Isn't It Difficult To Rate Documentaries and Other Musings

I may have mentioned this before, but I think that we're currently living in a bit of a renaissance period for documentaries.  Since Grizzly Man in 2005, we've been blessed with a plethora of high quality factual films, though I guess that we could trace this streak back to Hoop Dreams or maybe even further back to 7 Up.  Maybe we've never had a bad period for documentaries.  Ooh, debate.  We've also seen an increase in public demand for such films, regardless of artistic merit.  I was speaking with an amateur documentary filmmaker at an archive footage workshop a couple of months ago and he stressed that despite their quality, the My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series and other shows of that ilk highlight that demand and emphasize how willing TV/financiers are to part with their money to invest in non-fiction films compared to, say, around ten years ago.  Well, I should stress that I make these kinds of sweeping, vague and no doubt, highly inaccurate statements without much in the way of research, but that's beside the point.  The point is to clumsily introduce the notion of documentaries so I can talk about something that's been bothering me.

Last week, being the Woody Allen fan that I am, I made a point of seeing Robert B. Weide's aptly titled Woody Allen: A Documentary.  It had been getting some rather rave reviews and, given how high the bar has been set by documentaries recently (Senna, Man on Wire, I'm looking in your direction), I was expecting good things.  While I can report that Woody Allen: A Documentary is a very pleasant way to spend two hours, I wouldn't give it an A+ rating.  Maybe more of around C+/B- territory.  My biggest complaints against the film were:
1) I already knew much of what it was telling me.
2) This information was not being presented in any form of imaginative structure.

I left the cinema generally feeling like I'd watched a two hour wikipedia article.  This got me on to internally debating how one should review non-fiction pieces.  Should a film be punished if it doesn't actively search for obscure material?  Woody Allen definitely succeeds in some places and these are generally when the more unseen but oft written aspects of his story lie.  After having heard about his famous typewriter (on which he's written all of his cinematic works), it was a great joy to actually see him type on it.  After hearing so much about his "hands-off" directorial approach, seeing him failing to provide Josh Brolin with any form of meaningful critique was hilarious.

I suppose in the end, the most successful documentary films will contain an aspect of cinematic narrative.  One only has to look to Senna or the King of Kong, two surprising break out films, to see examples of how a traditional Hollywood white hats versus black hats story can stir up interest in an audience.  I also hypothesise then, by no coincidence, Woody Allen is definitely at its worst in the second half when it fails to tie its vast quantity of talking heads to any form of narrative.  After an incredible taut tale about the young Allan Stewart Konigsberg and his rise to fame, the second half ambles around aimlessly.  To be fair, Woody has made this difficult for them.  Although I appreciate his latter films more than others, they don't form a cohesive body, which could be part of their appeal.  The eighties were definitely a period of experimentation for him, the nineties a bizarre amalgamation of traditional comedy and blinding cynicism. Shamefully though, all discussion of his seminal classic Husbands and Wives is reduced to the backdrop of the Mia Farrow breakup, and even then, this documentary fails to say anything about the scandal except that it happened.

Perhaps Weide should have just released the first half of this film.  It was originally made in two parts for American television and so this wouldn't have been difficult to do.  The first half has a structure.  Woody Allen becomes a filmmaker, enjoys great success and then threatens to throw it all away with the release of film mocking his fans.  That could easily be the story of a New Hollywood 70s classic.  The ending so downbeat but also ambiguous.  The second half ultimately fails because it tries to be a career retrospective for a filmmaker who, not only hasn't finished working, but has no interest in speaking about his films.  Even worse, the people who do have very little of interest to say.

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Other musings

I've been to the office three times in two days over this weekend.  I deserve a gold medal.  Fortunately, the first visit was little more than passing visit to start some code running, then I could run off to the cinema while my laptop did its business.  Saturday's double bill was Cosmopolis at 1pm then Red Lights after.  Red Lights currently enjoys the prestigious title of film I was watching when I was in the worst audience ever.  Two men turned up late to the film and attempted to find their friends so they could all sit together.  These two men had, not a mobile phone for illumination, but a full-on maglite torch.  They not only shone it on the audience, but also at the screen.  Twice.

