Manola Dargis on women in film

This statement I find incredibly true, and while it is not so promising for women, which is ultimately Dargis’s point, I can’t help but feel good about it. Not because a “women’s” genre is being done better by a man, but because a traditionally hokey, formulaic and cliche-ridden genre is being done better, period.

I have been thinking about Superbad since I put it on my top of ’00s list, and I just watched Adventureland. What an incredible movie. Check out how awesome this is: Adventureland is written and directed by the same guy who did Superbad. It’s funny and it’s awkward. But it’s funny and awkward in a different way than Superbad is! A is, in the end, a much darker film than S. S is sunny and leans toward darkness at times; S is a dark film that strives for sunlight.

I find it interesting that I am almost completely uninterested in big Hollywood “dramas,” the ones where “one man” will “change everything” and “nothing will be the same” etc. etc. etc. I find them tired and heavy. Traditionally we give awards to dramas over comedies because the dramas, presumably, give us something that comedy doesn’t, but for a while now I think we have had comedies that give us far more than 90% of you dramas out there. (Reblog that quote?)

It’s possible that, one day, these films being made by Judd Apatow and Greg Mottola will become the new rom-com formula. So far they have mostly not repeated themselves, which is a good thing, but once others become familiarized with the style and language, how much longer can we expect to have?

For now, let us just celebrate the fact that we have these movies.

Also, since when did Kristen Stewart become the hottest thing ever? Um, probably around now.

(via whitebears)

I’ve always thought that comedies done well were like the accomplishment of writing fast-tempo music: really difficult to do outside of a few measures or scenes, and rare as polio.

As for dramas’ sweeping award season, I’m okay with it, but not (of course) how everyone else is probably. Of all the nearest-to-my-heart movies, the genres are overwhelmingly drama (or its gothic neighbour, horror) - ones, tho’, that can only reductively fit dramatic conventions. Like: Detour, probably my favourite American movie. (whitebears: “Humph: you have favourite movies BY COUNTRY?!”)

It’s a “film noir” that’s hilarious (ie. “comedy”) and terrifying (“horror”) and an impotent “romance” with “road movie” aspects to boot. It isn’t that the blend of so many ideas create its greatness, but that its flexibility and aversion to stringent codes-of-genre allow the material to be really vibrant and exciting.

The Apatow-circle films I like most (Superbad and Pineapple Express) are “comedies” as much as they are a lot of things: the stories aren’t suffocated by mundane formula. The characters are the priority and what they do is secondary to how they do it.

That said: dramas tend to be more raved about in the post-Christmas frenzy for their focus on character and story over more generic elements in comedies or rom-coms whose impetus is usually financial and market-share accessible - that is, delivering expectations and not toying with them. I’m thinking of things like “The Blind Side” or “Remember the Titans.”

When I think of someone like Hitchcock and then compare today’s thrillers to his, I get all squirmy thinking about the way a director’s interest can be in something totally not art-house or sob-story or even experimental and still produce great stuff. That’s what Citizen Kane is: the greatest popular (in-genus-not-ticket-sales) movie ever made. A lot of comedies are the love-child of studios and assembly lines. Most “talented” directors today are into other subjects: there aren’t many Lubitsches or Keatons kicking around. Except, of course, for Apatow.