Have movies gotten worse or do bad movies just get more press?

A common refrain heard today among critics and in film buff circles is that movies have gotten demonstrably worse than they were in the past. Let's say the split comes at some point in the 80's when studio-dominated, market-tested blockbusters and high-concept fare (Top Gun, Indiana Jones)  became the dominant mode of production in Hollywood. Thus ending the small amount of creative, experimental, and director-driven space that had been opened in the New Hollywood era due to wider societal/cultural changes, shifts in taste, and political upheaval, typified by works such as Bonnie and Clyde and Taxi Driver.

However this thesis either doesn't take into account, overlooks, or chooses to ignore the number of low-quality films that have been made in the past. To be fair, that precise amount can be hard to arrive at, as we've winnowed down what movies are known and discussed through critical reflection and popular knowledge, but the concept is at least worth considering for a minute. Theater-going was viewed in a drastically different way before the invention of television. Since there were no other sources of on-screen entertainment, watching movies was a weekly, or even daily, activity that often included shorts, serials, cartoons, and newsreels. It wasn't seen as an event in the same it is now. Given that fact, it makes sense to conclude that at least the same number (probably more) of films were being made back then as they are now. Furthermore, the studios had even more of a lock on what got through the system and a well-oiled PR/infotainment/tabloid machine was already in place. Given these characteristics, it makes sense to conclude that, yes, there has always been a pretty high level of sub-standard product being pumped out by tinseltown.

So if overall quality hasn't changed, what has? The biggest difference between now and then is more in the way that movies are marketed and consumed. With the proliferation of other forms of video distraction, first TV, and then video games and the internet, the situation has gradually worsened for the silver screen. As different forms of media began competing with viewers' attention spans, the stakes got higher and executives decided that less risk-tasking and sure-fire hits were the only way forward. Hyper-intensive advertising campaigns and focus group-testing followed suit, severely limiting what type of films got made, what topics and ideas could be explored, and how much aesthetic/formal experimentation was allowed. This was not the same kind of dominance that the studios had between the 30's and 60's. Yes, there were sever limits to honestly and openly tackling subjects like sex, violence, and radical politics, but directors, stars, and producers were allowed a certain level of freedom if they stayed within certain limits. The careful, though-out framing; intense, shadowy cinematography and brooding, troubled characters of The Maltese Falcon were only possible because the film was a genre picture and the bad guys got their comeuppance at the end, following the conservative morality of the Hays Code. Such complexities would not be rubberstamped today due to higher-ups' (wrong) fears that they would alienate potential ticket-buyers.   

With the executives' media blitzes fully operational and the rise of a sycophantic internet film culture, it has become nigh impossible to avoid projects you have no desire to see or have an advanced, negative critical reception. Case in point, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. If you've simply existed in the past month, you're guaranteed to at least have heard about it, let alone read/see any in-depth coverage. It doesn't matter if you're entirely fed-up with superhero flicks or find their faux natural/gritty aesthetic visually uninteresting. No matter you're stance or opinion, you've likely been bombarded with images, reviews, news, stats, and trailers. Anything that can be written about the film has been written and has been propagated throughout all levels of the internet and television.

And woe is you if you wanted to cut yourself off from all the babble. Even the better websites have had to at least review the thing. This has had an extremely damaging, limiting effect on what can be talked about online. Akira Kurosawa's birthday (he died in 1998) occurred during the same week as Batman v Superman was released. While there were short news items about the event and a few overviews of one or two his most well-known works, I have yet to see any longer, more in-depth retrospectives on any sites except for random blogs. That the birthday of one of the greatest cinematic artists of the 20th century was overshadowed by the latest $100 million+ superhero ad is a sad statement on the state of film criticism.

How can the corporate takeover of film culture be stopped? The easiest pressure point would be for editors, writers, film buffs, and cinephiles to ignore blockbusters, stop reporting box office results, and take a more selective approach about the type of news that gets disseminated. It would quite difficult, and possible suicidal, to get such a project going, but that (plus a commitment to analyzing older, foreign, and lower-budget fare) is what's required to start incubating a considerate community.

Image Association: 2001 and The Prestige

I don't really care for the comparisons between Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan (I think they generally have different styles, themes, preoccupations, etc.), but I did notice a few shots in The Prestige that recalled 2001: A Space Odyssey: one of Tesla's machine that looks all monolithy and a scene set in a morgue that is reminiscent of the room that Dave's journey ends in.

















