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Bad Former Critic, No Nuttin', Honey
Jan. 22nd, 2010 09:12 amIt’s a bit sad for me to realize that of the forty-one films chosen as “the best of the [past] decade” for Cinematheque Ontario’s current retrospective, I’ve seen only seven. Two of those I wouldn’t have seen unless I had to review them (which I did)—Yi Yi and The Wind Will Carry Us, in case you’re wondering—and one of them is A) one of only three “Canadian” films listed (we had spirited debates about whether or not A History of Violence qualified as such in Canadian Film History class, since it’s set explicitly in America, comes from American source material, was made with American money, etc.) and B) only three minutes long (Guy Maddin’s The Heart of the World). Though two of the other three I would actually put on my list, so I suppose that should count for something…(Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse, Spirited Away; Mulholland Drive I’m not sure about).
But it only makes sense, really. By 2000, I was effectively out on my ass at eye, and the last Toronto International Film Festival I attended was broken up by 9/11. Since then, I’ve caught up with things on my own recognizance, most often through renting—and strangely, I haven’t really wanted to put myself out to see a lot of serious Art Movies on my own time. Never saw Cache. Never saw Elephant (or Gerry). Never saw In the Mood for Love, or L’Enfant (or Le Fils), or Beau Travail (though I wanted to). And in a lot of cases, that’s because I’d spent the previous decade getting to analytically “know” filmmakers like Michael Hanneke, Gus van Sant, Wong Kar-wai, the Dardennes and Claire Denis—like I often point out, I’ve seen a lot of movies in my time, from all around the world. I’ll take it from you that Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film is probably just as gorgeous and stultifying as the last one I saw by him (The Hole, I think—and before that, Vive L’Amour, which has a three-minute scene of a woman killing moths in an empty realty property, and concludes with the same woman having a five-minute crying jag on a park bench), and that watching two Romanian ladies try to get an abortion for a couple of hours is really, really difficult. (People are lonely? Pain hurts? News at eleven.)
You’ve become such a populist, Gemma! Yes, very likely. Then again, I wouldn’t put the Lord of the Rings films on there, either.
Otherwise: I think I probably spent way more time watching TV than I did movies, over the last decade. And not “the right sort of” TV, either—never saw The Wire, for example. Maybe I’ll pencil that in for my Bucket List, right next to most of Deadwood, the rest of Dexter, and the three latter seasons of The Shield.
Even fandomly speaking, however, television is beginning to wear on me. For example, about a week ago, I finally slammed up against the wall with Heroes—two years later than most people, three years later than others, but yeah, effectively I’m done. I think it was during the sequence where Hiro, Mohinder and Ando were escaping from “Arkham”, being chased through a damn swamp by damn dogs, and Ando (grantedly, high at the time) decided the best way to cure Hiro’s brain tumor-induced aphasia was to give him impromptu electroshock. I swear to God that I actually turned to Steve and said, in a Morbo voice: “ECT does not work that way! Good night!”
The odd part is that I still watched this week, and it’s not like I didn’t enjoy it at all, but…it’s a cornucopia of crack, for sure, and not in a particularly good way. Claire getting dating advice from Sylar—accurate dating advice—was just the tip of the iceberg; by the time they got to Hiro’s Mom curing his brain tumor from beyond the grave while Samuel once again expressed his unresolved class issues through creating a gigantic sinkhole, I was pretty much watching the clock. Oh well: Time to pull out and start breaking it down for parts, I suppose.
OTOH, there’s 24, which I’ve been similarly ambivalent about for a good two years—and suddenly, it doesn’t suck anymore! Helps that they’re playing up the Renee Walker-as-nu-Jack thing, making her about as nutty, strung-out and ruthless as he was in Season Two…and yes, when a pretty woman who looks like she hasn’t slept in a while cuts a man’s thumb off with a buzz-saw yet seems fairly certain he’s going to thank her for it later, I sit up and take notice. I’m easy that way.
And Fringe, and Supernatural. Comfort food. That’s all I’m good for, these days.
But it only makes sense, really. By 2000, I was effectively out on my ass at eye, and the last Toronto International Film Festival I attended was broken up by 9/11. Since then, I’ve caught up with things on my own recognizance, most often through renting—and strangely, I haven’t really wanted to put myself out to see a lot of serious Art Movies on my own time. Never saw Cache. Never saw Elephant (or Gerry). Never saw In the Mood for Love, or L’Enfant (or Le Fils), or Beau Travail (though I wanted to). And in a lot of cases, that’s because I’d spent the previous decade getting to analytically “know” filmmakers like Michael Hanneke, Gus van Sant, Wong Kar-wai, the Dardennes and Claire Denis—like I often point out, I’ve seen a lot of movies in my time, from all around the world. I’ll take it from you that Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film is probably just as gorgeous and stultifying as the last one I saw by him (The Hole, I think—and before that, Vive L’Amour, which has a three-minute scene of a woman killing moths in an empty realty property, and concludes with the same woman having a five-minute crying jag on a park bench), and that watching two Romanian ladies try to get an abortion for a couple of hours is really, really difficult. (People are lonely? Pain hurts? News at eleven.)
You’ve become such a populist, Gemma! Yes, very likely. Then again, I wouldn’t put the Lord of the Rings films on there, either.
Otherwise: I think I probably spent way more time watching TV than I did movies, over the last decade. And not “the right sort of” TV, either—never saw The Wire, for example. Maybe I’ll pencil that in for my Bucket List, right next to most of Deadwood, the rest of Dexter, and the three latter seasons of The Shield.
Even fandomly speaking, however, television is beginning to wear on me. For example, about a week ago, I finally slammed up against the wall with Heroes—two years later than most people, three years later than others, but yeah, effectively I’m done. I think it was during the sequence where Hiro, Mohinder and Ando were escaping from “Arkham”, being chased through a damn swamp by damn dogs, and Ando (grantedly, high at the time) decided the best way to cure Hiro’s brain tumor-induced aphasia was to give him impromptu electroshock. I swear to God that I actually turned to Steve and said, in a Morbo voice: “ECT does not work that way! Good night!”
The odd part is that I still watched this week, and it’s not like I didn’t enjoy it at all, but…it’s a cornucopia of crack, for sure, and not in a particularly good way. Claire getting dating advice from Sylar—accurate dating advice—was just the tip of the iceberg; by the time they got to Hiro’s Mom curing his brain tumor from beyond the grave while Samuel once again expressed his unresolved class issues through creating a gigantic sinkhole, I was pretty much watching the clock. Oh well: Time to pull out and start breaking it down for parts, I suppose.
OTOH, there’s 24, which I’ve been similarly ambivalent about for a good two years—and suddenly, it doesn’t suck anymore! Helps that they’re playing up the Renee Walker-as-nu-Jack thing, making her about as nutty, strung-out and ruthless as he was in Season Two…and yes, when a pretty woman who looks like she hasn’t slept in a while cuts a man’s thumb off with a buzz-saw yet seems fairly certain he’s going to thank her for it later, I sit up and take notice. I’m easy that way.
And Fringe, and Supernatural. Comfort food. That’s all I’m good for, these days.
