is your thing, go back to your Harry Knowles-type sites and enjoy spoiling films for yourself with idle speculation long before they actually come out, or head off to your four-word review sites for a less-than-haiku wackoff session. Because I don't do "condensed" here, and I don't do gossip. I like to take my time when discussing a film or an idea, and if you are sort that wouldn't mind hanging around for that, then I invite you to join in. Leave a comment or two, take part in the discussion, and please, always leave a link for your site so that I can follow you too.

I will probably get one or two of you at most, but if you are quality people, that would be just fine. It would certainly help to class the joint up around here.

Tweet Emotions: Notes on the Process of Futility [Pt. 2]

I pass any number of unknown citizens of the County of Orange on my sojourn to work each morning, and out of the handful that actually come within spitting distance of me, early a.m. pleasantries are often exchanged. Luckily, no spit so far, but also never more than a quick two words. “Good morning,” and sometimes, even this already brief message finds itself truncated down to a single noun announcing the time period in which we find ourselves all mostly reluctantly trudging along. On occasion, after a couple of years passing about three or four of the bike riders, a longer greeting has emerged, usually a rhetorical query heard as their bike goes hurtling past, either from myself or from their lips.

I do not personally know a single one of these individuals, though we clearly have all grown used to passing each other, and the once cautious stares on both parts have drifted into polite familiarity. That they will never become friends of mine does not matter. It is the inherent politeness of a high-functioning society that begs us to tolerate each other. I have to go that way this morning, and back this way in the afternoon, and vice versa for them. So, let’s all get along on our travels. Which we do. None of us really wanted to take part in this, but we are here, and we make the best of it.

While Twitter itself is wholly voluntary, and my inclusion amongst its users was a step taken openly on my part, I still can’t help but feel a similarity in the way I approach those that share the same online space with me. I can’t help but feel that I am merely travelling the same path with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of others without really fully engaging in any of the traffic, and only tolerating the constant idiot drip of American Idol and swine flu tweets because I simply must. Polite nods are par for the course, whether or not you care or even notice what others are tweeting, even if you have exchanged "follower" status. Over the course of last weekend, after a week of little activity, I saw my followers swell from sub-70 to over 130 (now 140), for reasons of which I am truly unsure, for there seems to be little sense to the advance. (This doesn't count the forty or so phony accounts or obnoxious marketeers who tried to storm the gates, all of whom I blocked, otherwise I would be nearing 200 at this point.) After all, I didn’t try to do anything to get them, so why did they show up? Then, as swiftly as the deluge of “friends” began, it stopped tight. The cork was apparently stuffed unceremoniously back into the bottle, and it has been a slow trickling since then.

This is dandy with me, because as I noted before, I actually only know less than two fistfuls of these followers personally. For whatever vague reasons, the wealth of friends and acquaintances I have on Facebook, all but a couple of them people with whom I have shared spatial existence throughout years past, has not translated to the Twitter-verse. Looking back to the recent past, I was on Facebook for quite some time before many of these people arrived, while the bulk of those who had yet to transfer there had been mired in the MySpace swamp, and all well before I made my brief attempt at socializing in that Pit of Despair before moving on to a cleaner, less cluttered dungeon (I mean this in the design sense, which really does not hold true for Facebook anymore, the bastards). And while frequent Twitter usage might seem like a grand way to meet new friends – after all, it is a “social” network, is it not? – and certainly more so than on Facebook (where profiles are blocked from non-"friends" until accepted), I am unsure if I have the means to carry through on this end of my supposed contract with this piece of software.

Yes, I have engaged in brief conversations with a half-dozen or so persons of unknown reputation (except from the assumed histories which they place on their own profiles and webpages, which, in turn, is equally as much as they receive of my own), and I have enjoyed these brief contacts. I also look forward to hearing from people interested in genuine, non-marketing, non-promotional interface. But, even while enjoying these fleeting moments of fresh personal contact, I will likely never really know most of them, and as such, cannot really consider them anything beyond "followers." That phrase is there for, I suspect, a very well-defined reason: that we are merely on the same online path as everyone else on Twitter, and that the bulk of "relationships" on any person's page are of the polite nod variety of which I spoke. "Good morning..." "Good morning to you. How are you today?"

