There are no Best Bets this week, folks. Go see Hot Fuzz from last week if you haven’t already. If you have, uh…see it again.

The Invisible

Probably this won’t be terribly good. The fact that it’s produced by the same people as The Sixth Sense again deals with people who either see or are dead people doesn’t argue for a lot of creativity. At the same time, the kid is cute, and if he can carry the film it might be an enjoyable small-scale suspenser.

Next

Why oh why do people keep casting Nicolas Cage in movies? His last good one was 2002′s Adaptation, and before that it was…I forget… This is from a Philip K. Dick story (aka the guy who wrote the source stories for Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly, among many other highly regarded sci-fi novels), and could actually be good. In Cage’s hands, it just looks trite and overdone. Plus he’s obviously phoning it in. And on top of that, Julianne Moore (who can be good in the right project, but so often chooses the wrong ones) and Jessica Biel? Nu-uh. Not happening.

Kickin’ It Old Skool

That would be…negatory. For numerous reasons that only start with the spelling of “skool.”

The Condemned

Okay, let me get this straight. You take several death row inmates (presumably all murderers), set them free on an island and make them all try to kill each other and promise to let the last one standing go free; meanwhile, all this carnage is being watched by violence voyeurs. Essentially, you do take out several criminals, but you reward the one who ends up committing the most murders? There’s so much that’s wrong with the concept of this movie. And the reviews have been pretty bad, too, so I’m guessing there’s not much to save it aesthetically either.

Wind Chill

Survival horror doesn’t usually interest me. This one is no exception.

Jindabyne

Okay, you can’t tell nothing from that trailer. From skimming a review or two, I know the men go fishing and happen to come across a dead girl in the river while they’re there, and the movie’s mostly about what they do after that. It’s meant to be a character-driven drama/thriller, I think. Again, difficult to tell from the trailer. It has got a good cast (Laura Linney can usually be trusted to pick good projects) and Australian accents, so it might be worth a look. But on DVD for sure. Limited.

Snow Cake

Well, I like Alan Rickman. I like Carrie-Anne Moss. I don’t like Sigourney Weaver. I like movies about autism. But is it really about autism, or about a man finding himself with two women, one of whom happens to be the autistic mother of a young girl who was killed while hitching a ride in his car? That might be less interesting. Limited.

The Hip Hop Project

Basically, looks like Rize for singing instead of dancing. It’s about a program for kids to express themselves through hip-hop music instead of drugs and violence. And honestly, the hip-hop music that’s actually good? This is what it’s about. I don’t care for rap/hip-hop myself, but that’s personal preference, and if they can use it to channel energy and emotion into music instead of all the other things these kids could be getting into, more power to them. Rize did a great job of showcasing the krump movements, and it looks like The Hip Hop Project could do a similar service for rap. Limited. Opens wide May 11th. (If I had to give a Best Bet it’d bet this one.)

Diggers

Looks like a rather quiet, understated character-driven drama. Usually I like those, but I’m not particularly drawn to this one. Probably because it also looks rather forgettable. I forgot the trailer pretty much as soon as I watched it. Limited.

