DEATH RACE (2008): How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Watching a Commercial for a Video Game

When I entered the theater on Saturday to watch DEATH RACE (2008), starring Jason Statham, I had a huge chip on my shoulder. I fully expected the film to be as bad, if not worse, than Uwe Boll's IN THE NAME OF THE KING -- which also starred Jason Statham. What I forgot was that DEATH RACE is directed by "geek-media to film" über-director Paul W.S. Anderson (MORTAL COMBAT) -- who should in no way be confused with arthouse über-director Paul T. Anderson -- and in my mind having Anderson as a director is a positive thing.

One might ask why that is a positive thing. To answer, I will say that Anderson has in the past done what I thought was a complete impossibility. He directed an entertaining movie based upon a video game intellectual property, the aforementioned MORTAL COMBAT. He thankfully had nothing to do with the abomination that is MORTAL COMBAT 2. Anderson's ability to translate property from one geek medium to another isn't a one time fluke either. His 2002 screen adaptation of RESIDENT EVIL, starring his fiancé Milla Jovovich, was as entertaining an adaptation of a video game as has yet been made. I also believe that his Kurt Russell vehicle SOLDIER and his Gothic SF film EVENT HORIZON are highly underrated. Anderson's films are by no stretch of the imagination classics to be cherished, but they tend to be fun popcorn fare -- and to be honest that is what I hoped for in my heart of hearts when I went to see the new DEATH RACE.

I should have kept this in mind when I walked into the theater on Saturday afternoon, because I left the theater entertained.

Anderson's DEATH RACE begins with an opening scroll reminiscent of ROAD WARRIOR's description of how the world changes from the modern day -- a description seemingly based almost word for word on the future history described in Steve Jackson Games CAR WARS DELUXE EDITION. Essentially, the US economy collapses in 2012 (Corman's classic had the world's economy collapse), unemployment is ridiculously high, crime soars, corporations take over the prison system, the world watches its first "prison death match," eventually they become bored with fights to the death, and finally the DEATH RACE is born to satisfy their bloodlust.

Whew! That was quite a sentence. Needless to say, the script by Anderson attempts -- though ultimately fails -- to address one of my concerns regarding the remake. He also ties this film to the original by using David Carradine to do the voice over for Frankenstein in the film's opening race. I wanted some social commentary about our society's long history of bloodlust and Anderson hinted he would give that commentary to me. In the end though, he skipped over that part of the narrative to focus on the story of the racer, which brings me to the actual narrative of the film.

Anderson's script views like a bizarre combination of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE LONGEST YARD (the Burt Reynold's version), and the original DEATH RACE 2000. Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is a down on his luck blue collar worker who loses his job at the local steel mill when that mill closes down -- as an aside, I knew I was watching fiction when the film depicted a working steel mill within the US. Ames returns home, his family is murdered, he gets framed for the murder and sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after his arrival at the prison, he is made an offer by the warden (Joan Allen). She needs him, you see. The fans love Frankenstein, but Frankenstein died at the end of the last race -- a race that he won according to the pay-per-view telecast. As incentive to participate in the race, Ames is offered his freedom. Frankenstein has already won four races, if he wins a fifth then he gets to go free and return to society. Ames, as the new Frankenstein, would only have to win one race to be reunited with his daughter.

The script is all pretty standard stuff and doesn't offer any of the criticism I had hoped for, but it does serve as a skeleton (even though a weak one) for what turns out to be an entertaining film.

What makes the film entertaining is the fact that it unabashedly acknowledges the fact that there will be a video game based on the film. The best example of this occurs during the first race, and all subsequent races, when the audience is shown how the various offensive and defensive devices on the vehicles are activated. In order to activate their weapons, the drivers must drive over lit up sword icons on the track. Shield icons activate the defensive items on the vehicles, and skulls activate death traps which destroy the vehicle that activated the skull. As the film portrays it, the DEATH RACE is a kind of bloody and fatal version of MARIO CART -- silly laughter and all. One might say the DEATH RACE is live action WARIO CART. I could almost hear Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) shouting, "I'ma Machina Guna Joe-a...I'ma Gonna Weeen."

Though the premise might seem cartoony, the action is anything but. Anderson brings his signature style of quick cuts and hyperkinetic action to the screen. The action sequences run the gamut from fast cars with guns blazing to Ames opening up a can of whoop ass on those who annoy him.