Which brings me back to questioning my reasons for using Twitter in the first place...

[To be concluded...]

Tweet Emotions: Notes on the Process of Futility [Pt. 1]

Let me be honest from the start... I don't make a move online without sizing up the parameters of my actions. If I sign up for a site or program, I immediately think how I can use that particular spot for my own purposes. Self-serving? Sure, aren't we all? Isn't that what survival of the fittest is all about? Helping yourself to a heaping slice of this survival? It is only natural, in any venture in which we involve ourselves, that we seek out that which will allow us to reach our goals in the quickest way possible.

With the proliferation of social media sites these days, however, it seems that most people in the net-a-verse aren't so much concerned with "keeping it real" (though they have convinced themselves of this deplorable and completely erroneous phrase), but rather "keeping it noticeable..." Well, that and making lots of quick and easy cash. And if one can combine both efforts -- being popular and bringing in the Benjamins -- isn't this the whole point of life? Millions of Tweeters seem to think so, because half of the pages I run into seem to merely be there to convince me that this is the aim toward which I am supposed to be building. Which just proves to me that they do not know me very well.

When I signed up for Twitter, I did consider briefly that it might be a good way to introduce people to this site, The Cinema 4 Pylon. I've been plugging away on my little notebook of a blog for about four years now, all to little notice, and I have liked it this way. A handful of loyal pals, along with my natural impulse to vent and a low regard for sleep, have kept me writing. Through whatever rough spots and bouts with depression over this span, the Pylon has been here for me to work out my personal refuse, along with providing an easily accessible storehouse for my opinions on just about anything that crosses my path -- movie, music, animation (which expanded into the Pylon's sister site, the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc), books, politics, and absolute silliness. The thrust of the site has never really been about reviewing popular culture, though, but rather about how popular culture has affected me, for both good and bad, throughout my existence on this sphere, with a simultaneous goal focusing on my need to combat the cliches of popular opinion and, especially, film criticism.

I would be lying if I said that all of my other online moves -- starting pages on Facebook, MySpace and their like, writing "reviews" for a selected writing group on Spout.com for a year -- were unladen with intentions of expanding my reach. At every instance, I thought how nice it would be if I could get a few more people, especially my friends who are hooked up with me on those sites, to bounce over from those pages and leave a few constructive comments on the Pylon.

Which never happened. I can get 168 legitimate, tried-and-true, actual friends and acquaintances of mine on Facebook, but I can't get a single extra one, beyond the handful that regularly attend services on the Pylon, to pop over for a note or even a quick look. MySpace was a tremendous bust, not in a good way and not just as a website, but as a portal for anything involving my interests, and the potential audience pretty much involved the same people with whom I now converse on Facebook, plus a massive amount of online hookers... and that asshole Tom guy.

Spout was great until I decided to chafe under certain suggestions, began a futile campaign of aggressiveness against those certain suggestions, and then tried to recover with an equally futile campaign to apologize to people who were giving up on those certain suggestions anyway. And sure, a few hundred people would check out each of my posts on Spout, and I received some nice comments and met a couple of interesting and generous people on that video-oriented site. But I couldn't nudge a soul, at least regularly, over to The Cinema 4 Pylon in all that time. Was it over-nourishment? Perhaps I should have just posted a few lines of each post on Spout instead of the whole piece. They got the milk out of the Spout consistently; why suckle straight from the udder?

Through the last four years, I have received positive and helpful comments from a genuine rock star and producer, a Disney comics editor and publisher, a couple of online animation historians, and a director who said I was the only critic to ever precisely nail the emotions behind his film after showing it worldwide at festival after festival. I have also received a not-so-positive comment from a former producer of Ren & Stimpy (and animation archivist), who decided to chide me for being too negative over the use of blackface in old films (let's make that archiv-racist...) Fine and well, these comments, both positive and negative, as long as the comments help me find my way or teach me something.

But what I really crave is even more exposure, which would hopefully lead to even more discourse. Not just nine or ten regular to semi-regular readers, and not just good friends, but a greater diversity of opinion in those comments. The good with the bad. Which is what drew me to the social sites in the first place. Which is what drew me to finally creating an RSS feed, and then posting my Pylon writing directly onto Facebook as well.

