Tag: films

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The Princess Riot

The roar of indignation echoed across the internet.

“What do you MEAN, they’re remaking ‘The Princess Bride?’ ”

To be fair to Hollywood – probably not. The whole mess started with an off-hand comment by a Sony CEO that some “very famous people” wanted to take another crack at the 1987 family favorite. There’s been no official announcement since. Indeed, the only word of any kind since then seems to have been an unnamed USA Today source confirming that Sony has no plans to touch the film.

No surprise. If Sony meant to test the waters, the studio quickly found them full of Screaming Eels. In a world where we seem to grow ever more divided, EVERYBODY from ordinary fans to stars of the film to prominent political figures closed ranks to defend the movie. And since ‘The Princess Bride’ is one of the most quotable movies ever made, everyone had a chance to tweet one of their favorite lines as part of the resistance:

 

“There’s a shortage of perfect movies in this world. It would be a pity to damage this one.” – Cary Elwes

 

“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Sonny, The Princess Bride is the greatest thing, in the world—except for a nice MLT, mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe. They’re so perky, I love that. DON’T MESS WITH PERFECTION.” – Sen. Ted Cruz

 

“INCONCEIVABLE!!” – Half the internet, simultaneously

 

The only thing missing was Inigo Montoya drawing his sword and making his famous introduction … oops, no wait, there it is in a meme. We’re good.

It’s heartwarming, of course, to see people defending a story, especially this one. This was William Goldman’s favorite novel and screenplay, one that made it to the screen against tremendous odds. It spent over a decade in “development hell,” with many studios convinced it was unfilmable. Its initial release came and went with barely a ripple, since the marketing department didn’t know what to do with it – was it a romance, a fantasy, a comedy, what?

Home video saved it and made it an icon. Small wonder. A fairy tale that both celebrated and mocked its own roots, a story with swashbuckling action and tongue-in-cheek wit, a movie that could wholeheartedly embrace true love (or is it “twoo wuv?) while also quoting “Life is pain, princess; anyone who says differently is selling you something” – what’s not to like?

Or more to the point, what’s to remake?

Hollywood, of course, loves the remake and the reboot. It’s the safe choice, with a built-in audience. And it works more often than we think. “The Wizard of Oz” with Judy Garland was the second feature film on the subject. So was Charlton Heston’s “Ben-Hur.” “The Magnificent Seven” was a resetting of “The Seven Samurai,” while the comedy “Airplane!” took the script of “Zero Hour!” almost word-for-word.

But in each of those cases, there was something new to be brought to the mix. A different tone or  genre, or a new take by an actor or director, or new technology to better capture the story. If all you’re doing is retreading the same ground, you might as well just re-release the film and have done with it. You’re not going to take it anywhere new – and you might well make it worse.

You don’t have to be Hollywood to understand that. Most of us know what it’s like. We get in ruts. We make the same decisions over and over. Sometimes they’re good decisions that became merely comfortable ones. Sometimes they’re Charlie Brown’s football, promising over and over again that THIS time it will work.

Deep down, we know we have to explore and grow. That’s why our best stories take someone beyond the comfortable and force them to change. The reckless and rootless Huckleberry Finn learns maturity and the worth of a man. The stay-at-home Bilbo Baggins learns confidence and an appreciation of the wider world.

And yes, the farm boy Westley remakes himself into the hero his love needs him to be – and learns that even the most competent hero can’t do it alone.

Remaking movies can be tedium. But remaking lives is essential. What lives, grows.

Anything else is simply inconceivable.

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Pass the Popcorn

Uncle Oscar wants so badly to be cool. And that’s exactly how he’s doing it … badly.

Is anyone really surprised?

It’s weird to even be writing about the Oscars in mid-summer, but that’s what happens when the Academy gets desperate. And desperate it is. Ratings for the famed award show have been falling like the villain in a Disney movie. More and more, the Academy is seen as out of touch, reaching a hysterical climax in 2017 when it was even out of touch with its own program. (“And the winner is … La-La Land! Uh, hold that thought …”)

So they’re rolling the dice. Taking their shot. And this audacious, daring, newly revealed one-in-a-million top secret battle plan is … to give popular films their own special Oscar.

