In The Company Of Glenn

Hegel's Critique of 'Knocked Up'

"Womankind—the everlasting irony [in the life] of the community—changes by intrigue the universal end of the government into a private end, transforms its universal activity into a work of some private individual, and perverts the universal property of the state into a possession and ornament for the Family."

Oh, wait. I mean Heigl's critique of Knocked Up.

The actress' revelation to Some Vanity Fair Writer that she felt Knocked Up was "a little sexist" is the sort of tidbit Some Vanity Fair Writers live for—the on-the-record admission of a sentiment one might have imagined a young woman with a good head on her shoulders and an equally prudent sense of how to keep her career momentum going would have thought twice about letting drop. "It paints the women as shrews," Heigl continued, "as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you're portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie."

Wowsers. I dunno. Those Knocked Up guys might have been goofy and fun-loving, but they were also a bit on the one-track-mind side (I enjoy talking about boobies as much as the next fellow, but sometimes you've gotta change the subject, if only to have something to look forward to), and they had terrible personal hygiene. I didn't find Heigl's character so much uptight or shrewish as I found her eminently reasonable in every particular, except that she didn't move to Belgium immediately upon encountering Seth Rogen's buddies.

But I didn't start this post to write yet another thumbsucker on Knocked Up (I see Slate's already got that covered). I started it in order to make that Hegel joke...and also to contemplate Heigl's "clarification..."

'Blood' will tell...

The fruits of my recent labors are beginning to appear; my "proper" review of Paul Thomas Anderson's monumental There Will Be Blood can be found here. Generally the website's policy is to post movie reviews on the days of their releases, maybe a couple of days before. But it's clear, especially during the putative awards-movie season, that there are no rules anymore. Hell, not even in print magazines—David Denby's writeup on Anderson's film appeared in The New Yorker on Monday. (I respect Denby a great deal as a writer, although we're hardly ever on the same page, opinion-wise; but as it happens we're both major Blood fans...except I disagree with him—sharply—about the film's finale. Denby also gets bonus points in that he appears—so far—to be the sole film critic to have read the Upton Sinclair book upon which Blood is based.) Seeing that, I admit, kinda forced my hand. (UPDATE: A reader, in comments, feels that the Denby review is spoiler-heavy, early on. I'm not entirely in concurrence, but forewarned is forearmed.)

Still...part of me believes it's unfair play for us chattering classes to get the conversation about a movie so revved up before a single paying customer has been able to see it. As a blogger, I'm dying to get into the film even more, but I want to do so with as many readers as possible—not that I don't enjoy the input of my largely like-minded critic pals such as Keith Uhlich (good vibes right back at you, my friend), Nick Schager, Jurgen Fauth, Ed Gonzalez and Ryland Walker Knight (whom I've never met physically—such is blogging), all of whom had something to say back when I gave my first (and very brief) thoughts on Blood back on November 29. So there's that. In any case, I think Blood is an awesome and complex enough picture that there's no way a discussion of it could be exhausted before it even opens (which I felt was pretty much 100% the case with DePalma's Redacted).

The Globes

1981 New Star of the Year, Pia Zadora.

The nominees for the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards are out. Variety has the whole sordid story here.

Nice to see Eastern Promises getting some love. But my question is, now that the famously non-hifalutin Foreign Press Association has seen fit to nominate the likes of There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, and Persepolis for awards, can everyone just shut-the-you-know-what-up about what obscurantist snobs all the major metropolitan film critics are? (Not you guys. Just, you know.) Thanks.

Memo On Turner.

The Ike and Tina Turner Revue rock Madison Square Garden, November 1969; from Gimme Shelter, Albert and David Maysles, 1970

You gotta hand it to The Rolling Stones—they must have had quite a bit of confidence to put themselves in the position of having to follow the Revue, one of the most galvanic live acts of any damn genre or era. Just the two minutes or so of their rendition of "I've Been Loving You Too Long" in Shelter (which chronicles the '69 Stones tour for which the Revue was a frequent opening act, and of course ends at Altamont), sends shivers down the spine before exploding the inside of your chest.

Yes, I've heard all the stories of what an awful bastard the late Mr. Turner was. Maybe so. His records still give me a good deal of pleasure—I'm particularly keen on Rhythm Rockin' Blues, a nifty Ace compilation of his pre-Ike-and-Tina work, including the original "Rocket 88" from when he was in Jackie Brenston's band. It's one of the earliest—if not THE earliest—examples of fuzztone guitar, an effect Turner (I'm gonna go for it here) invented by accident. His amp fell out of the car the band was driving to Sun Studios, breaking its woofer; Turner put some paper in the crack in an ad hoc repair attempt; the material caused the woofer to vibrate differently; hence, fuzz. (UPDATE: No less an authority than Mr. Donald Fagen, writing in Slate of all places, credits Ike with the piano on "Rocket 88," citing Willie Kizart as the guitarist. One is loathe to argue with Donald Fagen; if the Ike-invented-fuzztone thing is merely an oft-printed legend, well, so much for the specifics of my thesis...still, that's some good piano...)