And what ultimately drew me to Twitter...

[To be continued...]

For Whom the Bull Trolls (Pt. 2): Happily, If Not Reluctantly, Lost in Nilbog

Part of the problem of writing about films that have gained a large amount of notoriety is that they have achieved exactly that. Choose any movie title commonly believed or widely held to be of the truly atrocious variety, then go just about anywhere on the Intranets, and it becomes rather easy to find two primary reactions to that film.

The first is of the "that movie sucked my will to live" type, wherein the attempted reviewer will cast the film onto a bonfire of hatred that will invariably include a brace of curse words, appeals for "wanting my money back," and/or a declaration that the reviewer has now realized that there are now that many less minutes in their all-too-brief lifespan that they will never get back, generally corresponding directly to the running time of said film, though usually rounded off at either 90 minutes or two hours.

The second reaction, related only to the first in determination, is of a far more optimistic vein, though still angled as a back-handed compliment: "This film is --" (you know what's coming) " -- SO BAD, IT'S GOOD."

I once met someone who held the second reaction regarding Citizen Kane. Their take was that the film, completing writing off both its overall excellence in filmmaking technique and its massive influence both upon its release in 1941 and through the then-50 years hence, was too broadly done to be taken seriously, and that it was ham-handed and obvious in its every scene. But, they then attempted to soothe my swiftly bubbling-over contempt for their opinion that it was Kane's very campiness that still made it enjoyable. In essence, they were adopting the "so bad, it's good" stance. I would have felt, had it been one of my closer, sharper friends, that this person were merely trying to put one over on me. But this person, thankfully no longer of my acquaintance, was a dullard of spectacular proportions, and I held their every opinion on every subject imaginable to be circumspect, if not outright unremarkable or foolish. I still truly believe, given the knowledge of the remainder of their mouth-breathing diatribes, that this person meant every word of their take on Kane.

I have nothing but contempt for the first reaction detailed above. It, and all elements of it described in the paragraph, reveals nothing but wish fulfillment on the part of the "reviewer" to not take control of their own actions. They put the onus on the film for ruining their time, taking their money, sucking their will, and shortening their existence by how ever much they determine. They apparently didn't decide to go out with their friends and randomly choose a film on Friday night, or select one of tens of thousands of titles in a Netflix queue. There was a gun held to their head, it seems, and their only chance of revenge is to whine incessantly about how horrible their experience turned out to be on an internet movie or gaming site board. Suck it up, pinheads, take some responsibility for those actions, and try to approach your overall movie experience a tad more critically. Or just plain shut up.

However, as much as I despise the overly repeated critical shorthand of "so bad, it's good," I find it exceedingly difficult to totally discount this second widely used reaction. The truth of the matter, and any bad-movie fan knows this, is that sometimes movies are so ridiculously noxious, their very rottenness does become entertaining. For years, Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space was touted as the Worst Film of All Time, and it gained a sizable audience for this supposed aspect of its being, even if not only did Mr. Wood have a handful of far worse films in his oeuvre, but there were a great many worse films, by many other equally fumble-fingered creators, at hand. I would much rather watch Plan 9 than the vast majority of them, as I have grown largely inured to the pitfalls of watching a film of such notorious construction, and have accepted it as a Halloween treat or occasional afternoon delight over the years. This doesn't mean that I rate it higher than other bad films, or rank it higher because of the enjoyment I derive from it. Despite my abiding affection for it, Plan 9 is still quite obviously a very crappy and clumsily built film, rating no higher than a 3 on my 9 scale (upon which I rate for overall excellence and fulfilled potential, and not necessarily, or even usually, personal enjoyment).

Peek at a list of the films that showed up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 over the span of the show, and you will instantly recognize many of those "worse" films. Thanks to MST3K, a film like Manos: Hands of Fate, of which I must be honest and admit that I had never heard before the 'Bots nearly discombobulated watching it, has grown immensely in decrepit reputation, as have many others. And, for a short period, Troll 2, completely unrelated to the original Empire Pictures Troll film from five years earlier and not sadly not benefitting (?) from a knocking from the MST3K crew, sat on IMDB as the Worst Film of All Time, though it has since been supplanted by a many other seemingly terrible films. (For the record, as of today, The Starfighters sits at #1 with a rounded 1.4 rating; Troll is much farther down (up?) in the pack with a 1.9; Manos is the lowest rated film with over 10,000 votes, though.)