Gee, I can hear the audiences streaming back already. Or maybe that’s my migraine again.

OK, they’re looking at a few other changes as well, such as shortening the ceremony (gee, where have we heard THAT before?) and moving it to an earlier date. But it’s the “Popcorn Oscar” that has gotten the attention. After all, it’s hard to beat the power of a bad idea whose time has come.

Don’t get me wrong. The Oscars can be a wee bit snobbish. The Academy didn’t honor its first fantasy Best Picture winner until 2004, and “The Return of the King” remains the only one. “Silence of the Lambs” is still the only horror winner, despite the impact of films like “Jaws” or “The Sixth Sense.” It’s never given the top honor to a science fiction film (even with nominees like “Star Wars,” “E.T.” and “Inception”), or to an animated film (“Beauty and the Beast, “anyone?). So a little broadening is not a bad idea.

But setting aside a separate table for “the popular kids” is – well, cynical and clueless to say the least. Let me count the ways:

1) In an age of smartphones and Twitter, does anyone think that an audience will tune in to an epic-length award show for one category?

2) How do you define “popular?” Ticket sales? Online ballots? Number of illegal downloads? Buzzwords per minute?

3) As several commentators have noted, the superhero film “Black Panther” was a recent critical and commercial darling. Is it just a little tone deaf to announce a “separate but equal” film category for it in the same year?

4) Who says that a film the audience likes can’t actually be … how do I put this … good?

It does happen. Best Picture winners like “Schindler’s List” broke hearts and earned bucks. “Rocky” raised spirits and lifted a little trophy of its own. “The Godfather” made audiences and critics an offer they couldn’t refuse, and “Titanic” proved that every rule has its exception. (Is my snark showing?)

This shouldn’t be surprising. Films are stories, and stories depend on the audience as much as the author. A tale can be moving, vivid, true to the heart – but if no one hears it, it withers and dies forgotten.

I’m not saying that popular acclaim is the only measure of quality, or even a guaranteed one. If that were the case, the Transformers films would be among the great epics of our time. Small stories can be gems, and letting them shine in the spotlight is a worthy act. But that’s not because they’re “high art” or “low art” – it’s because they’re good art, something that any story can aspire to, from the biggest seller to the smallest silhouette.

If the Academy can take big films seriously as Best Picture possibilities, the new category is superfluous. If it can’t, it’s an insulting excuse to shunt “unworthy” films to the side. Either way, it’s time to put this one back in the envelope and just let good stories be good stories.

How cool would that be?

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And The Winner Is …

By the time this appears in print, the envelope will be open. The statue awarded. The orchestra will be playing the new Best Picture Oscar winner off the stage.

And then, approximately 30 seconds later, all the pundits will be arguing about what it means.

Mind you, for many of us, the Oscars mean about four hours that we’ll never get back, spent among memories, film clips, a few (barely) decent jokes, and at least one dress that makes everyone shout “WHY??” Sometimes pleasant, sometimes painful, often memorable for the strangest reasons – sort of a class reunion with higher budgets.

But we do go deeper. We can’t help it. We are a story-telling species and film is a storytelling medium. And it’s impossible to tell a story that doesn’t have some kind of meaning, whether it’s as simple as a fairy tale or as bizarre as “A Clockwork Orange.”

And so it’s only natural to ask: What sort of stories are we telling? Whose messages are we celebrating?

This year especially evoked a lot of chatter. If “La La Land” won, was it a honoring of Hollywood’s heritage or a dismissal of more challenging topics? Would  a victory for “Hidden Figures” or “Moonlight” be a recognition of more diverse stories or simply a reaction to last year’s ceremony? Should the producers of “Arrival” leave early and avoid the rush?

A lot of tea leaves get stirred before the ceremony; a lot of ink gets spilled afterward. And while I’ve done my share of prognostication, I think most of the experts are looking for meaning in all the wrong places.

Trying to derive a message from Oscar winners, frankly, is an exercise in futility. Because when it comes to its biggest award, Hollywood almost always plays it safe.

It’s an open secret. It’s why the Oscar odds are usually pretty easy to set, such as favoring actors who play real people (especially with accents or disabilities), animated movies that did well at the box office, or supporting characters with something quirky about them.

