Let's go the Movies!!!
I hardly see the point in moral/ad hominum squabbles when there are so many movies out to talk about! While Austi5000 and D'mardree are currently discussing going to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" I would like to reiterate my utter distaste for this film. This is not to say that it is a bad movie. I would of course feel no need to build a case against it if it had not been receiving such fabulous accolades. But because of this acclaim, I am forced to bring it to its knees.
It is a dangerous movie, in some ways. Claiming to blast the media propoganda machines that Edward R. Murrow fought against, the film engages in the worst of hypocrisies. Who could argue this movie is not propoganda, flashing before our eyes a gross caricature of McCarthy? Who would argue that Hollywood was not a bastion for the Communist left, and that Hollywood possessed and possesses the most profoundest of tools of indoctrination and propoganda? I write partly in gest, though to some I degree I mean what I say: I have never seen a movie that champions its heroes and villifies its villains with such uncritical gusto. What ever happened to nuance? What ever happened to realism? To depicting people as they actually are? This is the great flaw in the film. It tries to convince us that these men don't exist outside of the newsroom, outisde of their noble muckraking professions. I'm not suggesting I would have liked to have seen a sequence of Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly taking huge shits, or sloppily fucking their wives. I love the movies partly because I don't have to see these things. Some sort of panoramic perspective, however, would have made me at least more satisfied.
To add insult to injury is that there have been so many other great movies this season that have done exactly what "Good Night, and Good Luck" fails to do. Capote is one such movie. Brokeback Mountain is another. What is completely lost to this Slate reviewer of this "Gay Cowboy" movie -- maybe just "Cowboy" would do, but I don't have such a problem with the qualifier -- is that "Gay" simply does not equal "Angelic" or "Perfect" or "Holy" in this movie. This is true of GNGL (replace "gay" "courageous investigate journalism") but not in Brokeback. Look, just because they have sex on a mountain, "above" the lower forms of sexual intercourse that happen in lesser altitudes, doesn't mean we're dealing with a "Holy Union." If you watch this movie (and I highly suggest it), you'll notice that Heath Ledger is an asshole. He's violent. He's a bad father. He's an unsympathetic friend and lover. He's a nuanced character and a goddammed good one. Another thing stinky Slate man gets wrong: this movie is not "something of a chick flick" at all. I saw the film with three boys and three girls. The girls disliked it, the boys liked it. I'm not suggesting this is my complete empirical evidence. It merely supports what I believe to be true. Why? Because there's a lot for a woman (and a man) to not like about this movie, much of which I agree with. For one, it's not very emotionally powerful, nor lovey-dovey (two characteristics of "chick flicks"); the two women characters are pretty weak and pathetic; and the two male protagonists, as expected, want very little to do with women -- from their girlfriends, to their wives, to their daughters. As Austi-5000 said upon exiting the film, "that's the manliest movie I've ever seen." Quite right, and good night.
It is a dangerous movie, in some ways. Claiming to blast the media propoganda machines that Edward R. Murrow fought against, the film engages in the worst of hypocrisies. Who could argue this movie is not propoganda, flashing before our eyes a gross caricature of McCarthy? Who would argue that Hollywood was not a bastion for the Communist left, and that Hollywood possessed and possesses the most profoundest of tools of indoctrination and propoganda? I write partly in gest, though to some I degree I mean what I say: I have never seen a movie that champions its heroes and villifies its villains with such uncritical gusto. What ever happened to nuance? What ever happened to realism? To depicting people as they actually are? This is the great flaw in the film. It tries to convince us that these men don't exist outside of the newsroom, outisde of their noble muckraking professions. I'm not suggesting I would have liked to have seen a sequence of Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly taking huge shits, or sloppily fucking their wives. I love the movies partly because I don't have to see these things. Some sort of panoramic perspective, however, would have made me at least more satisfied.
To add insult to injury is that there have been so many other great movies this season that have done exactly what "Good Night, and Good Luck" fails to do. Capote is one such movie. Brokeback Mountain is another. What is completely lost to this Slate reviewer of this "Gay Cowboy" movie -- maybe just "Cowboy" would do, but I don't have such a problem with the qualifier -- is that "Gay" simply does not equal "Angelic" or "Perfect" or "Holy" in this movie. This is true of GNGL (replace "gay" "courageous investigate journalism") but not in Brokeback. Look, just because they have sex on a mountain, "above" the lower forms of sexual intercourse that happen in lesser altitudes, doesn't mean we're dealing with a "Holy Union." If you watch this movie (and I highly suggest it), you'll notice that Heath Ledger is an asshole. He's violent. He's a bad father. He's an unsympathetic friend and lover. He's a nuanced character and a goddammed good one. Another thing stinky Slate man gets wrong: this movie is not "something of a chick flick" at all. I saw the film with three boys and three girls. The girls disliked it, the boys liked it. I'm not suggesting this is my complete empirical evidence. It merely supports what I believe to be true. Why? Because there's a lot for a woman (and a man) to not like about this movie, much of which I agree with. For one, it's not very emotionally powerful, nor lovey-dovey (two characteristics of "chick flicks"); the two women characters are pretty weak and pathetic; and the two male protagonists, as expected, want very little to do with women -- from their girlfriends, to their wives, to their daughters. As Austi-5000 said upon exiting the film, "that's the manliest movie I've ever seen." Quite right, and good night.
posted by Robot at 8:55 PM
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