Category Archives: literature

Skip’s Quips: Pynchon, ‘Inherent Vice’ and Sloppy Moviemaking

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Blog Sketch 082813Paul Thomas Anderson is a good director. Thomas Pynchon is a good writer. But will the film based on his novel Inherent Vice be any good?

That’s what I’m wondering some days after seeing the trailer to the picture, which made the flick look like a bit of a mess. Possibly an amusing mess, but a mess all the same.

I’m not totally happy with those prospects.

I like my movies tight, not sprawling. Frankly, I’m a bit worried that “sprawling” will be a euphemistic description of this film. Other movies in this director’s canon, including Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, were sprawling in an interesting way, meandering with purpose, getting audiences to wonder what would happen next. What I’m concerned about with Inherent Vice is that it will be directionless, muddled – that we’ll be sick of predicting where it’s going by the time we get halfway through it. And that could be a cinematic problem.

Sure, it might be on a par with Anderson’s other projects, in which case I’ll be more than pleased. But I’m cautiously pessimistic here. Not sure that’ll be the case.

We’ll see.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Musical Lines, Non-Parallel

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613We’re allowed to like great scores to mediocre movies, right?

I’m thinking about this as I ruminate on The Red Pony, Lewis Milestone’s 1949 film of John Steinbeck’s sad tale concerning a boy and his steed. The music, by Aaron Copland, is one of the American composer’s greatest compositions, yet it accompanies a picture that’s unfortunately just so-so.

I wish it were better.

Usually, it seems that the quality of a score reflects that of its film, but in The Red Pony‘s case, it doesn’t hold true. Frankly, I have no desire to see the film again … yet I often find myself humming the glorious, playful melodies and mulling the vibrant orchestration. Am I allowed to do this? I ask myself, half-serious. Am I able to like only one component of a full movie?

I have to answer yes, though I’m hesitant to do so. The cinema runs alongside music, and they’re often inextricable. Great directors generally know how to apply great scores by composers to celluloid, and many great composers have written for the screen. So what happened with The Red Pony? With a cast including Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy, as well as Steinbeck’s writing chops, plus Copland’s lovely tunes, it should be a masterpiece.

It’s plodding, however, and the music is basically what saves it. Maybe this is one of the exceptions in the world of film: a picture that isn’t very good when all of the parts are added, despite one component being transcendent. At any rate, I’m glad we have this anomaly. I just hope I don’t encounter too many more.

Skip’s Quips: Do You, Frankenstein’s Monster, Take ‘I, Frankenstein’ …

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Blog Sketch 082813Will someone please direct a movie that’s faithful to the great Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley novel Frankenstein?

It’s not hard. The subject matter’s brilliant. Plus, it’s really scary. Perfect Hollywood material, right?

Guess not. Instead, we’re getting the likes of I, Frankenstein, which, judging from its trailer, resembles the original material as much as Taylor resembles Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes.

A planet where junk evolved from quality? Say it ain’t so.

Not even James Whale’s Frankenstein keeps strictly to the book, an issue I’ve always lamented, as it’s otherwise a classic film. Shelley’s monster is, unlike the character appearing in most cinematic depictions, intelligent, vengeful … and the negative mirror image of the man who created him. Are filmmakers today afraid that if they show the creature thusly, it’ll conflict with our mental image of him? If so, why is that a bad thing? We need a truer adaptation.

I, Frankenstein doesn’t fit the bill. Oh, and as an aside, putting “I,” before the name in the title is silly in this context. What does that mean, anyway? “I, Frankenstein, do solemnly swear to star in bad movies until Hollywood gets sick of this story.”

Directors should trust the novel. It’s a good one … and still topical. Great literature always has something to say.  There’s no reason why we can’t put the same content onscreen as well.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Wrath of the Mythology Fan

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613I have one thing to say to those bent on making films inspired by ancient mythology.

Stop the cinematic madness.

From Troy to Wrath of the Titans, most of the legend-minded flicks of late have been absolutely horrid, with lousy scripts, all-too-CGI-ish special effects and plodding direction. But their worst offense is the transformation of these exciting, insightful tales of yore into tedious, talky stories of bore. I’m sorry, but who gave anyone the right to say, “Hey, I think my contemporary, magic-free interpretation of The Iliad is better than Homer’s”? Hm?

It sure felt a lot slower, despite the abbreviated (from the original source material) running time.

The fact is, myths remain topical because they’re intriguing enough to say something to us after all these years. They don’t need any tweaking to stay scary, witty or disturbing. They’re good as they are.