• There is a bird outside, perhaps a mockingbird given the variety in his/her song, that is singing away like it’s the first day of spring. Except it’s midnight. Could someone please tell him to go to sleep so I can? Otherwise, I would BE asleep instead of down here writing a post.
• I didn’t blog the American Idol results because I forgot it was a two-hour show so I was fifteen minutes late and didn’t feel like rewinding and didn’t feel like blogging from the middle, and didn’t really have that much to say about it anyway. Il Divo is cute. Kelly Clarkson is awesome. Jack Black rocks and Ben Stiller…doesn’t. Yay for 70 million votes and at least 30 million dollars donated. The surprise duet between Celine Dion and creepy holographic Elvis was lame. And making Jordin wait all the way to the end and think she’d been eliminated only to eliminate nobody? Mean. I mean, I’m glad nobody was eliminated, ESPECIALLY Jordin. But I felt tricked (both by the Elvis thing and the no elimination thing), and that didn’t make me happy.
• Hot Fuzz is incredibly good. GO SEE IT NOW. If you like a) cop movies and/or b) British comedy you will love it. And who doesn’t love at least one of those two things? I’m not even kidding. I haven’t laughed that hard since…okay, well I laughed that hard when I was just watching videos on Comedy Central.com.
• Speaking of which, note to self: Do not go on Comedy Central.com and expect to watch only one video. It doesn’t work that way. I say an hour and a half later.
• Avenue Montaigne is not quite as good as Hot Fuzz, and in a very much different way–French instead of British, for one thing, and quietly sweet instead of raucously funny and action-packed. But if you love Paris and ensemble casts, then you might like Avenue Montaigne.
• Everyone seems to think I’m a masochist for taking summer classes. But everyone I know here is taking summer classes, we’re all taking the same summer classes, and in my summer classes I get to read Woolf and Lawrence, and then learn French! And do it with cool, smart people! So it’s going to be awesome. Plus, I’m going to host movie-watching night every week, which will be awesome on even more levels (not the least of which will be motivation to keep my apartment clean).
• St. Louis people, strong-arm the theatre managers there to make sure they’re playing Black Book and Waitress during the two and a half week window I’m home in the middle of May. If I miss those two (especially Waitress), I’ll be pouty all summer.
• Have you guys seen the Ford Edge commercials directed by David Mamet? They’re the ones with the two guys who talk about the Edge being faster than a BMW and quieter than a Lexus? They’ve been running during American Idol pretty regularly, so you probably have. Anyway, I’m going to adopt the “True story? True story.” It’ll replace the Grey’s Anatomy “Seriously? Seriously.” This is the plan. However, Grey’s “seriouslys” have been in my vocabulary for like two years now, so switching might be more difficult than I foresee.
• Each bullet point is getting randomer and weirder. Perhaps it’s time to try sleep again. If the darned bird has realized that it’s FREAKIN’ MIDNIGHT and has also gone to sleep.

Yay! It looks really, really good. Also really, really dark. But then, I remember reading Order of the Phoenix and thinking, wow, this is really getting dark. So there you go. The boys cut their hair, which is a very good thing. And Hermione embracing her rule-breaking side! Awesome. I *heart* Hermione. And Imelda Staunton is going to be great as Dolores Umbridge.

A little late getting started tonight. Grocery shopping always takes longer than I expect. So this is the big Idol Gives Back show, where Idol is donating to charity and the Idols are singing songs of hope and inspiration. We’ll see how the song choice goes, because that theme could go really sappy really quickly. So far the first two have done fine, though.

Also, Idol is donating money for each vote, so if you’ve been holding off voting, this is the week to start.

Chris Richardson
song: I Would Change the World?

I really like Chris. And tonight it was because he actually did good, and not just because I like him, like last week. It had soul, it had character, and even Simon liked it! :)

Melinda Doolittle
song: There Will Come a Day

There’s nothing left to say about her. It doesn’t matter if she wins or not, labels will be falling over themselves to sign her. Nice that she got to choose a song that fits well with her spiritual beliefs–she got to get her God on! ;)

Blake Lewis
song: Imagine by John Lennon

I liked his vocal, didn’t like the song. I know, I know, it’s supposed to be a classic or whatever, but there’s nothing left by the time we’re done imagining! Isn’t imagination supposed to be creative, not reductive? Anyway. He sang it well, so whatever.

LaKisha Jones

LaKisha, didn’t we learn last week not to sing former Idol’s songs? At least this one did suit her voice, while the one she did of Carrie’s last week did NOT at all. Pretty good vocally…I haven’t heard Fantasia’s version, so I can’t compare.

Phil Stacey

His vocals were quite strong on that, but it was the first one tonight to really fall into the overly sappy category for me. Plus, I don’t like him. I think this is a popularity contest for me this year, as much as I hate to admit that.

