MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: SOME KIND OF HERO (1982)

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Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Saturday, October 20, 2018

SOME KIND OF HERO (1982)

Woefully unconvincing on every level, Richard Pryor tries on his distinct comic vibe in this largely serious story about a former Vietnam P.O.W. (grabbed by the enemy on Day One with his pants down; see poster) who comes home a default war hero only to see his life fall apart. Amateurville from script to direction, from supporting cast to production values (backlot Vietnam; blanket lighting; spacious P.O.W. cells for two). So while Pryor does his nervous comedy shtick, life spirals down with his backpay on hold from the army; a wife & child who desert him; a senile Mom falling behind on her nursing-home bills; and various attempts at robbery screwed up. Margo Kidder props him up for unknown reasons as a sympathetic hooker he can’t afford; and finally some last act action involving a ludicrous mob swap for a suitcase of negotiable bonds he’s grabbed by accident. (Almost worth seeing for Michael Pressman’s inept handling of the big fight.) How’d Pryor get sucked into this? He must have been stoned out of his mind.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: To see Pryor work a serious/social commentary drama (with a more darkly ironic than comic edge), try Paul Schrader’s BLUE COLLAR/’78.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, October 20, 2018

SOME KIND OF HERO (1982)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE