Day: March 28, 2015

So what’s the verdict on the Get Hard outrage? Some HE regulars must have seen it last night. Is saying “take it easy, this is way overblown” a semi-legitimate view or not? Does the politically correct anger seem excessive or more or less appropriate? Is Get Hard a rough equivalent of Eddie Murphy‘s “Mr. T in a gay bar” joke?

“I’m sadly very familiar with the aesthetic that drives this film. Hollywood will always pay lip service to the gay community but when it comes down to the bottom line, they are still going to dredge up those old derogatory tropes and stereotypes. Gay panic is one thing and rape jokes are another and to put these two things together is especially pathetic on the part of the studio.

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My first thought was that (a) Marina Caregivers is an assisted living facility for elderly folks, and (b) it seemed a little bizarre to have blondie, who looks like a love doll, try to lure fresh customers from the corner of Washington Blvd. and Glencoe Avenue. Then I looked them up and realized they’re selling different strains of cannabis sativa. I don’t know how long blondie has been flashing their sign but what kind of fiend comes along and tears her arm off?

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In a 2008 More Intelligent Life piece about Bill Forstyh‘s Local Hero (’83), star Peter Riegert is quoted by Jasper Rees as follows: “Bill [Forsyth] understood that moviegoers are not interested in what the actors are feeling. They’re interested in what they’re feeling.”

Precisely! This is a perfect distillation of the entire Hollywood Elsewhere approach to reviewing movies and performances. This is the sine qua non, the emerald, the whole magillah, the words in passing from Peter Reigert, speaking six and a half years ago, that give the game away.

I’m always perfectly aware of the feelings that an actor is attempting to generate with his or her personality or application of technique or whatever, but all I care about is what I’m feeling as I sit slumped in my seat, tripping happily on the film or the performance or trying to make heads or tails of either one. I might “respect” what a filmmaker has tried to accomplish with this or that approach, but all I care about and all I’m going to write about at the end of the day is if this approach works for me. For I am King Solomon…the ultimate arbiter, the one-man jury, inspector of the final product, giver or denier of the FDA seal of approval.

A performance or a movie, in other words, is not about the idea or theme or cultural undercurrent propelling the filmmakers, but about how I fucking feel as I contemplate the finality of it
.

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I’m a teeny bit nervous about the trailer for Rob Garver‘s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, which is currently filming and expected to open at the end of the year. It’s just a trailer on the fly, but the dependence on stills and tag lines feels substandard. There’s a general aura of caution and a lack of funds. A doc about the most influential film critic of the 20th Century should be dynamic, vividly visual, bothered, manic, flourishy and to some degree reflective of the rhythms and brushstrokes of some of the mid-century filmmakers Kael deeply admired. It should move and seduce and agitate. It should deliver, in short, a facsimile of the colloquial style and obsessive energy of Kael’s writing. The trailer doesn’t begin to suggest that it will do that. Here’s hoping everything works out regardless. [Note: Ignore the idiotic “sorry — because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here” message and just click on “watch on Vimeo” button.]