March 2008 Archives

Rented a movie with some friends last night, ‘3:10 to Yuma’. Or, as my buddy now refers to it, ‘3:10 to this sucks ass’.

Now Christian Bale is worth my nickel any day of the week, but it got me thinking. Exactly what ‘is’ good, anyway? Why is it that you can watch a film and be moved to tears and yet the retard next to you is laughing his ass off? (Provided that the guy next to you isn’t actually retarded.) Certainly it can’t be that relative?

It’s always struck me as quite the mystery that some of the best films I’ve ever seen died a quick and painful death and yet, there’s an Academy Award sitting on Whoopie Goldbergs mantel. God knows the films I’ve personally written or directed (although having received critical acclaim) have financially brought me little more than a croissant at a filmmakers breakfast.

But that’s my own personal rub. The films that inspired me when I was young have long gone extinct. The masterpieces of the 70’s. The social commentary of the 60’s. The zany fun of the 50’s. The glamour of the 40’s. Therefore the films I tend to personally make have the commercial staying power of an eight track tape.

So, what the hell is it? Is art really in the eye of the beholder or does a jar of urine and a canvas of chimp shit really deserve space in a room of full Rembrants?

Well, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the above and I think I’ve come up with an answer.

Identity.

Fewer and fewer people today know what they are anymore, let alone what is great. In today’s multi-cultural mud bog, you’re lost. Where’s the standard? When grades are given out for showing up, excellence not only becomes marginalized, it soon becomes illegal.

George Clooney recently lamented on the fact that there aren’t as many ‘masterpieces’ today as there were in the 70’s. Interesting point. Where are the classics of today? I guess they just don’t make them anymore.

Or do they?

Perhaps it’s not that they’re not made, it’s that you no longer give a shit. If you live in the west, you can’t scratch your ass without being branded a racist or a homophobe. And so, you’ve not only become jaded to the cries of your neighbors rape across the hall, you actually celebrate the guy who went to the Arts Council and got a hundred thousand dollars to piss on a crucifix. How the hell would you know what’s good? Greatness today has become the collective. Something ‘we all do’ by default and so naturally, nobody knows what the hell it is. But not to panic we have the tv to remind us.

Films today, although very good, shoot for little more now than the opening weekend box and zeitgeist. The styrofoam cup ‘gone wild’. The big ‘whatever’. And it’s epidemic. And not that I’m taking any proverbial high road. I’ve worked on some of the crappiest film and television (and some of the best) shows in the world.

But when I look at some of the filmmakers honored in my adopted Vancouver, I’m consistently amazed. I don’t know a single one of my peers who isn’t left scratching their heads. I mean not only is the Emperor walkin’ around naked, but there’s tissue stuck to his ass. And not that I haven’t seen some great Canadian films, I’ve just never seen any of them honored in Canada. Now, I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that they’re not American. (You know, American films having that whole ‘entertainment’ thing going on.) But how many films can you make about sex and heroin before somebody cries bullshit?

But that’s my thesis. When a nation loses it’s identity and standards are thrown out the window, greatness becomes little more than flashing your snatch from a limousine.

Know what I miss? I miss the movie Priest. Remember when the Priest was a symbol of strength and dignity? ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. ON THE WATERFRONT. MEN OF BOYS TOWN. Priests that would grab you by the scruff of the neck and kick your ass should they think you were on the wrong path. Symbols of strength and moral courage. The tough America. Not the pussy it’s become today. They were the real deal. Ambassadors to doing the right thing. Not some placating apologist.

One didn’t need to be Catholic to appreciate the movie Priest. He was always the moral compass to the harsh reality of life. The Bowery was hard. So he was harder. The bad guy was tough. He was tougher. He had to be. He stood alone. Didn’t have his ‘posse’ of thugs and other assorted pussies to make himself look bigger. Sure, he turned the other cheek, but he kept a big fist in his pocket.

I miss those guys. The Fathers that had the boxing gym. The ones who would take in the troubled kid, teach him how to box and turn him into a Golden Gloves champion. How to stand as a man. To earn it and ask nothing of nobody. To pass on the hand out. Christ, do that today and your local honor student carves ‘FASCIST’ into the side of your car.

Today, say Priest and what comes to mind? Pedophilia. Homosexuality. Sex Scandal. Deviance. Spineless pussy. Where have you gone Pat Obrien? Our nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you.

Want to end the war in Iraq? Drop Karl Malden in there. Even from his wheel chair, that guy’d kick the snot out of those homosexual/women/freedom hating natzi’s with one hand and then still have time to drop kick that Iranian Howdy Doody they got over there into the stratosphere.

Good? What the hell is that? I don’t know anymore. When goodness is no longer cultivated, it’s asthetic becomes invisible.

But then again, what the hell do I know? My head’s still spinning from the recipient of this years (Vancouver’s) ‘WOMAN IN FILM AWARD’.

It went to a man. In a skirt.

Sorry, gang. Been sick as a dog for the last 10 days.

Will write more soon. C.