The L.A. movie critics like "Kill Bill 2" a lot. Jim ________________________________
From: PEN-L list on behalf of Fred Feldman Sent: Mon 1/17/2005 10:36 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] aesthetic melt-down I'm afraid, James, that you have discovered one of the nightmare secrets of Hollywood, that is, that "bad movie" and "good movie" are, as we used to say in the US Socialist Workers Party, "class terms." Recognition of this is one of the secrets of Quentin Tarantino's movies, including his magnificent and currently underestimated (but not for long, mark my words) Kill Bill 1 and 2. One of the great movies of recent years (the only completely inspired work of Tim Burton) was Ed Wood. One of the movies it highlights in Wood's Bride of the Atom. This movie, which appeared under a variety of names on TV, had a powerful impact on me when I was a kid. Two scenes highlighted in Ed Wood -- Tim Burton's inspired homage to great "bad" movies and their auteurs -- were actually the ones that captured me as a child of 6 or 7 (the rejected "mad scientist"s" defiant soliloquy, his fight with the octopus, and the tormented servant Jake's revolt against the cruel "made scientist") had struck me as a child, and I still think they were really inspired. This is part of the secret of the American movie system, which is presumed to produce no art except stuff (okay, I'm exaggerating) like Cold Mountain or FINE indies. It was these responses that eventually led to my discovery of Andrew Sarris and others who had a grip on the relationship of the American movie business to art (not simply opposites, but also not what the moguls are groping for when they decide to pour money into a "work of art" not just popular garbage. It seems unlikely, for example, that any "Kill Bill" performer or leading creator will get a top Academy award this year, just like the 1940 award did not go to Kane, and the 1956 prizes went to, if I remember right, "Around the World in 80 Days." But history will absolve Quentin Tarantino. This year's Hollywood work of art will fade to black in human memory, while the pulpy Kill Bills will get ever more embedded in the consciousness. I always felt the award to the defintely oddball and slovenly Ed Wood as the "worst director ever" was a deserved tribute to a very peculiar kind of artistic inspiration. Fred Feldman -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 12:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] aesthetic melt-down Devine, James wrote: >every new year's eve since our son was born, we've thrown a "bad movie >party" for friends, viewing camp movies, those which are so bad they're >good. Horrors! Not only did "Tremors" turn out to be good a few years >ago, but this year an Andrew Dice Clay flick was good! (It was "Brain >Smasher... A Love Story" with Teri Hatcher.) Now it turns out that the >new William Shatner album ("Has Been") that my wife bought me is >actually pretty good! > >My gott in himmel, what is going wrong? has the cosmic constant >changed? has western "civilization" finally gone into its final slide? >will kitch go next? > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine Maybe your standards are deteriorating to below-kitsch level. Doug
