Recently I’ve been reading articles on what Roger Ebert calls “the new geek cinema”. He basically traces the ‘family tree’ back to PULP FICTION and RESERVOIR DOGS. Here’s a link to one such article he has written.
Well, as one of the ‘geeks’ I just wanted to chime in on what is allegedly my sorta of cinema.
For a looooooonnngg time I’ve sort of held up the nomenclature of ‘geek’ as a bastion of pride for myself. But I haven’t really defined it.
Geek: 1. Circus Freak that bites the heads off live chickens. 2. Pimply Faced pocket protected loser. 3. Obscure D.C. Comic Character 4. A term used to describe the feeling one gets when they allow their emotions to take them away.
Ok ok ok, that’s a vague definition, but then I feel that’s the way it is. Just watch this site, read the TALK BACKs, watch what people ‘geek’ about. You’ll read about people ‘geeking’ over Kurosawa, Godard, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Tom Savini, Tolkein, Lucas, Scorsese, Tarantino, Mike Leigh, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Craven, Zemeckis, Jackson, Ang Lee and on and on.
For me any and all films can be a ‘geek’ movie, a film that inspires passion when it is discussed. Hell, just the other night the owner of the Coolest Theater I have ever been, The Alamo Drafthouse, and my group of friends were all talking about BLACK BELT JONES, BIG BAD MAMA and H.O.T.S. That conversation basically transmutated into a discussion about SUPERMAN, WARGAMES and THE LAST STARFIGHTER. That same group has gone into intensely passionate discussions on Sam Fuller, Michael Curtiz, Miyazaki, David Lean, Tsui Hark, Tobe Hooper, James Whale, Jeunet and Caro, Besson, Cocteau and Fellini.
All of this basically is a roundabout way of discussing what Ebert calls one of the ‘New Geek Cinema’ films, VERY BAD THINGS. Now our resident madman, Joe Hallenbeck loves the film, but... BUT he loves THE MIGHTY, PLEASANTVILLE and LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and A SIMPLE PLAN as being far better this year. I don’t believe Ebert would classify those films as being a part of the ‘New Geek Cinema’.
Now there is a chance that Ebert is discussing the ‘New GEEKS Cinema’ meaning, the folks that have just come into the world of film. The ones that were literally introduced to film by Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The ones that hail Boogie Nights as one of the greatest films created. I have met and talked to these types of film fans, but most of them seem to be film fans of the last 5 years, and as they venture out of the New Release categories of their local video outlet, they will begin to see more of the world of cinema, but for now they have their patron saints of film. Plus we have all jumped into film at some point. I've met film fans that came into the scene with DO THE RIGHT THING that thought Spike Lee was the end all of film. I've met adults that still hold film topped out with the French New Wave. I hold the best films are yet to come, though we've been awfully lucky thus far.
And undoubtedly VERY BAD THINGS will tickle them to death. Personally I prefer THE LAST SUPPER that Cameron Diaz did a year or so ago. But let’s get on to the review.
VERY BAD THINGS
The film feels like it was plotted by two friends getting drunk on a hood of a car laughing their asses off. And why the hell not? How many of us have gone out for a round of films, and gone back to the house or driven out to a bluff overlooking the town and just started rambling a story together.
In the old west it would be a campfire tale, or when groups of friends go out to a beach at night, build a little fire and begin to get shitfaced and create stories. Remember those MAD LIBS you could get when you were in elementary or junior high, where you could ‘fill in the blanks’? Well, me and my group of friends would always make them be as shocking as humanly possible. I remember giggling endlessly while reading stories about my group of friends all dying horribly, not to mention the ribald tales of fornication with the unattainable mini-skirted babes we could only wish to bonk. These tales were filled with cursing, violence and sex. All things forbidden to us by the dictatorial regime known as THE ADULTS.
Well... I still have an affinity for doing this. If you folks could only read the private emails between my group of friends, you would quickly see that we are as sick and twisted as... well the people that made this movie. And most likely some of you are as well.
The film is basically about your group of high school friends getting together for a bachelor party in Vegas, when everything goes wrong. Everything continues to go wrong right on through to the last frame of film. It’s an evil friggin film. A movie with no real morally redeemable features. It is the filmic realization of them old MAD LIBS.
This is the type of film we have now instead of PORKY’S and THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Instead we have BOOGIE NIGHTS, VERY BAD THINGS, HAPPINESS, THURSDAY, SIX STRING SAMURAI, LAST SUPPER, SCREAM, THE FACULTY, DEAD MAN’S CURVE and on and on. Well personally I’m happy about this development. At least stylistically the films are coming out better, but what I am waiting for is the series of films that come out after this phase.
What will these filmmakers turn to when ‘shock and cool’ has become ‘passe’? Will these filmmakers turn back the clock and take a look at Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Ben Hecht and Frank Capra? Cause right now, these ‘New Geek Cinema’ makers are attempting to tell ‘clever’ films, but if you take a look at what Tarantino is doing, you’ll see he’s already moving away from the type of film he allegedly birthed.
Reportedly he has turned in his latest script, FORTY LASHES based on the Elmore Leonard novel, FORTY LASHES LESS ONE. It’s a western. Richard Linklater recently did his western, THE NEWTON BOYS. Robert Rodriguez will most likely next be filming his BEDHEAD, a children’s film.
HEY WAIT A SECOND?!!!!?
Basically, what it means is these three are headed in a different direction. This whole ‘rebirth’ of filmmakers got going real strong with Linklater’s SLACKER, Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS and Rodriguez’s EL MARIACHI. Together along with Kevin Smith’s CLERKS, they all boldly used our ‘geekish’ joys to play into the game of filmmaking.
