Decent Films Blog
UPDATE: “Reel Faith” Season Finale
UPDATE (September 2, 2010): Last week’s episode of “Reel Faith,” now available at the Reel Faith website, was the last episode for the summer. Following NET’s season schedule, the show is now on hiatus. When will we return? Watch this space! I’ll keep you posted.
Did you appreciate the show? Please let NET know! Contact NET via their Contact page (phone number is included along with email form) and/or offer a comment at the “Reel Faith” combox.
For what it’s worth, I had a blast doing the show. I’m grateful to NET for giving David and me the chance to try this. I think the show was a success; we learned a lot over the course of the 12 episodes, and I’m pleased to say that I think we came a long way in a short time. (Which is another way of saying we had a sort of rocky start. Hey, TV is hard!) Our last show, I think, showcases some of our best work, so check it out! And watch for “Reel Faith” to return.
UPDATE (June 16, 2010): Hey! Looks like NET is able to host episodes Reel Faith episodes right on the show’s website! If you missed last week’s show, you can still catch it online, at least until it’s replaced by this Friday’s show. (As far as I know the plan for now is to post only the most recent show.) Check it out! And please, let us (and the NET folks) know what you think at the Reel Comments page!
Original post follows.
Hey! I’m reviewing movies on TV!
I mean, you know, I’m on TV reviewing movies. The movies are in theaters, not on TV. Movies on TV, I’ve reviewed before, not on TV. Me, I mean.
Ahem. Over the summer I’m co-hosting a cable TV movie review show with David DiCerto, formerly of the USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting, for NET NY, a “faith-centered cable TV network” in Brooklyn, New York. (For more on NET, see Joseph Pronechen’s National Catholic Register article “Putting Out into the Deep to Cast the NET.”)
“Reel Faith” is a half-hour movie review show reviewing opening and new theatrical releases. The show airs on Fridays at 8:30pm EDT. For the first episode, which aired last Friday, we did a sort of catch-up, reviewing Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Shrek Forever After and Babies. For tonight’s episode, we’re doing The Karate Kid, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Killers and Marmaduke. Next week is Toy Story 3, The A-Team, Splice and more.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Reel Faith (8/27)
Cordoba House: A Closer Look at the “Ground Zero Mosque”
Ground Zero, July 2010 (RebuildGroundZero.org)
Although my normal blogging beat is movies, I’ve been writing 9/11-related pieces since September 2001. I live in New Jersey, but New York is practically my second home city; I went to school there, and I’m there all the time for screenings and such. On September 11, 2001 I watched with my own eyes from my balcony at work across the Hudson in New Jersey as the towers burned and fell.
I didn’t know anyone who died at Ground Zero, but my brother-in-law, whom I mentioned in that first story and in other 9/11 related pieces, was in the dust cloud on that day. Almost exactly five years later, right at the time that numerous cases of 9/11-related respiratory ailments began cropping up, he suddenly succumbed to an explosively aggressive leukemia and died; he also had some sort of growth in his lungs. My wife Suzanne, an RN, thinks his death was probably 9/11 related. Her diagnostic track record is scary accurate, and I’m inclined to credit her.
There are still gaping wounds left from the September 11 attacks. One of those gaping wounds is Ground Zero itself, which to this day is still significantly “a huge, noisy, and dirty pit with almost no visible architectural progress,” in the words of Christopher Hitchens.
As hostile as he is to Abrahamic religion generally and Muslim extremism in particular, Hitchens makes interesting reading for his statement of the case against opposition to the plans to build a large Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero. Some of the opposition’s rhetoric, as Hitchens rightly argues, has been overheated, manipulative, strident sophistry. For that matter, so has some of the rhetoric on the other side. There has been a great deal of heat but too little light from either side.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Where Have You Gone, Gregory Peck?
Last weekend saw a lopsided box-office collision of two very different types of action hero: In one corner, The Expendables, an old-fashioned 1980s-style action-fest drenched in testosterone, adrenaline and blood; in the other corner, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, starring Michael Cera as a geeky slacker with mad video-game-style combat skills.