One only wishes he had taken things a little bit further. It's one thing to acknowledge as a part of your film that a video game will be made about it. It is another thing to use that as an opportunity to criticize overly violent video games. I'm not one that is overly worried about the influence of violent games on society, but I enjoy a good SF criticism as much as anyone. Anderson drops the ball with regard to the video game criticism by both choosing MARIO CART style games as the basis for his action and by not taking the violence far enough...or at least not showing how much the fans love and obsess about the violence. It isn't enough to hear that the DEATH RACE has 70 million subscribers, I want to hear some obsessed fans talk about the race. Better yet, have those same hard working steel workers at the beginning of the film talk about their favorite racers. Both the original story and the first movie showed us the world outside the race, or at least gave glimpses. Anderson's DEATH RACE seems to take place outside the surrounding world and its fans are only those who order the streaming video on the internet.

It isn't only in the area of social criticism where Anderson drops the ball. Most disappointing to me was the fact that Robin Shou, who plays the character 14K, is never allowed to showcase his significant movie martial arts skills. Shou was one of the highlights of Anderson's MORTAL COMBAT, and it is nice to see him on the screen, but one laments that the film spends so much time focused on Statham that Shou never gets his time in the spotlight.

I could continue with a long list of places where Anderson failed to deliver on the promise of the film's potential, especially aggravating since Anderson has been wanting to do this project for more than a decade, but such a list would undermine my actual feelings regarding the film.

I have written, and said, many times that sometimes the only important thing about a film is whether or not it entertains you. Not all film is meant to be high art and DEATH RACE certainly falls into that category of film.

To play around a little with something I wrote above, "Anderson has done something I never would have never thought possible. He has made an entertaining movie that seems to have as its sole purpose the promotion of an affiliated video game." If the video game can live up to its big screen commercial, it should be a heck of a fun time.

RATING: 2.5/5 STARS

My Apprehensions Regarding DEATH RACE (2008)

In his 1973 book THE PRIMAL SCREEN, Andrew Sarris describes a "complication unique to cinema in the curiously uneasy relationship between critic and audience." A part of this uneasy relationship is that audiences want critics to like what they like, and critics want audiences to appreciate films that should be appreciated. This is why we see so many stories about the disconnect, particularly acute in the current era of film, that exists between audiences and critics. Many a successful film has been panned by the critics. But this relationship isn't the whole of what makes the interaction between the critic and the audience in film so complicated. There is an additional complication called the "Primal Screen." The Primal Screen is "that factor of childhood reverie which forms a barrier between what we think about movies and what we feel about them."

THE PRIMAL SCREEN's foreword is a discussion of how, and why, critics themselves are never fully able to extricate the Primal Screen from their viewing habits. Sure, they may adopt the language of criticism and art -- though that is certainly rarer today than it was for Sarris in the 70s -- but there is some part of their criticism that is either informed by, or in reaction to, their Primal Screen. One critic may get carried away with praise regarding a particular film and fawn unceasingly, my attempt to avoid such pandering is why my TROPIC THUNDER review has yet to be posted. Another critic may enjoy a film on a primal level, but "know" that the film isn't "good" and thus draft a diatribe against a film that is otherwise enjoyable. It is this tendency I believe leads to the current disconnect between critics and audiences. Critics too often seem to be saying, "I'm supposed to be above enjoying panem et circenses aren't I?" When, like the rest of us, they really do like spectacle.

I think that it is too rare that critics share their Primal Screen biases with audiences, and I want to do so before I review DEATH RACE which was released in theaters today. My review will be posted on Monday. Having shared my Primal Screen expectations with you now, I won't feel overly compelled to moderate them later. You will know them, and be able to read the DEATH RACE review with those perceptions in mind. So without further ado, here are my prejudices regarding the most recent DEATH RACE film -- a film I will see tomorrow evening.

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "to tell you -- I -- I am not a butcher!"

The girl looked at him for a long moment. Then she leaned down and whispered to him:

"Nor a Racer!"

Ib Melchior's story "The Racer," published in the October 1956 issue of Escapade, ends with those wonderfully ambiguous lines. At the beginning of the tale, Willie "The Bull" Connors is a confident driver who is willing to commit "Tragi-Accs" and who is ruthlessly in pursuit of the $100,000 prize for winning a cross country race where a combination of quick Time and accumulated Points (earned through causing casualties) is the way to win. Being an "anti-racer" is a crime, but when Willie is confronted by the young woman Muriel his world view begins to change. First Muriel calls Willie a butcher, and then she stands in the road holding a baby -- daring Willie to run her over for the valuable points. An act, that if performed, would have given Willie the world record for most points scored in a race.

