picture in picture

Last week was all brawl, but this week, in the spirit of reconciliation (and, well, spirits at Happy Hour pricing), Josh "Lickin' His Wounds" Rosenblatt and I will be hosting a get-together at the United States Art Authority. I suppose we might talk about comic book movies some more, but honestly, neither one of us wants to go anywhere the subject ever again (or at least until the lines for Batman: The Dark Knight thin out some). So join us tomorrow night (Thursday, July 17) at 7pm at the Art Authority (2908 Fruth St.) for good drinks and good company, some prize giveaways, and (fingers crossed) a very special cinematic treat.** Read More | Comment »

Well, if the numbers hold, it looks like I'll be doing a victory lap at the Art Authority next Thursday, but who knows – maybe your troops will rally over the weekend. The polls will be open until Sunday at midnight, but as for you and me and this crazy experiment we call Film Fight goes – I think we're done. At least until we start all over again next month. What's your prize, you ask? (I'm sorry, for losing?) This press release arrived in my in-box a few days ago: "A DEFINITIVE ANTHOLOGY FROM THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE: THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK PREMIERE COLLECTION." You get to sit and watch all 8 discs with me. Punishment in your mind, maybe, but just you wait – I'll make a believer of you yet. It's been a pleasure. Read More | Comment »

From the archives: June 20, 2008 From: Kim Jones To: Josh Rosenblatt Re: First Film-Fight Topic Resolved: Kimberley Jones is a rank sentimentalist Pro: Josh Con: Kim So what's my prize? I'm hoping for a bowlful of chocolate-covered Brussels sprouts. Or the 32-DVD set of the Complete Works of Alfred Hitchcock. Though I'd settle for a signed copy of Limahl's Greatest Hits. It's been a pleasure fightin' you. How's this for next month's topic: Resolved: Yasujiro Ozu's use of mise en scene in the early 1950s was as much an aesthetic response to innovations in color cinematography in the work of Sergei Eisenstein as it was a reaction to the encroaching tides of Western colonialism in post-war Japan. I'd like to see you argue against that one. Read More | Comment »

I saw Polly Platt speak at UT a few years ago, and I can't recommend the experience enough. She's smart, blunt, and has a hell of a lot of war stories to share from her decades spent in the business as a producer, production designer, and screenwriter – most famously as former husband Peter Bogdanovich's chief collaborator on American classics like The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. She was also instrumental in rocketing Wes Anderson and the Wilson boys to acclaim with their debut feature Bottle Rocket. As part of its ongoing "Conversations in Film" series, the Austin Film Festival will host a talk between Platt and UT film historian Tom Schatz this Sunday (July 13) at 3pm at the Driskill Hotel, followed by a screening of The Last Picture Show at the Paramount Theatre. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit austinfilmfestival.com. Read More | Comment »

"Identity is fleeting and ever-changing, and so should our influences and loves be. Everything else is rank sentimentality." Identity may be fleeting and ever-changing, but why do we have to scrap our influences and loves every time we turn a new corner? Frankly, I think there's something a little bit distrustful about someone who so easily shucks off his earlier selves. I'm not the same person I was at age 10 or age 20, or every year in between, but I'll be damned if I'll be disloyal to those first loves, like Little Women and Les Misérables and The Muppets Take Manhattan and Clue the movie and Clue the board game and E.M. Forster and sweet, glum Eeyore and Jane Austen and Archers of Loaf and Charles Mingus and Running on Empty and about a gazillion other things that I'm not gonna let go, I'm not gonna stop talking about, and I'm not gonna stop letting, at least in small part, inform who I am today. So there it is: Kim Jones = Rank Sentimentalist Read More | 1 Comment »

OK, so I’ve been doing a little research in honor of the last full day of our inaugural Film Fight, and I just stumbled upon an interesting bit of trivia. We all know about the Lincoln-Douglas debates that took place all over Illinois in 1858. They’re famous for the eloquence and logical elegance displayed by both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, and for the fact that they helped raise Lincoln’s national profile, thereby granting him the prominence he needed to run for president two years later. That we all knew. But I bet you didn’t know this: Stephen Douglas won the Senate race that year by forcing Lincoln – future defender of liberty, crusader against tyranny, genius of democracy, savior of the union – at their fifth and final debate in Quincy, Ill., to watch … in its entirety … Limahl’s video for his song “Never Ending Story.” Shocking, right? And cruel. One of the ablest minds of his generation, Lincoln was reduced to a quaking bowl of intellectual jelly on that ramshackle stage in Quincy. And as a consequence, he didn’t go the Senate that year, returning instead to his home in Springfield to convalesce for two years, during which time the union began to splinter, animosities grew, opinions hardened, and the seeds of rebellion and civil war were sown. If it weren’t for Lincoln’s brilliant use of A-Ha’s “Take On Me” during the presidential campaign of 1860, surely the United States would have collapsed and liberty as we know it would have been lost … meaning I wouldn’t enjoy the rights I do now to illegally download Russ Meyer movies and indulge my habit for prescription pain-killers. That’s how close, Kim, Limahl and his teased mullet came to destroying everything you and I hold dear. And yet you insisted on embedding that video. I’m disappointed. Read More | 2 Comments »