06/27/2016 Update: Near the end of Inception, in the last level where Leo's target is conversing with his dream-dad, there's a shot that even more directly recalls Kubrick's Sci-Fi spectacle.

Review: The Witch

Directed by Robert Eggers

Written by Robert Eggers

Starring Anya Taylor-Joy (Thomasin), Ralph Ineson (William), Kate Dickie (Katherine), Harvey Scrimshaw (Caleb), Ellie Grainger (Mercy), and Lucas Dawson (Jonas)

Cinematography by Jarin Blaschke

Edited by Louise Ford

Music by Mark Korven

 

Robert Eggers' new movie begins with a dark joke. The patriarch of the family that the film focuses on is banished from a 17th century New England community for being too Puritan for the Puritans. Set a few decades before the Salem Witch Trials, this is the first hint that The Witch has more on its mind than just scares, and will explore the religious thought, social attitudes, and mental state of the groups that were fleeing England for the New World. The rest of the family follows William's lead and sets out on a rickety wagon through shadowy woods, eventually stopping at a forest clearing. There William boastfully proclaims that they "will conquer this land". Of course, William's plans soon go awry when newborn Samuel disappears while Thomasin is playing peek-a-boo with him on the edge of the woods. From there, crops fail, accidents happen, and innocent situations are blown out of proportion due to the climate of fear and paranoia created by strict religious practice. 

 

While The Witch is (and works well as) a horror film, although one without many jump scares or much gore. Eggers could have been coy about whether or not the titular monster was real or just a hallucination brought on by the settlers' collective hysteria. However, in the early goings after Samuel vanishes, we are treated to a gruesome scene that all but confirms that yes, the creature is real and is a threat to our characters. This, and other supernatural elements, is utilized to lock viewers into the mindset and daily life of the displaced pilgrims. The horror conceit gives Eggers a free hand to use atonal music, screeching choirs, and jagged, sudden cuts and editing to goose the viewer into feeling jumpy and full of dread. These techniques, along with the actors total commitment to behaving, dressing, and speaking as if they were from the 1600's, create a climate of fear that seems like an accurate depiction of the time. Using the same methods without the paranormal components might have appeared off and caused the audience to question whether or not the various freak-outs reflected historical fact.

 

Among the cast, the standout of this "New England folk tale" is young newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy. Thomasin is on the cusp puberty, a fact which is made clear to us by the various men in her life leering at her, and Taylor-Joy plays her with just the perfect mix of diffidence towards her parents and the first hints of open defiance and questioning of her family's mores. Thomasin receives the brunt of the misogyny and sexism within the film (which help explains her ultimate choice). Her father keeps quiet when she gets blamed for a missing silver cup, her mother berates her for "showing off" her developing body, and she is the first to be accused when the spooky stuff starts going down. The other actors are equally good. Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie as the patriarch and matriarch respectively look appropriately haggard and give a tragic edge to the way William and Katherine have internalized the severely repressive gender and familial roles of the time. Harvey Scrimshaw has a wee bit of trouble with the Old English dialogue, but is believable otherwise. His panicked confusion over the harsh, arcane rules of Puritan Christianity is universally relatable, and he's especially mesmerizing during a exorcism/possession scene.

 

There are multiple, intra-family battles bubbling under the surface The Witch, and it works well as an intense drama à la The Shining. The witch is simply the extra ingredient that causes the whole pot to boil over. Jarin Blaschke's muted, careful cinematography adequately captures the isolation and desperation of the situation. The choice of a 1.66:1 frame helps create a claustrophobic feel, makes the surrounding forest appear to ominously loom over everything, and recalls the European arthouse cinema (Bergman, Dreyer) that Eggers has cited as an influence. The use of natural and candle/torch light limits the visibility to just what the people onscreen can see, adds an extra layer of intensity to the lighting, and gives the exterior shots a muted color that reflects the physical and psychological harshness afflicting everyone. It would be easy for The Witch to treat its Protestant subjects as cartoon crazies. Luckily this is not the case, and they are presented as complex, contradictory people trapped by the dominant, contemporaneous ideas around them. However, the movie is harshly critical of their religious chauvinism. As mentioned before, William acts as if his belief in God is going to turn the ground fertile, and puts his partner and offspring in danger just to satiate his sense of purity. The actual witch could stand in for any of the fears that moralistic pilgrims would be facing in North America, be it nature, sexuality, or sin.