It’s a stark illustration of how much the action landscape has changed. A quarter of a century ago, action heroes were musclebound, lantern-jawed he-men like Schwarzenegger and Stallone who weren’t afraid to get down and dirty. Even more vulnerable heroes like Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis, who actually got hurt or scared and made mistakes, were still two-fisted tough guys.
The musclemen of the 1980s may have been an exaggeration of an earlier masculine ideal, but prior decades were hardly lacking in virility. Broad-shouldered, chiseled icons like John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster and so forth might not have been built like Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but they were no pantywaists. Not all male heroes of yesterday necessarily fit that brawny mold—there was also room for more sensitive types played by the likes of Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda—but there was plenty of brawn to go around.
The situation today is markedly different. Many action movies today star youthful-looking actors like Matt Damon, Orlando Bloom, Brendan Frasier and Leonardo DiCaprio. Even comparatively older stars like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt still come off as aging boys rather than manly men. There’s Tobey Maguire’s gawky web-slinger and Robert Downey Jr.‘s immature playboy techno-warrior. (Notably, Damon, Maguire and Downey all play heroes who in one way or another find themselves with awesome powers that they must learn to use and/or don’t understand at first.) William Shatner’s signature role now belongs to boyish Chris Pine. Earlier this summer there was a sequel to the Schwarzenegger vehicle Predator starring Adrien Brody, of all people.
With few exceptions—Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman—it’s hard to think of a leading man today who could credibly go toe to toe with Rocky or Indiana Jones. A participant at Arts & Faith puts the blame on The Matrix, which transformed Keanu Reeves from a pasty computer geek into an instant superman by digitally uploading kung-fu skills into his brain. With its video-game milieu, The Matrix in a way set the stage for Scott Pilgrim.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Reel Faith (8/20)
Just a reminder that the latest episode of “Reel Faith” airs tonight, 8/20, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (watch online).
This week, David DiCerto and I review Nanny McPhee Returns, Tales From Earthsea and The Expendables. Plus special guest Fr. Lauder in the theater to discuss a favorite film. Tune in tonight!
The apocalypse will be televised
“Not with a bang but with a whimper” was T. S. Eliot’s revisionist idea of the world’s end in The Hollow Men. He was almost right. Not with a whimper, but with a million whimpers, each more feeble and bathetic than the last, is the way we seem to be slouching toward oblivion.
Whimper du jour: a pitch for a new reality show … starring Levi Johnson … making a run for mayor of Wasilla. From Variety:
Johnston will run for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska — yes, the same job that propelled Sarah Palin to governor of that state (and later, the vice presidential nomination) — in a new reality project being pitched by Stone and Co.
“Loving Levi: The Road to the Mayor’s Office” will center on Johnston’s newfound fame as the baby daddy to Palin’s grandson, Tripp.
Johnston will trade on that notoriety to make his run for Wasilla City Hall—when he’s not pursuing a career in Hollywood, of course.
Stone and Co. are already shooting the show’s pilot and have started pitching the show to networks.
For a perfect storm of nihilistic absurdity and banality, a convergence of politics, tabloid journalism and reality television seems hard to beat. Johnston, meanwhile, seems an ideal poster boy for a culture of meaninglessness. A young man whose sole achievement to date is knocking up a girl whose mother has become a poster girl for something else, Johnston saw a meal ticket in caddishness and has been tucking in with both fists. That his photograph was ever published on a magazine cover is damning enough, never mind that it sold any.
Continue reading on NCRegister.com >
Eat Pray Buy!
Will the new Julia Roberts movie Eat Pray Love encourage viewers to buy into spiritual ideas? Or will it just encourage them to buy?
Fans of Liz Gilbert’s “Gnosh-tic lit” memoir can now wear their spirituality on their sleeve … on their whole wardrobe, in fact, not to mention their fragrance and jewelry, plus a raft of other merchandising tie-in products, from wine and tea to a $400 replica day bed like the one Roberts used in Bali.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling 2006 memoir launched a self-discovery movement that could best be described by its full title: “Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.”