Melchior's tale is sharp and straight to the point. In the end, the woman who gave our "hero" the heart to stop killing is the first to vilify him. It is an indictment of our love for violent spectator sports. There is not satire in Melchior's piece, only disdain for our bloodlust.

... and the most popular spectator sports of the latter half of the 20th Century were such mildly exciting pursuits as boxing and wrestling. Of course the spectators enjoyed seeing the combatants trying to maim each other, and there was always the chance of the hoped-for fatal accident.

Motor Racing, however, gave a much greater opportunity for the Tragic Accidents so exciting to the spectator. One of the most famed old speedways, Indianapolis, where many drivers and spectators alike ended in bloody Tragi-Accs, is today the nation's racing shrine.

With those words, Melchior makes it clear that our society has a propensity for bloodlust and that with motor racing we finally found our ultimate sport. Well, almost -- it only became perfect after making Tragi-Accs intentional. Melchior's critique of the bloodthirsty nature of motor sports fans was also displayed in the excellent John Frankenheimer film GRAND PRIX (1966) starring James Garner. One wonders what Melchior and Frankenheimer would think about today's safety obsessed racing -- especially Formula One, but it goes without saying that even with racing having been partially sanitized mixed martial arts fighting seems to hint that our lust for blood hasn't subsided in the past 50 years.

"The Racer" was the inspiration behind Roger Corman's New World Studios classic 1975 B-Movie DEATH RACE 2000, starring David Carradine (and Sylvester Stallone) and directed by Paul Bartel. The Robert Thom and Charles Griffith screenplay drips with satire regarding America's obsession with power. It is an indictment of political imperialism, of Bolshevik revolution, and of blood sport. America is a totalitarian state and the rebels who seek to return a more just America are torn between revolutionaries inspired by our Founding Fathers and those who look like they stepped of the set of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. Bartel's direction perfectly captures the tone intended and his representations of the way sports media panders to celebrity are some of the most enjoyable parts of the film. Add to this the addition of B-movie starlets, and you get a magical combination. As Joe Bob Briggs put it, "This is the best cross-country road- race movie--and the most violent, and the funniest--despite the efforts of many crash-and-burn specialists to come up with a better one. It is also one of the most successful pictures ever produced by New World Pictures, Roger Corman's studio."

I worry that the current release of DEATH RACE doesn't get it. It has taken a story about sport, and society, that transform together -- becoming increasingly bloodthirsty -- and turned it into an adaptation of THE RUNNING MAN, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE FUGITIVE. Instead of professional athletes who are participating in a legitimate and well accepted form of entertainment, remember being an "anti-racer" was a crime in Melchior's tale, we now have the framed man wrongfully imprisoned and forced to participate in a race to the death. While it may contain some underlying criticism of the penal system, and to some extent our bloodlust, it seems to lack the completely scathing rebuke against all of society. The style of the film is more reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic imagery of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that the advertising riddled paddocks one can see at any Formula One race.

My fear is that the directors and screenwriters spent too much time trying to remake the wheel in order to "bring it up to date," when they should have been looking at how the sport being criticized has evolved and used that as a jumping point. I seem to remember another movie in the recent past that made a similar mistake. It was called ROLLERBALL, and it not only paled in comparison to the original -- it never should have been made.

Facebook and D&D: Tiny Adventures

I know, I know. The reboot was supposed to center the focus of this blog entirely on films and some television, but I can't resist posting about this.

Last year Hasbro was entirely clueless about what to do regarding the Scrabulous application on Facebook. They should have purchased the application and used it as a way to promote Scrabble, with some minor ad support to pay for the server costs. Instead, they went to court and the process is still working itself out. It is my hope that the result will be to expand creator rights to include the "mechanics" of an individual game, since that will be a boon to small designers who have been ripped off by big companies in the past and who will be ripped off in the future. That's neither here nor there. Scrabulous had been online for years, worked great, was better than the non-existent product from EA games. Hasbro should have just ponied up some cash and bought out the Scrabulous creators.

Well, it seems like they might have learned one lesson from the ongoing Scrabulous saga. They have put up a D&D based application on Facebook entitled "Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures." The game isn't the greatest simulation of what it is like to play D&D, but it does give some ideas and the encounter descriptions are amusing. One of my favorites so far:

Christian Arthur Lindke saw a spiretop drake harassing a merchant.

Christian Arthur Lindke made an Attack Bonus check with a difficulty of 14 . . . and rolled 10

Not being able to kill the drake, Christian Arthur Lindke was forced to retreat. He tried to imagine that the merchant was a swindler, embezzler, or charlatan instead of feeling guilty about it.

I love how my half-elf Paladin tries to justify his own failure. It made me laugh out loud.

Here are a couple of glimpses of what the interface looks like.





As cool as D&D: Tiny Adventures is, it even includes a "help your friends" ability which will help friends finish there adventures more easily, it isn't without one major drawback. They don't have enough server space for the app. It keeps crashing due to the number of users. Aargh!

Hope and Terror: Denise Hamilton Hit My Literary Radar

"Genre fiction is addictive," so wrote Joyce Carol Oates in her introduction to Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (P.S.). This simple maxim explains why so many fans of SF and Fantasy have piles upon piles of books that they will never read. It also explains why I didn't know who Denise Hamilton was when I saw this blog entry on the excellent LA Observed this morning, and why the name seemed hauntingly familiar. Five books down on my "noir pile," just under The Dain Curse, lies a book with the simple title Los Angeles Noir (Akashic Noir) edited by -- you guessed it -- Denise Hamilton.

If not for that aforementioned blog entry, the name may never have become a highlighted name in my mind. Her introduction in LOS ANGELES NOIR -- as well as her story -- are quite good, but neither would have left me gasping for more by this local modern noir author. But the blog entry had me rushing over to my local independent bookstore, The Village Bookshop, in the hopes of picking up her latest novel The Last Embrace. And it wasn't because of the time travel restaurant tour the author went on with the blogger at EATING LA. Which isn't to say I wouldn't like to do such a tour, just that a restaurant tour isn't going to get me to buy a book...unless it's a restaurant tour book.

What struck me was the phrase, from the EATING LA post quoted in the Observed piece, "But she also incorporated a fascinating plotline about stop-motion animation, inspired by the work of Ray Harryhausen." I re-read that sentence no fewer than five times. I am a huge Harryhausen fan, as anyone who read my November 2005 post stocking-stuffers or this comment on stop motion animation knows. So hearing that a book, taking place in 1949, featured a plotline involving stop-motion animation instantly set my interest-o-meter over 9000. (It's posts like this Hamilton piece that make LA Observed the first place I look for news about Los Angeles.)

Denise Hamilton's most recent book, the one discussed in the blog entries, is THE LAST EMBRACE. The author's official website describes the book as follows:

Lily Kessler, a former stenographer and spy for the OSS, is asked by her late fiance's mother to find out what happened to his sister Kitty, an actress who has been missing from her Hollywood boarding house. Although the aspiring starlets at the house insist that Kitty is off somewhere furthering her career, the next day her body is found in a ravine below the Hollywood sign. Unimpressed with the local police, Lily investigates on her own. As she delves further into Kitty's life, she encounters fiercely competitive actors, gangsters, an eccentric special-effects genius, exotic denizens of Hollywood's nightclubs and a homicide detective who might distract her from her quest for justice.

By this description alone I would likely have eventually stumbled onto the novel. I like reading Noir stories about the city in which I live. I have made a trip to the Glendale train station merely see the depot from the film version of DOUBLE INDEMNITY. In my eight years in the Los Angeles area, I have come to love this most noir of cities -- okay...if you're a die hard Hammett fan it might be San Francisco, or Butte if you think all Hammett except RED HARVEST is trivial -- and I am constantly looking for more fiction that points me into the "shadows created by the Hollywood sign." Or to put it like Denise Hamilton did in her introduction to LOS ANGELES NOIR, "Writers like James Cain, Dorothy B. Hughes, Nathanael West, Chester Himes, and Raymond Chandler understood both the hope and the terror that Los Angeles inspires." I might even have picked the book up at some time during the next few months to place on the bottom of the pile of books I mentioned earlier. But after reading her website's description of the things that inspired the book, it's going right on top. I'll be reading it as soon as I finish NIGHTMARE TOWN. Reading the inspirations was like seeing a collage of many of my favorite obsessions.

