Link: Does Anyone Want to Be "Well-Read?"

In Roger Ebert's April 16th blog, there is a very interesting question raised that inspires the need for a lot of feedback. How many of the great writers of our culture have you had the privelage of absorbing? Better yet, how many have you read willingly, outside of the structured environment of classrooms and homework assignments?

Read on here and comment.

Cult Classics That Never Were: "Titan A.E."

The following article was written in 2008, one of several reflection pieces meant to be published in a book that was being shopped around to publishers for the Online Film Critics Society. The book never materialized, but some of the submissions that various critics made were no doubt well-written essays that were also impeccable in the aesthetic known only to the most talented of online writers. I’m sure that some of the work of my colleagues from the project has since made it online, and because I’m never one to advise wasting a written word, the time has come to publish my own.

Despite the fact that I wrote a review for “Titan A.E.” during it’s original theatrical run, I felt it was appropriate to revisit the movie and it’s ongoing reputation as an underrated gem. (Not so ironically, this piece was written for a chapter called “Cult Classics That Never Were,” which I now use as the header here to create the distinction of it not being a typical film review).

Scream 4 - ***1/2 (2011)

“One generation’s tragedy is another’s joke,” observes Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette) during an early moment in “Scream 4,” on a day in which ghost-faced costumes are lined on lampposts throughout town to acknowledge the anniversary of a deadly teenage massacre from so many years prior. Those old enough to remember the experience find it no laughing matter, but as is the curse of time in history and society, our culture is desensitized to the past because mankind exists in a perpetual state of testing its boundaries.

The kids in the original “Scream” watched scary movies, recognized the formulas and walked around with a certain self-awareness of their bleak situations; here, over a decade later, horror films are not about patterns as much as they are about the gratuity, and Hollywood has lost all inspiration to green-light anything other than remakes. Therefore, the only movie rule that applies to the teenagers of Woodsboro circa 2011: all other rules are undergoing a revamp.

THE VIEWING LIST (04/09/10)

Returning to writing is a rewarding experience for me, but not so rewarding is the fact that it also comes with a price – namely, the prospect that collective moments taken away from normality to undertake a writing assignment will ultimately lead to normality catching up with me. I tend to put 100 percent focus on things that interest me at that current moment, and when my attention turns back, even briefly, to the every-day routines that keep me afloat personally, they often become overwhelming to a point that pulls away my focus from things like, well, writing and watching movies.

Attempts are being made to overcome that. There are too many distractions. Thankfully, five specific distractions these past two weeks have reminded me of what I started up again, and why it is important to follow through with it. Dreams can end simply by us waking up to reality; the important ones should become passions and endure for a lifetime.

Archives have returned

There have been no new reviews this past week -- in part because I've been trying to get all the OLD stuff back up first.

And as luck would have it, as of today, every review I have written in the past is now available here. (note: necessary links will be on display in the main header sometime soon).

As for old articles? They are still a work in progress, but coming.

Normal writing will resume this week. Thank you for your patience.

THE VIEWING LIST (3/26/10)

The cinema of old took a front and center presence in this past week’s viewing schedule. Three of the four movies I saw over the previous seven days originate pre-1960, while two of them were made by famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. Other common bonds: each deals with behaviors and feelings more than stories, and each seems to look into itself from a cracked mirror. Insanity, jealousy, mortality and desperation are deep-seeded ideas in all of these as well. Were they intentionally chosen as such? Not in the least. It was a coincidental parallel. Perhaps this implies that the golden era of both Hollywood and European cinema preferred to deal with reflective impulses, qualities that might seem rare in today’s industry.

2012 - ** (2009)

Three things promptly come to mind when watching Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster blockbuster: 1) theories behind 2012 being the year of a potential planetary cataclysm strike me as flimsy and desperate attempts to further promote fear-mongering in an already fearful society plagued by ongoing human tragedies; 2) special effects have indeed come so far and reach so extensively that, in the case of a moviemaker with a lot to prove, it can easily just be a crutch; and 3) no one has obviously been brave enough to tell this movie’s director, a obvious destruction enthusiast, that just because you decide to blow up every known corner of your planet for lavish production purposes doesn’t give you the option to neglect any of the ordinary things that most competent filmmakers utilize. His is a movie that plays more like a preview reel than its own actual end result. It is all about elaborate show rather than a substantive purpose. And the sad thing is that he probably already knows that, and just doesn’t mind.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell - 1/2* (2009)

The beer-guzzling imbecile that hogs the spotlight of “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” is the most unpleasant 20-year old I have seen in a comedy in recent years, soulless and disparaging and so excessive in those qualities that they seem to have no beginning or ending point. A more skilled comedy would have been obligated to reduce him to background distraction after two minutes; unfortunately, based on new traditions, he is allowed to infect celluloid for the full running time and drives the story into rather dubious territory. Often we find ourselves sitting back in total speechlessness, particularly when he degrades women, speaks in vulgar and pompous analogies, indulges in irresponsible behavior, and allows himself to not be bothered by noticing any of the discomfort that he brings to the lives of his own close friends. That he achieves all of this with either a smirk or a chuckle in conjunction with a crude line of dialogue is a convenient narrative cop-out, one meant to imply that the mean-spiritedness of the material is really just tongue-in-cheek. Too bad it isn’t in the least bit funny.

Poltergeist - ***1/2 (1982)

The ghost story was a fairly straightforward endeavor shackled by underlying menace in Hollywood’s golden days, but “Poltergeist” was perhaps one of the first movies to sensationalize it, to turn the idea in on itself and expose its more elaborate potential. Before it, few even knew the difference between poltergeists and hauntings, or if there was even a purpose to differentiate them; in a day when the cinema was about the growing presence of slasher films, the idea of a horror movie dealing in any part with the afterlife was superfluous. To our benefit, Steven Spielberg saw differently, and a crucial ingredient in achieving that realization may have come from his choice of Tobe Hopper as the director, whose own experience making “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” gave him perhaps the right tools as a showman to cause the stage surrounding this straightforward premise to erupt with lavish fanfare. And yet the movie is more than just a story of strange ghostly phenomenon that is upstaged by special effects or grandiose plot twists; it portrays the material realistically, uses both mind and heart in the delivery, and is played by actors who seem to have a more genuine stake in the outcome than studio execs eager to plan sequels.

THE VIEWING LIST (03/19/10)

Ever get the feeling that some movies just do not change, no matter how many times you view them? That’s the gist that links the core group of pictures that were in my focus during the past week. It’s always been a pleasant surprise to reassess something and realize that you might have been wrong about it the first time, but a movie that stands up – that retains its energy, its purpose, and warrants the same response time after time – those are often the films I appreciate more. We often find ourselves disgusted with the condition of the products clogging up mainstream movie theaters, and sometimes the only thing that keeps us from losing sight of the prize is revisiting a film that you know will still have the same impact on you that it did from day one. Dependability, indeed, is the passage to endurance in times of doubt.