Although Sony Pictures has simplified the title, the ongoing search for “everything” remains an integral part of the movie release Friday—especially if “everything” includes the slew of merchandising items, from the “I Deserve Something Beautiful” lotus petal necklace (Dogeared Jewels and Gifts, $72) to the “Only True Love Remains” organic tee (Signorelli, $45) to the official prayer beads (World Market, $4.99).
Last week I wrote in my review:
In our consumerist therapeutic culture, if your life has fallen apart and you want to find yourself, heal yourself, indulge yourself, and possibly find God—or whatever is the next best thing—you can take a year off and travel to exotic places, like Italy, India and Indonesia, if you can afford it.
If you can’t afford it … then you can at least buy the book, watch the Oprah show, and go see the movie.
If only I had known. Of course the spiritual impulses of Liz Gilbert’s legions of fans—sometimes called “Lizbians”—can’t be satisfied with a mere book purchase or movie ticket. After all, Liz spent four months eating pasta and pizza in Italy, four months getting in touch with her spirituality in India and four months finding balance and love in Bali. Why shouldn’t fans splurge on their spiritual well-being too, even if world travel is a bit beyond some price ranges?
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Lines I Wish I Had Written: Eat Pray Love
Okay, so this is like, what, the third shout-out in as many weeks to reader Victor, but his combox quip in my NCRegister.com review of Eat Pray Love deserves the widest possible audience. Victor writes:
I guess what’s a little distressing, as you note, is the sheer number of books and movies of this type (reveling in the pleasures of body and yet so wholly dismissive of what the body really means) … perhaps we should start calling this genre “Gnosh-tic Literature” or something.
Oh. Yeah. Gnosh-tic lit it is. Rock on, Victor!
Reel Faith (8/13)
Just a belated reminder that the latest episode of “Reel Faith” airs tonight, 8/13, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (watch online).
This week, David DiCerto and I take on Eat Pray Love, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Winter’s Bone. Plus DVD pick of the week and Vatican list film pick with Fr. Lauder. Tune in tonight!
Infographic: Pixar vs. DreamWorks
Props to reader Victor for highlighting this infographic from a few years back analyzing the differences between the creative processes at Pixar and DreamWorks.
Reel Faith (8/6)
Just a reminder that the latest episode of “Reel Faith” airs this Friday, 8/6, at 8:30pm EDT on NET TV (watch online).
This week, David DiCerto and I take a look at The Other Guys, Get Low and The Kids Are All Right. Plus DVD pick of the week and Vatican list film pick with Fr. Lauder. Tune in Friday!
Bad Family Films!
Hat tip to reader Rachel for her suggestion that I follow up my “best family films” post with a post on “worst family films.”
Note, though, that this post is called “Bad Family Films,” not “Worst Family Films.” “Best of” lists are tough and subjective, but “worst of” lists are usually close to meaningless. Picking best films is like trying to map out the heights of a mountain; picking worst films is like trying to map out the mountain’s roots. There’s a lot more ground to survey down there, and where do you stop? Is any film fair game, however obscure or low-budget? Or is it better to stick to high-profile flops? Which is “worse”: a film that is utterly inept, inspiring complete indifference, or a film made with some skill and ambition that is so wrong-headed that you feel actual dislike for it? Who has seen even a representative sample of “worst film” contenders? Films that attract praise are sought out; films that don’t are avoided.
So, having said all that, I’m basically declaring open season! I’ll throw out some titles, but if my choices my last post were meant as representative rather than completist, my choices here are merely haphazardly illustrative.
To start with, though, an archetypal example of my idea of an awful family film: I give you a movie with no few defenders: Babe: Pig in the City.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
The Best Family Films?
The greatest family film of all time? Respondents polled for a Radio Times magazine survey ranked Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial as the best, with The Wizard of Oz in the runner-up spot. (Hat tip: Guardian.co.uk.)
Is the story of Elliott and his wise-yet-childlike alien friend really more magical than Dorothy’s adventures in Oz? It’s debatable. A film writer I know has said he’s a fan of lists but not of ranking, and I tend to agree.