Tonight I picked up David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, which has been sitting for a while now in my ever-daunting pile of to-read books. Flipping through the prologue, I came across what to me was an obvious but still wowzer statistic – that in the 1940s, at the height of their popularity, “comics were selling between eighty million and a hundred million copies every week, with a typical issue passed along or traded to six to ten readers, thereby reaching more people than movies, television, radio, or magazines for adults.” When we started this thing, point one we made was that we came to this as moviegoers, not comic book readers (maybe why we haven’t asked our fellow critic Marc Savlov to chime in – let’s be honest, we knew he’d wipe the floor with us). But in all our jousting, I’d hate for us to come off as seeming flip about comic books, because there’s an astonishingly rich history there. At the risk of spouting off about something I know very little, comic books, at least in their infancy, seemed to be an especially American enterprise, an artform up there with jazz that our nation could thump its chest proudly about: Yeah, we got there first. Read More | 1 Comment »

That was a lovely and impassioned post, Josh. But don't think I didn't notice that you still – still! – didn't address the issue of nonsuperhero comic-book source material. I bet you think you're so sly... As for me, I got nothing – although I did toy with the idea of a pictorial essay on leather pants in film (why must you mock them so?) – but for now I'm shoving off until the later evening hours, when the siren call of my laptop inevitably wills me back to our brawl. Read More | Comment »

Yep, I knew it was going to come to this. I’ve been trying to distract you and anyone reading Film Fight for the past four days with semi-pornographic cartoon videos and off-topic rants in the hopes that you would forget that not all comic-book movies are super-hero movies. I didn’t want you to remember American Splendor or Ghost World or A History of Violence. I figured as long as I kept the discussion on men in tights, I’d be forcing you defend indefensible movies like The Punisher and Catwoman and Batman & Robin, and that maybe people would start to think you were crazy for doing so and decide not to take anything you say seriously. It was my only hope. But I knew all along it was going to come to this: The end of the line. The last stop. Rosenblatt’s last stand. Read More | 1 Comment »

Our Film editor Marjorie Baumgarten brought up on the boards the question of villainry, arguing that the villains are the more interesting characters. History might be on her side – Alfred Molina's tortured Doc Ock, Gene Hackman's crazy-eyed Lex Luthor, Al Pacino's hunchbacked Big Boy Caprice – all of 'em vastly more entertaining than the earnest, sometimes-yawning caped crusaders. Interesting, then, that two of this summer's superhero movies (well, three, if you count Hancock) had villains who were mostly negligible. In both the Hulk reboot and Iron Man, the big baddies (Tim Roth, Jeff Bridges) basically co-opted our heroes' technology and made themselves bigger, badder versions of the original, which led to curiously flat climaxes – basically loud, clanging choruses of "Anything you can do I can do better." That said, Iron Man was a blast – and I do hope you see it today so we can talk some more about it. I think some of your c.b. movie reservations have to do with your perceived adolescent-ness of the superhero, but Iron Man/Tony Stark is fully adult – sexy, sarcastic, existentially conflicted. The film hinges on Stark’s moral crisis about his role in arming the planet – intelligently and soberly reflecting on America’s identity crisis in an (almost!) post-Bush era (although the waterboarding of an American by an Arab was in questionable taste). Actually, Hulk – which I thought was the far, far inferior movie – also pivoted on the American military-industrial complex's damaging effects... so maybe the real villain in these pieces isn't the genetically-engineered monster or the egomaniacal CFO but rather our own war-mongering ways? Uh oh. Did I just open the door for you to rail about American imperialism? Read More | Comment »

"Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City was a heartless, lifeless, soulless exercise in green-screen indulgence disguised as a film … and further proof that comic books should never be made into movies." You know, the "green-screen indulgence" isn't what I had a problem with. In fact, I think Sin City's visual aesthetic – verily ripped from the pages of Frank Miller's source comic – is the only reason to see the film, which is why I'm so excited to see Miller's The Spirit come December. But to be honest – and yes, I know this is enough to get me slapped with a scarlet something in this town – I turned off Sin City after about half an hour. It looked amazing, and it was a heck of a cast, and I think "soulless" is perhaps the wrong word to use on a film that was so obviously a labor of love for a lot of people. But I just couldn't stomach what the über-gore and the endless eroticization of violence against women. Sure, I know, sometimes the ladies got to fight back... So long as they were in a bustier. Read More | 1 Comment »