 

Eggers' debut is a convincing recreation of the mood that would lead to the infamous witch trials. It's also a demonstration that successful world-building does not necessarily mean convoluted mythology and reams of backstory, but simply a dedication to craft and authenticity.

Review: The Maltese Falcon

Directed by John Huston

Written by John Huston adapting the novel by Dashiell Hammett

Starring Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade), Mary Astor (Brigid O'Shaughnessy), Peter Lorre (Joel Cairo), Sydney Greenstreet (Kasper Gutman), and Elisha Cook Jr. (Wilmer Cook)

Cinematography by Arthur Edeson

Edited by Thomas Richards

In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels - - - - - but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day - - -

So begins The Maltese Falcon. What sounds like the start to a corny kids serial ends up being one of the seminal films of the studio era. Indeed, it's almost unbelievable how influential and important Falcon proved to be. John Huston got his first shot at directing, having previously been a scriptwriter at Universal, and would go on to make such classics as Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Man Who Would Be King. In addition, this early Noir would help push Humphrey Bogart's career from mainly supporting roles as criminals to leading man anti-hero. Falcon also lead to numerous, stand-out character actor parts for Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr., and Sydney Greenstreet (making his film acting debut here). All three turn in memorable performances. Greenstreet is especially memorable as Gutman, displaying a detached kind of amusement to the proceedings. He delights in Spade's calculated brusqueness, amuses himself with smart-sounding phrases like "I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk", and enjoys the sheer hunt for the avian sculpture as much as he wants it for the money.

The Maltese Falcon represents a transitional stage in the way detective/crime fiction was transferred to the silver screen. The work contains many of the hallmarks associated with Film Noir (dangerous women, ambiguous protagonists, and heightened photography) and Huston laid the groundwork here so future Noir films could become even  more gloomy and brutal. The influence of German Expressionism on the cinematography can be seen in certain scenes. Particularly when upshots are used to make certain characters appear more ominous, like when Spade meets with Gutman or when our terrible trio all glare down at Wilmer after they've condemned him to be the fall guy. Other examples of this style come when Spade is awoken by a phone call informing him of Archer's death and the repeated image of Sam's figure being stuck between other hostile players. The masterful lighting and framing helps set the tone and visually conveys the dark feelings of the characters and the film's morally ambiguous nature.

Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy are one step away from being completely irredeemable. Bogie is a bastard, but still has a fragment of a code, which eventually leads him to make the right choice at the end despite wavering in every previous scene. Astor is manipulative and deceitful, but isn't dominating enough to be a fully-fledged femme fatale (like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity) She ends up getting the comeuppance of a common criminal, and not winning or going out in a blaze of glory as later Noir ladies would.

To return to a topic I've discussed before, it's frustrating that older cinema (particularly stuff before the 60's) sometimes get written off as unrealistic or unnatural. First off, the "not realistic" charge is kind of silly to level at a movie in general considering the massive amounts of careful construction and manipulation that goes into even the most modest of films. Second, it's more important that a movie has a consistent style, and The Maltese Falcon definitely meets that requirement. The dialogue, acting, and camerawork are all heightened to around the same level. If the characters suddenly started in speaking mumblecore, that would be a problem. As is, everything is perfectly fine, it's just a matter of adjusting to a different filmic rhythm.

Not to mention that Falcon tackles complex subjects like betrayal, crime, greed, and lust head-on in a way that most modern movies are reluctant to do. Within the first fifteen minutes our protagonist's partner is gunned down, the ingénue is caught in a web of lies of her own making, and it's revealed that Spade is seeing his just-deceased partner's wife.  Additionally, there are plenty of subtleties hidden underneath the pulpy surface that make multiple viewings rewarding. Spade's hand shakes after he storms out of Gutman's abode. He then laughs at this fact, making him seem genuinely unstable. There's also a quick shot of him grabbing his secretary's wrist when the titular statue stumbles into his office. She responds by saying "you're hurting me", revealing that Spade is just as susceptible to the baser desires he chides the other characters for exhibiting.

Review: Hail, Caesar!

