The Two-Pronged Movie Review System Attack

Lately I've been meditating on the inherent inadequacies currently existing in contemporary film reviewing. Often I think reviewers feel an obligation to review a movie on the average viewer's terms and not their own. But on the other hand, reviewers who provide an intensely subjective take on a film and fail to take into account other viewers' reactions merely produce so much more folderol for the universe. So what I've been wondering is: could there be a way for a film reviewer to strike an effective balance between the two impulses? A foolproof way to provide a little something for everybody? Or is such a project beyond the scope of criticism?

Behold: Little Earl's Two-Pronged Movie Review System Attack.

Allow me to explain.

I have noted before (and others have as well) that our movie experience today consists of two almost unrelated but simultaneously coexistent kinds of movies in the marketplace: the blockbusters and the art films. The blockbusters are usually created for people who are not interested in reading movie reviews, although some blockbuster fans do appreciate intelligent analysis of their favorite genres - as long as the movie reviewer respects the modest goals of the blockbuster, of course. Many nights on Rotten Tomatoes I have marveled at the heated and exhaustive discussions users will have over the merits of such artistically comical enterprises as the Die Hard and Rambo sequels. The art films are really where the movie reviewer serves the most valuable function. But because newspapers and websites (I presume) ask their critics to pitch their content in a way that does not exclude the blockbuster fan, what ends up happening is that movies that merely aspire to entertain will be praised over movies that aspire to move the human soul simply because the critic knows that the blockbuster movie is more likely to deliver what the viewer is hoping to see, even if the critic doesn't much admire the movie personally.

Roger Ebert has famously professed ambivalence over his four-star review system, but nevertheless he has stuck with it. He seems to understand the two standards at play, and yet he will use them interchangeably. When he feels like reviewing a movie solely based on what it is trying to achieve as a blockbuster, he will do so (hence the four-star review for M. Night Shyamalan's Signs), and when he feels like reviewing a movie solely based on his own personal gut response to a film, he will do so (hence the four-star review for...every cheesy Oscarbait movie of the past three years?). As a result, his four-star review is beginning to lose its weight. Unsurprisingly, when needled on the subject, he cops a plea on the grounds that his editors make him use it. Here is a legendary exchange from his Answer Man column:


Q. Do you hold different genres to different standards? It would seem so. You gave The Stepford Wives three stars, most likely just because it wasn't the WORST remake you'd ever seen, but you gave The Life Aquatic 2.5 stars, probably because to you it was not on par with The Royal Tenenbaums. Would you honestly rather sit through The Stepford Wives again than The Life Aquatic? I know I'd sooner have a Charles Nelson Reilly movie marathon.

Jeff Robinson, Los Angeles

A.Stars are relative, not absolute, and analyzing them represents a waste of valuable time that could be profitably spent watching aquarium fish or memorizing the sayings of Dr. Johnson. I am compelled to award them because of market pressures. I, too, would rather see The Life Aquatic again than The Stepford Wives, but within the context of the two films, I think The Life Aquatic falls further short of what it was trying to do -- even though what it does is better than anything in The Stepford Wives. I realize my logic is impenetrable. I recommend just reading the reviews and ignoring the stars.


Ah, but all this has got me thinking: what if I were to employ not one, but two star systems? One I might call the "objective" system, where I rate a film based on how well it achieves its purported goals, and the other I might call the "subjective" or "gut" system, where I rate a film based on how I really feel about it. Think about the impact this would have. Why, it could revolutionize the entire rating system world!

Or perhaps it is an even more ridiculous idea. Just how do I define a film's artistic goals "objectively"? Am I trying to guess the filmmakers' intentions? Am I trying to guess the average moviegoer's aesthetic tastes? Could that be a big fat waste of time? And just how do I propose to rate my"gut" reaction to a movie? Is my gut opinion really all that different from my cold, clinical opinion?

I don't know. And frankly, my dear, I think we might as well find out. As some of you may have noticed, I have thus far avoided the entire issue by leaving my film reviews free of a star system. But for the next few months, I think we shall try a little experiment. If it flops, then it flops. But if it succeeds...well, we'll wonder how we ever did without it.

Because He Has a NYTimes Column and I Don't

Yep, I'm picking on Stanley Fish again. His newest column argues that Constitutional Theory doesn't matter, at least when we're discussing Supreme Court justices. He goes through some first year law school talk (I know, I'm there) to back it up.