So, on the one hand: awful bastard. (One might, in Mr. Turner's defense, quote the wise words of Mr. Rick James: "Cocaine's a helluva drug.") And on the other hand: fuzztone guitar. Life and art fairly teem with such frustrating and perplexing giveths and taketh-aways.

Posting will be light. And perhaps fluffy.

I'm swamped. I've got a bunch of reviews, a best-of-the-year list, my second Hi-Def DVD Consumer Guide, and a couple of unedited interviews that all need finishing within the next 32 hours or so staring me in the face. And also, to quote a typo in a subtitle in the final hours of the version of Rivette's Out One that I saw around this time last year, I'm a pretty depressed. So blogging will be a bit light the next coupla days. I hope to return full of cinephiliac piss & vinegar shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the headlines of 2000, as envisioned by Bob Clampett and company in the 1944 Looney Tune The Old Grey Hare.

Richard Corliss, I'll put my anecdotal evidence against your anecdotal evidence any day!

I'm a big fan of Richard Corliss—as a writer, as a person, as a fellow Guy With A Beard—but I'm not sure I follow the thrust of his Time online column entitled "Do Film Critics Know Anything?" in which he observes that critics often give awards to movies a lot of people haven't seen, and that that's perfectly all right, except when it's not. Not only am I not quite sure what his argument is, I'm also not quite sure what he thinks critics ought to do about it. His argument, that is. Oh, forget it.

It's not what I wanted to address in the first place. No, what I wanted to address was the anecdote he kicks off the piece with.

The Golden Seventies

Two Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman, 1971

'70s nostalgia is a common affliction among movie critics of and above a certain age, and that certain age pretty much corresponds to my own. It's something to guard against, largely because it's ahistorical, and also because it's kind of a crock (the two go hand in hand, I know). Still, every now and then...like this week, which sees the DVD releases of two entirely singular motion picture masterpieces which only have in common the decade in which they were released...one thinks, "that was an amazing time..."

And what unlikely sounding masterpieces these are, too. "This is a movie that stars James Taylor, and you're telling me it's great?" My Lovely Wife asked when the package arrived, more genuinely perplexed than irritated. Verbally describing the second film to a stranger would likely get you stopped dead around the point wherein you used "Hitler" and "puppet theater" in the same sentence. That's the thing about the truly great pictures—they rather actively defy description.

Which is just my short, bloggy way of commending you to Criterion's terrific, extras-laden release of Monte Hellman's haunting 1971 road movie Two Lane Blacktop, and the Facets/Syberberg Film release of Hans Jurgen Syberberg's massive (seven and a half hours!) 1977 world-historical/philosophical fantasia/nightmare, Our Hitler: A Film From Germany.

Our Hitler: A Film From Germany, Hans Jurgen Syberberg, 1977

An Army of Criswells (updated)

Update: Clearly, my sense of humor is a little too dry—or, let's face it, lame—today, although I'd hoped the Criswell shot would have set the mood. I have highlighted my "punch line," for what it's worth, below.

A bunch of awards are going out via various critics orgs, including one I'm in, the New York Film Critics Online. Here's our winner's list:

PICTURE
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (tie)
"There Will Be Blood" (tie)

DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"

ACTRESS
Julie Christie, "Away From Her"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"

CINEMATOGRAPHY
"There Will Be Blood," Robert Elswit

SCREENPLAY
"The Darjeeling Limited, "Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola

FOREIGN PICTURE
"The Lives of Others" (tie)
"Persepolis" (tie)

DOCUMENTARY
"Sicko"

ANIMATED FEATURE
"Persepolis"

MUSIC/SCORE
"There Will Be Blood," Jonny Greenwood

BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE
Ellen Page, "Juno"

DEBUT AS DIRECTOR
Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"

ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE
"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"

PICTURES (alphabetical)
"Atonement" (Focus Features)
"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (THINKFilm)
"The Darjeeling Limited" (Fox Searchlight)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax)
"I'm Not There" (The Weinstein Company)
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight)
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax)
"Persepolis" (Sony Pictures Classics)
"Sweeney Todd" (DreamWorks)
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage)

I'm not one of those vote-and-tell types, but I can report that the NYCFO is a pretty well-behaved bunch, that we got through our voting in almost exactly the three hours we had allotted us in our venue, and that Ellen Page's actual breakout performance was in Hard Candy. Anyway.