Each of them looked at the tools at their disposal, their mutual strengths, and popped right on into the world of film. Shooting cheap and clever, they opened their own doors. Once in that door they had to deal with what to do next. Each of their ‘sophomore’ films stayed pretty darn close to home. Each going a bit further with the same basic elements.
Out of the group Tarantino decided to change first. JACKIE BROWN was not what fans were expecting. It was decidedly more mature, a film for ‘older people’. It didn’t play on cliched coolness. It took it’s time to develop characters through character development, rather than character stereotypes.
I’m very interested to take a gander at Quentin’s latest script. I’m also dying to look at what Rodriguez has done with Bedhead and what Linklater has with his Blue Collar Steel Worker film (I believe that is what it is about).
So where does this leave me with VERY BAD THINGS. I enjoyed the hell out of the film. I laughed with an evil sadistic glee. At the end my jaw hung open. But really, what I’m most interested in is where does the filmmaker go from here? Does he try to top the sadism and black irony or does he go in a totally different direction.
I love Hitchcock’s films. But he didn’t keep remaking NORTH BY NORTHWEST or PSYCHO or THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY or SPELLBOUND or MR AND MRS SMITH... No, he kept challenging himself and experimenting. Limiting himself to a LIFEBOAT, or a three room drama like ROPE, or a one room REAR WINDOW. You have to keep it fresh. John Ford didn’t continue to redefine STAGECOACH, he made THE QUIET MAN, THE INFORMER, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, THE SEARCHERS, etc... Or how about John Huston, he started off with THE MALTESE FALCON, but instead went on to do THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, THE TREASURE OF SIERRE MADRE, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, etc...
As for this whole ‘shock/cool’ cinema thing being new. I think really if you take a look at all of this you’ll see that while it certainly seems ‘shocking and cool and new’... well... it really isn’t. Just set the way back machine for Tod Browning’s FREAKS. In 1931, that was shocking and cool and new. Or if you look at Sam Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR or THE NAKED KISS, you’ll see the same sort of shock cinema. We saw Roger Corman do LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and BUCKET OF BLOOD. We saw Herschell Gordon Lewis do this with BLOOD FEAST. John Waters pushed the very envelope of taste with his Divine films, we even saw Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer team up to make BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS which featured crossdressing drugged out freaky killers and ultra cool music. Rog, surely you aren’t casting stones?
Now what I think we have to look at is what these early filmmakers that started off in ‘shocking and cool and new’ went on to do. Well Tod Browning’s career didn’t extend too far after FREAKS, but he did have a long run in the Silent era. Now Sam didn’t start with the two films I listed, he evolved into the ‘shocking and cool and new’. But after those films he made just a few films, but one of them was THE BIG RED ONE, which for me is one of the best WWII films ever made... I still like it over SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Then Roger Corman stayed in the world of exploitation, but damn if his career didn’t give birth to Coppola, Demme, Scorsese, Cameron and countless others. Herschell Gordon Lewis had a very limited career, going on to make mainly nudie films mixed with an occasional gore film. John Waters continues to work in the realm of the strange and the unusual, often times attracting actors and talent that are themselves a bit strange and unusual. Then we come to... Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert. Well Russ continued in his exploitive areas becoming a gigantic cult filmmaker, beloved by ‘geeks’ everywhere, and Roger went into the film criticism arena. Who made the right choice? Well, Russ Meyer is coming to the Alamo Drafthouse this week with big breasted Melissa Mounds and a bevy of bodacious pastied go go dancing burlesque babes. And Roger, he’ll be with Gene Siskel this Saturday. Hmmmmm.
We have to look at the exploitation genre as a spawning ground for new filmmakers. Remember John Ford’s STAGECOACH was at the time, A Western. It has since become a worshipped classic. But the Western was the dregs of filmmaking at the time. So who’s to say that Todd Solondz or Skip Woods or Peter Berg or Danny Boyle or Robert Frank or Lance Mungia or John Dahl or Vincenzo Natali couldn’t very well go on to have some quite significant bodies of work... or at the very least become a film critic.
You see, this alleged New Geek Cinema is really nothing new. It’s just where tomorrow’s filmmakers are coming from. At one point it was comedies, then westerns, then serials, then television, then science fiction and cult films and now... well now it’s this supposed ‘geek cinema’. I think that’s the wrong term... I think it should be called the Currently Cool Cinema, because that’s what so many of these new films strive to be... they want to be cool and for now... they are.
You see there is a difference between a “Geek Cinema” and a “Currently Cool Cinema”. A Geek Cinema would have to include such noted film geeks as Scorsese and Bogdonivich. Just watch Scorsese’s 100 years of American Cinema and you’ll behold the true glory of a great film geek. But Currently Cool Cinema is quite a bit different. It didn’t start just with Tarantino, but with Tsui Hark and John Woo. It was birthed out of Honk Kong as a reaction to movies like THE WILD BUNCH. Tarantino took it for a spin, along with Rodriguez. Now all these other filmmakers are putting their flavor of cool on it. The characteristics of “Cool” cinema is witty dialogue (remember THE KILLER), flashy camera work (borrowed from the Coens and others), extreme acts of violence (Van Gogh started it) and the grooviest music around (this has been around forever.) The next ‘GREAT’ cool film we’ll see in America is the UK’s LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. And after that, if you aren’t wondering with a sly grin what will be next.... well, then ya just ain’t cool.
Let’s see where all of this alleged ‘New Geek Cinema’ or ‘Currently Cool Cinema’ leads. We'll see if it maintains it's 'coolness' or if it simply fades into obscurity in time. I’m quite curious... How about you?
