Bartcop Entertainment - Tuesday, 27 August, 2002

Tuesday

27 August, 2002

(Updated Daily)

Issue #17

What's Wrong with Leonard Maltin?

99.9% of the 19,000 entries in his new 2003 Movie & Video Guide are absolutely correct.

But oh that .1%.

 

 

    When I was a kid, I read a review of a classical recording that blew my mind. It was so pretentious, so precise in its dissection of the quality of the performance, that I just didn't believe it. I'd heard classical music and there simply wasn't that big a difference between performances by different musical groups. Beethoven's 5th was Beethoven's 5th, whether conducted by Bernstein or Toscanini.

    I decided to conduct a test. I went to Tower Records and bought every single available performance of a single Beethoven string quartet and listened to them all. I was astonished. One of them sucked. One of them was infinitely superior to all the rest, giving incredible emotion to the piece that was totally missing from the rest, making me almost cry at impossibly beautiful passages that I barely noticed in the other performances. How can anybody listen to Beethoven string quartets that aren't performed by the Guarnari Quartet?

    I realized it really didn't take any special skill to become an expert. What made me an expert on performances of Beethoven string quartets was simply the fact that I went out and listened to all of them side by side. Anybody could do it. Wine experts are simply people who've tasted more wine than you, so they've got more experiences with which to compare each tasting. You may taste a wine and think it's incredible simply because it's the best wine you've ever had, but to someone who's tasted from all the Chateaus in the Bordeaux region of France, it's just mediocre. Subjectively, you're right. Objectively, they are.

    Maltin's guide is one of the most stunning displays of true objectivity ever published. No matter how many movies you've seen, Maltin has seen more. With a seven point grading system and concise paragraphs, his book tells you precisely where a film falls in the grand scheme of things. He has an un-erring sense of whether a film will stand the test of time, and his ability to cut through the publicity mayhem surrounding all successful new releases, getting to the heart of whether they're actually any good, is uncanny. He's not writing for you, he's writing for people in the future, way in the future, a 16-year-old in 2020 who doesn't know Little Caesar from Little Nicky but they're both showing tonight. If there's a film on TV that you've never heard of and you want to know in the most immediate terms whether it's worth watching or not, you cannot do better than Leonard Maltin.

    To grade films objectively, you've got to be egoless, leaving yourself and your idiosyncratic taste out of the picture. You can love a film even though it's crap or hate a film even though it's great, and you've still got to give the crappy one less stars than the great one.

    I personally can't stand Gone with the Wind, Out of Africa, or The English Patient. They're just not my cup of melodrama. In the case of Gone with the Wind, I'm simply too irritated by Scarlett O'Hara to enjoy the picture. Every time she appears on the screen, I want someone to punch her in the mouth, but as a professional critic, I don't allow my personal taste to get in the way of my critical assessment of the picture. Taking into account everything I know about the film, including it's placement in film history, I'd still give it 4 stars. It's a mandatory view, even though I can't stand it.

    Birth of a Nation takes place in a world in which the Klu Klux Klan are the good guys. It's insufferably racist and genuinely politically incorrect, but the fact that, among other things, it contains the very first tracking shot in the history of film, makes it a must see. At the time, it was unquestionably the best movie ever made, advancing the state of cinema a hundred-fold. 4 stars.

    True objectivity is difficult to achieve under any circumstances, but particularly in the world of film criticism where EVERYBODY has their own opinion. You may hate punk music and be totally turned on by Pamela Anderson, but if you're being objective you've got to admit that Sid and Nancy is brilliant and Barb Wire is a load of crap, even if you hated the former and loved the latter.

    Reading Leonard Maltin, you can't tell if he's gay or straight, married or single, conservative or liberal. He reveals nothing of himself because he's not the subject. Historians don't have opinions, they simply lay out the facts as they see them.

    Maltin's an incredibly tough critic. Flip through the book looking for films with 4 stars and you'll go for long stretches of time without finding any. He saves 4 stars for films that are unquestionably flawless and timeless, films that will go down in every history book as major classics. The Wizard of Oz. Citizen Kane. Grapes of Wrath. Films like that. Anything less gets 3 1/2, which makes 3 1/2 pretty much his actual top honor. Even The Godfather only gets 3 1/2, which pretty much says it all.

    He's stingy with his bottom ranking too. He doesn't give 1 star, replacing it with "BOMB," and you won't find very many of them. A film has to be devoid of the slightest shred of quality or entertainment value to get the BOMB accolade. Myra Breckinridge. Howard the Duck. Robot Monster. Films like that. Anything with the slightest shred of entertainment value gets 1 1/2 stars. Even Town and Country gets 1 1/2 stars which pretty much says it all.

    When a book is this perfect, the mistakes become all the more glaring. I couldn't find many, but the following 4 in a book of 19,000 bother the hell out of me.

    I don't care much about our 1 star differences of opinion. He gives Being There 2 1/2. I would have given it 3 1/2. No biggie.