This is the equivalent of writing a column about how the Bloods and Crypts don't really like red and blue clothes because they find them stylish. Everyone knows this. Hell, even clever-mediocrity-as-intellectualism think tank Slate.com employs Dahlia Lithwick to write about this issue. "Strict constructionist" is code for "maybe I'll vote against Roe v. Wade".

Perhaps I should be easier on Fish. After all, he's telling me that I shouldn't care about something I already don't care about, which is always nice to hear. Coincidentally, that's often the message of Slate articles as well.

She's a...Horr

Looking at a map of South Carolina's primary results, broken down into individual counties, it appears that the only county won by Hillary Clinton is a county by the name of "Horry."

Horry. Say it out loud. Coincidence? Providence? Happenstance?

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

For He's a Jolly Good Fela

In my ever-expanding search to explore every known genre of music besides jazz, I've recently been listening to a musician named Fela Kuti. I'd known Fela Kuti mostly as an Afrobeat musician who had heavily influenced Talking Heads. My roommate has owned a 2-disc compilation called The Best Best of Fela Kuti and occasionally he has played it in the kitchen. Whenever he put it on I noted that it was not bad. I finally ripped the collection and now have been giving it my serious attention.

Fela Kuti's music is simultaneously very familiar and entirely unique. Imagine James Brown jamming with The Doors and you might get the idea. Or Bob Marley fronting Parliament-Funkadelic. His songs are all about fifteen minutes long and he sings and raps over a seemingly endless groove. Some of his material simply jumps out of the speakers with a wild percussive energy. You can almost feel the oppressive sun blazing down upon an urban African street.

Easily as interesting as Fela Kuti's music is the story of Fela Kuti's life itself. It is the kind of life that is so outrageous and so over-the-top that it is surprising more people don't know about it. If you even have a sliver of time, I recommend that you read his entry on Wikipedia or his bio in the All Music Guide. But if not, then allow me to extract and condense the highlights for you:

Born in Nigeria, Fela studied music in London in the early '60s, and would probably have ended up playing a decidedly non-political hybrid of jazz, funk, and African "Highlife" if he had not met a woman in America who introduced him to the writings of Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement. He dropped his original "slave" middle name "Ransome" and changed it to "Anikupalo" ("he who carries death in his pouch"). Back in Nigeria, he became a superstar and set up his own house/commune/ recording studio and dubbed it the Kalakuta Republic, eventually declaring it independent of the Nigerian state. Suffice to say, the Nigerian government did not like this and attempted to raid the Republic several times. In 1974 they tried to plant a joint on him but, thinking fast, Fela ate the joint. They took him into custody and waited for him to excrete the joint but he swapped feces with another prisoner and was freed. To commemorate this slightly comical event, Fela decided to name his next album Expensive Shit.

But Fela's triumph was shortlived. In 1977 1,000 soldiers raided the Republic, beating Fela and his family mercilessly (they threw his 82-year-old mother from a window, causing fatal injuries), and eventually burned the place down. Fela and his band regrouped, however, and on the one-year anniversary of the attack, Fela married 27 women in an elaborate ceremony. His bandmates eventually began deserting him, but undeterred, he formed his own political party and attempted to run for president of Nigeria, although the government failed to recognize his candidacy. To make a long story short, he officially died of AIDS in 1997 although it was commonly believed that the numerous beatings at the hands of the government had ultimately killed him.

Although politically progressive in many ways, Fela held quite traditional views regarding women. In the song "Lady," for instance, he sings:

If you call woman
African woman no go ‘gree
She go say I be Lady o

At first you might interpret this as Fela saying, "Don't call African women 'women'; call them 'ladies' please." But what he is actually saying is "Some African women think they are fancy little European ladies instead of good, respectful African women." He goes on:

I want tell you about Lady
She go say him equal to man
She go say him get power like man
She go say anything man do
She go want take cigar before anybody
She go want make you open door for am
She go want make man wash plate for her for kitchen
She want salute man she go sit down for chair
She want sit down for table before anybody
She want piece of meat before anybody

African woman go dance she go dance the fire dance
She know him manna Masster
She go cook for am
She go do anything he say
But Lady no be so

Of course, Fela had a rather sarcastic sense of humor so it is hard to known how serious we should really take these lyrics. And in one sense he has a point, because fancy clothing and elaborate European table manners are ultimately quite worthless. But this song really highlights the dilemma that former colonial powers the world over face: how do you best re-establish your own cultural identity in the aftermath of colonialism? In some ways, it is good to preserve your cultural heritage and traditions. But perhaps some traditions, such as the subjugation of women, are worth abandoning? I guess it's fair to say that before people can worry about having women's rights they first have to worry about having any rights. And on that score, Fela was a warrior.