1. Then one day while researching Hollywood's Golden Age, I ran across an L.A. Times story by Cecilia Rasmussen about Jean Spangler, a Hollywood starlet who vanished without a trace in October of 1949. (Who that loves LA stories doesn't like tales of vanished starlets?)
2. She'd partied in Palm Springs with two associates of LA gangster Mickey Cohen who also disappeared mysteriously that fall. (Gotta have that local mob connection)
3. It soon emerged that Jean had just filmed a movie with Kirk Douglas.(Star of ACE IN THE HOLE, a noir classic)
4. I had the great good fortune, around this time, to meet the legendary Ray Harryhausen. With his mentor Willis O'Brien, Harryhausen pioneered stop motion animation. Harryhausen was 86 and hale and hearty when I interviewed him at Dark Delicacies Bookstore in Burbank and learned what the special effects world was like in 1949, the year "Mighty Joe Young" came out.(I had to read this sentence twice...interviewing Harryhausen over food? How cool is that?)
5. Thanks to the generosity of Chiodo Brothers Productions, especially Stephen Chiodo, I also toured an animation studio and watched stop-motion in progress and was greatly impressed by the painstaking detail, dedication and artistry involved.(I would certainly do a happy dance if I were able to watch the animators of the stop motion animated sequence in ELF at work...oh and they are also working on the sequel to the amazing LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA entitled THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN.)

This perfect storm of interests made this a must read for me. I only hope the book can live up to the hype my sub-conscious has produced. The reviews of the book have been positive, though Booklist asks the absurd question "Ellroy meets women's fiction? Why not?" Has the reviewer at Booklist never heard of Leigh Brackett -- co-author of the screenplays to THE BIG SLEEP and RIO BRAVO and author of the screenplay to THE LONG GOODBYE, not to mention quite the pulp writer herself.

HOOT (2006): A Story About "Sense of Place" that Has No Place in My Heart

Nothing is more American than moving from place to place, wandering from city to city, and following the new job to the new state. America's history of movement into the "frontier" was the driving force behind Fredrick Jackson Turner's book about the American character. Americans, it can almost be said, are a people with no sense of permanency and no sense of "home." Almost, because though Americans seem to ever be seeking the greener valley just over the hill, they also create art that represents the longing for "place" central to the human condition.

The central conflict in HOOT is a young man's pursuit of permanency and his need to feel a sense of place. Roy Eberhardt (Logan Lerman) is a boy who has attended 6 schools in the past 8 years as his father's job with the Department of Justice has required frequent moves. Just as the family gets settled in a new location, just as Roy feels at home, they move again -- most recently from Montana to Coconut Grove, Florida.

The film is adapted from Carl Hiaasen's novel of the same name (HOOT was Hiaasen's first venture into writing for younger readers). In all of Hiaasen's novels, the setting is as important as any of the quirky characters his readers encounter. The same goes for HOOT.

Upon arriving in Coconut Grove, Roy encounters the stereotypical bully Dana Matherson (Eric Philips) who mashes Roy's face against the school bus window on the trip to school. It is this action that introduces one of two interesting characters in the film, a homeless and barefoot environmentalist middle-schooler named Mullet Fingers. The character's origin is as implausible as his name. While Mullet's character concept is quirky enough to be memorable, Cody Linley's performance in the role leaves one wishing they could forget the character. Roy also meets a bully-bashing girl named Beatrice (Brie Larson) who, as it turns out, just happens to be Mullet Fingers' step-sister. Larson's performance is mixed. Early in the film, her acting seems forced, but as the character develops in the narrative Larson displays the ability to capture the changes. These three characters, leaving the bully aside, don't become "fast friends," but as the adventure unfolds they do become friends.

The film is filled with many quirky characters, from Muckle (Clark Gregg) the sinister Southeastern Regional Manager of Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House to Delinko (Luke Wilson) the absentminded law enforcement officer. Gregg's performance makes the error made all too often in "children's movies," it's way to over the top. Luke Wilson, on the other hand, is solid. Wilson could have resorted to a Barney Fife style performance, but he holds back and the audience is rewarded with a couple of laughs -- desperately needed laughs.

In addition to the human characters, there are owls and the owls are in trouble. And this brings us to the conflict that moves the narrative along. Muckle wants to build a brand new Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House on a lot that includes homes of a number of families of burrowing owls. Roy, Beatrice, and Mullet Fingers take it upon themselves to fight against Muckle's destruction of the owl burrows. Mullet Fingers' preferred method of undermining the construction project is a series of pranksteresque that are supposed to dissuade the corporation from building on the site and that is where fun is supposed to ensue. Sadly, Mullet Fingers methods are as illogical as they are unfunny.

First, our environmentalist hero places a gator in the construction site's port-o-potty. That's right, in the chemicals -- chemicals that I would think at least mildly harmful to a two-foot long gator. Mullet then uses Cotton Mouth Water Moccasins to scare away guard dogs, by letting the snakes loose on the construction site...where the owls live. I don't know if releasing snakes into a field full of potential food is a good idea either. Needless to say, Mullet's ideas don't have the desired effect and the destruction of the burrows is going to take place anyway. That is until Roy, using the legal system, discovers that the Pancake company has altered their environmental impact report and that their construction is illegal. This knowledge will provide him the opportunity to save the owls, if only he can stop Muckle's bulldozer in time.

