The Death of Cinema pt. 94

Knocked Up's postrelease prestige print ads featured a scintillating line about how marriage differs from Everybody Loves Raymond as an example of its Wilder-caliber screenwriting. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I like it, but I know the way to bet.

I've seen one episode of The Sopranos, let's talk about that now.

"Wilder-caliber screenwriting" often didn't even meet Wilder's standards.

i think we should just keep talking ourselves in circles forever.

Whatever keeps us from actually watching movies, right?

That "Everybody Loves Raymond" line was v. lame

I bet it'll be the clip for its Best Original Screenplay nom

Irony: I am going to see Knocked Up tonight for $2 at the awesome cheap theater near where I live. Well, no, I guess that's not really ironic at all.

ok i am not going to have this argument again, if your really think you don't actually have to watch movies to pass judgment on them, i dont think we have much to talk about

To be fair, he wasn't passing judgement on Knocked Up but an archetype that overlaps with a perceived fanbase for that film.

YES

food critics, Christ

Morbs contructs these phony binarities: if you love Apatow films, you're a meathead who will ignore a Tsai Ming-Liang release.

Can't one hate both?

I mean, wtf, a Renoir or pre-American Lang film wasn't getting the George Cukor Radio City treatment.

no, I actually don't believe that particular phony binary

food critics, Christ

-- Dr Morbius, Thursday, September 13, 2007 3:37 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

haha

To be fair, he wasn't passing judgement on Knocked Up but an archetype that overlaps with a perceived fanbase for that film.

-- Eric H., Thursday, September 13, 2007 3:35 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

and ya whatev, it's all ill-informed sophistry to this food critic.

xp

(That 'binary' is, of course, true 99% of the time; check the b.o. tallies)

actually lang was pretty well distributed in the '20s. renoir, no; but shit, hollywood brought over just about all the major talents, front and behind camera, from germany in the early '20s.

lang was not an art-house director: he was making big-budget films in a studio as big as any in california.

The b.o. discrepancy can be attributed to the fact that people who would be into TML movies are all paying off their grad student loans.

oh, and buying every new Criterion DVD sight unseen.

i'm not going to say Knocked Up (or numerous other youth-orientated Hollywood flicks) is a bad film (because i haven't seen it) but i stand by my 'this looks like i will hate it' thing and still find it interesting to look at why that is (not here tho). morbs probably doing a different thing ala momus vs tarantino.

and i def wouldn't bother making judgement about apatow fanbase - esp. not when his films get the love they do on ILE.

oh, and buying every new Criterion DVD sight unseen.

like the people on their forum? (actually if you think ILE/F threads are bad...)

i don't think TML is very good. doesn't much to speak to my experience, doesn't much create forms that interest me.

like the people on their forum?

Like all cinephiles in flyover country.

is Knocked Up YOUTH-oriented? Appears aimed squarely at 21-34 to me. But that is the New Adolescence, I guess.

hah i was gonna say "speaking to my experience" = why i rate apatow highly (well, not the only reason)

its all KNOCKED UP's fucking fault.

But that is the New Adolescence, I guess.

kinda but i concede that Apatow, even with Superbad, has cracked it with getting people 16, 26 AND 36 roffling in the aisles

is Knocked Up YOUTH-oriented?

It's het-oriented, and those hets who secretly fantasize about kissing Paul Rudd.

My only peeve about Knocked Up sight unseen is how it was being sold as some sort of sleeper when it had as big a promotional push as any other summer blockbuster of the Michael Bay ilk.

so you had a problem with the marketing of the marketing.

I don't believe I'm the one that's been bitching about Knocked Up on this thread.

look, if something valuable and good about past cultural arrangements (in this case, smart/euro/avant/classy movies being more widely loved or just more widely available -- if this was even true, but let's just say, for argument, it was) is dying, we just have to grit our teeth and let it die, frankly. why? cos there's no solution to the "problem" that's feasible let alone right.

what do you do, other than submit all production to some kind of morbs-approved board of culture? how does one prevent apatow films from getting to their audience? or insist that same audience go to a bergman retro instead?

hah i was gonna say "speaking to my experience" = why i rate apatow highly (well, not the only reason)

-- impudent harlot, Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:50 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah me too! i was saying that taiwanese guy wasn't my stuff.

damn me for being het, i guess.

look, I wouldn't at all be surprised if KU turns out to be superior to the whole of 'mumblecore.'

The solution, as always, involvbes voting with your wallet. And The People are doing so with the same perspicacity they have in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

that is specious bullshit

perhaps! It's even worse in the other popular arts. Britney gave a trainwreck performance?? How could they tell?

(cuz it sounds way more interesting than her stellar past)

look there's more to the huge industrial/cultural changes afoot than demonstrating, again, typical little-manhattan handwringing about the great unwashed. if you want to make some connection between Apatow and GWB, go ahead, but it's gotta be something more substantial than "ppl other than me, dr morbius, famed internet complainer, are retards"

Britney gave a trainwreck performance?? How could they tell?

oh COME ON

forget Apatow.

"we" like movies and presidents that go BOOM. The End.

socialism

Great thread.

Irony: I am going to see Knocked Up tonight for $2 at the awesome cheap theater near where I live.

Possible irony: I am finally going to see the Mexican gay art film (and Armond White fave) Broken Sky tonight, which I rented from Kim's Video. And if you fellas wanna see some REAL snobs, meet the staff there.

enticing

one half of Coldcut made the remark in an interview once that he was totally okay with the whole Ninjatune thing having a very limited audience, because "most people don't care about music!" and pointed out some woman walking by with a baby carriage as an example "they've got lots of other stuff on their mind." etc.

People are always going to make and consume twatty bullshit, that doesn't mean the slightly more sophisticated and exploratory entertainments have to die. If anything the modern marketplace has and will continue to provide the Long Tail stuff with more lucrative rewards and a more widespread audience than we've ever experienced in our lifetime.

That's true. It makes me happy to think that "Mon Oncle" is still making money!

http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2007/01/la_jete_on_yout.html

If the work of any of these directors is analagous to Ninja Tune I will happily let the whole fucking shebang die.

(I have no opinion on the subject in question, just wanted to get that shot in)