Netflix Diary
a) Funny People
It seems like there must've been so many miscalculations and bad ideas that went into this movie being kind of an underwhelming flop, from focusing on the sadsack dramedy aspects of it in the trailer to the ridiculous 2 and a half hour running time, that it's easy to overlook that there's a lot of really good lines and individual scenes peppered through this, probably about as many as Knocked Up (which is also in my opinion pretty spotty, if much more successful at what it's going for). It doesn't help that the ultimate arc and outcome of the story it spends so much time on is completely pointless and stupid, or that the layers of meta going on with Adam Sandler's character are really weird and confounding. I mean he's basically playing a sad loner version of himself, but it's impossible to imagine a Sandler without all his little Alan Covert-type cronies surrounding him at all times, and his character's movies in this are supposed to be some kind of recurring gag like Tracy Jordan's movies in "30 Rock," but it doesn't really work because they're not really any dumber or more ridiculous than most of Sandler's own movies.
b) Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
I thought that the first Transformers, for all its faults, was a decent popcorn movie that left a lot of room for improvement with future installments. Instead, they obviously rushed out the next moneymaker with as little thought as possible, and this shit was just a mess, not really enjoyable on any level.
c) Land Of The Lost
Like Funny People, another movie where I totally understand why it flopped, because really Will Ferrell is just not the box office draw studios seem to think he is, not every campy '70s TV show is a blockbuster franchise waiting to happen, and they really made no effort to appeal to kids with this and a lot of the jokes were about as blue as any other Ferrell movie. But again, I enjoyed it anyway, partly because I like how the dinosaurs and other effects were expensive and slick while at the same time kind of cartoony. They didn't really know how to pull off this movie with such a small cast, though, it felt a little empty.
d) Drag Me To Hell
Man, I fuckin' loved this. This movie is like my ideal combination of gore and cartoon violence, camp and straight up comedy, earnest drama and over the top horror, such a straightforward premise with so many entertaining little surprises and diversions along the way to the inevitable and awesome ending. Alison Lohman seemed a little strained toward the end by some of the things the movie demanded of her, but otherwise was a perfect foil for all the crazy shit that happens in this movie.
e) Up
I'm pretty much putty in Pixar's hands at this point, especially after Ratatouille and the incredible Wall-E, and although I don't know if I liked this as much as either of those, it wraps up their recent hot streak pretty well, since they're about to go in sequel mode for a couple years (looking forward to Toy Story 3, not so much Cars 2). Still, this was awesome, didn't quite live up to the amazing opening montage but had some really funny bits in there nonetheless.
f) Adventureland
I thought I was enough of a sucker for '80s college rock and wistful coming of age stories that I'd just instantly warm to this movie regardless of how good it was, but man, I just couldn't ignore the stench of bad autobiographical writing, manipulative music cues doing the dramatic heavy lifting, boring performances, and hackneyed love triangles. You can tell after 20 minutes every single beat the story's going to hit, and unless you really love the atmosphere of the movie, there's really not much point in sticking it out to the last terrible scene. My brother's classic description to me after he saw this, which it turns out isn't far off, was "like if Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppala took a shit on a piece of paper and turned it in as a script."
g) Still Waiting...
There's always a big red flag over straight-to-DVD sequels of raunchy comedies that don't feature most of the original stars (oh Eugene Levy, did you sign some kind of lifetime contract with the American Pie people?), but I was optimistic about this since Waiting... was a pretty funny ensemble comedy where a lot of the best cast members weren't the bigger stars that skipped out on this installment (Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Dane Cook, etc.). So this one still has some of the best people from the first movie like Luis Guzman, Alanna Ubach and Chi McBride, along with John Michael Higgins and a lot of other lame new characters, and though it's funny enough at times, it's definitely very straight-to-DVD. What really irked me, though, was how focused this one was on a cheesy plot, when the whole appeal of the first movie, to me, was how well it portrayed the boredom and drudgery and aimlessness of my own experiences in the food service industry. Also it was pretty goofy how the writer/director totally changed his role from a loser in the first movie to a total ladies' man with the flimsiest of explanations.