Personally, I find boredom the most heinous of cinematic crimes. At least, in a truly poor excuse for a film, you can encounter stiffly hilarious acting which can be repeated later over dinner with your pals in an exaggerated fashion, boom mikes threatens to knock off an actor's hairpiece, or someone missing a punch by eight feet but the other actor crashes through the obviously rigged furniture or pile of empty cardboard boxes in the warehouse anyway. These are the types of moments that can make the experience of watching even the crappiest film worthwhile. Humdrum, generic drama that just freezes the screen and makes you check your watch, rote comedy hitting all of the same cliches and beats as the previous 12,637 comedies, or wholly unbelievable romances where two people only deserve each other because they are both insufferable, self-absorbed idiots are far more insidious and unbearable to me. Certainly far more than an ultra-low budget film, posing as a sequel to a film of no relation whatsoever, by small-time filmmakers just trying to eke out a living by having a few local Utah actors spout out some disconnected, half-assed drivel to inane musical cues while fighting a dozen little people in the stiffest, most unappealing costumes ever designed.

I would take the scruffy, ramshackle, wholly untalented "charms" of Troll 2 over the ennui-inducing likes of Stepmom or Bicentennial Man any day. This is not a case where maybe tens of thousands of people voting Troll 2 lowly are just not getting the film, and perhaps it is only misunderstood and in need of a hand guiding everyone over to Troll 2's eventual status as a "lost classic." No, it is most assuredly no lost or misunderstood classic, but the other thing that I do not find about Troll 2 is that it is boring. It was just too shockingly inane to hate. If nothing else, the film is a horn-of-plenty of ineptitude.

But, I will not go deeply into the details of what makes Troll 2 so reversely special in ways you could not even begin to imagine. You can find Troll 2 references and scenes all over the internet, and I wholeheartedly invite you to do so. Make an afternoon of it. Bring a picnic lunch, sit cross-legged in front of your laptop, spread that lunch out on your lap, and enjoy yourself. (Just make sure none of that food is of a sickly green tinge, or you will be adding to it...) Do a search on YouTube, and you can find scads of clips of a character screaming how he is going to be eaten; a ridiculously incongruous dance by the teenage daughter in front of a mirror; Nilbog milk drinking; and the amazing corncob-nuzzling sequence, which, if you have not been exposed to it, will leave your jaw agape in befuddlement (perhaps even oddly titillated... if so, well, that's something you will have to either work out for yourself or learn to accept.)

Like any genre film with a sizable following, a search on Google will lead you to sci-fi, fantasy and horror boards all over the 'net, where people quote their favorite lines over and over. Of course, most of the references to the film comprise one or both of the reactions that I described far above, but that is to be expected in these extreme cases. If you want your Troll 2 quotes all at once, hit IMDb and read 'em all. Well, nearly all of them, for my own personal favorite, the daughter's perfectly imperfect reading of the atrociously written line referring to the "wonderful, half-deserted town of Nilbog," is not actually on the IMDb listing. But, honestly, the entire script is riddled with such incompetence (I have heard whispers that the cast was forced to read verbatim the Italian director/screenwriter's fractured verbiage, but don't quote me on that), that the only justice in making a quote list is to simply read the whole damn thing outright. And if you really want to get closer to the source, there is even a website devoted to a reunion festival/gathering last summer in the town which had been transformed into Nilbog nearly 20 years ago to unleash Troll 2 upon the whole world.

Are we all the better for it being unleashed upon us? That depends largely on whether you are the sort of person more prone to Reaction series #1 or Reaction #2. I am the sort that rather relishes terrible films, almost on an equal par with artistically worthwhile ones, so maybe I cannot be trusted here. Oh, but I can be trusted! I have told you without reservation that Troll 2 is abhorrent by every measurable scale of moviemaking expertise and professionalism. The film sucks. But, then again, the film does not suck. Not in the way that one would usually describe a sucking film. Because what Troll 2 offers, almost completely in spite of what it brings to the table, is unabashed entertainment. It may not be the type of entertainment you were hoping for going in, but... damn it, you rented a movie called Troll 2! If you were actually expecting quality, or even hoping for it, then you are likely the sort who is going to lower oneself to spewing out a Reaction #1 statement.

