I had fun at John Carter. Just not $250 million worth of fun, which leads us to the central and vexing problem: Moviegoing pleasure can no longer be casual. We’re now acutely aware of how much every movie cost, how much every studio – in this case, Disney – has riding on every given project. “What does Disney need to make its money back?” becomes the overriding question, when what we really should be asking is, “Did you see how John Carter slashed his way out of that big, blubbery whatsis and came out all blue and shit?”  —  Stephanie Zacharek

Indeed. The media’s obsession over opening-weekend box-office take is sooooo tedious.

I generally have a lot of respect for the opinions of Roger Ebert. There’s no question the man knows his movies… their history, their industry, their overall aesthetic. He understands how they’re put together and what about them makes them work, and what doesn’t. But when it comes to science fiction, fantasy, and superhero movies, especially those adapted from some other source, he can say some mind-bogglingly ignorant things.

It’s pretty obvious he doesn’t really care for such films. He plainly considers them unsophisticated and even silly, and he admits in many of his reviews that he simply doesn’t know how to approach them. And that’s fine with me, it really is; I don’t expect everyone to be a fanboy like myself. (In fact, I enjoyed being a genre fan much more back in the days when SF&F wasn’t so mainstream.) But I would suggest he try exploring the source material a little more thoroughly — or at least hire a research assistant who can spend 20 minutes on Wikipedia and then give him a brief before he writes the review — so he doesn’t always appear so… well… out of touch to people who know and understand this stuff. Case in point: his review of John Carter.

I haven’t seen it yet, so I’m not going to question Roger’s judgment as to the film’s quality. (Full disclosure: he gave the movie two-and-a-half stars out of four, so he wasn’t being all that harsh, or at least not as harsh as I expected.) He complains the plot isn’t as tight as it ought to be and the CGI is occasionally dodgy. Fair enough; he may well be right about those problems. But what raised my hackles were the offhand remarks he made that indicate he just doesn’t know much about where this character comes from, and he can’t be bothered to find out. For example, here’s the paragraph that really made me grit my teeth:

When superior technology is at hand, it seems absurd for heroes to limit themselves to swords. When airships the size of a city block can float above a battle, why handicap yourself with cavalry charges involving lumbering alien rhinos? …

 

Such questions are never asked in the world of “John Carter,” and as a result, the movie is more Western than science fiction.

Roger, I respectfully counter that being more Western than sci-fi is actually a feature for this film, not a flaw. That means it’s at least somewhat faithful to A Princess of Mars, the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels about John Carter. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading Princess out loud to The Girlfriend, one chapter per night, just before bed, and she observed very early on that the story is essentially a Western with giant, four-armed green men standing in for Native Americans. But of course that’s what it is. Consider the book’s history. It was originally published in serial form in 1912. Wyatt Earp was still alive in 1912, and I’m pretty sure Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was still touring then. The Old West occupied a tremendous amount of real estate in the popular imagination, Western stories dominated the pulp magazines that Burroughs was trying to break into, and science fiction as we now understand it did not really exist. (Indeed, Burroughs practically invented the sci-fi genre, or at least a certain subset of it.) Plot-wise, Princess actually starts off as a Western, with Carter fighting Apaches in the Arizona Territory just after the Civil War, before Burroughs unleashes his imagination. To complain that a movie based on this seminal, century-old story doesn’t fit so neatly into our modern generic pigeonholes indicates to me that you’re missing the point.

As to the issue of swords on a world that also boasts gravity-defying airships, it’s very plainly explained in the books (but, I grant, perhaps not in the movie) as a cultural thing. The peoples of Barsoom are violent, in constant conflict with one another, and they prize physical prowess and bravery above all other virtues. In addition, their world is dying and in many ways they have regressed into barbarism (some of the races, such as the green men of Thark, moreso than others, such as the more human-appearing red race). They fight with swords because skill with a blade is more impressive to them than merely shooting someone from a distance. Besides, this is a pulp adventure story — swords just come with that territory. The armies of Ming the Merciless fly around in rocket ships and blast people with ray guns, but they have sword duels as well. And what are the lightsabers of our generation’s touchstone pulp adventure, the Star Wars saga? Swords. Just swords, with a disco-era makeover.