Awards Daily is providing up-to-the-minute coverage of the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics' Circle, Boston Film Critics, Stephen King's frickin' top ten, and so on, and still we wait for The Daughters-In-Laws of Second-Generation Estonian Esthetes to weigh in. Readers of the tea leaves are now trying to discern what it all means for The Coen Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, Cate Blanchett, Marion Cotillard, and sundry others, w/r/t/ Golden Globes and Oscars. We are all interested in the future, because that is when the Oscars will be happening.

Perhaps the visual cue that would have worked better for the following paragraph would have been this instead of Criswell...

I myself wonder if there isn't at least one snubbed moviemaker or actor out there who's not sighing with relief. But that's just me. And to answer Jeffrey Wells' question: I don't think anybody's been offended by Cate Blanchett, aside from people who don't like her at all. I think I'm Not There is a more divisive film than it might seem, and that the critics who are giving Best Supporting Actress nods to Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone over Blanchett are thinking as much about Ryan in Enchanted as in Gone as they do so.

PUNCH LINE: Okay, I think that's about right.

If anyone has any other specific questions, I'll address them in comments. Or, prognosticate amongst yourselves there!

Just remember, I actually do know the difference between Amy Ryan and Amy Adams. It was a joke.

Ford Tough.

Over at Dave Kehr's blog, one of his readers gave him a little bit of guff over the difference between his considered, formal—let's say "official"— review of Fox's stupendous Ford at Fox DVD set. "When a studio puts out something like this, you’d think you could let loose with a “superb” or two in the review itself, not just the blog entry." To quote, once again, Paul Stewart in Citizen Kane, "Maybe yes, maybe no." I feel Dave's pain, if indeed Dave is feeling any. There is a difference in what a critic does for the consumption of a theoretically larger and more general-interest readership and what he or she might do under a more personal shingle, just as there are differences in media. I took a stab at a "proper" review of the Ford box on the Premiere website, taking the same tack I would have had I been writing it up for the print magazine—that is, finding an angle that I thought would have the most appeal to the mainstream of the readership.

Here, by definition, I can get a little more personal, a little more detailed...and I could point out that my review on the website contains a pretty stupid mistake of omission, in that it fails to list Ford's 1933 Pilgrimage as among the riches of the set.

From Pilgrimage, John Ford, 1933

What an astonishing picture it is, too, featuring a lead character who is, in a sense, a female precursor to The Searchers' Ethan Edwards. Arkansas mom Hannah Jessop (beautifully played by renowned stage actress Henrietta Crossman) is so attached to her adult son (played by future director Norman Foster) and so disapproving of his love for a girl she considers "trash" that she sends him off to World War I...where's he's killed. The titular pilgrimage—to France a decade later, to visit the son's grave—sets the stage for redemption and reconciliation. But before that, Jessop's one of the most cussedly dislikeable characters in not just the Ford canon but, as far as I can discern, American cinema itself. And she's the main focus of the thing! Daring for 1933...hell, it's daring for now. The picture is both rough-hewn and extremely sophisticated, with fascinating touches that make still pertinent social points (a sequence featuring U.S. soldiers' moms who happen to have limited English skills is particularly sharp and moving). Add to that a superb commentary by Joseph McBride. It's really something; a major discovery in and of itself.

Fascist architecture double feature.

Francisco Rabal, Monica Vitti, the Eur water something-or-other tower, L'Eclisse, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962

Vincent Price, the Eur water something-or-other tower, Last Man on Earth, Ubaldo Ragona/Sidney Salkow, 1964

I suppose stark mushroom-topped towers spell alienation no matter what genre you're working in. The tower is one of the many wonders of Eur, a southern suburb of Rome the name of which derives from Mussolini's title for his pet architectural/expo project, Esposizione Universale di Roma. Il Duce put up this tower and a bunch of other, um, stark, buildings in the late '30s; the project stalled due to, you know, World War II, and never got picked up again. But some of its remnants lived on to inspire cineastes...

The surprisingly striking and scary Last Man is got yet another stand-alone DVD release this week, hoping to cash in on its second remake, the Will-Smith-starrer I Am Legend. (The first remake was 1971's The Omega Man, which I'll be evaluating in my next Hi-Def Consumer Guide, coming right before Christmas...) If you haven't seen Last Man yet (and as you can see, you've had more than enough opportunities), you really owe it to yourself. Same goes for that Mike Antonioni thing, too...