And if you were expecting Citizen Kane, well, I don't want to know what is wrong with you. Despite this, though, it's likely that we will both come around to Reaction #2 and be content, if not exactly dovetailing, in our shared opinion: Troll 2 is the film for which the cliche "so bad, it's good" was invented. I will just have to learn to accept Reaction #2 as a standard.

Dylan Goes "Select, Rik" - Shuffle Mode, Monday, May 4, 2009

Man, I really wanted to get Part 2 of my Troll movie adventures recap up before this weekend, and I did say I was going to expound on my ratings scale on Sunday. I really did intend for all of that to happen. But, as it happens so often, migraines got the best of me for a couple of days, and everything, to paraphrase Rigby Reardon, kind of shifted all out of whack. So, I am still working on finishing both pieces, and Part II of For Whom the Bull Trolls will likely not get up until at least tomorrow night, followed by the ratings explanation sometime on Thursday.

As a temporary space-filler, here’s a peek at my iPod this morning, which kept me going as I tried out my brand new sneakers. The old ones squeak incessantly, having popped a few of the support struts during my speed-walking routine of the past few months, and the squeaks were getting goofy looks from people sitting on bus benches and cars at traffic stops. Or maybe I was getting the goofy looks on general purposes. Probably the last one… but I am used to that.

Here’s this morn's shuffle:

1. It’s Gonna Be A Long Night – Ween / Quebec
2. Oh Daddy – Adrian Belew / Mr. Music Head
3. I Ride My Bike – Cracker / Tucson (ep)
4. Cold War – Devo / Freedom of Choice
5. It’s A Dark Day – The Reverend Horton Heat / Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
6. Holiday for Strings – Spike Jones & the City Slickers / The Spike Jones Anthology
7. Kevin Barry – Lonnie Donegan / Rock Island Line: The Singles Anthology 1955-1967
8. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? – Frank Zappa / Joe’s Garage
9. That Teenage Feeling – Neko Case / Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
10. Take Me With U – Prince and the Revolution / Purple Rain
11. Sifl & Olly News: Olly’s Psychic Helmet / The Sifl & Olly Show
12. Good Texan – The Vaughan Brothers / Family Style

I like the transition from Donegan, a British skiffle/folk singer who deeply influenced the Beatles, to Zappa’s social disease silliness, then straight to the haunted vocal landscapes of Ms. Case. Wholly inappropriate, such segues, and exactly why I have slowly grown to love shuffle mode. Of course, jumping from the Reverend Heat's bleak blues to the chicken-squawking, awooga-horn-laced Spike Jones oddity is just as goony a jump. Actually, my old squeaky sneaks would have fit Jones' Holiday for Strings quite nicely. Just another wacky percussion instrument in a giant pile of wacky percussion instruments.

As a side observation, I discovered twt.fm today, a Twitter app that allows you to search out a favorite song, and then prep it to play from a link placed on your Twitter page. Started out with one of my favorite Robyn Hitchcock tunes this morning, which has garnered 19 plays, and might have led to two people dropping my page. One can only hope. Those without the proper taste, or at least those without the capacity to try out new artists and styles, are not welcome. Must weed out the weaklings.

And now, after a nice 12-hour day of prepping our new work website for tomorrow a.m.'s scheduled launch, I am too exhausted to write any longer. Hopefully, I will be able to finish the second Troll piece tomorrow, because tonight is one for the books. The Celtics lost before I even made it home an hour ago, which has me grouchy, and my stomach is aching, not from hunger, but most likely from an alien life form nestled somewhere behind my pancreas. That little green guy is clearly as tired as I am, and just as pouty. (The other one, most likely green from a misspent youth, is never sleepy...) So, to bed for me, and I will plan on reading some R.W. Chambers until Jen gets home. Though, with any luck, I will be asleep in mere seconds. Out.