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Written by Joel and Ethan Coen

Starring Josh Brolin (Eddie Mannix), George Clooney (Baird Whitlock), and Alden Ehrenreich (Hobie Doyle),

Cinematography by Roger Deakins

Edited by Joel and Ethan Coen

Music by Carter Burwell

*Note, I'm going to discuss later plot elements, shouldn't be anything too spoilery, but if you want to go into your viewing totally clean, don't read this.

Religion, A-bombs, communists, kidnappings, drunken actors, gossip columnists, foul-mouthed actresses, hilariously heavy southern accents, and making movies! Oh my! After what seemed like a long wait after Inside Llewyn Davis, it's only the Coen Brothers' latest, Hail, Caesar! Their newest release is an unstable, yet delectable, cocktail of religious symbolism, political and philosophical discourse, dissection of the 50's studio system, and a playful, but respectful, send-up of the contemporary cinema.

At the center of the sprawling web of stories, conflicts, characters, relationships, and film shoots is Eddie Mannix, played wonderfully by Josh Brolin. Mannix is a "fixer" for Capitol Pictures, a job that mainly involves ensuring that the damaged private lives of the studio's stars don't get leaked to the public so their squeaky clean image can remain untarnished. Eddie's position is a perfect vehicle through which the audience can experience the insanity of the multi-layered story. The Coen Brothers rarely stick to standard narrative structures, and Hail, Caesar! is no exception. The plot hangs very loosely and often feels like a series of semi-related sketches (note this is not a critique). The fixer job is a neat writing trick that allows Eddie to insert himself into different, seemingly-unrelated scenarios, while still maintaining the core thread and themes. He's the straight man, that the other less put-together characters can bounce off of, and Brolin hits every note almost flawlessly. He nails just the right mixture of fifties sheen, comical frustration with the inanity around him, and genuine soul-searching about the direction his life is headed.

The main core of the aforementioned shaggy story involves Capitol Pictures' head star Baird Whitlock, another fine "idiot" performance from George Clooney. During the making of the eponymous film, he's taken hostage. Everything spins out from there as Mannix tries to ensure Whitlock's safe return and ends up  coming into contact with starlet Deeana Moran (Scarlet Johansson), tap-dancing sensation Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum), aw-shucks cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich in a breakout performance), and politely uptight British film director Lawrence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).

Eventually it is revealed that Baird has been kidnapped by communists! (bum bum buuummmm!), specifically a cell of the CPUSA composed of Hollywood script writers. Taking a detour for a moment, and speaking as someone who has haunted Marxist circles, the Coens' portrayal of that type of intellectual is actually fairly accurate. They even successfully replicate the specific lingo those groups drape themselves in. I'm guessing the two brothers were either lectured by a radical professor or had an excitable roommate/friend who was really into Das Kapital. Although, one major bit they get wrong is that one of the reds correlates to Herbert Marcuse, a thinker active in the 60's who was one of the major inspirations for the New Left. Marcuse's main focus was on the crippling effects modern consumer capitalism had on the ability of the working class and society in general to rebel and think critically. He was equally condemnatory of the repressive atmosphere of the "socialist" states of Eastern Europe. Furthermore, he was never a member of the American Communist Party, which by the 50's had nothing liberatory or emancipatory about it and had been a bureaucratic arm of the Soviet Union's foreign policy for decades.

But I digress, back at the pinkos' beachfront hideaway in Malibu, there is much talk about capitalism, dialectics, contradiction, economics, the body-politic, and The New Man. George Clooney's reaction to all of this is humorously blasé. When he first wakes up after being kidnapped, he immediately assumes that he just blacked out from a bender gone wrong, and 100% accepts what he's being told by his new friends after about oh... five minutes (he quickly returns to his standard blankness after Mannix slaps him and delivers the best line of the film: "If the picture has worth and you serve the picture, then you have worth"). The socialists' plan is ultimately revealed to be entirely spineless and ineffectual. This brings in one of the central themes of the film, and the Coens' oeuvre in general. That any plans you make and any larger changes you hope to enact, will always fail, both due to your own mistakes and quirks of the universe. Applying this to world of filmmaking is aces, and has been successfully mined by the Brothers before, albeit tangentially, in Barton Fink. The brief peaks we get at the different studio sessions all serve as examples of Murphy's Law. The star can't remember his lines, the starlet is pregnant, the dancer is gay, the cowboy can't pronounce his lines, the editor gets her scarf stuck in the projector, and the celluloid ends up burned. The image does not match reality. While this makes for some satisfying riffing and ribbing, it leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. That the good guys are those who don't ask too many questions, go along with the flow, and trust their guts (i.e. Hobie and eventually Mannix). To me, this is a conservative message, but I'll stipulate that I'm not certain that this is indeed what is being said. In addition, I would like to watch the film again and hear counter-arguments to my own, before definitively making up my min.