One last thing: near the end of his review, Ebert makes this really silly remark:

The Tharks are ingenious, although I’m not sure why they need tusks.

At risk of sounding snotty, they have tusks because that’s how ERB imagined them!

Look, I know movies should stand or fall on their own merits and if you have to refer constantly to the source material to explain away flaws, the movie can be considered a failure… but it just strikes me as silly to nitpick this sort of thing in the case of an adaptation. It sounds to me like Ebert is criticizing the very things that make this movie recognizable as Burroughs’ creation. And isn’t that what it’s supposed to be? Burroughs’ Barsoom brought to life? That’s what I’m hoping to see, at least…

I’ve watched the annual Academy Awards telecast pretty much every year since I was in elementary school. Blame my mother and the TV Guide. See, Mom has always been drawn to the glamour of the Oscars, the clothes and hair and jewelry, the idea that the proceedings offer a glimpse of the celebrities’ real personalities, and that we viewers out there in TV land are being welcomed into their big, happening party. She grew up in the days when Hollywood was still the Dream Factory, and not just a cutthroat business run by corporate bean counters… when movie stars were, well, stars, and not unkempt schlubs who are claiming to be “just like us” while they snort cocaine off supermodels’ behinds using hundred-dollar bills, or whatever it is they do nowadays. (I know, I’m stuck in the ’80s. Sue me.) She loves seeing her favorites, especially the dwindling number of older actors and directors she identifies with, and it gives her genuine joy to see them win. (Of course, it also pisses her off when they don’t; I’ve had a lot of “how could so-and-so have beat such-and-such?” conversations with her over the years.) She always watched the Oscars, and, given that I was a little boy without much influence in these matters, I watched them with her. And in time, as I started to recognize the actors and directors and got caught up in the Hollywood myth myself, I started to enjoy the show as much as she did.I treasure my memories of the two of us sitting on the hearth, a roaring fire at ours backs, with the dashing men and lovely women of cinema gliding across the screen of our gargantuan old console TV.

Not surprisingly, my interest in the Oscars peaked during the years I worked at the multiplex movie theater, my early 20s, when I was thoroughly immersed in and preoccupied by cinema. My passion has faded a bit in the two decades since then, partly because I seem to be seeing fewer and fewer new-release movies each year, and partly because the films that get nominated these days are usually not the ones I am bothering to see. Not that I expect Captain America to get a Best Picture nod, but a definite rift has opened in recent years between popular films and those the Academy considers good enough to nominate. It didn’t used to be that way; consider past winners such as The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, or Dances with Wolves, which managed to be both very popular and also critically respected. Nevertheless, I’m still there every winter, watching the Oscars as much out of ingrained habit as anything else, but still watching.

Which brings me to this year’s telecast. I had only limited interest going in — there didn’t seem to much point, as I’ve seen only one of the films nominated in any of the major categories, specifically The Help — but I quickly got sucked in. And sadly, “sucked” is a word that occurred to me a lot during the show. It really was pretty awful this year, in a myriad of ways. The big, boring production numbers of past years were mostly absent, but those that remained weren’t very effective. (Cirque de Soleil may be fascinating in a live setting but on TV, the cameraman never seems to know where he ought to be aiming, so there’s a sense that you’re missing stuff.) The perennial problem of winners getting cut off or having to rush to get through their acceptance speeches seemed particularly bad this time. The camera kept cutting to the frickin’ band instead of showing what the people on stage were doing. Worst of all, the jokes were terrible this year, all of them, from the stuff the presenters were trying to get through to Billy Crystal’s tired old schtick we’ve seen in eight previous Oscar shows. And Crystal himself — a person I normally feel great sympathy toward — was unexpectedly irritating as he mugged his way through his hosting duties, obviously aware that he was falling on his face and unable to do a damn thing about it. And yet, I hung in there, occasionally bouyed by the genuine emotion of an Octavia Spencer or Jean Dujardin, but generally wondering who in the hell was in charge of this mess and how they keep their jobs.