Bad Arguments From Famous People

Here Stanley Fish argues against people who register as Independent when they vote. He reasons that everyone should have a preference for a party because the President appoints so many government workers. These appointments, he says, are quite important.

Unfortunately for Fish, Independent voters can still vote in presidential elections. They only lose out on primary elections in some states. Unless different candidates within the same party appoint different types of people to Federal posts, Independent voters have no less of a say in appointing Federal workers than anyone else.

What Fish should be arguing against is the sentiment that both major political parties are the same. Now this is an argument that I can get behind. There are major differences between Democratic and Republican appointees. Do you think the EPA should be actively hampering efforts by individual states to improve fuel efficiency? Do you think that officials going to work in Iraq should be asked their opinion on the proper legal status of abortion?

If you care one way or another you have an incentive to vote. But you don't have much incentive to register for a party and vote in a primary. In fact, this is one area in which candidates from the same party would have little to distinguish themselves.

Apology for the Delay

My #8 is in works but yesterday was hectic. I had a terrible outline assignment due so I didn't finish my work for a different class. My teacher decided to call on me and I sounded like an idiot. We had an extra class that lasted until 5:00 and my tire went flat on the way home. My sister's car battery died, so I carried my battery 4 blocks through the rain to give her a jump.

We did eat at a tasty restaurant after it all, though.

Stone Making Bush Movie; Witty Comment Not Necessary

Oliver Stone Votes for 'Bush' Project

Honestly. I don't even know what to say anymore. How long until "Darfur: the Oliver Stone movie" or "The 2008 Economy: an Oliver Stone film"? Whatever happened to picking slightly more culturally peripheral topics? Does he just sit around and think, "What huge issue of the day does every other filmmaker in the world have the good sense to shy away from at this moment? That? OK, let's do it." Now I'm just waiting for "Microsoft: The Movie."

9. Tom Waits' Bone Machine (1992)

Allow me to paraphrase a line from I review I once read on Amazon.com: If all civilization as we know it were destroyed in a giant nuclear holocaust, and the earth's contents turned into an endless heap of ash and metal, and one man survived, and he decided to make music, this is the album he would create.

Bone Machine was my introduction to Tom Waits. I was in the stage of my musical education where I stayed up late at night flipping through the All Music Guide, trying to find all the artists with five-star albums that I didn't know anything about. I got to Tom Waits, and, well...the All Music Guide provides a list of applicable genres beneath each artist's name, right before the bio. And for Tom Waits, it said "Singer-Songwriter/ Experimental." And I thought, "What the hell kind of a genre is that?" It didn't really sound like something I would like, so I waited a while on Tom Waits. When a friend borrowed Bone Machine from the library, he also loaned it to me. I put it in the stereo, and out came...the insane ramblings of a madman! But it wasn't bad. In fact, some of the songs were downright catchy. I could suddenly see how "Singer-Songwriter/ Experimental" was perhaps the only appropriate description of his style. Since there was no picture of Tom Waits on the cover, I drew this wild image in my mind of what he must have looked like. He was about 80 years old, with a big, crazy beard, and with half of his teeth missing. When I actually saw a picture of him I thought, "Oh, he just looks like an ex-con or something."

I feel pretty confident in saying that Bone Machine is Tom Waits' second-best album, behind Rain Dogs. What sets it apart from his other post-Rain Dogs albums is, ultimately, the strength of the songwriting. Sometimes Waits can fall into the habit of repeating himself, or relying more on schtick than emotion. But with Bone Machine, not only do the funny songs stay funny on repeated listens (revealing new details each time), but they're more than just funny. They're also stylistically different from each other. And they don't really sound like other Tom Waits songs that you've heard before (not even on Rain Dogs). For some reason, on Bone Machine, he was in the zone.

