I Heart Movies
But who the fuck is the Academy, anyways? Is it just me, or do half the movies that this mysterious institution fawn over just straight-up suck?
This weekend, Vicki and I bought/rented a handful of movies. I added Spider-Man 2 (which most everyone agrees is a fine film), I, Robot (there's some disagreement here, but Vicki and I enjoyed it) and I Heart Huckabees to my collection. We also rented Hotel Rwanda and Sideways. It was the last film on that list that inspired my opening comments for this post.
Sideways got 5 Oscar nominations, won 2 Golden Globes, got 96% at Rotten Tomatoes... and it sucked. The movie itself was passable, at best. It was like the movie would drag for ten or fifteen minutes, then have a promisingly funny moment... then drag some more. It was like a lure, drawing your attention so that just when you'd start to lose interest, you'd think "Maybe it will get better." Surprisingly, it never does. The movie wasn't walk-out-of-the-theater bad, but when the movie ended I couldn't figure out what I had just seen. Not because I didn't understand it, but because I couldn't figure out what was so good about it. If it was a comedy (which it supposedly is), it wasn't very funny. I would say it succeeded more as a drama, but it was so slow-paced and meandering...
Several of the reviews of the movie referred to it as a study of modern mediocrity. Two men, wallowing in their own aimlessness and failings, drive the action of the movie. If a movie about mediocrity sounds like a bad idea, well, it is. Or at least it was in Sideways. Nothing of note happens in this film. The two male leads, while very "human," were very boring and not particularly likeable. To be honest, the moment that I most enjoyed the film was when a fat, naked man was chasing the protagonists. It was completely absurd, but at least it was interesting.
One thing that Vicki mentioned was that it was nice to see normal people -- the characters in Sideways aren't your typical, super-attractive and made-up actors. A lot of people seem to be on that wavelength, but its nothing more than a gimmick. It is refreshing to see "real" people, flaws and all, but these people are just not interesting, or funny, or sympathetic.
I have to wonder if I'm just not old enough to appreciate the film. Do you have to have had a mid-life crisis to enjoy the film? Is that why the critics and the academy loved it? Every time I read a review of the film, I was wondering if I was watching the same movie. If anyone can clue me in to what I'm missing here, please help me out. I'm lost.
On the flipside is I Heart Huckabees. I think I'll have to watch the movie again to really say for sure, but I really enjoyed it and I don't know why. I'm not really sure I understood it fully, but it was witty, fun, and poignant. It has an entertaining sort of pseudo-philosophy. Much of the reason that I purchased the film was because I wanted to show it to others and say "What the hell do you make of this?" I may write more after I've watched it again, but I'm going to go ahead and reccomend this film.
Hotel Rwanda, the other film we rented, was also excellent for obviously different reasons. If you like a movie to have "real" characters, you can't really do much better than to go to a true story. Hotel Rwanda tells the tale of Paul Rosesabagina, a four-star hotel manager in Rwanda, 1994. For those who don't remember, this was when the two native groups of Rwanda, called the Hutus and the Tutsis, were embroiled in civil war. The sad truth is that it was more a massacre than a war.
A quick history lesson: the Belgians ran Rwanda, and they favored the taller, more fair-skinned Tutsis. The Tutsis had the power, and as people are wont to do, some of them abused it. When the Belgians left, for whatever reason, they left the Hutus in control of the government. Things festered for awhile, but the country was in relative peace. They exploded when Tutsis were implicated in a plane crash that killed the Hutu president. The backlash for that event led to a massacre of the Tutsi people and any who protected them. Nearly 1,000,000 were dead before the end.
This movie has two very powerful themes. First is the heroism of Mr. Rosesabagina, a Hutu, who kept over 1,000 Tutsis (including his wife and children) safe within his crowded hotel. I'm about to go way off-topic here, but I don't want to dilute this first point. Rosesabagina is a modern hero. He will make you proud to be a human, even if you're ashamed to be a westerner. Seriously, go see this movie. Obviously, this is movie-world and things are over dramatic and what-have-you, but someone who did even half of what he did would still be worthy of the term "hero."
The striking second theme was just how little the rest of the world seemed to care about Rwanda. The US bandied about words and the UN withdrew foreign nationals from the hotel while leaving the Tutsis defenseless against rampaging Hutus. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is a moment when the clearly shamed leader of the UN forces in the area says to Rosesabagina (paraphrased): "You should spit in my face. You're not even worth a vote to us. You aren't even niggers. You're African." In another scene, a photographer is being evacuated as a Rwandan he met there begs him to take her with him. He tries to give her money, knowing its useless, and breaks down, saying "I'm so ashamed."
Vicki said something that really made sense to me. The movie makes you feel ashamed to be American, but it makes you feel better about our being in Iraq. I have to admit... I never thought I'd say it, but this movie has made me respect Dubya a little more. I'd always been in favor of the war, at least in terms of liberating the Iraqi people, but this movie made me think more about the politics. I applaud G. W.'s conviction in actually living up to American ideals.
I understand that part of the issue with Rwanda was that our efforts in Somalia was a bust -- but that should not have stopped us. There's no such thing as "an act of genocide." There's just genocide, and if you have the power to stop it, you have the responsibility to stop it. Sometimes accords and treaties and embargoes don't do enough, or don't do it fast enough. Sometimes, conflict is inevitable. Sometimes, action must be taken. A lot of innocent lives could've been saved 10 years ago. If one middle-class African with some good connection could save 1,000 of his people, imagine what an American intervention force could've accomplished? Hell, any European country could've stopped this. Christ, a lot of them were civilian militia armed with machetes. There was no reason for this genocide to be allowed to continue.
It's easy to demonize the west, but believe me, I'm not in that camp. I love this country, I feel lucky that I was born here. But sometimes, there is no excuse. Sometimes, you have to just do what is right. That's what I really took away from this movie. Politics be damned, we have a responsbility to take care of our fellow man.
Perhaps the saddest fact about this film is that most of us barely remember, if it all, the Rwandan tragedy. It's sad that it takes a movie to kindle interest in a murder of nearly 1,000,000 of our fellow men, women and children. We can only hope that nothing like that ever happens again... but since I'm certain that it will, I can only hope that next time, someone will be there.
This weekend, Vicki and I bought/rented a handful of movies. I added Spider-Man 2 (which most everyone agrees is a fine film), I, Robot (there's some disagreement here, but Vicki and I enjoyed it) and I Heart Huckabees to my collection. We also rented Hotel Rwanda and Sideways. It was the last film on that list that inspired my opening comments for this post.
Sideways got 5 Oscar nominations, won 2 Golden Globes, got 96% at Rotten Tomatoes... and it sucked. The movie itself was passable, at best. It was like the movie would drag for ten or fifteen minutes, then have a promisingly funny moment... then drag some more. It was like a lure, drawing your attention so that just when you'd start to lose interest, you'd think "Maybe it will get better." Surprisingly, it never does. The movie wasn't walk-out-of-the-theater bad, but when the movie ended I couldn't figure out what I had just seen. Not because I didn't understand it, but because I couldn't figure out what was so good about it. If it was a comedy (which it supposedly is), it wasn't very funny. I would say it succeeded more as a drama, but it was so slow-paced and meandering...
Several of the reviews of the movie referred to it as a study of modern mediocrity. Two men, wallowing in their own aimlessness and failings, drive the action of the movie. If a movie about mediocrity sounds like a bad idea, well, it is. Or at least it was in Sideways. Nothing of note happens in this film. The two male leads, while very "human," were very boring and not particularly likeable. To be honest, the moment that I most enjoyed the film was when a fat, naked man was chasing the protagonists. It was completely absurd, but at least it was interesting.
One thing that Vicki mentioned was that it was nice to see normal people -- the characters in Sideways aren't your typical, super-attractive and made-up actors. A lot of people seem to be on that wavelength, but its nothing more than a gimmick. It is refreshing to see "real" people, flaws and all, but these people are just not interesting, or funny, or sympathetic.
I have to wonder if I'm just not old enough to appreciate the film. Do you have to have had a mid-life crisis to enjoy the film? Is that why the critics and the academy loved it? Every time I read a review of the film, I was wondering if I was watching the same movie. If anyone can clue me in to what I'm missing here, please help me out. I'm lost.
On the flipside is I Heart Huckabees. I think I'll have to watch the movie again to really say for sure, but I really enjoyed it and I don't know why. I'm not really sure I understood it fully, but it was witty, fun, and poignant. It has an entertaining sort of pseudo-philosophy. Much of the reason that I purchased the film was because I wanted to show it to others and say "What the hell do you make of this?" I may write more after I've watched it again, but I'm going to go ahead and reccomend this film.
Hotel Rwanda, the other film we rented, was also excellent for obviously different reasons. If you like a movie to have "real" characters, you can't really do much better than to go to a true story. Hotel Rwanda tells the tale of Paul Rosesabagina, a four-star hotel manager in Rwanda, 1994. For those who don't remember, this was when the two native groups of Rwanda, called the Hutus and the Tutsis, were embroiled in civil war. The sad truth is that it was more a massacre than a war.