At some point, I decided I had to do something in order to keep myself interested. And so I turned to an activity which is practically cliche for many Internet users, but still something of a novelty to me (considering I’ve never done it before!): I decided to live-tweet this thing.

Yes, I have a Twitter account. Feel free to follow me if that’s your thing, but be warned that I’ve never figured out quite what to do with the damn thing, so my posting — or tweeting, or whatever you call it — is pretty sporadic.

Anyhow, just for fun, I’m going to repost my Oscar-night tweets here. Many of my Loyal Readers have already seen this stuff, either on Twitter or most likely Facebook, which I’ve got set up to repeat whatever I do on Twitter. However, Facebook seemed to be reposting everything out of order, so you may find it valuable to look at these posts again, in the proper descending order in which I made them. (One of the things I dislike about Twitter is that the new stuff is at the top, so if you’re doing something in a sequence, readers have to scroll backwards to get all the pieces.) Brave New World and all that:

• Crystal’s timing is rusty, the filmed comedy sketches are unfunny. Jettison this stuff and give the winners more time to speak. #
• “Hollywood runs on Diet Coke” ad was pretty classy – well-deserved thanks to all the behind-the-scenes folks. #
• Love how genuinely happy Marty Scorsese seems to be for his tech people when they win. #
• Wow. Love Downey Jr., but his bit with Gwyneth just died a miserable, lonely death. Who wrote this crap? #
• Emma Stone and Ben Stiller… another bit goes down in flames. Sigh. #
• I was hoping Real Steel would pick up the statue for Visual FX. Not a big spectacle, but I really loved that one. #
• Congrats to Christopher Plummer! His speech was pure Old Hollywood class… and genuinely funny! First thing tonight that was… #
• I guess John Williams’ day is past when he’s nominated twice and still loses. Ludovic Bource made a classy speech, though. #
• Will Farrell and Zach G: banging your own cymbals still doesn’t make the joke funny. #
• Okay, “Man or Muppet” is an awesome song, but were there really only two nomination-worthy original songs this years? #
• “The Academy accepts on behalf of Woody Allen…” because he’s too big a douchebag to actually show up. #
• Angelina Jolie is supposedly pregnant, right? Could’ve fooled me. I guess exposing her leg up to the uh-huh worked as distraction. #
• Short film categories are frustrating… where can we actually see these films?! #
• Michael Douglas looked healthy. I’m glad. #
• James Earl Jones, Dick Smith, Oprah… Why not keep the camera on them instead of showing the band?! Lamelamelame. #
• Dick Smith’s name didn’t ring a bell until they showed the clips. The man’s a genius based on The Exorcist alone. #
• Oh, and Rick Baker has awesome hair. I envy his silvery ponytail. #
• Esparanza Spalding singing “What a Wonderful World” — beautiful voice, truly impressive ‘fro. #
• “In Memoriam” segment – nice to recognize some technical people for a change, but what did they work on? We don’t know their names! #
• Natalie Portman grew up well. For my money, the most beautiful woman in the room tonight. Red is her color. #
• Still hate this “butter up the acting nominees” thing. Everyone just looks embarrassed as the presenter gushes scripted praise. #
• Meryl Streep is a surprise. I honestly thought Viola Davis had it. But Meryl is amazing, classy & beautiful. I’d buy her a drink. #
• I guess Tom Cruise finally got on the right meds. #
• And it’s The Artist. No surprise. I need to see that. Except now it will be all trendy and popular… #
• And it’s over. Billy Crystal looks relieved. Poor bastard. #
• Dujardin name-checked D. Fairbanks, Hazanavicius thanked Billy Wilder. The French have always had more respect for film history. #
• Final thought: Where was Jack Nicholson this year? He’s usually right there in front… I knew something was terribly off… #

And there you go, my first live-tweeting experience. Hope it was good for you. It was… amusing… for me, although it’s obviously not a substantive way to communicate.

