August 19, 2003
By Derek Miner
Remember the Internet?
Rather, do you remember the promise of the Internet? You know, that zeroes and ones would overtake print and provide faster, cheaper and environmentally safer access to information? The ‘net was supposed to provide a forum for everyone, particularly those who were outside the norm, shunned by the mainstream. Print was confining – digital was liberating.
In fact, the Internet has succeeded in spawning its own brand of social commentator. If not for the ‘net, we would never have heard of Harry Knowles, “Jump the Shark” or that Odd Todd guy who somehow made not having a job into a job in and of itself. I don’t think it’s out of line to suggest the appeal of these things is strongly tied to being exclusive to the Internet. But each of these things now exists as a book as well, which seems to me the complete antithesis of what the Internet is about.
The ‘net opened the floodgates for anyone who watches movies to take a shot at semipro film criticism. Now firmly established in their primary medium, these pioneering writers are also putting out books. To gain any sort of acceptance online, you have to have a distinct voice. Having a distinct voice would also be good for old-fashioned publishing, I guess. The rub is, you’re now competing in a different arena with people who have already established they can do the same thing.
One critic who has without doubt developed his own voice is Berge Garabedian, known affectionately online as JoBlo. For his first foray into print, JoBlo has compiled his personal list of THE 50 COOLEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME (Quiet Storm Publishing, $17.95).
Normally, when someone claims to have a list of the coolest anything, I’m at best skeptical (and at worst, freakishly perturbed). But JoBlo has the sense to avoid any claims of being definitive.
“The bottom line is that nobody can really tell you that ‘this’ or ‘that’ is the ultimate cool because it depends on who you are, where you come from, what generation sprouted you and so forth,” he points out in the introduction. I’m not a fan of THE CROW, for instance, but I can accept that JoBlo loves it, because he’s honest in admitting how tenuous a concept “cool” really is.
Looking over the 50 movies included, none seem out of place, because the mood or attitude of each is a primary part of its legacy. There are legitimate classics on the list, but that’s almost irrelevant. You normally don’t find A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and GOODFELLAS in the company of BLADE 2 and MAD MAX, but in this case, it works.
JoBlo’s commentary is also stylized and full of attitude. The writing is loose and slangy, full of jokey, parenthetical asides. The result is a contagious enthusiasm, much like talking to a good friend about your favorite flicks. JoBlo also seems willing to lay his quirks and faults on the line for entertainment – which might be a bit too much for the unaware bookstore patron. Do we need to know that JoBlo was dumped by the girlfriend and still lives in his parents’ garage? Should JoBlo really have peppered his review of AUSTIN POWERS with comments on his masturbatory tendencies? Likely, no, but I have to admit that this type of thing is a large part of what makes him unique.
Behind the laid-back attitude and dude-speak, however, you can tell that JoBlo has an understanding of why movies work beyond just being kinetic or funny. For instance, his critique of ALIENS suggests, “[Sigourney] Weaver, once again, demonstrates why movies like TOMB RAIDER suck the big one, and how a character’s intensity is more strongly related to having ‘big balls,’ than big tits.” Take that, Roger Ebert.
Another plus to this book is that JoBlo has tapped Kevin Smith for an introduction. More books that review films should have introductions by filmmakers, because the link between the creation and the critique of films is not often discussed. Smith’s introduction is not just a verbal blowjob to the author, but a fair assessment of JoBlo’s qualifications to be in the forefront as a film critic.
The folks that published this book, however, should be a bit more careful should a sequel be in the works. I can forgive the occasional typos, but the publisher has done a disservice to this book by going to print with a cover that looks cheaper than it should. The cover design is good, it just happens to look like a low-resolution image enlarged until the rough edges are distracting. Maybe this is rather unimportant, but would the film geeks accept this from a movie poster or DVD cover?
On the flipside of the JoBlo approach is the website known as StompTokyo.com. The webmasters here usually leave their personal lives out of the reviews and even hide their identities behind screen grabs of a movie ape and a Japanese superhero. Rather than major theatrical releases, they concentrate on the unusual and misbegotten relics of cinema (and television).
These webmasters (Christopher Holland and Scott Hamilton) have collected some of their online material into the book REEL SHAME: BAD MOVIES AND THE HOLLYWOOD STARS WHO MADE THEM (Stomp Tokyo, $14.99). The focus of the book is obviously on the skeleton-in-the-closet work of otherwise well-recognized (if not always well-respected) thespians. This is actually a very compelling idea to carry a book about bad movies.
