Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks Compared to A History of Violence
Intro
Since at least 1994, the Academy Award for Best picture has been crap. I would say that the statue has become increasingly meaningless, but hey, that accusation would force me to prove several things. You know, that there was a point when the award was at least somewhat meaningful and that there is a general trend towards absolute meaninglessness. I don’t have time for that shit, as I’ve already lost 2 hours of my life to a movie where Corey Feldman puts on a Rolph (sp.?) the dog voice in order to preside over one brand of evil toys fighting quasi-evil puppets.
Anyways, since 1994 there have been about four Oscar winners that haven’t been total crap. They include:
Titanic: A film about infatuation and the destruction of stuff. It is an okay movie.
American Beauty: An entertaining film. It’s far from perfect, but it is one of the few “serious” films around that depict the main character masturbating. That’s gotta count for something right?
Return of the King: A decent film that takes too damn long to end. It also features too many midgets crying and the main character forgets the smell of grass or some shit. It beat out Mystic River a movie that is ridiculous superior to anything with orcs in it.
Million Dollar Baby: A movie that is both superbly directed and comes from good source material. Unfortunately, the script is clunky as all hell, dragging the picture down.
And these are the movies I like.
As for the other years well… some terrible things have happened. Forrest Gump won a best picture despite being the weakest film nominated that year. There was that odd thing of Oscar thinking The English Patient was better than Fargo. We’ve also seen two fairly repugnant epics win, Braveheart and Gladiator.
This year? I don’t really care about any of the nominees for best picture. In fact, I care about few of the nominees for anything. I’d like to see William Hurt win, but Paulie G is going to win an apology Oscar in that category. The animated category is interesting to me because of the collisions of differing media (Wallace and Gromit should be a lock, but then again Monsters Inc. should’ve been a lock as well). As for best sound editin-
GET ON WITH IT
So, I’m still pissed about the Best Picture Oscar Nominations, namely, the lack of A History of Violence. In a year of “message movies” whose messages have been sent numerous times before (i.e. hey kids, remember the ’70s when movies meant stuff? no? Well shit.), David Cronenberg has given us A History of Violence, something significantly more sophisticated.
A History of Violence is not a message movie, but rather a meditation. One needn’t like the movie to find endless topics of discussion. Why do we fight? When should we fight? Do we inherit the secrets of our fathers? Do we truly become that which we pretend to be?
To me, the core of the film is the simple question, “What is a man?” Is he perhaps the sum of all which he believes and thinks, that which he has done, and everything that he has ever wished?
Is Viggo’s character who he was or who he has pretended to be for so long? Can he be both? The whole film contains such duality that border on paradox. A History of Violence is both this noir-y graphic novel genre movie but an art film at the same time. Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader did a wonderful review of the film’s brand of doublethink.
Its fantasies about how American small towns are paradise and big cities are hell are genre standbys that Cronenberg milks at every turn. But none of this plays like cliche; Cronenberg is such an uncommon master of tone that we’re in a state of denial about our familiarity with the material — a kind of willed innocence that resembles Tom Stall’s own disavowals…
Cronenberg keeps his camera too close to Stall’s violence to let us feel detached from it. He also takes care to show the immediate consequences of violence — such as what a shotgun can do to someone’s face — without rubbing our noses in it. But our proximity never allows for any simple identification with Stall — or if it does, we eventually feel penalized because we don’t really know who he is. (His elected surname surely isn’t irrelevant.) There’s a similar ambiguity in that Cronenberg has spent most of his life and career in Toronto; you might call him a next-door neighbor to the American dream, which includes the cherished idea that we can start our lives over again with a clean slate. We seem to believe and doubt that idea with equal conviction, and the uneasy laughs the film draws out reflect this familiar brand of doublethink.
Alongside these games with audience expectations, Cronenberg turns convention on its head in another big way: he uses sex scenes for character development. Cronenberg has shown the ability to tell story through sex. Those of us who have seen his Crash might expect this sort of thing, but man does that freak out a good chunk of the theater audience.
Sex scenes are integral to the movie. Unlike other films treatment of violence (slam, bang, cumshot, everything’s okay), A History of Violence doesn’t let us feel good about defeating the antagonist. In fact, it is horrifying to see the bad guys vanquished; they bleed, they suffer, blood snot comes out of their faces. By doing these things, Cronenberg really turns our American movie staples (sex and violence) against us.
And by doing it, he is a god.
Outro
And don’t get me started about how Maria Bello was robbed. The scene with her and Viggo in the hospital room contains some of the finest acting I’ve ever witnessed.
I suppose I should pimp some stuff. In fact, I’ll pimp a bunch of my stuff, as it is the reason for the short column this week.
I make my TV Section debut by means of reviewing Titus Season 3.
In Moodspins, I teach you how to clean up blood stains.
In Movies, I reviewed 2 DVDS, but Playing the Lame pimped those, so read that column instead.
In Culture, I’ve still managed to avoid a lot of hate mail from Angry Christians.
In Wrestling, I have no column. That’s probably fo the best. As always, read the elder IP U of C alum, Eric S. He doesn’t get a direct link though because he didn’t color code his pimps this week. Not that I do, mind you. It just looks pretty with differing colors.
Lucard has combined his love of games and creepy things for the latest Nyogtha series. I’ll pimp him when he gets to a Sega CD game that I still own.
In comics, Jim never gets my jokes.
As for the tagline business, I actually got a couple of suggestions. Robert Skvarla, Jr. sent in the most with the following suggestions:
Contradicting Popular Opinion: A Shining Beacon of Suck.
Contradicting Popular Opinion: Proving why you are stupid one film at a
time.Contradicting Popular Opinion: There Can Be Only One…
Contradicting Popular Opinion: Chuck Norris.
Contradicting Popular Opinion: Because Ben Affleck is only mostly useless.
And most surprising of all, NOBODY called me on missing Dead-Alive in last week’s list of Zombedies. I’m starting to think that I mentioned it and forgot that I did. I’m not going to check though. If I did that, the terrorists have already won. Or maybe the terrier has already won. I didn’t watch the dog show on Monday.
Remember kids, unless uber-sophisticated, slightly demonic, planarian worms are after your quiet mountain town, Ben Affleck is pretty useless.