Oh, before I forget, the TV Guide thing. You see, TV Guide used to print this full-page list of all the nominees in each of the major categories. Throughout the broadcast, Mom kept the Guide close at hand, turned to that page, and she would religiously mark off each winner as it was announced. I don’t know why she did it, and probably neither did she; it just seemed to like something that ought to be done. (I used to do something similar when I listened to Casey Kasem’s or Rick Dees’ weekly top-40 countdown radio shows, writing down each song on the back of an old envelope. Why? Damned if I know.) I kind of wish we’d thought to save those lists. I’m frankly surprised one of us didn’t, given how important it seemed at the time…

(Incidentally, Mark Evanier has a few ideas on how to improve the Oscars, and I think I agree with every single one of them…)

Happy news today from Jahnke’s Electric Theater over on Facebook: it seems that one of my personal “holy grail movies,” i.e., the handful of films I’d like to own but which have been long been unavailable on DVD or any other home-video format, is finally on the way. In this case, it’s High Road to China, a 1983 adventure flick starring Tom Selleck. Although High Road is often dismissed as a knock-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s actually a fun little B-movie romp on its own terms, and not really that much like an Indiana Jones movie. High Road is being released on both DVD and Blu-Ray by Hen’s Tooth Video on April 17. Here’s a peek at the sales sheet:

With this release, my list of MIAs is down to only three (well, okay, technically six) items: another early-80s Selleck vehicle called Lassiter; FM, which was sort of a forerunner to the WKRP in Cincinnati series; and, of course, decent-quality anamorphic transfers of the pre-1997 Star Wars trilogy, my perennial hobbyhorse.

It’s funny… the movie industry obviously feels the DVD is on its way into the landfill of history, and it seems to me that Blu-Ray really hasn’t caught on the way everyone hoped. The future, we are constantly hearing, is going to be all streaming and clouds. Maybe so… and yet it’s only now, supposedly at the end of the medium’s life cycle, that a lot of obscure titles are finally finding their way onto shiny silver discs. I almost wonder if the attention being given to streaming is making it possible… maybe because nobody expects big DVD sales anymore, niche titles are free to move in modest numbers without being considered a failure. Maybe… it’s just an idea I had…

I spotted the one-sheet for a new film called The Artist a couple weeks ago, but while I thought it was striking and classy — a wonderfully refreshing change from the Photoshopped headshot montages that comprise the vast majority of movie posters these days — it gave me absolutely no idea what the movie was actually about. Now I know… and I love it, at least as a concept. The Artist is a silent movie. Yes, a silent… as in “no audible dialogue” and only occasional intertitles instead of subtitles. Just like the ones made up until 1927 or thereabouts. And it was even shot in black and white. Here’s the trailer:

Looks good, doesn’t it? Beautiful cinematography and mood. The music is anachronistic, of course — Louis Prima didn’t record the first version of “Sing Sing Sing” until 1936, almost ten years after The Jazz Singer effectively ended the silent period — but otherwise this thing looks about as authentic as you can get, short of throwing in a little simulated nitrate decomposition. The dog even resembles Asta, the canine costar of the Thin Man series from the ’30s and ’40s. But it’s not just the retro gimmick that’s grabbed my attention; the story intrigues me as well. The movie is about a silent film star whose career and life is about to dissolve due to that new innovation, talking pictures. Simultaneously, the pretty extra he helped discover is becoming a Big Deal. Yes, it’s the same premise as A Star Is Born, but that’s okay.

Although The Artist was shot in Los Angeles using many locations authentic to the silent age, and using several American actors — you may have noticed John Goodman, James Cromwell, and Penelope Ann Miller in the trailer — this is technically a French movie, the brainchild of a gutsy man named Michel Hazanavicius. And you know, that doesn’t really surprise me, considering how utterly risk-averse Hollywood has become in the last 20 years. No American film studio would take a chance on an insane project like a modern-day silent; they prefer sure-things like remakes and sequels. Ever since my college days, I’ve been defending Hollywood movies to the film-snob, subtitle-loving, popularity-hating people I occasionally run across in my social circles, but just lately… Well, it says something interesting that the coming-soon attractions that have most excited me the past couple years — this, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, and Space Battleship Yamato — have all been foreign films. But then the movies I really love tend to be made by people who love movies, and, as far as I can tell, Hollywood is run these days by people who love brands…