This goes, by the way, for any reimagining of mythology from any culture—including the lamentable Thor, whose silly, made-for-the-modern-age superhero and evil nemesis Loki resemble their legendary Norse counterparts as much as Hagar the Horrible resembles Snorri Sturluson. Sadly, we’re due for another installment of this blah-riffic series, which only means one thing: Hollywood loves to reimagine ancient mythology.

But we knew that, didn’t we? Stop the cinematic madness, I say.

A Skip and Setter Q&A: The Ancient Art of Swearing

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Skip and Setter QandA Sketch 092213At a recent imaginary panel that didn’t happen at any industry conference we know of, Skip and Setter locked horns on the topic of profanity and why it’s so prevalent in movies today. The following is an excerpt from their overlong, admittedly tiresome debate.

Skip: You’ve said in the past that you like seeing profanity in movies because it calls attention to the need to upgrade the English language. Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that many venerated writers–from Ben Jonson to e.e. cummings–have used vulgarity in their works? English doesn’t need upgrading!

Setter: You’re so misinformed. I’m talking about profanity when it’s used to replace inspired dialogue. As in every flick these days that tries to emulate Pulp Fiction. I’m not talking about profanity with a purpose.

Skip: Well, don’t you think all profanity has a purpose–as long as it’s in character?

Setter: No. Read my latest book.

Skip: I’m not reading your book, dude. I hate your writing.

Setter: Well, I outline my “Theory of Profanity” there. It basically states that it’s cooler to say a swear word in a movie than to get a “G” rating.

Skip: So you’re against overusing profanity.

Setter: Sure. Unless it concerns your reviews.

Skip: I love you, too. Now, why don’t you think the vulgarity-filled sports film has survived? Slap Shot, Major League? Seems like more folks want to do a film about profane, hipper-than-thou mobsters than they do locker-room sagas.

Setter: They’ll be back. I think people are afraid of seeing depictions of the way hallowed sports figures really talk. But they’re generally more credible than watching the story of a hired assassin who likes Schubert.

Skip: Sounds like a double standard. As long as it’s not believable, it’s OK to use profanity.

Setter: Maybe. Read my latest book.

Skip: No thanks. Anyway, profanity’s part of our lexicon. It’s been around for centuries.

Setter: Doesn’t mean we should use it. Look at the Hays Code era. Lots of great movies were made without profanity.

Skip: And lots of junk came out, too. Ever see Turnabout? Blecch.

Setter: For every one of those, there’s a Casablanca. See my point? You don’t need a swear word to make a good movie.

Skip: It might sell more tickets.

Setter: It might. Read my latest book.

Skip: To channel e.e. cummings: “I will not read your CENSORED book.”

Setter: Pompous CENSORED.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: I Sing the Movie Romantic!

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Every so often, I start thinking about Odd Man Out and how romantic the film is.

Yes, I’m talking about Odd Man Out, Carol Reed’s elegiac 1947 masterpiece about the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. The one where James Mason’s dying gunman staggers from alley to alley after killing a man in a robbery. The one where Robert Newton plays a crazed painter aching to create a portrait of the doomed fellow. The one where Robert Krasker’s cinematography captures all of the shadows and snow cloaking Belfast’s forgotten corners.

That doesn’t sound romantic, you say. But it is, it truly is.

When you get to the end and watch Kathleen, the woman who loves Mason’s Johnny McQueen, make the decision to go with him on his predetermined journey, you might agree with me. Because they’re both incredibly flawed, often unlikable, even criminals–yet they overlook their faults for love.

By the way, I’m not advocating this behavior at all. As Sibella says in Kind Hearts and Coronets: “Not at all.” Johnny and Kathleen are just characters and not to be emulated–especially in light of the fact that they use violence to achieve their ends.

But their actions oddly remind me of another pair of I-don’t-care-about-anyone-else lovers, Heathcliff and Catherine in the towering novel Wuthering Heights. The idea that the connection between two people can be so strong that everyone else is immaterial is, to my mind, one of the most romantic and completely untenable notions around. That it exists, presumably, just in art is a blessing; anyone who apes Heathcliff in real life would be the most insufferable person around. Still, it informs the screen, with Johnny and Kathleen providing perfect examples of all-forgiving, all-consuming adoration.

And it makes a spellbinding story. Emily Brontë, I’m sure, knew that well.

I think about Odd Man Out most often when I’m mulling life beyond our own–not that on other planets, but on ours, in a movie that superficially is about political divisions yet really concerns people. It’s about humans’ insularity, how selfish we can be … and how personal our goals are. Maybe that’s what I like most about the film, that it shows us in all our disarray, in characters who are lost everywhere they go except together.

It doesn’t mean they’re right. It does, however, mean romance.