I'm not surprised that Tom Waits is one of the few singer-songwriters to have been able to maintain a credible acting career, because such a heavy facet of his appeal lies in his delightfully theatrical delivery. Take "Goin' Out West," for instance, sort of like a freaky, mutant version of "Act Naturally":

Well I'm goin' out west
Where the wind blows tall
'Cause Tony Franciosa
Used to date my ma
They got some money out there
They're giving it away
I'm gonna do what I want
And I'm gonna get paid
Do what I want
And I'm gonna get paid

Little brown sausages
Lying in the sand
I ain't no extra baby
I'm a leading man
Well my parole officer
WIll be proud of me
With my Olds 88
And the devil on a leash
My Olds 88
And the devil on a leash

Well I know karate, Voodoo too
I'm gonna make myself available to you
I don't need no make up
I got real scars
I got hair on my chest
I look good without a shirt

Well I don't lose my composure
In a high speed chase
Well my friends think I'm ugly
I got a masculine face
I got some dragstrip courage
I can really drive a bed
I'm gonna change my name
To Hannibal or maybe
Just Rex
Change my name to Hannibal
Or maybe just Rex

I'm gonna drive all night
Take some speed
I'm gonna wait for the sun
To shine down on me
I cut a hole in my roof
In the shape of a heart
And I'm goin' out west
Where they'll appreciate me
Goin' out west
Goin' out west

Can't you just totally see this guy? Some crazy piece of American trash who thinks he's got what it takes to be a movie star even though he's probably about as sociable as Mike Tyson? What I love about him is his confidence. "I'm gonna make myself available to you" - like he's doing Hollywood a favor. And each detail is more outrageous than the last. But what really sells it is the performance. Waits isn't just writing some song from the point of view of a crazy guy; he actually sounds like that crazy guy! The song is like a whole world unto itself. It's better than most short stories or movies, in a way. The twangy surf guitar lick also helps.

Then there's "In The Colosseum," apparently sung from the point of view of an overly-enthusiastic Roman spectator:

This one's for the balcony
And this one's for the floor
As the senators decapitate
The presidential whore

It's always much more sporting
When there's families in the pit
And the madness of the crowd
Is an epileptic fit

Sure, the evocative instrumental clang definitely takes you there, but what really does it is the jarringly-echoed vocal, which makes it sound like some split-faced guy from a Picasso painting is doing all the singing. Then you've got "Jesus Gonna Be Here," in which Crazy Old Man Jimbo pledges his devotion to his savior in what sounds like a West Virginia shack:

Well I've been faithful
And I've been so good
Except for drinking
But he knew that I would
I'm gonna leave this place better
Than the way I found it was
And Jesus gonna be here
Gonna be here soon

Despite the comedic elements, the song is also quite affecting, because it suggests that a lot of toothless old miner people ultimately mean well.

Bone Machine's one weakness is probably its ballads, which, as a friend once put it, are "a little too Springsteen-y." There are three songs on the album I usually skip: "Who Are You," "Little Rain" and "Whistle Down The Wind." I can see what he was trying to do, but I get the impression he felt like he needed to write a couple of "normal" songs because he couldn't just fill the album with crazy songs, could he? Well sure he could. Let everyone else write the normal songs, Tom, because no one else can write the crazy songs as well as you can. The one exception to the ballad rule, "Dirt In The Ground," is a haunting hymn which genuinely manages to be sad instead of just "sad" in quotation marks like so many other Waits ballads, and is probably the best song on the album. Over a mournful piano and a wheezy saxophone Waits summarizes the Buddhist idea of "life as suffering" with image after image of chilling beauty: "Hell's boiling over/And heaven is full/We're chained to the world/And we've all gotta pull." While some might find this worldview nihilistic, I ultimately find it liberating, because (much like the final title card in Barry Lyndon) it suggests the absolute egalitarian nature of the cosmos: no matter how different we like to think we are, one day we're all going to be dead.