Other films watched this weekend include Jaws, Fantastic Mr Fox and Interiors.

I had an email read out on Filmspotting this week.  That and the fact I had a couple of tweets retweeted leads me to believe that over the course of this last week, I was at the highest level of wit I could ever hope to attain.  Let's celebrate.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the Apartment on the big screen.  I have a spare ticket so let me know if you want to come along.  It's really good and you'll get the chance to see me cry at a film (which as we've discussed is not a rare occurrence).

It took all my grit and determination not to write something about Prometheus.  This stems from the fact that many of its defenders/supporters have uttered phrases such as "well, at least it's sparked debate, which can only be a good thing."  It is not a film that should spark debate, so I am leaving alone.

Treppenwitz turned a year old shortly after the last post.  I like to think it's done its job.  Hope you've all enjoyed a year of odd rants, reviews, stories and, sometimes, a joke or two.

I leave you today with news that Newcastle University Medical School sucks.  I would tell them, but they don't seem to have an official communication line for complaints.

The Why of Fry and other musings

I think it says a lot about me when I believe that the perfect protagonist for this day and age actually lives one thousand years in the future.  As far as I am concerned, no fiction character comes close to nailing the further nuances of the human condition in the 21st century as Philip J. Fry.

Now, I'm sure that when all is said and done, the history books will revere the Simpsons far higher than Futurama, and in a way I can't fault them.  When one looks at the influence on popular culture that has reverberated from the Simpsons, it is impossible to understate how important it has been in the fields of humour, reference and more broadly, what can constitute an animated TV show.  However, I have never be able to say that I have been emotionally moved watching the Simpsons.  No, that's the job of Futurama.

Futurama was first broadcast in 1999 and after 13 years, 98 episodes and four straight-to-DVD films, it still, for my money, is the most consistent, hilarious, intelligent and emotionally engrossing show on television.  Now, there are episodes that are contain some of the finest examples of contemporary humour (Roswell That Ends Well, Fry and the Slurm Factory, Mars University etc etc), but I'm going to focus on what I consider to be the upper echelon of episodes that not only leave one chuckling, but also profoundly affected (see: the Luck of the Fryrish, Jurassic Bark, Parasites Lost, the Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings, the Late Philip J. Fry and to a lesser extent, the Cryonic Woman and Time Keeps On Slipping).

To me, all the truly great episodes concern not only the miserable themes of alienation, inadequacy, loss and unrequited romance, but also the potential for one to be a better person, regardless of whether one is celebrated for it.  The beauty of Philip J. Fry is that, despite his horrendous intellectual deficiencies, he still operates as the everyman due to his displacement from his natural time (our present era (well, give or take ten years)) to 1000 years into the future.  Hence, his confusion is our confusion, especially in the earlier series.  However, it is not a stretch, especially considering the current trend for contemporary satire in the show, to further compare his separation from the world around him to our position now.  Look around you.  Give or take a couple of hover cars, we're not a million miles away from the backdrop of New New York.  Despite this aiding in the show's satire, the two are very different for Fry.  This is what gives him a underlying sense of tragedy.  The show's liberal use of time travel aside, Fry can't never return to his previous life.

Fry's stupidity may harken back to the Simpsons clan, but he also has a strong moral side that, unlike that yellow family, never seems forced.  Consider the conclusion to Parasites Lost.  He wants to woo Leela, yet he knows that the romance will only satisfy him if she is truly in love with him for all his flaws.  The worms are cast out and Leela rejects him.  Although I can imagine an ending like this shoehorned onto Bart Simpson, it really doesn't suit.  In fact, the only instance of Fry truly succeeding in wooing Leela occurs in Time Keeps On Slipping, but unfortunately this is lost due to time skipping forward.  Now that's a tough break.

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Other musings

I watch too much Futurama.

Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final is hosted in LA tonight.  I think I'm going to stay up and watch it whilst writing a couple of reviews for New Empress.  Hip hip.

I've spent the Jubilee (urgh) weekend watching an awful lot of films (Prometheus, Othello, Ran, Duck Soup, Quatermass and the Pit).

Time to eat pizza and watch the Trouble With Harry.