SDCC 2018: Leonard Maltin

Posted on July 30, 2018 at 4:48 pm

The name of the panel was “You’re Wrong, Leonard Maltin,” and the audience was invited to argue with one of America’s most respected and beloved film critics. Disagreement there was, but all presented with affection and good humor, delightful moderated by Jessie Maltin Hadfield, his daughter.

Maltin began by quoting Steven Colbert: “opinions are like mixtapes–I don’t want to listen to yours.” He continued by citing Harlan Ellison: “Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion.” He also cautioned us about ranking movies in top ten lists, top one hundred lists, etc. “They have one purpose only — for people to argue.”

The first challenge was to one of his most controversial reviews, just two stars for “The Dark Knight.” Remember this was at Comic-Con, where people have very strong feelings about superhero movies. “Each film is rated on how well it meets its own goals,” Maltin said.” (That’s my approach as well.) He stuck with his verdict on “Deadpool 2” as well. “We’ve seen it before. Mildly amusing but not cause for celebration.”

Maltin said that he always wants and even expects a movie to be good. Even when it is disappointing, he looks for a good moment or a good performance he can highlight in his review.

Maltin shared some good stories, especially one about shooting a five minute segment with Warren Beatty, dressed as Dick Tracy. “He will reshoot until somebody turns out the lights. He may still be shooting.”

By the end of the panel it was clear that people had very strong opposing views about movies but everyone loves Leonard Maltin.

Just as much fun — Maltin also appeared on a delightful panel paying tribute to the delightfully trashy Queen of Outer Space, starring Zsa Zsa Gabor and celebrating its 60th anniversary, and of some of the other cheesy Warners films of the era.

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Are Rom-Com Heroines Just in Need of Therapy?

Posted on July 15, 2018 at 4:22 pm

The Belladona wonders what the ending of romantic comedies would be if the heroines just got some therapy.

For example, take the Katherine Heigl/James Marsden film “27 Dresses.”

After telling her therapist the story of how she met Kevin, Jane comes to the understanding that he may be right about the mindless consumerism of the wedding industry (and he’s definitely right about the markup on wedding cakes), but stealing someone’s planner and stalking them under a fake name is not charming, no matter how amazing his cheekbones are. Files a restraining order.

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Kristen Lopez on The Rock and The Ghost and Disabled Characters in Movies

Posted on July 14, 2018 at 5:17 pm

My friend Kristen Lopez is also one of my favorite critics, knowledgeable, forthright, passionate, and always willing to engage on issues of representation. Recently, she stared down a bunch of rabid fanboys who were upset (“Hey, it’s a MOVIE!”) on Twitter because she called out “Ant-Man and the Wasp” for the tired trope of the disabled bad guy, driven to do bad things because of the disability.

Ant-Man and the Wasp’s treatment of disability will go under the radar. But in a landscape where disability remains marginalized, particularly for women of color (and people of color in general), a character like Ava could have helped opened the door. Chronic pain remains a hot-button issue in the disabled community, and having Ava live with it could have presented something relatable. Instead, Ava is stripped of her problem in order to make her rational, quantifiable, and controllable.

I was interested to see how she would react to Dwayne Johnson’s portrayal of a disabled character in “Skyscraper.” While I prefer to see disabled characters played by disabled actors, I also recognize the idea that any actor should be able to play any part. Until ordinary characters — teachers, accountants, doctors, scientists, parents, children — are shown with disabilities that are not central to their identity and are played by actors with disabilities, I think we should be careful about putting able-bodied people in those roles. And no body is more able than The Rock.

Lopez called Johnson’s portrayal “surprisingly nuanced” and “far better” than what we usually see.

First, she says, “the adversity is the building itself, not Will’s disability….By not making a big deal of his disability, Will is a character who represents a marked improvement in representation. People with disabilities don’t want their disability to define them, and Will’s doesn’t define his character. It adds to it…. His character doesn’t walk away a changed man appreciating being disabled. He gets his family back and seemingly ends the film the same way he started. It’s just a facet of his personality he deals with in order to overcome this great challenge.”

But, she has some concerns as well. “The character is also written to fall into the “able-bodied buffer” category, a term I use to describe any character shown as previously able-bodied before a traumatic event. This ‘buffer’ is created as a means of helping the able-bodied audience bond with the newly disabled character, under the belief that disabled people are so mysterious that there’s no point of entry for the audience short of reminding them the character was one ‘like you.'”

I wasn’t the only one who appreciated this review.

Wow. I am officially verklempt. @TheRock thanks for taking the time to read my piece! Disabled representation has a long road to travel, but I was happy to see movement being made. pic.twitter.com/KvhPq5MvlR

— Kristen Lopez (@Journeys_Film) July 13, 2018

Sara Benincasa’s List of Great Reviews

Posted on July 14, 2018 at 4:51 pm

Sara Benincasa wrote on Longreads about great reviews of movies she hasn’t seen. I was delighted to see that she included my recommendation of the hilarious, NSFW, and stunningly accurate review of Fences by Dustin Rowles. It’s a great review, as are all the others on her list.

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Liking Not-Great Movies

Posted on July 10, 2018 at 8:00 am

I really enjoyed A. Martine’s essay in Medium, In Defense of Passion Over Talent, B Movies, and the So-Bad-It’s-Good Work of Art. An excerpt:

Although I am incredibly critical with films when it comes to quality, I also acknowledge that the issue is much more complicated than that. I have hated films that, objectively speaking, were well-made, and I have loved films that, on an intellectual level, I knew were terrible.

I am at peace with making that distinction because I’ve always had two tiers of judgment when it comes to appreciation, two definitions for “good movies”:

– the legitimately great ones that have made of me a lifelong film fanatic and aspiring screenwriter;

– the ones which, by all arguments, are not. They are incredibly tacky, downright nonsensical, challenge all credibility — and I love them.

I responded:

I think films need to be evaluated on two axes. The y-axis is the aesthetic merits of the film — it is “good?” The x-axis is a different standard: watchability. Many films are unquestionably superb, brilliantly written, filmed, and performed. And yet how often do we pull them off of the Criterion Edition shelve and watch them? The x-axis films just go down easy. They’re films to watch when you need pleasant company or have the flu. Or films to on a summer night after a day at the beach. There’s nothing wrong with movies people like, and nothing wrong with movies you like just because you like them.

I call the films in that second category “flu movies,” and those are the only ones I will buy. I don’t buy movies because they’re great; I buy them because I will watch them a lot. Of course some films are at the top of both axes, like “The Sound of Music” and “The Wizard of Oz.” And I don’t like the term “guilty pleasure.” If a movie makes you happy, you should never feel guilty about it.

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