A quick history lesson: the Belgians ran Rwanda, and they favored the taller, more fair-skinned Tutsis. The Tutsis had the power, and as people are wont to do, some of them abused it. When the Belgians left, for whatever reason, they left the Hutus in control of the government. Things festered for awhile, but the country was in relative peace. They exploded when Tutsis were implicated in a plane crash that killed the Hutu president. The backlash for that event led to a massacre of the Tutsi people and any who protected them. Nearly 1,000,000 were dead before the end.
This movie has two very powerful themes. First is the heroism of Mr. Rosesabagina, a Hutu, who kept over 1,000 Tutsis (including his wife and children) safe within his crowded hotel. I'm about to go way off-topic here, but I don't want to dilute this first point. Rosesabagina is a modern hero. He will make you proud to be a human, even if you're ashamed to be a westerner. Seriously, go see this movie. Obviously, this is movie-world and things are over dramatic and what-have-you, but someone who did even half of what he did would still be worthy of the term "hero."
The striking second theme was just how little the rest of the world seemed to care about Rwanda. The US bandied about words and the UN withdrew foreign nationals from the hotel while leaving the Tutsis defenseless against rampaging Hutus. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is a moment when the clearly shamed leader of the UN forces in the area says to Rosesabagina (paraphrased): "You should spit in my face. You're not even worth a vote to us. You aren't even niggers. You're African." In another scene, a photographer is being evacuated as a Rwandan he met there begs him to take her with him. He tries to give her money, knowing its useless, and breaks down, saying "I'm so ashamed."
Vicki said something that really made sense to me. The movie makes you feel ashamed to be American, but it makes you feel better about our being in Iraq. I have to admit... I never thought I'd say it, but this movie has made me respect Dubya a little more. I'd always been in favor of the war, at least in terms of liberating the Iraqi people, but this movie made me think more about the politics. I applaud G. W.'s conviction in actually living up to American ideals.
I understand that part of the issue with Rwanda was that our efforts in Somalia was a bust -- but that should not have stopped us. There's no such thing as "an act of genocide." There's just genocide, and if you have the power to stop it, you have the responsibility to stop it. Sometimes accords and treaties and embargoes don't do enough, or don't do it fast enough. Sometimes, conflict is inevitable. Sometimes, action must be taken. A lot of innocent lives could've been saved 10 years ago. If one middle-class African with some good connection could save 1,000 of his people, imagine what an American intervention force could've accomplished? Hell, any European country could've stopped this. Christ, a lot of them were civilian militia armed with machetes. There was no reason for this genocide to be allowed to continue.
It's easy to demonize the west, but believe me, I'm not in that camp. I love this country, I feel lucky that I was born here. But sometimes, there is no excuse. Sometimes, you have to just do what is right. That's what I really took away from this movie. Politics be damned, we have a responsbility to take care of our fellow man.
Perhaps the saddest fact about this film is that most of us barely remember, if it all, the Rwandan tragedy. It's sad that it takes a movie to kindle interest in a murder of nearly 1,000,000 of our fellow men, women and children. We can only hope that nothing like that ever happens again... but since I'm certain that it will, I can only hope that next time, someone will be there.
posted by Kultcher at Wednesday, April 27, 2005
5 Comments:
As always, I think you write beautifully even in this blog.. hate to say it but I told you so. The critics aren't always right ;-)
Just a note to say I read it ;-) I don't really have much to say about it, though. Movies are definitely a matter of personal taste, and the critics can't tell anybody whether they're going to like a movie.
Keep it up :-)
That's true, but you have to wonder when out of 200 reviews, 190 of them are positive. I don't think any one critic can tell you what you will like, but I generally find myself agreeing with consensus. I'm a pretty open movie goer -- I enjoy a lot of movies that other people hate. So I would think that a movie that's almost universally beloved, I would enjoy... That's why Sideways confuses me.
"Universallyl beloved" and "critically accliamed" are two very different things. I sometimes think that critics get together, and say "Ok, we're going to make this movie a blockbuster, but not this other one." I really don't know, of course; I rarely read reviews. But seriously, a movie is a movie, and either you like it or you don't.
I guess it's the same way with all art forms. Literature, visual art, theatre, music... all of them are very subjective. People like different styles for different reasons. And I feel like most critics are of the same mind. They're all movie snobs, plain and simple. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in the industry.
Good point. I guess I'm just wondering if I missed something. Movie snobbery only goes so far, and when people say things like "Funniest comedy of the year" and the movie isn't even funny at all... Maybe there is some sort of global critic conspiracy to make us all feel like idiots. :P
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