The Death of Cuteness (and a Bonus!) Essential 5: Pushing Daisies

Cuteness is perhaps most commonly seen, in the world of film and television, as something to be grown out of. The sickly sweet ending is akin to picking your nose and overtly sentimental dialogue to using a sippy cup. There seemed to be a brief moment, though, when all this was starting to change. The early years of this decade saw Wes Anderson at the height of his powers, Amelie at near Pulp Fiction levels in college dorm rooms, not to mention the near rabid fanbase of "Gilmore Girls." So what happened? Amelie's reputation has never been lower, Wes Anderson's films (while still well-respected) have been making less and less money at the box office, and shows like "Wonderfalls" and "Pushing Daisies" can't bring in any viewers.

The Glee Monster Revisisted

Glee is everywhere, its music is among the bestselling anywhere and the show's ratings have never been higher. While I have ranted against it previously (and plan to do some more of it in a bit), I do genuinely respect one aspect of it's conception, and that is the bravery and sheer balls it took to make it a musical. The strength of musicals has always been that they are able to simply and directly convey the inner thoughts of a character, that which is so easy to describe on page but so difficult on stage and on film. Musicals have long been an interest of mine; I count some of them as all-time favorites (Singin' in the Rain, Love Songs, and  Top Hat), and a great many others as disappointments... should have beens.

Essential 5: Angel

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so successful that Joss Whedon was able to expand the universe with a spin-off show. That show, Angel, replaced much of the campy teenage vibe with dark fantasy. He killed off main characters, added moral ambiguity, and in the process created a show which added to the so-called "Buffyverse," yet is also capable of standing on it's own merits. I would actually argue that season 5 of Angel is as good as any single season of Buffy.

A Twin Peaks Corollary

Twin Peaks is almost certainly my favorite show and besides that it's one of the most important ever produced, opening the way for prime-time strangeness (of a lesser degree) from shows like The X-Files and the recently finished Lost. I usually tackle my favorite shows on this site with my "Essential 5" series (basically an excuse to exercise my love of lists), and although I could come up with the five most important episodes of the series pretty easily, they wouldn't make any sense out of the context. The denseness of its mythology is staggering. Its practically the anti-Tarantino, drawing us to images within the work instead of to references out of it (not to say it doesn't do that too). So all I can do is recommend that the series should be watched from the beginning (the Pilot, leave the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me till after the series finale) and offer up some oddities and references that help understand the show.

The Art of Criticism 5: The Written Word vs. The Moving Image

I think it's very possible that this last decade will come to be viewed as one of the most important in the development of the branch of the arts that includes movies, television, and youtube videos among others. That isn't to say that youtube is the equivalent of the printing press or that "The Wire" is the equivalent of Hamlet but its pretty undeniable that a huge leap forward has been taken. While for centuries the written word has been widely respected for its artistic merit in all sorts of forms (from a novel to a short story, and prose to poetry), the movies have dominated all discussion of artistry in the moving images. It is quickly becoming undeniable that movies, television, and short form video all constitute one of the most important art forms today. Vadim Rizov, in his recent blog entry "Why we need better television criticism", argues that because television has been seen as film's unimportant cousin for so long there are hardly any reputable television critics (not to mention the time commitment to watch all the important shows of the past as well as the present). Yet, television is becoming increasingly important and Rizov is onto something with his call for better criticism in that field.

Godard on Trailers

Movie trailers, in today's internet centric movie climate, have almost replaced movies. Needless to say, this is a sorry state of affairs and I am a textbook example of the problem. Trailers can, at best, give you a sense of the plot, atmosphere, and visuals of a film. At worst they can make a good movie look bad and make a bad movie look good. Its certainly not the most reliable way to judge a movie's potential quality. More reliable measures include sticking with known artists (generally directors) of a certain level of skill and reading reviews. Sure, there's the easy argument that in a country where more than 650 movies are released each year, deciding what to see in your limited time is the most important and most difficult part of being serious about movies, and one of the best ways to decide is to watch trailers. The first part of that is pretty undeniable, not seeing everything you'd like to is par for the course. The second part, though, is a serious fallacy that seems solid when its floating around, unexamined, in the subconscious but has all sorts of problems when its really examined. Plus, watching trailers is, at first, quality control but quickly devolves into being a substitute for the movie (to be fair, this is sometimes warranted -- take the trailer for Letters to Juliet which IS the movie). So, it seems particularly fitting that the latest Jean-Luc Godard trailer IS his latest film, sped up to fit into about 4 minutes. The Coen brothers hinted at this sort of irreverence with the trailer to their last film, A Serious Man, but didn't quite reach the heights of this latest bit of genius from one of the great film artists:

David Lynch Does Dior

David Lynch has been quiet lately, not doing much beyond his weather reports and interview project. So news that he had moved back into fiction, even if it is only for a 16 minute ad, is very welcome. The short finds Lynch in full on video mode, creating his trademark creepy (yet compelling) moods in new and interesting ways. It almost seems like a self-parody at first but quickly become more soulful. I wouldn't call it his best work by a long shot but it's more than worth watching.

Essential 5: The Office

Michael Scott:	There could be others. I need to know. I don't want to offend anybody else.
Dwight Schrute:	You could assume everyone is, and not say anything offensive.
Michael Scott:	Yeah. I'm sure everyone would appreciate me treating them like they were gay.

The Office started out as a remake of the British cult hit of the same name. From that (cough) auspicious start the show grew into a uniquely American pop culture phenomenon. Although it's currently doing its best sinking Titanic impression, the show was certainly, at one time, the funniest show on TV. Many try to defend the show's merit by referring to the way it attempts to subvert the American corporate culture or the mockumentary format but the truth is that both of those things have been done better elsewhere. What makes it a great show is the witty writing and even better delivery by a talented cast. It's easy to try to rationalize liking this show, when the truth is that it's simply well executed. The well made comedy is something that's been missing from Hollywood for a long time and it seems like, for the time being, it has rematerialized mostly on TV with this show, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development among others.

The Art of Criticism 4: Aesthetic Value

"The fetish for Technicolor and the fetish for widescreen are two different fetishes that often combine in the mind and heart of the cinephile. Like peanut butter and chocolate, they're two great tastes that taste great together. Among other things, they provide fodder for argument about technical minutiae the likes of which could conceivably make a NASA engineer's head spin." -Glenn Kenny, The Auteurs Notebook

Glenn Kenny really hits the nail on the head of something that has been bothering me for a while. Is my preference for long takes, garish colors, technicolor, and B&W nothing more than fetish? Put another way, are there objective reasons for my aesthetic taste? This all came to a head last night while I watched the excellent Battleship Potemkin (1925) and I realized that I was seeing the origin of so many of the techniques (particularly editing) that would later be put to use in so many films. It was like I could look back over the many movies I've seen and, out of the corner of my eye, see the progression of technique laid out in all its complexity.

Essential 5: The X-Files

The X-Files is many things: a treatise on belief, a government conspiracy fable, a sci-fi monster of the week show, and a relationship drama. All of these elements make up one of the most important, and influential, shows of the nineties. When the show works its nothing short of compelling, yet it does sometimes feel dated and more than a bit hokey. The X-Files is strongest when the audience can most strongly identify with Agent Scully, the character that we, the audience, are most expected to identify with (not to mention Gillian Anderson's show stealing performance). Agent Mulder's beliefs are often based on evidence the audience never becomes privy to and thus, his role is put to best use as a sort of guide.