As "Dirt In The Ground" and most of the other songs illustrate, Tom Waits is one of the few artists from the '90s to successfully record acoustic-based instruments without draining all the life and energy from the sound. Part of the way he achieves this is by using 2 x 4s and trash can lids as percussion (hence the "last man to survive a nuclear apocalypse" vibe). But the other part of it is that, unlike most other veteran artists from the '70s, he's simply refused to become complacent, a stance that's perhaps unintentionally summed up to perfection in "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," a song that at first appears to be some sort of country hoedown Toys 'R' Us jingle parody/homage, but upon closer inspection possibly reveals itself to be Waits' very own artistic (and philosophical) manifesto:

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
Nothin' ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up

How do you move in a world of fog
That's always changing things
Makes me wish that I could be a dog

When I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna grow up
I don't ever wanna be that way
I don't wanna grow up

Seems like folks turn into things
That they'd never want
The only thing to live for
Is today

I'm gonna put a hole in my TV set
I don't wanna grow up
Open up the medicine chest
And I don't wanna grow up

I don't wanna have to shout it out
I don't want my hair to fall out
I don't wanna be filled with doubt
I don't wanna be a good boy scout
I don't wanna have to learn to count
I don't wanna have the biggest amount
I don't wanna grow up

Well when I see my parents fight
I don't wanna grow up
They all go out and drinking all night
And I don't wanna grow up

I'd rather stay here in my room
Nothin' out there but sad and gloom
I don't wanna live in a big old Tomb
On Grand Street

When I see the 5 o'clock news
I don't wanna grow up
They comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don't wanna grow up

Stay around in my old hometown
I don't wanna put no money down
I don't wanna get me a big old loan
Work them fingers to the bone
I don't wanna float a broom
Fall in love and get married then boom
How the hell did I get here so soon
I don't wanna grow up

Me neither, Tom. Me neither.

Woody Sounds Pretty Normal Here

Woody Allen sounds off - New York Daily News

I do think he's wrong about thinking that he hasn't had any influence on other filmmakers, though. How about Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally), Stephen Frears (High Fidelity), Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), or any other filmmaker making movies featuring intelligent urban professionals talking nonstop to each other?

Number Nine: Ride's Nowhere (1990)

Have you heard of this album? I hadn't until a few years ago. Apparently it was big in England, but then kidney pie is big in England...Let's start with the cover: it's one of my favorites of all time. At first it looked like a photograph of a giant worm trail under blue sand. Then I read the back and found out it's a painting by Warren Bolster called "Wave". The painting suggests immense ego-defying power within utter stillness. Such is the power of Nowhere.

The album sounds a lot like other shoegazing bands. If you're not familiar with that term, it basically means that the songs have almost constant electric guitar distortion, sometimes in chorus with the melodic lead and sometimes as the sole melodic element. Ride are less extreme in their love of distortion than some, but Nowhere is pretty noisy. I once played some Stereolab for a friend who likes contemporary jazz. His response was, "This is decent but it's all crescendo." You could say that about Nowhere and if you don't like that sort of song then this album isn't for you.

I, however, love that endless crescendo. It makes me feel like a superhero. The songs give a sense of incredible power and energy without being forced. Punk and heavy metal, the two "power" genres, rely on literal energy to achieve their sound. The singers yell, the guitarists play really fast, and the drummer smashes his drums. The best shoegazing doesn't have to do that. The music exudes confidence, and the arrogant lyrics often reflect this. The wall of distortion makes everything seem interconnected, with my observant ego validating it all. The closest comparison I can think of is Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones. The muddy production, horns, and overdubbing on that album achieve much the same effect.

"Vapour Trail" sticks out as a track worth special attention. The melody is simple but the guitar keeps shifting slightly in volume, stereo panning, and level of distortion. It's a love song but the lyrical focus is on observation rather than emotion and even starts with a vague insult:

First you look so strong
Then you fade away
The sun will blind my eyes
I love you anyway
Thirsty for your smile
I watch you for a while
You are a vapour trail
In a deep blue sky

Love is linked to disappointment; beauty will let you down. It's just a vapour trail after all, but if the sun shines through it in just the right way, and you're in just the right spot, it's everything.

Nowhere was Ride's first album and their only great album. They're one of those bands that had one good idea (not an original idea, but still a good one) and milked it for all it was worth. Unfortunately, the members of the band thought that their album was good because they were inherently talented people. They were wrong. I listen to Nowhere and lament the fact that there can be no sequel because nothing else quite matches it. My Bloody Valentine can sometimes feel formless. Oasis can often seem too melodically formulaic. With Nowhere, Ride struck the perfect balance between the two.