I know, just when we’d settled into a pleasant state of extended antagonism, Will Smith comes along and ruins everything. No … you come along and ruin everything. I hereby take back all the nice things I said about you in the last post. By recommending we go see Hancock together, you have all but ruined Film Fight. Not only are we suddenly agreeing on everything, but my whole argument about the inherent lousiness of superhero movies has gone out the window! Defenestrated! (Hey, I finally found a way to use my favorite word. Ten years I’ve been waiting for this moment.) Things were going so well, Kim! Remember when you accused me of engaging in circular argumentation? Remember when I told you your favorite director was an overrated hack? Remember when you beat me by 54 percentage points in the first day’s tally? Remember when I rang your doorbell and ran early on the morning of day three? Remember when you conceded that I had beaten you on every major point of debate? Those were great times, filled with laughter and fun and genuine animosity. Now look what you’ve done. You’ve turned us … agreeable. Lucky for you, Hancock isn’t actually based on a comic book or we’d both be out of a job. Read More | Comment »

Well, I think you were smirking when you suggested Will Smith in skin-tight rubber superhero suiting might broker a peace between us… but that’s exactly what happened. Behold the awesome power that is the Fresh Prince, now and forever.

I resisted Hancock a touch in the beginning. Some of the early music choices felt distracting, and frankly, not enough seemed to be happening in the first act. But then we began to better know the three leads – the raging drunk, reluctant superhero Hancock (Smith), do-gooder PR man Ray (Jason Bateman), who wants to help Hancock turn his bad press around, and Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), who takes an instant dislike to Hancock – and the film opens up and deepens in surprising ways.

Director Peter Berg shoots their relationship interactions with shaky cam, extreme closeup, partially obstructed framing – as if, as David Denby put it (in one of the few positive reviews Hancock garnered), “he were making a Cassavetes psychodrama.”

And then of course there’s the game-changing twist… Read More | 1 Comment »

To the readers: In my last post I mentioned that the kind of movie super-hero I’m interested in would be “disrespectful, ironic, self-indulgent, cynical, lascivious, amoral, mendacious.” In response Kim just called me to suggest we go see Hancock, which is about a super-hero who is disrespectful, ironic, self-indulgent, cynical, lascivious, amoral, mendacious. A great idea, I thought. And one I wish I’d thought of. And one I’ll take credit for months from now when nobody’s looking. (This, by the way, is an example of why Kim is a successful, highly paid editor and I’m a poor freelance writer forced to choose between paying for vital medications and buying pants.) So we’re going to take a few hours off from posting to go see the movie, and then we’ll be back at our computers to discuss it. Expect her comments sometime in the mid-evening hours. Expect mine at about the time your garbage collector is crawling into bed. In the meantime, though, one quick comment about our ongoing side-bar discussion of the works of the late, great (or just late) Alfred Hitchcock: Kim, you’re right about our classic-movie tangent: Mainly I’m worried we’re using up all our topics for next month’s I Love Hitchcock/I Hate Hitchcock edition of Film Fight. If we keep this up we’re going to have to spend an entire week talking about li’l Ronny Howard’s performance in The Trouble With Harry: “Genius!” “Garbage!” “Genius!” “Garbage!” In your last post you asked me where my sweet spot for a movie ending was – somewhere “between the ingenious and organic, pre-MacGyver plot twist of a camera bulb flash and the big-budget razzle-dazzle (but often just as character-motivated) climaxes of comic book movies?” you wondered. As an answer, I’m providing this clip: a perfect example of a top-notch climax, full of old-Hollywood character significance and subtle Freudian catharsis and big-budget, big-hero, big-action, big-gun razzle and dazzle. John Wayne, by the way, would never have been caught dead in tights. Montgomery Clift … I’m not so sure … (Starts at about 4:40): Read More | Comment »

Since you touched on a less conventional (and also pretty funny, pretty filthy) representation of superhero-dom, I'd like to urge you 1) to watch an episode of adultswim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. He's a pompous, third-rate superhero who tries to keep other superheroes out of the clink. And 2) Listen to this This American Life episode from way back when (#198: How to Win Friends and Influence People), in which (my secret, sighing crush) Jonathan Goldstein imagines what it's like to be the guy who dates Lois Lane when she's on the rebound from Superman. Good stuff. You can listen to it for free on the site -- it comes in around the 44 minute mark: "At first, I was a novelty. In the beginning Lois would kiss my forehead and tell me she loved how squishy my arms were. 'In a good way,' she'd say. 'They're so easy to fall asleep on.'" Read More | Comment »