There’s a reason why the Pontifical Commission for Social Communications, releasing the Vatican film list in 1995, was careful to note in its press release, “Not all [films] that deserve mention are included.” A list points us to films worth noting; it can’t tell us definitively that these films are necessarily more worthy of note than all films that aren’t included, let alone which films worthy of inclusion are most worthy.
That’s why, rather than quibble about the ranking of films, I’d rather take issue with the inclusion of movies I think don’t deserve to be on such a list at all—and talk about movies I would rather see there instead.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Quick note on The Apostle
Quick note on my refurbished review of Robert Duvall’s The Apostle, to which I previously devoted only two brief, hasty paragraphs written over a decade ago, before Decent Films existed. I recently revisited The Apostle for a capsule review for the Image Arts & Faith Top 100 website. Now, spurred by Duvall’s new movie Get Low (review coming soon), I’ve expanded that capsule a bit more here; it’s still brief, but far more adequate than what was here before. The Apostle deserves more than two hasty paragraphs. I’m happy to rectify that now, at least somewhat.
Back at Work!
Just a quick note to say: After taking off about sixteen days over the last several weeks, I’m now back at my desk for the duration. Watch for a bump up in the rate of new material appearing here at Decent Films! That is all for the moment.
Final Updates: Italian pilgrimage blogging
I’ve been on vacation this week—hence the absence of other new material—but for those who’ve been following my Italian pilgrimage blogging at NCRegister.com, I’ve just posted the final two parts, Update 5 and Update 6.
Reel Faith (7/22)
Tune in Friday, July 22 at 8:30pm EDT for another episode of “Reel Faith.” Reviewed this week: Salt, Predators and Ramona and Beezus, plus Rossellini’s Open City and comments about Creation.
Reel Faith: 7/16 episode available online
Just a quick note that Friday’s episode of “Reel Faith” is now available at the show’s website. This is our sixth episode, and I think we’ve started to hit our stride. If you missed the broadcast on Friday, check it out online!
Covered in this episode: Inception, Despicable Me, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the Criterion release of Night Train to Munich and the Vatican list film 8½.
On the Air: Catholic Answers Live & Reel Faith!
This Friday I’ll be doing an hour of “Catholic Answers Live” with Patrick Coffin and co-hosting the latest episode of “Reel Faith” with David DiCerto! In both venues we’ll be discussing the latest movies: Inception, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Despicable Me.
Of course on “CA Live” we’ll have more time to talk about other movies. On the other hand, you can see clips of the movies at “Reel Faith.” “CA Live” airs at 6:00pm EDT, “Reel Faith” at 8:30pm EDT.
Quick notes
A few quick notes: After a week back in the States, I’m just about back in the swing of things. (Hope you’ve been enjoying my pilgrimage blogging!)
I did miss the Twilight Saga: Eclipse screening, and while I still intend to catch the film and write about it when I can, I’ve decided not to leave the title indefinitely in my “Coming Soon” box. I’ve gotten caught in that trap too many times! At the time I always hope it will motivate me to get to it sooner rather than later, but as time goes on it becomes a millstone around my neck. I’d rather disappoint readers now by taking it down than string them along for possibly weeks or even months. Sorry, but I’m doing the best I can!
Reel Faith went on while I was gone, with former USCCB critic Annie Navarro stepping into the gap with my co-host David DiCerto. The next episode has been postponed until next week, so tune in then for our video reviews of Inception, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Despicable Me.
Update #4: Catacombs of St. Callixtus!
Tuesday afternoon after the papal Pallium Mass, the itinerary includes the catacombs of St. Callixtus and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. I missed the catacombs on my first trip to Rome, so I’m really looking forward to this.
The visit to the catacombs begins with a brief introduction to the history and iconography of the period and the site. While the pagan Romans traditionally practiced cremation, the early Christians, in continuity with Jewish belief and custom refocused and refined in light of the resurrection of Jesus, placed a high premium on burying the dead in preparation for their rising. Because land was limited, starting in the second century Roman Christians (and Jews; a small number of Roman catacombs are of Jewish origin) acquired plots of land outside the city limits and dug massive underground labyrinths in the soft volcanic rock of the Roman countryside, carving out niches for burying the dead. The uniqueness of Judeo-Christian hope was even evident in the language they used: The standard pagan term for a burial site was “necropolis,” city of the dead, but the Christians early began calling their catacombs by a new name, “cemetery,” a term literally meaning “dormitory” or “place of sleep.”