Jordin Sparks
song: You’ll Never Walk Alone

Okay, Jordin has just won it for me. She’s been really close for weeks, but this was it. If I had to pick a winner now, it’s her. 100%. Frapping amazing.

Best Performances: JORDIN, Chris, Melinda.
Bottom Three: Heh–all the others. Blake, LaKisha, Phil. Going home: Phil, hopefully.

You know, I wonder if there are any textbook-like film anthologies. Not anthologies of writing about film, but of actual film. Like, if you take a literature survey class, you usually get a Norton Anthology or a Longman Anthology or some such that has a collection of important poems and short stories and sections of novels. But if you take a film class, either the films are all watched in class from the teacher’s copy, or you’re pretty much on your own to get hold of them to see. Granted, it’s easier in literature because you can build an anthology out of short works, while most of the films you would want to see in a film class are full-length. But in a survey class, you’re probably better off showing clips from films that illustrate what you’re talking about rather than the whole film anyway, so why not anthologize those? Put together a DVD of all the clips.

Of course, you can’t actually do that, because we don’t have copyright laws that allow for taking clips from films. Virtually all films are still under copyright protection and the fair use laws that are generally well-understood regarding the use of written works in the classroom are completely NOT understood when it comes to film and digital media. And I can’t see the MPAA being too keen on granting permission for films to be edited for anthologies–obviously the book publishers figure out some way to do it though, because not everything in literary anthologies is public domain. Which leads me back to wondering if anyone’s ever tried, or if it’s not seen as valuable to film professors. Seems like if you could package a good text, like Film Art: An Introduction or Understanding Movies or How to Read a Film with a DVD with the relevant film clips to illustrate what’s being talked about in text…that’d be a good thing, and worth paying extra. Like, you can get the paperback How to Read a Film for $25. Pay $50 and get the DVD too. It’s a textbook; $50 is not exorbitant. I think I spelled “exorbitant” wrong, but I got Firefox’s spellchecker to stop underlining it, so maybe not.

I’ll leave this as a fragmentary thought for now. I was just going through a Longman Anthology I got at a conference last year (seriously, publishing companies are DYING to give these things away to people they think might be teachers someday–totally worth going to conferences for), and it hit me how cool it would be to have a DVD that had all the most iconic film scenes on it.

edit – I take this back. Both Film Art and another McGraw-Hill text, Film, Form, and Culture, come with accompanying CD/DVD-ROMs in their latest editions. Presumably other companies are doing or will do the same thing. I guess I just missed the digital revolution by a few years when I was taking these classes in college. Although, DVD-ROMs aren’t as helpful as regular DVDs, because you can’t play them on your TV, just your computer. So there’s still room for improvement. And of course, the next step is an authorized web repository. Good luck getting the MPAA to agree to that.

I’m working on a big project for my professor at the moment in addition to forcing my way through Hurston criticism for my paper, so I don’t have time to do the trailer watch justice (you’ll notice I didn’t do it last week either). I hate making resolutions to do something on a regular basis and then not be able to do it after only two weeks. But here’s a brief look at what looks good…

April 19th

Vacancy – Not into snuff horror, though I do like both Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, and it looks like it’s got an interesting atmospheric quality. Will probably skip.

Fracture – Anthony Hopkins is trying to recapture the glory of Silence of the Lambs, but this doesn’t look to be the thriller that’ll do it.

Hot Fuzz – From the people who brought us the delightful zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (as delightful as zombies can be, anyway) comes this comedic cop tale. I’m going to try to get down to Austin to check this one out as soon as I have time, so yeah. Definite recommendation from me, sight unseen. Best Bet

In the Land of Women – Adam Brody is like the cutest thing every made, and though this film is getting slammed by critics (I think Rotten Tomatoes had it at 37% last time I checked), I wouldn’t necessarily avoid it. Limited.

The Valet – French comedy; it doesn’t look good per se, but it looks amusing in a very French way. Which is pretty much what the Andrew O’Herlihy said over at Salon.com (his “Beyond the Multiplex” column is always good reading, by the way–it’s a great source for finding those out-of-the-way or only-playing-in-NYC films). Limited.

