Welcome to my blog.
More specifically, welcome to the part of the Internet where I can get my ego out and blatantly force you to watch movies that I find intriguing, but don't call me Chris-chan. Ebert, [Armond] White, and [Cole] Smithey do it all the time. They avoid the more well-known films (Taxi Driver, Gone with the Wind, Elephant, North by Northwest) just because people know them way too much.
But this is where I get to air out my opinion. You see that my film taste isn't going to be extremely mature, but who gives a damn about idiosyncrasies and their conception of it? What is my taste is my taste. You can influence it, but you sure as hell won't make me change my taste just because you think Snatch is the best film in the history of the world. That's something that people call conformity - and that ain't such a good thing, isn't it? Conformity is the reason why so many estimated blockbusters are failing - but something else is happening other than audiences learning to appreciate the finer things in life. That "something else" is discontentment with the studios.
You see, the studios are advertising the living shit out of blockbusters by placing advertisements all over the TV. For example, 20th Century Fox had the smart idea to adapt a mediocre and highly obscure comic strip, "Marmaduke", hire Owen Wilson to milk his celebrity (even though it died after his 2007 suicide attempt) via voicing the main character, and advertising it all over the kids' networks with dancing dogs and Kesha blaring all over what appears to be California, land of hackneyed Hollywood plots. I knew from there it was going to be a failure. And I was right - failure.
But, hey. I don't want to bore you with my ego-fueled whining about Hollywood - it's going to go into a neo-New Hollywood stage very shortly. We just reached our equivalent of the late 1950s, with widescreen comedies and 3D exploitation.
Here's what I consider to be a masterpiece of the silver screen: Robert Altman's 1975 satirical black comedy musical Nashville, starring Ned Beatty, Lily Tomlin, Geraldine Chaplin, and David Carradine's bro Keith.
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Everybody has to have a film they consider to be the greatest of all time.
For most, it happens to be Orson Welles' innovative classic Citizen Kane, with spectacular performances, a tight script, and some great camera effects that nobody had used before (particularly the "submissive" shot).
For a few, it's one of the great classic epics of the '30s, '50s, and '60s, ranging from Victor Fleming and George Cukor's stylish and well-written Gone with the Wind to William Wyler's overwrought, but well-acted and well-designed Ben-Hur - and usually ending with Lawrence of Arabia (a film I need to see so badly) from the Cinerama days of the '60s.
For a very select few, it's a Wes Anderson film. I can see why - with his unique way of looking at things via epic-like set design and indie film humor this side of Jim Jarmusch, people are attracted to the anti-hipster's dry, darkly comic, and satirical morality tales of the decaying nuclear family in the world through the eyes of death, divorce, ambition, and mid-life crises (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox). I personally am a Wes Anderson fanboy - I grew on to dry humor after finding that a lot of my favorite comedies weren't all about fart jokes but about trying to change the world.
For me, it's Nashville. Why? Why pick a film that was only a moderate box-office success compared to that of the first blockbuster, Jaws? Why pick a film that, according to another blogger, has some of the poorest character development this side of The Hangover? Why pick a film that more critics understand than most audiences?
Why?
Because people need to see this. It's about time we took away Charlie Kane's crown and gave it to Barbara Jean and those other 23 odd characters all residing in the "Music Capital of the World" - even through some poor character development and politics that seem to be heavily influenced by youthful idealism and anti-intellectualism if anything, we can get how tough and how horrible the entertainment industry is, especially when you compare it to something as dishonest as the political industry. Sure, it seems like a preachy film, but it's far from that. It's not a full comedy also. If anything, it's a satirical musical drama about America. Except being set on a Broadway stage with bimbos carrying oversized coins and singing Bonnie Parker's favorite song, it's set in Nashville - where everybody's supposed to feel at home.
That is, if they weren't so self-absorbed with themselves...especially Sueleen Gay, the funniest thing in the film.
Sure, her act at the political rally remains one of the most disturbing moments caught on film (safety, nitrate, digital) with her rather unarousing striptease and how, despite suffering imminent public embarrassment, she still has this pride that she's better than the admittedly talented (and insane) Barbara Jean, but her attempts at becoming a singer remind me of an Internet "celebrity" that most people know as Chris-chan. Her off-key, tone-deaf, and horribly composed lyrics reminds me (and possibly "Anons" who have seen this film) of how Chris tries to make it big but cannot because whatever he thinks he's good at - he's really not good. Or OK. He is shit poor.
And so is Sueleen.
Another aspect of the film I love is the music. To be honest, I'm no fan of country music, but I do listen to some here and there - and whatever people claim is horrible might be horrible, but I see a sort of hidden satire through those neverending lyrics about Kenny Chesney engaging in menage a trois with a hillbilly girl and a piece of farming machinery (harvesters, tractors, motorcycles, Jeeps) while having multiple orgasms to Jimmy Buffett's greatest hits. I see people making fun of how cliched music has become - especially the Nashville scene. That's what Henry Gibson as proto-Lee Greenwood/Haven Hamilton does in this film. Oh, and Keith Carradine as every rock star put together with the promiscuity of a furry being charged for pedophilia. Yep, "200 Years" might sound like some overwrought bullshit that somebody wrote so they can suck America dry, but it does a damn fine job making it pretty apparent.
And that's the end of that chapter.
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