Like many people, I once vaguely imagined the early Christians hiding out from Roman persecutions in the catacombs. In fact the catacombs were publicly known sites, not secret (our tour guide points out, commonsensically, that excavating tons of earth and rock along, say, the Appian Way could hardly be a surreptitious undertaking). The kernel of truth to the Hollywood picture is that during persecutions when Christian rites of worship could not openly be celebrated, Christians retreated to their underground burial sites, sacrosanct under Roman law, to celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Update #3: Pallium Mass at St. Peter’s!
It isn’t until I actually see the procession of 38 new metropolitan archbishops walking up the center aisle at Saint Peter’s Basilica at the start of the Pallium Mass a little after 9:30 Tuesday morning, and hear the cheers from pilgrims of the 26 countries represented—Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe—followed by the Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI, that it really hits me: This is the greatest visible display of the Church’s catholicity that I have ever seen, and perhaps may ever see.
It is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. My daughter Sarah and I are in Saint Peter’s Basilica, on the very spot where St. Peter stretched out his hands and gave his life, where his bones remain to this day. The unique role that Jesus gave to Peter among the Apostles is mirrored today in the role of the Bishop of Rome among these archbishops, who are gathered for a special celebration of their pastoral role and unity with the Pope.
There’s even an Eastern Orthodox delegation here. I didn’t confirm that until later, but I caught my breath during Pope Benedict’s homily, delivered in Italian, at a reference to Constantinople. (My Italian vocabulary is barely into double digits, but I picked up individual words and ideas here and there: references to Peter and Paul, Jesus’ words in Matthew 16, the pallium and the archbishops, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary. The booklet handed out to worshipers has the Italian and English texts of the pope’s Pallium Mass homily ... from 2009. The English text of the 2010 homily is now available online.) My appreciation for Orthodoxy is long-standing and profound, and I feel the pain of the schism deeply. The presence of the delegation from Constantinople at this celebration of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul fills me with great joy.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Update #2: From Assisi to Rome
In my first update I mentioned someone comparing Assisi to Minas Tirith, Tolkien’s imaginary tiered city on a hill. What I didn’t know at the time is that unlike Minas Tirith, where the lowest level is the widest circle and the royal house is at the crown, Assisi’s crown is at the bottom: beneath the lower Basilica of St. Francis, in the crypt where Francis’s tomb is situated in the midst of four of his famous followers.
Not that the crypt is literally the lowest point in Assisi. As far as I know, though, it’s the lowest notable landmark. It’s immediately below the upstairs-downstairs Basilica of San Francesco, the lower basilica adorned by frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto, the upper basilica with its narrative of Francis’s life in frescoes. It’s down the hill from the Basilica of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), which houses the original Cross of San Damiano that spoke to Francis as well as the body of Francis’s famous spiritual companion. It’s far below the Cathedral of San Rufino, with its dome overlooking Santa Chiara.
There’s also Rocca Maggiore castle, probably the highest point in Assisi, looking like a picture postcard from the piazza of Santa Chiara (my best view of the castle, since we got no higher than the cathedral, and you can’t see the castle from the cathedral). But I don’t think anyone would think of the castle as crowning this city. The crown is at the bottom. If you’re going to climb Assisi from bottom to top, start at the crypt of St. Francis. Or else do the opposite: Take a taxi to the cathedral (or the castle, if you like) and work your way down to the crypt.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Update #1: Romeward Bound!
It’s 5am Monday morning in Italy. I’m sitting on a rooftop veranda outside my hotel room in Assisi overlooking the sleeping countryside. The moon is high. Later today we’ll be in Rome.