Wil Shriner, who has a great deal of television directing experience on some very good sitcoms and dramadies, seems a little out of his depth in his adaptation of the story. Shriner seems, like the middle of this review, too caught up in the "fun" of the pranksteresque attempts of Mullet Fingers and looses site of the real conflict here. The real story is that the owls and Roy are subject to the same conflict, displacement. Roy sympathizes, as the audience should, with the owls not merely because of environmental reasons (the law is already on his side), but because they are going to be uprooted like he has been 6 times in the past 8 years. This is a story about place and the value place has in our lives. If Roy can save the owls' home, maybe -- just maybe -- he can finally find a home. In a couple of sequences, Michael Chapman (the DP) captures the beauty of Coconut Grove, but these images are lost in the director's focus on the protest rather than on the longing to belong.

It's sad. There's a great story there somewhere, but in focusing on the external conflict -- the secondary conflict -- Shriner misses the opportunity to give his actors a chance to give real performances rather than pantomimes. Instead, audiences are left with a fairly standard children's movie. It's safe, it's mildly amusing, but it doesn't delight.

RATING: 2.5/5 Stars

Cinerati Lexicon #1: Filmic Cultural Selectivity

In yesterday's discussion of the origin of the Cinerati blog, it was mentioned that the first post contained "an attack on filmic cultural selectivity" without describing what was meant by filmic cultural selectivity. One imagines that most readers can decipher the meaning of the phrase, it isn't to arcane, but one should never assume understanding. Additionally, one of my goals in rebooting the website was to share not merely my thoughts about modern films and the state of modern criticism, but to share my ideas and my personal terminology with the world in the hopes of creating meaningful dialog.

What do I mean by filmic cultural selectivity?

Filmic Cultural Selectivity

Filmic cultural selectivity, is a logical error which frequently occurs in the discussion of film where the reviewer selectively chooses high quality films from a particular culture and compares them to another culture to express the superiority of the chosen culture. Such selectivity only actually falls into the category of logical error when the critic, in mentioning the quality of one culture, intentionally and knowingly excludes the existence of any lower quality (or fun exploitation) films within the given culture.

Below are some examples, one specific and one imagined, of this error in criticism:

Example #1 (the specific example):

Thomas Hibbs piece discussed yesterday (Kurosawa Kills Bill. In the piece, Hibbs damns American films as "vulgar distortions of Japanese film culture." He then follows this assertion with a list of Akira Kurosawa films which he presents as possibly representative of Japanese film culture. Nowhere in the piece does he mention lesser works of Japanese cinema. Nor does he mention the influence of Western genre films on the work of Kurosawa. Certainly he mentions a Western influence, Shakespeare, but he leaves out Dashiell Hammett and the influence of Film Noir on Kurosawa. He elevates Kurosawa (deservedly), and Japanese cinema in general (less deservedly), to a "high art" status while attacking American cinema as vulgar. As my response points out, Japanese cinema runs the gamut of quality by the standard set forth by Hibbs.

Example #2 (a proposed example):

You and a friend, who happens to be a respected film critic, are discussing your favorite films. You make the "mistake" of mentioning a mainstream blockbuster film among your list of great films. Your friend responds and a dialog begins:

CRITIC FRIEND

That's such a typical American answer which demonstrates your lack of familiarity with Italian cinema, which are in every way superior to American films. Have you never seen LA STRADA or 8 1/2? The Italian directors have a much greater understanding of the human experience than American directors who have been corrupted by commercialism and who seek only to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Being ready for your friend's tendency to engage in filmic cultural selectivity, you are able to respond in a mocking tone.

YOU

That's so true. Sergio Corbucci's SUPER FUZZ truly captured the underlying conflict between the personal and professional of the modern law enforcement officer. And Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCUAST is a "well respected" representation of indigenous cultures.

You didn't even mention DIABOLIK or get into how anyone who defends the social commentary merits of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, while simultaneously excoriating HOSTEL, is not only practicing filmic cultural selectivity, they are also being highly inconsistent...unless they also defend Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES then their opinions are a little more complicated.

