Every Monday morning, InsidePulse Movies Czar Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings an irreverent and oftentimes hilarious look at pop culture, politics, sports and whatever else comes to mind. And sometimes he writes about movies.
One of the big stories this weekend was that Whitney Houston died. I completely missed it as it broke, having dinner with a friend of mine, and so when I finally looked at my phone I saw a half dozen texts with jokes already having been made. I felt bad, if only because I am normally ahead of them in poking fun at something like this, and as such I contributed a couple of gems later. And I honestly didn’t give it any more time, too, until something I read did give me a bit of pause.
My fellow pulser Jenny Sherman wrote an interesting piece about how we tend to mock famous women who’ve fallen and give mythos to men in smaller positions who’ve died the same way. While I disagree gently with her sentiments she brings up a lot of great points that need to be talked about. I think it’s in how we see two recent deaths, juxtaposed to Houston’s, in where we find some context to it.
Amy Winehouse’s death was alternatively mocked and turned into some grand tragic tale; Elizabeth Taylor’s was about promoting her as some sort of fallen movie star. There’s something poignant about that, I think, that I want to explore. I called shenanigans on that, as Elizabeth Taylor was a tabloid star who had become famous for being famous instead of famous for something, and now Whitney Houston has died. I honestly expected the sort of wonderful tributes Taylor received. It was kind of shocking to see her negatives up there, front and center, when I had imagined a “last diva” type of display from the media.
If Michael Jackson’s kid-raping and Liz Taylor’s tabloid lifestyle can be completely overlooked for the brief moment in time when they were poignant and relevant, you’d think that Houston’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner would be moved to legendary status. Listen to it for a moment and could the sheer amount of chills down your spine.
This is the sort of powerful moment that Liz Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was shown to be in retrospective pieces, etc. Houston also had a ton of songs and you could craft a soundtrack to most people’s lives between the ages of 25-45 with her song library alone. Insanely popular at her peak, she managed to take a B-movie plot and a powerful song in The Bodyguard to insane heights it had no right to see. Her fall was legendary, of course, but at her peak she was in the same category that Taylor was at her respective peak: people loved her en masse,
I was shocked to hear that moments of these weren’t being held up and some sort of ridiculous tribute wasn’t given to her as some sort of last great female singer wasn’t conferred upon her. Think about it for a moment.
They called Taylor “The Last Movie Star” after her death in spite of the fact that her only significant film role was 40 years ago. Michael Jackson is called the “King of Pop” and eulogized as such after his death in spite of the fact that his latest accomplishment before death was popping it into pre-teen boys. Houston, who had similar accomplishments, is a being eulogized as a drug addict who once was famous for a significant period of time. This is just remarkable.
It’s sad in a way that instead of this over-arching and easily mocked moment we’re getting the sort of raw, painful and poignant reminders about her death we should’ve had for Taylor, Jackson and many others. As much as I want to agree with Jenny and call it a bit sexist, and part of it is don’t get me wrong, this isn’t anything more than society correcting an error after Taylor’s death. In reality we all got just sick of the bloviating about Liz Taylor dying, and the unhealthy and unrealistic viewpoint about her career that followed, that any celebrity who croaks early we kind of have to at this point. It started with Amy Winehouse having her trials and tribulations front and center, despite her talent, and now it’s time for someone else.
Whitney Houston may have been talented once upon a time but her fall from grace was something to behold. And she hadn’t been a star in so long that her death was about as poignant as Jami Lane from Warrant’s in terms of relevance. Both had been major stars once upon a time but, as the refrain in the music industry seems to be, drugs and a changing climate in the industry had contributed to their downfall. When the Behind the Music episode of her life and times comes out, and it will, it will be just like the rest when they do them post mortem.
“She came, she saw, she conquered, she snorted … and then she died. Behind the Music: Whitney Houston”
Wait until Lindsay Lohan dies of something similar and you’ll finally see it come full circle, like Rambo 3 but with less steroids and more carnage.
Random Thought of the Week
You know what I like most about this weekend’s pairing of Nicolas Cage, Ghost Rider and Neveldine / Taylor for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance the most?
That it feels right on so many levels.
When it comes down to it, superhero films are all kind of meshing into one film for a variety of reasons. The big thing that is happening is that instead of being oddities attached to a specific genre, like The Punisher as a crime film, the superhero/comic book film is starting to become a genre in and of its own right. And in nay genre you have conventions of it that can be explored and parodied; Chronicle recently took the origin myth and gave it substance because not everyone would take powers like that and use them for good. Even the way many superhero films are shot and sequenced are becoming repetitive; the Marvel formula of crafting a superhero film has become the standard, better or worse, and now everyone wants their superhero film to look like it could be from a Marvel comic.
