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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The faith didn't pay off in a pair of more modest movies that should have been hits, "13 Going on 30" and "Mr. 3000." Instead of throwaway entertainments made to capitalize on the popularity of their stars, Jennifer Garner and Bernie Mac, respectively, both of whom give sterling performances, "13 Going on 30" (directed by Gary Winick) and "Mr. 3000" (directed by the gifted Charles Stone III) were touched with the spirit that made '30s comedy so magical. Both addressed their heroes' dreams and the necessary compromises that life forces on them without once violating the light comic tone. The best American comedies of the year, they achieved effortlessly what more highly touted pictures (like the inexplicably praised "Sideways") got credit for.
Increasingly, though, the movies that treat the old Hollywood impulse to reach a mass audience as something to aspire to, rather than something to condescend to, have come from abroad. Take for example Zhang Yimou's "Hero" from China (No. 1 at the box office for two weeks at the end of summer; it probably would have been a much bigger hit if Miramax hadn't sat on it for two years, driving much of the audience anxious to see it to get import DVDs) and his rapturous new "House of Flying Daggers." Consider also the terrific cop thriller "Infernal Affairs" (a huge hit in Hong Kong, it barely raised a blip here, another casualty of Miramax's determination to kill the Asian films they purchase), the knockout 1995 Bollywood musical "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (still playing first-run in Bombay nine years after its release), and the plush and plummy espionage farce "Bon Voyage" from France. With the exception of the two Zhang Yimou films, most Americans won't even hear about these movies and there's no guarantee they'd go to see them if they did. But like them or not, mainstream moviegoers might at least recognize in them a glimmer of what it is they go to the movies for: genuine entertainment that brings lasting delight rather than wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am spectacle.
Much has been written about how Hollywood has suffered as the old moguls who headed the studios were replaced by young MBAs with no sense of showmanship or pride in their product. The moguls not only had that kind of pride, they also encouraged it in the directors who worked for them: That's why directors like Howard Hawks and George Cukor were prized. Nowadays, mainstream directors who have the instincts that the studio heads used to welcome are considered out of touch with what the audience wants. If the studios prize the cinematic illiteracy of a hack like Michael Bay ("Armageddon"), then there's precious little respect for the type of moviemaking that depends on the nuts and bolts of good storytelling, on star charisma, on a director who keeps the material moving along and knows how to bring out the best in actors.
For some years now, the type of movies that once would have been huge popular hits -- movies like "The Fabulous Baker Boys," "What's Love Got to Do With It?," "Tequila Sunrise," "Devil in a Blue Dress," "The Russia House," "Jackie Brown," "The Insider," "Charlotte Gray," "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" -- have failed to find an audience. The same fate would likely meet some of the big hits of the late '60s and early '70s -- "Bonnie and Clyde," "In the Heat of the Night," "The Wild Bunch," "M*A*S*H," "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "Cabaret" -- were they released today. If "Chinatown" came out now, not only would it bomb but the studio moneymen would surely complain that audiences had rejected it because it was too complicated.
The promise of movies as an experience that sweeps an audience up into a cohesive whole, at least for the time they are sitting together in the dark, is subsumed this year by the enormous success of "The Passion of the Christ" ($370 million domestic gross) and "Fahrenheit 9/11" ($119 million domestic gross). Long before the 51/48 split of the election sent pundits and talking heads off on their divided-country riffs, the success of these movies showed the fracture the election would confirm.
Despite how much has been written about these films as the opposite of each other, it needs to be understood how remarkably similar they are.