My point in saying that filmic cultural selectivity is a problem isn't to assert that American film is the best film making in the world. I am willing to listen to well-informed experts on other cultures films who advance the merits of that culture's films. The understanding of film only benefits from such a dialogue. I am merely asserting that one must acknowledge the bad with the good, it can only make your argument stronger if you are correct in your comparison. Had Hibbs mentioned BATTLE ROYALE, or any Chambara films, in his essay -- or had he mentioned RED HARVEST and THE GLASS KEY as inspirational to Kurosawa's YOJIMBO -- it might have actually made his argument stronger.

As for our imaginary film critic friend (and the one above is completely imaginary), I actually do like SUPER FUZZ...mostly for childhood nostalgia reasons. And while CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is not at all culturally sensitive to indigenous peoples, it has strong proponents both inside and outside the horror field. As for DIABOLIK, don't just watch the MSTK 3000 version. John Philip Law, my second favorite Sindbad, is quite entertaining in this film. Don't even get me started on how much I love cheesy Hercules movies.

Cinerati Reboot

In late December of 2003, I read an article at National Review Online (Kurosawa Kills Bill) discussing the relative lack of merit of the films Kill Bill vol. 1 and The Last Samurai. After reading the article, I realized that many film critics, including most conservative film critics, and I were having very different experiences when we watched movies in the theater.

It took me almost three months to draft a response that I thought was appropriate, and on March 16th 2004, the Cinerati blog had its first post published on the internet. The post was a direct response to Thomas Hibbs NRO piece, a defense of the films mentioned, an attack on filmic cultural selectivity, and my first foray back into criticism after leaving a roughly monthly shared film review column in the Sparks Daily Tribune titled Celluloid Say-So when I left for graduate school in 2000.

At the time, I had intended Cinerati to be a film discussion blog where friends of mine and I would share our thoughts on film and on the state of film criticism. It quickly became something else. The community of posters I had always desired quickly dwindled down to me, with an occasional post by another Cinerati member. And what was originally intended to be a site which focused primarily on films, ended up a site with far more commentary about games, comics, and more games. In short, Cinerati quickly grew away from its name and its purpose. This, combined with the fact that posting has been slow of late and some new encounters with film reviews, inspired me to reboot the site.

Gone will be mentions of roleplaying games, video games, comic books, etc. Those will be reserved for the Geekerati blog. From now on, this site will be devoted to discussion of movies and television. In particular, this site will engage with other critics of film and television. There are enough "review" sites on the internet, in fact there is a glut. Too much time is being spent evaluating the "narratives" of film and not enough is spent evaluating the "art" of films. What is needed is a site that examines what is being said about film and television and examines whether what is being said is meaningful.

Over the next few days, there will be a series of columns discussing the direction of the site, the types of columns that will be written, and examining what the proper roles of criticism are when it comes to film and television. Additionally, there will be discussions of the particular terminology, or turns of a phrase, that I will use from time to time.

In fact, my very next post will be a brief post highlighting what I mean when I say or write filmic cultural selectivity.

But first, let's have a look at that first post:

In the Shadow of Kurosawa

By Christian Johnson (now Christian Lindke)

I can still remember the first time I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show. There I was, a “virgin” watching rolls of toilet paper flying and getting wet from squirting water when I realized that I was sitting surrounded by an audience that didn’t “get it.” Here they were talking, mocking, and interacting with a film that was hilarious on its own merits. Somewhere in all the chaos I managed to watch a parody of some of my favorite classic Hollywood horror films. I had a similar, though drier, experience when I watched John Waters' Cecil B. Demented in a theater full of people who didn’t know who William Castle was.

I experienced the same frustration when I read Thomas Hibbs’ recent article regarding Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film Kill Bill vol. 1 and the Tom Cruise blockbuster The Last Samurai (Kurosawa Kills Bill). In particular, I took issue with his claim that “despite their critical acclaim and their purported desire to be faithful to Japanese sources, these films are but vulgar distortions of Japanese film culture, especially the work of Akira Kurosawa.” I was surprised by my reaction because I have more respect for Professor Hibbs than I do for most of the celebrated “cinerati” who, like me, enjoyed these two films. You see, I think that the Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture is on to something with regards to America’s elites having a disturbing affection for nihilism, the subject of his book Shows About Nothing. So my reaction did not originate from a disagreement about the merits of these films with regard to virtue or an expression of human excellence. To be fair, I don’t know what his opinions are regarding The Last Samurai as a film about virtue, but I have a fair idea regarding Kill Bill. My frustration stemmed from his accusation that these films were “distortions” of a genre “especially” the work of Akira Kurosawa.