The Tripper – I haven’t heard of this one, honestly, but “David Arquette’s directorial debut” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Limited.

Stephanie Daley – This is one of those that I’ve only heard of through O’Herlihy’s “Beyond the Multiplex,” and he really, really liked it. The subject matter looks pretty dark: Amber Tamblyn plays a teen who may or may not have concealed her pregnancy and killed her newborn baby. But Tamblyn is one of the best of the current crop of teen actresses, and Tilda Swinton is in here too, which gives the film indie cred out the wazoo. New York.

April 13th

Perfect Stranger – You’d think a thriller with Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, and Giovanni Ribisi would be good. Doesn’t look that way–the trailer’s bad, the buzz is bad, and the reviews are bad.

Disturbia – I’m actually interested in seeing this. It’s probably the echoes of Rear Window, which is, like, my favorite movie ever. I like the way it’s remaking Rear Window, but not exactly. Plus Shia LaBeouf, regardless of his difficult name, is pretty cute, in a way-too-young sort of way. Best Bet

Pathfinder – I couldn’t even find a trailer for this a few weeks ago, and it’s been getting horrible reviews as not nearly actiony enough for an action film and not nearly thoughtful enough for anything else.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres – I have some friends who really love this Cartoon Network Adult Swim show, but I’ve never watched it, and from what I hear, only fans of the TV show are going to like the film.

Year of the Dog – Molly Shannon as a forty-something single woman. Could be any number of things, but I’m hearing that it’s sweet, warm, and funny in a good way. It’s being compared to the similarly-themed The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but I sense that it’s a little less focused on getting laid and more focused on forging a relationship. I could be wrong. I haven’t seen either one. Limited. Best Bet

Redline – Hey, it’s The Fast and the Furious, but with a Hong Kong director. No, really. That’s basically all it is. Limited.

Slow Burn – According to IMDb, this was made in 2005, and is just now being released. This is not a good sign. Neither is the incomprehensible trailer. Some movies reward you having to figure them out, but judging from the early reviews and my own instincts…this ain’t one of them. Limited.

Literary criticism ruins books. It tears them apart and glues them together again with the critic’s pet theory. It reduces character to symbol and narrative to trope. It increases cynicism and decreases enjoyment. It makes every book about something else. It creates a divide between “critical readers” and ordinary ones and dismisses the latter as naive and therefore worthless. It overanalyzes and deconstructs until there’s nothing left. You would expect literary critics to like literature. But they don’t seem to. They seem to hate it so much that they destroy it and put their theoretical/political agenda in its place.

Clearly I’m not a literary critic. I love literature, and the goal of all of my writing is to encourage people to read more, watch more, understand more, and enjoy more. This doesn’t mean I encourage reading without discretion, but you can read discerningly without reading cynically. I do like understanding, but sometimes I wonder if Claude Monet doesn’t have a point: “People discuss my art and pretend to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love.”

My film criticism hero is Andrew Sarris, who championed the auteur theory in American in the 1960s, getting into a much-publicized critical war with more populist film critic Pauline Kael. He still writes for the Observer, I believe, though he’s no longer the vanguard of film criticism. In 1990, there was a less-publicized critical spat in Film Comment between Richard Corliss (now of Time) and Roger Ebert (of the Chicago Sun-Times and Ebert and Roeper), in which Corliss denounced the reduction of film criticism to thumbs up-thumbs down and watered down reviews and Ebert largely agreed with him, but denied that film criticism was in as bad a state as Corliss thought, or that his television program (then Siskel and Ebert) was such a huge part of the problem. (Interestingly, the same general debate about the state of film criticism is still going on now.) Both Corliss and Ebert mentioned the halcyon days of the film criticism in the 1960s, when the Sarris-Kael debate was Important in a way that neither Corliss nor Ebert saw film criticism being important in the 1990s. So Sarris jumped into the fray in his well-mannered and thoughtful way. That’s all probably unimportant background for the quote I’m about to give, which applies directly to film criticism, but more broadly to criticism in general. (All of this can be found in Alone in the Dark, a collection of Ebert’s writings–he includes the Corliss and Sarris portions of the debate as well as his own.)