And the Best Picture? Often a drama, sometimes a comedy, rarely a musical, once and only once a fantasy film. (Thank you, Peter Jackson.) Socially significant can win, but it’s usually a safe social significance – think “Gandhi” and “Driving Miss Daisy” rather than “Brokeback Mountain” or “Network.” And of course, underdog stories are always beloved, from “Rocky” to “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Always true? As a journalist, I learned to never say “always.” But it’s often enough. Yes, the awards often recognize excellent movies, but they’re usually excellent movies that appeal to either a mainstream audience, mainstream Hollywood, or both. It’s not a field for living on the edge and the message sent is usually as simple as “We  know what we like – and it hasn’t changed that much.”

Which isn’t to say that pulling something deeper and richer from the Oscars is hopeless – but you have to look beyond the winners. For a truer picture of the times, you need to look at all the nominees.

When “All the President’s Men” and “Network” are among the nominees, you can draw certain conclusions about a society’s trust in its institutions and the power of media.

When the year of “Driving Miss Daisy” also includes “Dead Poets Society,” “My Left Foot,” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” it’s a time for stories of the overlooked and those left on the margins or learning to raise their voice.

And yes, in a year that incudes films about black female mathematicians (“Hidden Figures”), a religious pacifist in wartime (“Hacksaw Ridge”), a gay black man trying to find his identity (“Moonlight”), and even finding ways to reach out to another species through the power of language (“Arrival”) – well, it may just be that the scope of our stories, and of our storytellers, has gotten broader than ever before, regardless of who brought home the knickknack.

And the winner is … all of us. Without a doubt.

See you at the movies.

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And The Winner Isn’t

It’s Oscar time again. And I can’t help feeling the statue is well-named.

After all, who but a Grouch could manage to use the occasion every year to concentrate on the losers?

“Leonard DiCaprio, passed over for his portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover …”

“… the first time a Pixar film has not been nominated for Best Animated Feature … “

“Albert Brooks, in a tweet to the Academy, said: ‘You don’t like me. You really don’t like me.’ …”

And this year’s not that unusual.

Oh, sure, once the ceremony arrives, 73 percent of all the Academy Awards coverage will focus on some cute winner’s moment, like Roberto Benigni leaping chairs or Adrian Brody lip-locking Halle Barry. (The other 27 percent will basically say “She was wearing THAT?”) But even then, some snubs will become legendary on the scale of Hatfield-McCoy:

“It all started, son, when yer Uncle Oscar went up to that Annie Hall tramp instead of that nice young Star Wars feller. (Spit) Now git lost and git Grandpa some more moonshine.”

Glory lasts a moment. Especially compared to the disbelief of seeing Alan Rickman passed over again.

It’s a strange thing, this fascination with the losers’ circle. And yet it’s oddly comforting, too.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to reaffirm our humanity.

Most of us don’t get to know what it’s like to be President of the United States, or to go to the Super Bowl, or to raise a trophy while Hollywood applauds in envy and appreciation. Granted, we have our triumphs – many of them far more meaningful over the long term – but rarely on a scale that would get that level of public adulation.

But we all know what it’s like to fall short. To not quite make it. To be almost good enough for something – but only almost.

And when we see it in another, however great or small, it’s hard to suppress a moment of sympathy.

The football fans among us know this already. What got more attention this last week? That the New England Patriots would be going to another Super Bowl? Or that their opponents had been one step shy of a winning touchdown, one kick shy of a tying field goal?

So close. So far. So familiar.

It’s different when it’s someone you dislike, of course. The Germans specifically invented the word schadenfreude for the not-so-guilty glee when an Oakland Raider or a Jersey Shore cast member stumbles. Free target, have at it.

But most people seem to have more Charlie Brown than Darth Vader in them. Enough to create that empathy. And maybe even a little hope: If they can do so much and still stumble, maybe it’s not so bad when we do the same.

And if they can hope for a second chance, maybe we can, too.

So here’s to the Rickmans and the Sam Rockwells and all the others who could be great without yet reaching the peak. Maybe you’re even a little happier for it, in having something still to strive for. I hope so.

Because let’s face it. You guys were robbed.