h) The Orphanage
This was more sad and sweet than scary, but there were a couple super creepy scenes that really stick out in my mind that made it memorable and not too treacly.
i) "Damages," Season 1
Man, this show is a motherfucker, in a good way. The first season was so well constructed, with the flashbacks and flash-forwards slowly pulling closer together with incremental increases in the overall sense of dread and death hanging over the whole thing. I'm not really sure who they can top this, although I'm definitely gonna watch the second season anyway.
j) Smokin' Aces
I think I absentmindedly put this on the queue expecting some empty fun, and then the DVD sat in the apartment for 3 months before I got around to watching it, and man, I wish I hadn't, what a fucking waste of time. It wasn't even a guilty pleasure in the way your average post-Tarantino shoot 'em up is, it was just pompous and loud and dumb as dogshit.
k) "Friday Night Lights," Season 1
I got through two and a half episodes of this and just sent the disc back without finishing it, this show is just fucking insufferable. I know all pilots lay on the exposition thick, but I've never felt so spoonfed in my life. Here's a THEME, here's an important CHARACTER TRAIT, here's a CONFLICT, here's a METAPHOR -- like literally two consecutive scenes of uncommonly worldly teenagers going "this town is...a crossword puzzle!" and "Moby Dick is a good metaphor for...this town!" Oh yeah and I can't even remember what the town is called, just that everyone says "this town" 80 times a day. Plus the editing from scene to scene to scene is so relentless that the whole thing feels like one exhausting montage. People like this shit?
l) Career Opportunities
My posthumous stroll through the lesser John Hughes films continues with that one movie where Jennifer Connelly was basically the hottest girl in the history of the world. In fact I still don't remember much about it beyond that, although I kinda liked how in this movie the motormouthed bullshit artist was the anti-Ferris Bueller, where nobody ever fell for it.
It seems like there must've been so many miscalculations and bad ideas that went into this movie being kind of an underwhelming flop, from focusing on the sadsack dramedy aspects of it in the trailer to the ridiculous 2 and a half hour running time, that it's easy to overlook that there's a lot of really good lines and individual scenes peppered through this, probably about as many as Knocked Up (which is also in my opinion pretty spotty, if much more successful at what it's going for). It doesn't help that the ultimate arc and outcome of the story it spends so much time on is completely pointless and stupid, or that the layers of meta going on with Adam Sandler's character are really weird and confounding. I mean he's basically playing a sad loner version of himself, but it's impossible to imagine a Sandler without all his little Alan Covert-type cronies surrounding him at all times, and his character's movies in this are supposed to be some kind of recurring gag like Tracy Jordan's movies in "30 Rock," but it doesn't really work because they're not really any dumber or more ridiculous than most of Sandler's own movies.
b) Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
I thought that the first Transformers, for all its faults, was a decent popcorn movie that left a lot of room for improvement with future installments. Instead, they obviously rushed out the next moneymaker with as little thought as possible, and this shit was just a mess, not really enjoyable on any level.
c) Land Of The Lost
Like Funny People, another movie where I totally understand why it flopped, because really Will Ferrell is just not the box office draw studios seem to think he is, not every campy '70s TV show is a blockbuster franchise waiting to happen, and they really made no effort to appeal to kids with this and a lot of the jokes were about as blue as any other Ferrell movie. But again, I enjoyed it anyway, partly because I like how the dinosaurs and other effects were expensive and slick while at the same time kind of cartoony. They didn't really know how to pull off this movie with such a small cast, though, it felt a little empty.
d) Drag Me To Hell
Man, I fuckin' loved this. This movie is like my ideal combination of gore and cartoon violence, camp and straight up comedy, earnest drama and over the top horror, such a straightforward premise with so many entertaining little surprises and diversions along the way to the inevitable and awesome ending. Alison Lohman seemed a little strained toward the end by some of the things the movie demanded of her, but otherwise was a perfect foil for all the crazy shit that happens in this movie.
