At least with "Spinal Tap" there was some worthy object of satire. Now Mr. Guest has gone the way of "American Movie" and "Fargo" by taking a rather unsettling delight in savaging people for no apparent reason other than their sheer simplicity. You'd think Mr. Guest would have at least one friend with enough decency to drag him off these sorry folks before he pummels them to death. I've heard the term "dark" comedy tossed around a lot in connection with this emerging sock-it-to-the-little-people genre, something I understand to mean: people are uncomfortable laughing at this stuff. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" gets dubbed a "dark" comedy, though not necessarily because taboos are being broken, or because Larry David has pushed us into un-charted waters, or left us without a laugh-track to explain to us when laughter would be appropriate. As Lee Siegel writes in his dressing down of Mr. David and his comic "insignificance" (The New Republic, 1.7.03), satire makes more comic sense when the underlings are taking the piss out of their superiors. When the Davids and Guests of this world are pissing on the little people, it's not really satire so much as sadism. Mr. Guest's signature icy stare is beginning to remind me of the Larry David "f*** you look" Siegel finds so ridiculous--because the contempt it registers is usually directed, as he says, at some minimum-wage-earning shop-clerk. Mr. Guest, aka Lord Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron of Saling, is now cutting himself from the same insecure spoiled-brat cloth, asserting his supremacy over rural Americans and torturing them as the Coen brothers tortured those hapless northern Minnesotans, simply for having made a blip on the cultural radar. School plays? Dog shows? Next he'll be attacking cheer-leading contests and bake-offs. Apart from the occasional delusion of grandeur Guest attributes to these country rubes, they seem to know for the most part that they don't have any reason to take much pride in their lives except by the criteria they invent in order to be able to take pride in something. It would be a lot easier to laugh if the C. Guests and L. Davids and Joel and Ethan Coens of this world were a little more clear about identifying themselves with the people, the class and caste of people, they attack with such relish.
Reviews
6 Reviews
Donnie Darko
(2001)
what is this doing in the "top 250"?
15 December 2002
tedious and unrewarding. by the time you realize this one isn't really going anywhere, it's already over. Somehow what starts off looking and sounding like a very ordinary off-beat teen movie never manages to become anything else. "Heathers" at least was entertaining.
The Matrix
(1999)
spectacular new look for the same old formula
15 December 2002
Sure, a stunning fx breakthrough, but is the rest of it even watchable? It's like a porno with stars; either turn off the sound or fast-forward to the good bits. And even the fx became an instant industry joke, like film noir voice-overs. Any coincidence that our guilty pleasures turn out the be the best parody material?
Trainspotting
(1996)
A real work of art
15 December 2002
One of the truly unique and creative flicks of the last twenty years; a "Pulp Fiction" for the very un-fictive AIDS plague that resulted from the salad days of Edinburgh's heroin revival. Ironically, like Quentin Tarantino, director Danny Boyle has since embarrassed himself with soft-minded disasters, e.g. "The Beach", with its even softer-headed heart-throb, DiCaprio. Maybe there was a hint of this already in the soundtrack with its heavy dose of early smack bards like Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. But the wit and grit, the great writing, the heroin-induced hallucination sequences, the sheer filth of it all, and oh, the performances. "Trainspotting" made the careers of Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, not to mention Kelly Macdonald who has since graced us with her "Gosford Park" presence. This one deserves more attention than it gets.
Sling Blade
(1996)
Oh, to sling-blade a baddie...
15 December 2002
From the sparkling mind of Billy Bob Thornton comes this send-up of the Forrest Gump school of moral philosophy: concepts so simple, only a child can understand them. Wife-beating is bad, and so are the wife-beaters. If the simpletons grasp that so easily, why don't the rest of us? Some say the title doesn't do this film justice. On the contrary..."Sling Blade" tells us exactly what Billy Bob would love to see happen to all the Doyle Hargraves of this world. And there really isn't a whole lot else going on here.
Adaptation.
(2002)
Real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman compliments fictitious screenwriter Charlie Kaufman on just how smart he is
11 December 2002
If you don't find the self-importance, self-absorption and self-aggrandizement of people like Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld annoying, you may not find the self-importance, self-absorption and self-aggrandizement of Charlie Kaufman annoying. Otherwise, beware the inflated ego. Kaufman evidently has let the critical success of "Being John Malkovich" convince him of what he wanted to believe of himself all along, namely that he really is smart enough to deserve an entire feature-length movie dedicated to the exploration and celebration of his creative genius. Naturally there is something of the same self-deprecating nods and winks of the "Curb your enthusiasm" and "Seinfeld" self-celebration set--after all, Kaufman really isn't creating, only adapting. The real creative mind is supposed to be Susan Orlean, and the real creation, "The Orchid Thief"--what Kaufman sets out to adapt--just as John Malkovich's mind was supposed to be the mysterious creative realm so awesome and profound as to constitute an entire new and hitherto unexplored dimension of our universe. But there as here the focus never really is with the creative mind at all but with the explorers, as though they were larger than the lives they explored precisely because they were brilliant enough to recognize the genius of the works they decided to appropriate. What's sad is how such perfectly self-respecting creative forces as Cage and Streep would offer up their talents at the shrine Mr. Kaufman has created for himself.
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