This led me to ask two questions. First, are these films a “distortion of Japanese film culture?” Second, are these films “especially” referencing the work of Akira Kurosawa? I refuse to address any other of the statements made in Hibbs’ article because they provide a wonderful introduction to the works of an inspirational filmmaker -- he provides a valuable list of Kurosawa must sees, though he surprisingly leaves out High and Low. I also think that Hibbs was remiss in not mentioning Chushingura by Hiroshi Inagaki as another wonderful film about feudal Japan.

Kill Bill is exactly what it purports to be, a celebration of Japan’s b-movies in the Chambara genre (and to some extent the Wuxia and Kung Fu films of Hong Kong). While Akira Kurosawa’s films (among them Sanjuro, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran) are great films about Samurai culture, they do not stand alone as the only films from Japan about the feudal era nor are they in the b-list of this genre. Tarantino’s film is closer in tone to the Lone Wolf and Cub and Zatoichi films, but he adds the bloodiness of the films of Kinji Fukasaku whose recent film Battle Royale (based on the book of the same name) is a brutal combination of Lord of the Flies and the Survivor television show. One need only watch a few Sonny Chiba (who stars in Kill Bill and is referenced in True Romance) films to understand that Japan, like America, has an appetite for graphic violence. You cannot claim that a film is a vulgar distortion of a culture based on a case study, a more random sample is needed. I think that if Professor Hibbs takes a random sample of Japanese cinema post 1970, he will find more Hanzo the Blade than Throne of Blood.

Typical of Tarantino, any celebration requires examples of a genre’s influence on Western film. So we have a perverted “Charlie's Angels,” called the DiVAs, based on the Five Deadly Venoms by the Shaw Brothers. We have the exaggerated camera use similar to Sergio Leone used in the fight scene between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu (the snow covered ground of which directly references the final fight in Chushingura). Tarantino gives us the Tokyo of Black Rain and Godzilla visually reminiscent of the Los Angeles of Blade Runner. We hear the theme song to The Green Hornet, and Ironsides, and Uma Thurman dressed like Bruce Lee in Game of Death. Through his director’s eye the audience sees the way Western movies, largely b-movies, have influenced Japanese b-movies, which have in turn influenced Western b-movies. We are presented with a dialogue, not a distortion, between two arguably vulgar cultural representations of the action genre.

The Last Samurai is more difficult to defend from Professor Hibbs’ criticism. While the film is infinitely less vulgar than Kill Bill, Edward Zwick appears to be imitating rather than celebrating what he thinks a film about feudal Japan should look like. The palette is reminiscent of Ran as is the tragic nature of its Japanese protagonist. The Last Samurai isn’t a film about feudal Japan, rather it is a film about how an American reacts and views feudal Japan. The framing device makes it apparent that we are watching the memories of an American Civil War veteran struggling to understand Japanese culture. The director has the difficult task of combining genre and cultural messages. How do you balance the need to show both Western and Eastern concepts of military virtue? How do you do this through the eyes of a character who has forgotten Classical virtue and is a product of Machiavellian prudential virtue?

The conflicts for Cruise’s character prevent the director from fully utilizing the Japanese cultural setting and so he abbreviates it. There are moments in the film when Cruise’s character is given advice from the Book of Five Rings a classic samurai text. The advice given him to him regarding sword fighting mirror advice from the 2nd chapter of the Hagakure (published in 1716 at a time when Japan’s Samurai class had experienced 100 years of relative peace), “There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.” The Last Samurai converts the advice into a physical representation during one particular duel between Cruise and a number of ruffians. The camera’s eye captures a perfect combination of single-minded concentration and void.

In the end though, these arguments regarding the merits of Kill Bill and The Last Samurai as examples of Western art encountering Japanese art may be unconvincing to the viewer who might believe that these films represent how we have come to “prefer sorrow over pain, suffering over peace.” To that viewer I can only offer the following.

My first example is one of hope. It is the moment in The Last Samurai when Katsumoto tells Nathan Algren that one could do worse than to spend one’s life looking for the perfect blossom. In this moment, we are told that the pursuit of beauty is a better profession than the pursuit of war.

The second example is one of caution, for it shows that man’s love of pain and suffering over peace isn’t a new one. It is a quote from the 10th chapter of the Hagakure, “If you cut a face lengthwise, urinate on it, and trample on it with straw sandals, it is said that the skin will come off. This was heard by the priest Gyojaku when he was in Kyoto. It is information to be treasured.”

If the first moment is merely a pretentious effort to seem profound, maybe we truly have abandoned the pursuit of a summum bonum. I dread a world in which it is “not the natural sweetness of living but the terrors of death [that] make us cling to life.”