Usually, authors of “bad movie” books like to tackle big studio flops like ISHTAR – as if we needed another chance to laugh at those. There is no drama in such flops, because the average person sees no stake in a faceless studio or a larger-than-life actor having a big bomb. A struggling actor, however, carries some sympathy. REEL SHAME’s foreword by Freeman “Dr. Freex” Williams actually compares the crummy jobs actors take just to pay the bills to the crummy jobs you or I take just to pay the bills.
Lest you think this is all a love letter to the struggling actor, REEL SHAME actually holds little sacred. The authors poke at Hollywood’s preoccupation with improving cosmetic appearance (Helen Hunt’s teeth and Jennifer Aniston’s nose, for instance), skewer the pomposity of manufactured blockbusters (a KING KONG remake, anyone?), and even make a strong case for Leonardo DiCaprio dying more often on screen.
What’s most interesting about REEL SHAME is that it’s truly a well-written book. No stone goes unturned in digging back through celebrity’s career. And no celebrity is too obscure, for that matter (check out the rather affectionate sidebar devoted to Tim Thomerson). The authors know their films. They’ve seen all the cheap tricks and are not afraid to point them out. And these guys are legitimately funny, which is very notable because making fun of bad movies is really not as easy as it sounds. MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 wasn’t made up on the spot, you know.
The authors also show an enthusiasm for the “genre” of bad cinema as if it were something worthy of intellectual examination. In addition to the film reviews (entertaining in their own right), this book provides sidebars that dissect the teen horror genre, the giant snake film oeuvre, and the checkered film past of the cast of FRIENDS, among other tasty topics. And for your convenience, a full eleven pages are given to a filmography of every movie referenced throughout the book, should you want to track one down.
If you’re actually looking for good movies to rent, perhaps you should steer your eyes over to REEL VIEWS by James Berardinelli (Justin, Charles & Co., $21.99). Early Web-heads-slash-movie-fans should recognize Berardinelli’s name (although you probably weren’t sure how to spell it) as one of the pioneers of online film criticism. I recall discovering his old haunt, rec.arts.movies.reviews, on Usenet around 1994 and thinking, “Gee, I could actually write reviews here and be read!” I proceeded to submit a couple of my own. That never turned into the burgeoning hobby I hoped, but it became a passion for Mr. Berardinelli, who has literally thousands of reviews available at his website, ReelViews.net. Approximately 1,000 of those reviews comprise REEL VIEWS (the book).
So what does Berardinelli’s REEL VIEWS have that stands out from the rest of the print crop? Roger Ebert has contributed a glowing introduction that praises Berardinelli’s “insight and genuine feeling.” And the reviews are smart and genuine, but not quite as interesting as I expected (I’d rather read Ebert, to be honest).
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For my taste, the balance between being informative and being entertaining is a bit off. Part of this is due, I suspect, to the way Berardinelli has organized the book, I think.
Up front, Berardinelli suggests, “reviews, like any form of written criticism, should be seen as pieces of literature to be read and enjoyed in their own right.” Which I can’t really argue with, but the book seems designed to be more functional than literature usually is. The reviews are categorized in genres like the sections at Blockbuster (Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, etc.). Berardinelli even suggests you can carry the book to the video store to help make a choice (though I don’t know anyone who’s ever done this). He alternately suggests you can curl up on your couch and enjoy the book as a good read. Unfortunately, there is something missing that makes this book less of an entertaining read.
Berardinelli claims “there are no mediocre or bad movies in this book.” While that seems mostly true, some might question his inclusion of say, PAY IT FORWARD or THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK. While the first stated purpose is to direct people to goodmovies, I believe a sense of what a critic doesn’t like is still somewhat essential (Maybe that’s just my love of bad reviews talking). At least Berardinelli and I can agree that LOSER was more interesting than the majority of negative reviews suggested.
REEL VIEWS does succeed in presenting a good cross section of modern films, including more offbeat titles like BARCELONA, FREE ENTERPRISE and WAKING LIFE. Perhaps I’m just too aware of these movies, so the book is really not aimed at a reader like me. I admire James Berardinelli for his passion and ambition to write about films, but I wonder if his voice just doesn’t stand out among the many other books that recommend or critique them.
Back on that liberating Internet, I do recommend the ReelViews.net site itself. Somehow perusing the reviews in hypertext format seems more natural to me. And they actually seem to read better on the computer screen, where Berardinelli first found his voice.
Derek Miner is still pondering how many star systems have been born and collapsed since he last promised someone this column. [Ed. note: Four. But they were tiny ones.]
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