Our trip got off to a bad start. The story begins early Thursday afternoon at the Alitalia terminal at Newark Liberty Airport, where we arrive to discover very long, seemingly unmoving lines and the news that our 5:30 flight was delayed at least seven hours. Over the next few days we heard that (a) the pilots were on strike, (b) they were watching the World Cup, or (c) issues from the previous day had affected numerous flights that day. I still don’t know what the issue was. By the time our flight finally lifts off at a minute shy of 1am, some of our fellow pilgrims have been stranded at the airport for over a dozen hours.
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
Romeward Bound!
In a few hours, my daughter Sarah (age 15) and I will be on a plane headed to Rome. Our archdiocese is leading a pilgrimage, and we’re on it.
Some readers may remember that I was in Rome once before last year, on a press junket for Angels & Demons. They gave us the official Angels & Demons tour of Rome, walking in the footsteps of Robert Langdon from church to church as he unraveled the path of the Illuminati.
The idea of tourists going to the Eternal City to see St. Peter’s and other locales specifically through the lens of a badly written, anti-Catholic conspiracy novel is pretty depressing (although not as pathetic as Twilight fans heading to Forks, Washington for Twilighter tours).
Fortunately, I was able to stay a few days afterward, touring on my own, and making a sort of pilgrimage out of it. I wrote a bit about my experiences in an article on religion and science in Angels & Demons, and I posted photos from my trip at Jimmy Akin’s blog. Plus, I got to knock the film at the end of my European trip!
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
“Reel Faith” Update
Yesterday I taped the fourth episode of Reel Faith with David DiCerto. We discussed Knight and Day, Grown Ups, and Jonah Hex, as well as the documentary Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders. It airs tomorrow, Friday, June 24 at 8:30pm. As usual, you can watch it online at the show’s website, either when it airs or anytime over the next week. (Right now last week’s episode, covering Toy Story 3, The A-Team and Splice is available.)
As always, comments at the Reel Comments page are welcome.
UPDATE: Hollywood admits its originality problem!
Is Hollywood literally out of ideas?
UPDATE: Hat tip to Ross Douthat for highlighting an intriguing recent NYMag.com piece on Hollywood’s originality problem. Some highlights:
With Sequels and Reboots Failing, Hollywood (Finally) Puts Out a Desperate Call for Original Material
Conventional wisdom in Hollywood of late has said that you should stick to familiar brands when making movies. It could be a sequel or an adaptation of an old TV show, board game, toy, or crumpled candy wrapper, just as long as people already know it. So how’s that working out? In a summer season where only three out of the fourteen major releases so far have come from a new idea, attendance is down 13.3 percent from last season … That’s why studio execs at Warner Bros., Paramount/DreamWorks, and Universal are now madly pinging agents and managers with an uncharacteristic, desperate, and welcome request: Send us your fresh material!
Continue reading at NCRegister.com >
The Secret of Kells: A Conversation with Jeffrey Overstreet
UPDATE: Over at Image Journal, Jeffrey Overstreet and I are talking about The Secret of Kells. Part 1 and Part 2 are now both available. (Note: Some spoilers!)
Now on Facebook!
Yes! Having joined the 21st century six months ago by adding RSS, Decent Films has now taken its first step into the world of social media by creating a Facebook page. For readers who use Facebook, especially Facebook users who don’t use RSS, it’s another way to keep track of when I update Decent Films. And while I still don’t have reader comments here at Decent Films (though the integrated Decent Films Mail is a step in the right direction), you can comment on my work at the Facebook page (as well as in the National Catholic Register comboxes, where applicable).
I’ve begun using RSS now, and I find it invaluable. On the other hand, I’m still a total Facebook newbie … and I would gladly welcome any advice from veteran Facebookers on how to make the Facebook experience better for Decent Films readers (or for myself). Please drop me a line!
Incidentally, there appear to be a couple of unrelated Facebook groups called “Decent Films” … if you look for me on Facebook, be sure to search for “Decent Films Guide.”
Edgy Fraggles?
Fraggle fans: Did you ever find yourselves singing along to the “Fraggle Rock” theme song and thinking, “You know, this is a great show, but it could be edgier”?