e) Up
I'm pretty much putty in Pixar's hands at this point, especially after Ratatouille and the incredible Wall-E, and although I don't know if I liked this as much as either of those, it wraps up their recent hot streak pretty well, since they're about to go in sequel mode for a couple years (looking forward to Toy Story 3, not so much Cars 2). Still, this was awesome, didn't quite live up to the amazing opening montage but had some really funny bits in there nonetheless.
f) Adventureland
I thought I was enough of a sucker for '80s college rock and wistful coming of age stories that I'd just instantly warm to this movie regardless of how good it was, but man, I just couldn't ignore the stench of bad autobiographical writing, manipulative music cues doing the dramatic heavy lifting, boring performances, and hackneyed love triangles. You can tell after 20 minutes every single beat the story's going to hit, and unless you really love the atmosphere of the movie, there's really not much point in sticking it out to the last terrible scene. My brother's classic description to me after he saw this, which it turns out isn't far off, was "like if Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppala took a shit on a piece of paper and turned it in as a script."
g) Still Waiting...
There's always a big red flag over straight-to-DVD sequels of raunchy comedies that don't feature most of the original stars (oh Eugene Levy, did you sign some kind of lifetime contract with the American Pie people?), but I was optimistic about this since Waiting... was a pretty funny ensemble comedy where a lot of the best cast members weren't the bigger stars that skipped out on this installment (Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Dane Cook, etc.). So this one still has some of the best people from the first movie like Luis Guzman, Alanna Ubach and Chi McBride, along with John Michael Higgins and a lot of other lame new characters, and though it's funny enough at times, it's definitely very straight-to-DVD. What really irked me, though, was how focused this one was on a cheesy plot, when the whole appeal of the first movie, to me, was how well it portrayed the boredom and drudgery and aimlessness of my own experiences in the food service industry. Also it was pretty goofy how the writer/director totally changed his role from a loser in the first movie to a total ladies' man with the flimsiest of explanations.
h) The Orphanage
This was more sad and sweet than scary, but there were a couple super creepy scenes that really stick out in my mind that made it memorable and not too treacly.
i) "Damages," Season 1
Man, this show is a motherfucker, in a good way. The first season was so well constructed, with the flashbacks and flash-forwards slowly pulling closer together with incremental increases in the overall sense of dread and death hanging over the whole thing. I'm not really sure who they can top this, although I'm definitely gonna watch the second season anyway.
j) Smokin' Aces
I think I absentmindedly put this on the queue expecting some empty fun, and then the DVD sat in the apartment for 3 months before I got around to watching it, and man, I wish I hadn't, what a fucking waste of time. It wasn't even a guilty pleasure in the way your average post-Tarantino shoot 'em up is, it was just pompous and loud and dumb as dogshit.
k) "Friday Night Lights," Season 1
I got through two and a half episodes of this and just sent the disc back without finishing it, this show is just fucking insufferable. I know all pilots lay on the exposition thick, but I've never felt so spoonfed in my life. Here's a THEME, here's an important CHARACTER TRAIT, here's a CONFLICT, here's a METAPHOR -- like literally two consecutive scenes of uncommonly worldly teenagers going "this town is...a crossword puzzle!" and "Moby Dick is a good metaphor for...this town!" Oh yeah and I can't even remember what the town is called, just that everyone says "this town" 80 times a day. Plus the editing from scene to scene to scene is so relentless that the whole thing feels like one exhausting montage. People like this shit?
l) Career Opportunities
My posthumous stroll through the lesser John Hughes films continues with that one movie where Jennifer Connelly was basically the hottest girl in the history of the world. In fact I still don't remember much about it beyond that, although I kinda liked how in this movie the motormouthed bullshit artist was the anti-Ferris Bueller, where nobody ever fell for it.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 11:02 AM.
