Monday, June 26, 2006
Movie Critics and the People Who Aren't Them
When I met Steve I was working as a bartender and my contact with movie people was limited to grips and decorators who liked to come in after work and have a beer, and there was a steady stream of hopefuls who were the prettiest girl in her small town in the Midwest, and she had gotten the lead in her high school play, so she was coming to Hollywood to be an actress because everyone back home said she should. Not to confuse these gals with my friends who actually came to LA because they think of moviemaking as a serious art and pursue it out of the love of acting (or directing, or whatever their thing is.)
It wasn't until I moved to Burbank, married Steve, and came into regular contact with "movie folk" that my bubble of denial started to burst.
The first time I noticed was when I was shopping. Everyone was posing. I wasn't at the mall or a clothing store, but buying groceries. In one surreal moment, I was surrounded by actors doing the "reach for the coffee" pose, the sweeping "putting apples in the basket" pose, and the stiff-backed "reading the nutritional content on the yogurt" pose. No one was just shopping; it had somehow turned into an act. I started to study my own actions. Did I stick out, just throwing stuff in the cart? My cart-pushing choreography was weak, my motivation was unclear, and I wasn't carrying a cup of Starbucks.
After that, I noticed them everywhere, The Posers. The deliberate motions of the girl pumping her gas, the self-conscious swagger of the guy at the post office. Rare, unscripted moments of humanity were glossed over or ignored.
Why do they constantly pose? Have cattle-calls made them self-conscious? I know trying to break into the movie biz can make people defensive. One time I met a woman at a bar who, when I asked her what she does, replied with, "I'm a director and YES I actually do direct!" Are the Posers practicing by playing a part in their head? Do they hope to be discovered at Ralphs?
The Posers learn quickly that it's not what you know; it's who you know in Hollywood. Therefore, they have no use for you if you can't further their career. On more than one occasion, I would be having a pleasant conversation with someone at a party and as soon as he/she found out I wasn't in the movie business, they immediately had somewhere else to be. I guess they never learned the subtler, more sincere aspect to networking.
Steve has the other problem. Even though he is low on the Hollywood totem pole, he is still on it, so he has people trying to stick their nose in his butt crack all the time. They don't realize that, if Steve could do something to further someone's career, he would be driving a better car, live in a better house, and have a hotter wife.
A typical Hollywood gathering looked just like art school to me: the ones who got things done looked like an uncool mess, everyone else had time to work on their image.
These are the people who I think are really fun: The Movie Critics. I'm not talking about people who make their living as movie critics, I'm talking about the guys who work in the movie business, but apparently loathe movies. Or maybe they only hang around town so they can let everyone know how god-like they are by putting down everyone else's artistic vision. You can always find them because you hear them loudly distributing their knowledge about what is wrong with all movies, all the time. Sometimes it's the guy at the next table in a restaurant, making sure everyone knows what HE would have done different about The Da Vinci Code, or why Finding Nemo was so flawed.
The Movie Critics' favorite activity is to announce their viewpoints on the way out of the movie theater. They always wait to start their stage-whisper conversations with their friends at the most opportune moment: when the crowd is bottlenecked tightly near the exit and the largest amount of people will find out how clever they are. I can hear that they are talking at a normal pitch, and then their voices suddenly go up about twenty decibels when they have chosen just the right moment to break into their Siskel and Ebert routine.
Unfortunately, the critical eye is contagious. I've watched movies all my life, and if they made me laugh or had a horse or a cute guy in them, I thought they were okay and didn't give them much thought. But a few years ago I found myself in Missouri yelling at an acquaintance, "You liked The Hunted? But the editing didn't flow, the character development was forced, and the dialogue wasn't believable!" You seldom have an opportunity to have such a conversation outside of LA. I felt like an asshole.
For that reason, Steve and I wait until we are out of the theater and back in the car with the doors closed before we discuss the movie we just watched.
Steve actually loves movies. Even ones that are flawed or the editing was distracting or the story had holes -- he doesn't care -- he loves them. He loves movies just because they are movies, sort of the same way my friend Kat automatically loves anything that has four legs and is furry.
Steve's enthusiasm is so infectious that he has taught me to appreciate movies as art. He loves working on movies and talking about movies and watching movies and talking about watching movies and talking about all of the creative and technical aspects and the history and everything to do with movies until a few years ago I cracked and made him start a website about movies so that he could exorcise his Movie Talking Demon and I could, perhaps, get some reading done.
If I'm enjoying a movie, I soak in it. Sometimes I get in on the dialogue, even if it's a movie I have never seen. One time when I was 12 I was watching Shirley Temple receive a present from another kid on TV and my mom chose that moment to tell me to sweep the floor so I answered her with "Thank you." Distraction while I'm watching a movie takes me out of my movie trance.
I'm marching into the detention cell trying to rescue Princess Leia before Darth Vader kills her. My heart is beating in my throat, my forehead is sweaty, but take comfort knowing that my droid, R2-D2, is safely back in the control room in case I need to reach him on my com-link. I sure hope Obi-Wan was able to find the tractor beam or else we're all going to----
"The name "R2-D2" came from editor Walter Murch while he and George Lucas were mixing "American Graffiti." Needing the second roll of dialogue for reel 2 of the film, Murch said, "George, hand me R2-D2." George thought it was a great name and wrote it down to remember it later," Steve interrupts me from rescuing the princess. The movie is lost to me now, thanks to Happy Mouth.
For the record, I bought The Hunted on DVD so I could see Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro bitch slap each other whenever I want. Honestly, they're supposed to be tough guys and here they are slapping each other on the side of the head? When they whip out their knives and start slicing I'm not really paying attention to the action, but I'm still stuck on that whole slapping thing. Couldn't either of them make a fist? Oregon is damp, maybe their joints are stiff. Gramma lived near where the movie was filmed and she would complain about her knuckles getting sore when it rained. Maybe it's some sort of special army slap-fighting I'm not familiar with. I don't think this is the journey the director intended to take my imagination on, but I got something out of it anyway.
I learned that art and commercial success are usually two different things, and it's okay to love something that's flawed.