If so, help is on the way, courtesy of the Weinstein Company. Slashfilm noted this morning that writer-director Cory Edwards (Hoodwinked!), who has been developing a Fraggle Rock feature film for the Weinstein Company, posted an ominous note on his blog warning of “some dark days ahead.”
Apparently the Weinstein Company, unsatisfied with Edwards’ screenplay, has begun searching for a new screenwriter to rewrite it, perhaps from scratch. By itself, that doesn’t tell us much, but according to Edwards the studio’s complaint is that his script is “not edgy enough.”
Hoo boy. I have to admit that I find it possible that Edwards’ script leaves something to be desired. I didn’t think Hoodwinked! was any great shakes, though it was successful, and I thought it showed some promise. (I never saw the sequel, Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil.) (Side note: Edwards is a Christian.)
Buuut the idea of a gaggle of head-shaking suits at Weinstein reading Edwards’ screenplay and saying “Not edgy enough” fills me with trepidation—and I was never even a Fraggle Rock fan. (Not that I had anything against it. It came along during my high school years, when, as recently disclosed, I was busy watching Knight Rider and The A-Team.)
“Edgy” is a good word for a Batman movie or a Daniel Craig James Bond movie. Coraline was “edgy,” and so was Where the Wild Things Are, maybe. Maybe even “The Muppet Show” was a little bit edgy, although the longer this paragraph goes on the less clear I am about what that word actually means in the first place.
At any rate, when I think of Fraggles, I do not think “edgy.” Fraggles are round, soft and fuzzy, with fuzzy Hobbity names like Gobo, Mokey and Wembley. There’s a talking trash heap and little critters called Doozers who look like pint-sized versions of Bob the Builder. The Fraggle Rock theme song, which Wikipedia reports reached #33 on the British pop charts during the show’s height, goes like this:
Dance your cares away
Worry’s for another day
Let the music play
Down at Fraggle Rock.
That’s about as un-edgy as it gets, folks. I sympathize with Cory’s lament (and I had to include his links, which are hilarious):
“EDGY.” That’s the note. That’s what they are trying to do to the Fraggle Rock movie. EDGE it up! Let me say right now that “edgy” is one of my least favorite words. Since my earliest days in the client video business, “edgy” has been a sign of someone who doesn’t know what they want. Not only is “edgy” a nebulous, abstract word that means something different to everyone, but it chases the immediate whims of pop culture. WHAT is edgy?? Faster edits? Rock music for the score? Boober wearing some gangsta bling? I have no idea. What I DO know is that the word “edgy” should not be anywhere near this movie.
What if “Toy Story” was edgy? “Toy Story” can be relevant, sharply written, and fast paced, but it has a genuine heart and sincere characters. Like “Toy Story,” Fraggle Rock’s success is not only due to it’s anti-edginess, but in its absolute DEFIANCE of all that is edgy and trendy and pop in this world.
It’s easy to concur with the Slashfilm writer Peter Sciretta when he concludes, “It seems clear to me that The Weinstein Co doesn’t even understand the property they are developing into a feature film.” And, really, this is an ongoing problem in one Hollywood adaptation after another, from the Narnia films to the likes of Robin Hood and King Arthur.
But Sciretta also has problems with the whole concept for the Fraggle film, which takes the characters “outside of their home in Fraggle Rock, where they interact with humans, which they think are aliens.” Sciretta writes:
My problem with the Fraggle Rock movie is that it removes the characters from Fraggle Rock. The Traveling Matt segments were some of the least interesting moments from the series, and the doozer-filler cave homes of the singing puppets was the most interesting aspect of the series. For me, you loose [sic] the magic of the world that Henson created by taking them out of the ‘Rock and putting them in the real world.
At this point, as a non-Fraggle fan I’m out of my depth. Like any feature adaptation of a TV show, a Fraggle movie would have to do something larger and more ambitious than a TV show episode, or it won’t sustain the film. Taking the Fraggles out of the Rock might be one way to do this, but Sciretta may have a point, especially if the world of the Rock is an integral part of the show’s appeal.