The fact that I have always been too much of a journalist for the academics, and too much of an academic for the journalists, makes me especially sensitive to the deplorable noncommunication among various critical camps now on the scene. In this context, Kael and I at our most contentious at least spoke the same language. Nowadays many film departments dominated by semioticians have virtually excommunicated all mainstream film critics from the sacraments of ‘discourses’ and ‘texts.’

What I want to be is a 1960s film critic, straddling academia and journalism…bringing a knowledge of film/literary history and technique to a discipline which is largely meant to inform ordinary people, not other academic people. You can read Sarris and understand him without knowing a lot of technical language–and you’ll appreciate the films you’re watching more if you do. I don’t know if this form of criticism exists anymore, or if anyone wants to either do it or read it except for me. I don’t fit into the world of theoretically-based criticism (even if I do enjoy learning about the history of theory, which I do), because I ultimately care more about the story than about a work’s endorsement or subversion of gender roles. Or racial identity. Or whatever. I ultimately care more about trying to get more people to read literature than about dissecting literature under a microscope. I accept that other people may feel differently, and may enjoy the dissection process. But I hate that my preferred way of approaching literature is considered naive, and that naive is considered lowly and unworthy. Because I refuse to believe that it is. The goal of criticism for me is to promote reading and appreciation, not to advance an agenda, which is what I see so much criticism doing.

This rant has been brought to you by a frustrating day of trying to read the relevant criticism on Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee before writing on it myself and being unable to get away from readings which depend entirely on the critic’s race-and-gender-centric agenda. (And I’m not talking fringe critics here, I’m talking the ones who are considered must-read authorities on Hurston’s work.) Literary critics are trying their damnedest to make me hate literature, and today, they’re doing an exceptional job of it. It has prompted several pages of writing in my notebook, but they’re pretty much all about how I hate criticism rather than actual productive work on the paper. (Disclaimer – I am frustrated right now, and I do believe pretty much everything I’ve said in this post, but I know that it’s reactionary and extremist. I don’t hate all criticism, and I think that theory does sometimes serve a useful purpose. It’s just not serving one for me at this moment.)

Variety keeps dropping little bits about the proposed remake/adaptation of The Birds. I put both terms because I’ve heard they’re planning to stay closer to Daphne du Maurier’s short story than to Hitchcock’s film, but it’s fairly obvious they’re also planning on the name recognition of the earlier film, so it’s sort of both. Here’s a quote from the newest bit of news:

“We think we have a very contemporary take,” Schulman said. “In the original, the birds just showed up, and it was kind of like, why are the birds here? This time, there’s a reason why they’re here and (people) have had something to do with it. There’s an environmental slant to what could create nature fighting back.”

Um.

THE WHOLE POINT OF THE BIRDS IS WE DON’T KNOW WHY THEY’RE ATTACKING. Aaaargh. I was just becoming reconciled to the idea of them remaking what I consider to be Hitchcock’s scariest movie and one the top five films he ever made. But this…oh, this changes everything. The very thing that makes The Birds scary is that it’s completely unexplained. We don’t know why the birds attack, neither the characters nor the world at large seem to have done anything to provoke them, the cessation of attacks is just as random as the attacks, and just as unquieting. It’s a brilliant film. If you give the attacks motivation, if you make them vengeful against mankind’s abuses of the environment, you have made just another creature feature with a left-wing moral. If there’s a moral to Hitchcock’s The Birds, it’s don’t be afraid to love other people, and take care of them when you do love them, because the world is a harsh place, and you’re going to need each other.

Of course, given my feelings on directorial authorship and creative licence, the filmmakers have every right to do that if they want. But they think it’s going to be better that way, and I’m saying they’re absolutely wrong about that.