I don’t like the idea of handicapping films. Whether it had a budget of $300 million or just $300, whether it was shot over two years or over two weeks, I wish I could evaluate every film on the same plane. Many people are uncertain of how to look at indie and uber-indie films; do they view them with the same eye with which they view the next Wachowski Brothers film, or do they give the film with perceivably fewer resources a few passes along the way? Even though my ideals beg me to judge each film on that level plane, I’ve always assigned a cinematic handicap to every movie I view, from the small film burned on a DVD using the director’s personal computer to the ballyhooed Hollywood epic shining brightly on the IMAX screen.
Blanc de Blanc almost begs to be handicapped.
→It’s easy to dismiss Toy Story as a comparatively shallow Pixar film. A simple story of friendship pushed along by a lot of colorful action, the movie’s virtues seem to pale in comparison to the complexities and subtle implications of Pixar’s latter films—The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL•E.
→The first time I saw The 400 Blows a couple of years ago, I walked away unimpressed, seeing it as a solid film, but one that was “about” a lot less than most people thought.
→Sitting in the theater before Iron Man, I noticed that the trailers, aimed towards the “superhero crowd,” were particularly good this evening. Indiana Jones, the latest Dark Knight trailer—I’d seen them all before, but it was good spectacle on the big screen.
→Is Rob Zombie a hack? Does Eli Roth have any sort of moral compass? Or does the “Splat Pack” specialize in making gory garbage? Today I put Mr. Roth and Mr. Zombie on trial for Crimes Against Cinema. Don’t worry, the rest of the “Splat Pack” will have their day as well.
→Recently, when a Dallas sports radio host celebrated a milestone show, he was surprised when a special guest phoned in for a live congratulatory call. It was President George W. Bush.
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