A few last thoughts before I wrap-up. Hail, Caesar! is rife with internal repression. Every player is hiding some type of secret or subordinating an inner desire in order to better serve the studio. An actual engagement with the real-life Marcuse's ideas would have been highly appropriate here. Particularly how mass culture can paralyze our capacity to discover our own thoughts, wants, and needs. I'm worried that, so far, I haven't given a good impression of how funny the whole picture is. The Coens will stop everything in order to deliver some clever wordplay or absurd joke. Like when they take a five minute break so Hobie can fumble his way through pronouncing "Were that (t)were so simple". Finally, Deakins does a stand out job (as he always does) of replicating the softness and color of the cinematography of the period, without over-doing it.

Review: Premium Rush

Directed by David Koep

Written by David Koep and John Kamps

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Wilee), Dania Ramirez (Vanessa), Jamie Chung (Nima), and Michael Shannon (Bobby Monday)

Cinematography by Mitchell Amundsen

Edited by Derek Ambrosi and Jill Savitt

On the surface, Premium Rush sounds like it should be fun time. Hardcore bike couriers, corrupt cops, a twisty crime saga. Unfortunately, there are multiple ways to craft the same story, and David Koep chooses the least engaging way to tell this one. It's a relatively serious action movie, with a little bit of (half-hearted) humor thrown in. What makes this outcome doubly frustrating is that there is a good film buried somewhere in Premium Rush. Part of the problem is that it tries to be multiple movies at once. The fun parts are the ones that tease at a Hot Fuzz-esque parody of extreme sports flicks. The moments that best represent this trend are the scenes of Wilee's "accident vision" where time slows down, he pictures the multiple paths he can take while riding his bicycle through New York City, and predicts that possible pileups that await him.

But the heightened, cartoonish tone is not maintained outside of those sequences. As a result, Gordon-Levitt's character absolutely tanks. If a more a satirical, over-the-top attitude had been consistently applied throughout the entirety of the film, Wilee's demeanor would have been a bit easier to take. As is, he comes off as an absolute douchebag. He rides a fixed-gear bike with no brakes, knowing that it will put pedestrians and motorists in more danger, just to get an adrenaline fix. It's extremely rare in my movie watching that I care more for random passersby's than the main character, but that's how I felt during Rush. I winced every time someone almost got hit or run into due to Wilee's stupid, entirely unnecessary antics, a reaction I can't say I experienced towards Wilee himself. That bike couriers' are presented as having an authentic, serious hardass culture that somehow places them above everyone else, only makes matters worse.

This points to another issue, because a singular tone is not kept up, the style and story ends up waffling and becomes unsatisfying. Neither the comedic nor dramatics beats hit correctly as a result, and the main plot is damaged badly by the inconsistency. A friend of Wilee's and Vanessa's (Nima) contracts their bike service to deliver a package to Chinatown. Eventually it is revealed that the parcel contains an immigration pass that Nima has worked extremely hard for in order to bring her child to America from an undefined Asian country. The plot line feels more befitting of a middlebrow/Oscar-bait picture. Alongside the comedic and action elements, it appears entirely shoe-horned in. Like the creators realized they didn't have much going on up on the screen, and tried to awkwardly fit in a sincere story in order to cynically manipulate a little pathos out of the audience. Same goes for Shannon's dick cop character, Bobby Monday. He should be a delicious, hammy villain, but Shannon doesn't quite go far enough for his portrayal to be memorable. Finally, like Nima's arc, Monday's fate is a little too gruesome for the rest of the picture, and causes everything to end on an unpleasant note.

Certain moments of Premium Rush make for an enjoyable, entertaining viewing experience. However, they are dragged down by a mistaken approach and the poor-fit of the dominant narrative.