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I read your stuff because you're obviously intelligent, have a way with words, and I enjoy how often your opinions clash with my own because they’re from someone so smart and articulate. But with each new criticism you put out, it becomes pinpoint clear that your critical appraisal is directly related to the popularity of the subject.
Don’t get me wrong -- it’s not as simple as, “I don’t like things the mainstream likes.” No, it’s way more intricate than that and there’s no way I could possibly parse it all out, but lemme take a shot: is it something like, “I do like things the mainstream likes, but not when it’s something the underground also likes, unless it experienced backlash in the underground, except if that backlash was super-heavy, or too weak, or if it withstood that backlash to go on to win a ton of awards, but not those awards that are too mainstream, or too indie, or were hosted by someone like Rainn Wilson, or really anyone who still thinks horn-rimmed glasses are cool or is too stuck up to ever wear shorts in public”? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard you start off a review with something about how you can’t believe how sooo many people felt X way about something and, well, that’s just something criticism shouldn’t be about.
I’m not saying all your opinions should follow some easily decipherable, unchanging critical “ethos, because opinions are constantly evolving and inherently inconsistent, and to think otherwise would be hopeless and boring. But the standards you do have seem so transparently tied to what other people think. It’s like you’re on a quest to prove not just how original you can be, but how brazen you can be, with little regard for the actual quality of the thing you’re reviewing, and that’s some Armond White shit.
I know I haven’t really defended Friday Night Lights to you, but all I’d really be saying is I don’t feel spoonfed, I do like the style of direction, and I find the themes, dialogue, and characters insightful and affecting. The reason I’m even going on this rant (and I’m not the ranting type; I think I’ve commented on your blog, like, once, and I hate railing against you when you clearly put a lot of thought and heart into your blog, even though you’re not getting paid for it) is because I spend a lot of time thinking about music, movies, and TV, and Friday Night Lights is a show I treasure as an example of great TV. So when you unabashedly level it with a sweeping statement like, “People like this shit?” I have to question your motives.
1) Not that I won't stand by whatever I post here, but I don't really consider myself a TV or film critic the way I am a music critic, and posts like this are generally just kind of fun filler for me to fire off, and I would shy away from calling anything in them a "critical appraisal." If you think I'm articulate enough in these half-assed posts to take them that way, then I guess I'll consider that a compliment.
2) Nobody processes art (especially in the case of mass media like television) in a vacuum without press or popular opinion or other external forces having a bearing on how they look at it. Sometimes I may talk more about those things than the subject itself, especially in casual posts like this, but that doesn't make me exceptional, and ultimately if I'm communicating my opinion in a public forum like this, I am going to purposefully engage in measuring it against what other people think, and it's going to be more of a topic of discussion when I disagree with the consensus. That might make me come off like a contrarian at times, which I understand, but I'm also under no illusions that my taste in TV and movies isn't pretty mainstream and middle of the road.
3) I didn't go into Friday Night Lights expecting to hate it, or folding my arms and daring it to live up to the hype. I put it on my Netflix queue along with a lot of other shows I'd heard good things about but had never really seen, since I have a lot of time at home with my son these days, and it'd be nice to find something I want to devour multiple seasons of like I've been doing with the West Wing lately. Generally I try to give each show at least a whole season to grow on me, but I had such a violently negative reaction to FNL that I couldn't finish the first disc. I've heard that it gets better, or at least that most of the things that really bothered me get toned down over time, but honestly I don't think I'll give it another chance, although I am curious if I might like the movie and/or book better. I have a big soft spot for TV shows centered around small town communities, and I can identify with the subject matter somewhat (granted, I was in marching band, but my week definitely revolved around the Friday night football game for much of high school), but I just felt like there was very little there that felt real or lived-in to me, crossing that fine line from taking the lives of teenagers seriously as drama to just being unrealistically humorless.