Someone in our comments board yesterday asked for clarification if we were discussing comic book adaptations or superhero comic adaptations? It's an important distinction, and one I've let you slide on, Josh. Until now. When we kicked around this idea, your thesis, as I remember, was simply "I hate comic book movies, let's talk about that." So did you mean strictly superheroes, or does your disdain also cover non-superhero comic and graphic novel adaptations, too – like American Splendor, Ghost World, Persepolis, The Road to Perdition? What about comic strips that have transitioned to screen – like my beloved Peanuts, or the often-wickedly funny The Boondocks? Does everything touched by comic books get thumbs down? What about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? That one's all about men in tights (or rather, the men who draw the men in tights), and it didn't win the Pulitzer for nothing. I suspect this will be nonstarter argument – because, really, how could you blanketly write off a movie just for the manner in which its source material was printed – but I figured it was worth mentioning. Read More | Comment »

At the risk of beating this tangent to death: The two endings you point to from Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much work brilliantly because they are entirely motivated by character. Doris Day – trapped in front of an audience of dignitaries, knowing her captive son is somewhere in the house – sings as loudly as she can "Que Sera Sera" (a wonderfully corny song we've previously seen her bonding with her son over). It's like a mother bird warbling to her lost baby to find his way back home – and so he does, by whistling it just as loudly back, thus clueing them into his whereabouts. It's clever, circular, entirely satisfying. Jimmy Stewart's L.B. is a wheelchair-bound photographer, so when the bad guy shows up, L.B. reaches for his camera – the thing that got him in trouble in the first place, and the thing that's going to get him out of the mess. (Well, with another broken leg.) It's genius! But I take it you think it's silly ... so somewhere between the ingenious and organic, pre-MacGyver plot twist of a camera bulb flash and the big-budget razzle-dazzle (but often just as character-motivated) climaxes of comic book movies – somewhere in between there is your sweet spot? Jesus, you're hard to please. Read More | Comment »

One: Damn! It is, it is, it is! It’s the tights! I admit it; that’s what kills me. The tights! That and the masks … and the capes … and the ridiculous nicknames … and the endless pontificating … and the mindless car chases … and the repulsive moralizing … and the laborious descriptions of exotic compounds and magic stones and laser-guided missile systems … and the ubiquitous prudishness … and the preponderance of thin-as-tissue-paper villains … and the pompous psychoanalyzing … and the thinly veiled social criticisms … and the awful one-liners … and the lousy jokes … and the sight of James Franco straining for gravitas while saying things like “Kill Spider-Man, and I'll give you all the tritium you need. On second thought, bring him to me … alive” … and the realization that no matter what I say the number of super-hero franchises waiting in the wings is probably boundless and therefore the chance that there won’t be four new super-hero movies next summer and four more the summer after that and four more the summer after that - all ready to explode with their candy-colored stories of disaffected lily-white man/boys locked in mortal struggle with their own divided souls - is exactly nil. (Sorry, I think all these comic-book movies I've been watching are starting to mess with my head.) Read More | 2 Comments »

Oh, Josh, you’re breaking my heart. Just as I find it bewildering that you’ll casually write off the whole comic book movie canon, it is nothing short of flabbergasting – not a word, I don’t think, but work with me – that you thumb your nose at the collected works of the master of suspense, the original Weird Al, one Alfred Hitchcock. You wanna talk about “reality”? That guy got about as real as you can get – tapping in, exploiting, fully flogging our most primal fears… and quite often doing it with a deliciously sick sense of humor. What makes us most human? How about the fight or flight instinct? That’s his bread and butter. The terror of things that go bump in the night, or shriek in the shower? He’s your man. Obsessive love? He cornered the market… especially when icy blondes were on special. Read More | 1 Comment »

The “rules of reality”?*** What do you even mean by that? First: I think this might be an instance in which our lack of comic book knowledge comes into play. I think in fact that rules of reality do exist – rules according to the worlds created in these comic books. But for us lay people, I think it’s safe to say: Superman abides by a set of fast, immutable rules – à la Kryptonite kills. They’re not making this shit up willy-nilly: The effective comic book movies – just like all other effective films – establish the rules of their universe early and stick to ‘em. Moving on: While I get a kick out of your impressive distillation of X2, what you seem to think is a whole lot of gobbledygook reads – and more importantly plays – like a riproaring actioner to me: a riproaring actioner with very significant detours into source myth, tragic love, government-sanctioned racism, gay allegory, and the unholy – but complex and identifiable – vengeance sought by those powerfully, systemically wronged. You know, if I took the time to similarly detail all the ins and outs and improbabilities of any Indiana Jones flick (“Eat your burning heart!”***), it, too, would sound like so much gobbledygook – which is in no way a diss on Indiana Jones. I loved him just as much as you (or at least the first three outings with him – missed the last one yet, and it’s not on the to-do list), and I’m not sure I see such a clear delineation between Indy and our comic book friends. Where’s the disconnect for you? Is it the tights? The occasional horns sprouted? Read More | 1 Comment »