It explains how Green Lantern just looked like a paler version of Iron Man in both style and substance; comic books and super heroes are now a genre in and of themselves instead of being an action film, with all that entails inside them, with superheroes in them instead. It’s kind of cool I think; at a minimum we know what to expect and mainstream audiences can access the material without picking up a comic book. Part of the problem of cinema, sometimes, is that audiences will stay away from a film if they don’t know what to expect in some regard. If you can see an advertisement for Lantern and strip away the tights and sci-fi sensibilities you essentially have an action film; it might not have gotten massive grosses but it still allows people to walk in blind and at least not be lost in that regard.
This is why the combination of Neveldine/Taylor and Cage intrigues me in that regard. Cage is never a guy I’d tap as being a superhero, despite his being a fan of comic books and having been so close to being Superman, but Ghost Rider feels appropriate. Johnny Blaze is a guy with a twisted origin and it’s hard to think of anyone but an actor like Cage in that role for some reason. It’s the type of comic book film from Nicolas Cage you’d expect; battling the devil for his soul may be a Charlie Daniels Band song but if they made a new video for it Cage wouldn’t be surprising to challenge the devil for a golden fiddle.
It’s just goofy enough to work and yet Ghost Rider didn’t.
Which is why Neveldine/Taylor jumping into the fray is oddly kind of exciting. Crank was such inspired craziness, and to a lesser extent the sequel, that seeing the two with an actor like Cage seems like fate more than anything else. They are doing a true sequel to Ghost Rider instead of a reboot like The Incredible Hulk was and where they take Johnny Blaze is going to be interesting. They have the conventions of a superhero sequel, now that the pesky origin is handled, and get their trademark craziness with an actor known for it.
Spirit of Vengeance could be the crazy, shot in the arm that the genre needs that hasn’t happened in a major property in some time. Christopher Nolan’s Batman is one thing, mainly blending a crime thriller formula onto the genre so much that it almost doesn’t feel like a comic book film, but crafting the sort of inspired silliness of Crank onto Nicolas Cage and Ghost Rider< could be fun in its own way. While I imagine we won't be seeing Cage ape Chev Chelios in action or spirit, seeing what Neveldine/Taylor do with the character and the actor is going to be something interesting. Even if it's Gamer level bad, and it just might be, it’ll at least be visually interesting. And that’s the key; can they take that wild visual style they’ve honed in smaller budgeted films with smaller expectations and craft it onto an early tent pole style release without losing something to it all? I don’t know … but it will be fun to find out.
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s DVD – Knowing
I remember watching this in theatres, way back in the day, and with Ghost Rider 2 coming out this weekend I figured it would be about time to give this a whirl in the DVD player. I had purchased it for 2$ at a Blockbuster going out of business a number of years ago but hadn’t quite gotten around to viewing again after seeing it in theatres. You can read that review here, of course, for my thoughts on it after seeing it in the theatre. I’ve always that sometimes it’s good to go back and view films again that I was on the fence on in during their initial run, however, hence my look at it on DVD.
The film has a fairly intriguing story to it. Nic Cage’s son finds a sheet of paper with numbers written all over it. Coincidentally it matches up to all sort of bad events happening. As he puts two and two together, Cage begins to unravel what the final endgame of this endless stream of numbers turns out to be.
Knowing feels better in retrospect because Cage has made a ton of bad films in the meantime. It’s like when you date a whole bunch of really ugly girls after a mediocre looking one; in retrospect she looks way hotter because the bar’s been lowered. When you look at Nic Cage’s recent output, of Season of the Witch and Trespass amongst others, Knowing looks like an attempt at making Lord of War for the astrophysicist set.
The one thing that makes the film memorable is how Proyas shoots the big plane crash that sets off the film’s second act. You can click and see the whole thing here or watch the big part of it below.
Such a beautiful tracking shot for a film that’s not all that beautiful. Mildly recommended.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance – Nic Cage is back as Johnny Blaze … this time he’s preventing the Anti-Christ from coming back (I think).
See It – The original wasn’t all that good but not all that bad either. I’m curious how Neveldine & Taylor work with the character and with Cage as well.
The Secret World of Arrietty – An animated film about midgets or something. I am not really sure.
Skip It – I’ve seen one trailer for it and I can’t recall it for the life of me. If you can’t be memorable in the golden era of trailers, you are ultimately skippable.
This Means War – Tom Hardy and Chris Pine are both schtooping Reese Witherspoon. They also happen to be best friends as well as bad-ass spy types. Shenanigans ensue. Sneaks this weekend as it opens next weekend I believe.
See It – It is an early look at a film, which is never a bad thing, and both Hardy & Pine are on that cusp of becoming major actors. This could be the vehicle that helps launch them up to the stratosphere.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @MMCritic_Kubryk.