    No, the big problem is the few films that are entirely and unforgivably wrong, the 1 1/2s that deserve 3 1/2 or 4, the films that Maltin mysteriously and totally didn't get.

 

    Here are the 4 most egregious examples of Maltin's rare inability to be objective.

 

 

    Maltin must be the only person on earth who thinks Return of the Living Dead III (2 1/2 stars) is better than The Shining (2 stars).

    It's extremely telling that he gives Nic Cage's The Family Man 3 1/2 stars but The Shining only 2. The Family Man is about a man with an empty life who finds fulfillment when he realizes there's nothing better than a child and one good woman to love. The Family Man says that heaven on earth is the nuclear family. The Shining is about a man with an empty life BECAUSE he's got a child and one good woman to love. The Shining says that hell on earth is the nuclear family.

    That's a message that Maltin can't stand. In this case, he's clearly espousing the message of The Family Man over the message of The Shining, unless he actually thinks that Brett Ratner is a better, more important filmmaker than Stanley Kubrick. He obviously doesn't. Maltin's opinion of The Shining is based upon who he really is. He's being subjective. Naughty naughty.

    There's nothing counter-culture about Leonard Maltin. He IS the family man, with a loving wife, loving kids, and a split-level home in the suburbs. He has gone through the change that all parents go through concerning the importance of good family entertainment, films you can watch with your kids, films with values you want to pass on to your offspring. It's not till you're a parent that you can truly realize the genius of Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. Though he's certainly capable of appreciating the counter-culture (He gives Easy Rider 3 1/2 stars and the Monkee's Head 3 stars), when a film gets TOO pessimistic or anti-establishment, his brain short circuits.

    He gives Blue Velvet 2 stars, calling it "too strange to be easily enjoyed."

    He calls Taxi Driver "ugly and unredeeming," as though those were bad things. What makes the film great is the lack of redemption and compromise. One can only imagine how a studio executive would have insisted upon ending the film. They certainly wouldn't have allowed Travis Bickle to walk off into the sunset with the prettiest girl on the block when we know he's a murderous psycho. Irony's never been a best seller. No matter how good and important we all know Taxi Driver is, Maltin's only capable of giving it 2 stars because it's one of the most pessimistic movies ever made. Same with The Shining. (For a more detailed analysis, read Five Things You Probably Didn't Notice in The Shining)

    I enjoyed The Family Man. I don't automatically dislike films that spout family values any more than Maltin should automatically dislike films that don't. The Family Man is a good movie but if you miss it, big deal. The Shining is a good movie that is an absolute must-see. It's a 4. (Okay, Maltin, you can give it 3 1/2)

   

 

    Maltin must be the only person on earth who thinks Rambo III (2 1/2 stars) is better than First Blood (1 1/2 stars).

    First Blood is one of the greatest counter-culture movies of all time. It falls right into the category of Hitchcock's best, where an innocent man finds himself on the run in circumstances beyond his control.

    In North by Northwest, Cary Grant is dancing with a woman on a crowded dance floor in the U.N. His partner is stabbed in the back, and as they fall, the knife comes out in Grant's hand. Somebody screams and everybody turns to look at him, standing there with a bloody knife in his hand and a dead bleeding woman at his feet, clearly guilty of murder to everyone in the world except us, the viewing audience, who are the only ones who know he didn't do anything.

    In First Blood, Sylvester Stallone plays John Rambo, a man who is just walking through town when a local cop decides to hassle him for absolutely no reason other than he can. Every black person, every ex-hippie, nowadays every Muslim, can relate to how it feels to be picked on for not hurting anybody, just for being yourself. It is the essence of counter-culture to be found wanting simply for not fitting in (10 to 1 that Maltin's never been hassled by the man), and Rambo is an essential counter-culture hero because boy, did they pick the wrong innocent man to pick on.

    Once in jail, things get worse fast. The sheriff's deputies are sadists who tie him up and beat him. He kills one of them and escapes to the mountains where things escalate beyond comprehension. Soon there are hundreds of soldiers combing the hillsides for innocent John, where his Green Beret training comes in extremely handy as he single-handedly slaughters them all with the catch phrase we've all grown to know and love, "I didn't do anything!"

    Sure it's unbelievable. That's what happens when you're dealing with archetypes, and despite the fact we know he couldn't possibly be surviving all that mayhem with nary a scratch, it's great fun and we're rooting for him all the way. Who cares if you can't understand a word of his final monologue, which seems to be Maltin's main complaint. First Blood is a fabulous fantasy of the ultimate underdog. 3 1/2 stars all the way.

 

 

    Maltin must be the only person on earth who thinks The Mole People (2 stars) is better than John Carpenter's The Thing (1 1/2 stars).

    Along with Kubrick's The Shining, Carpenter's The Thing is one of the scariest movies ever made, actually scarier each time you see it, scary precisely because what is revealed about human nature is so repugnant.

    Current computer graphics are capable of delivering any horror imaginable, but at the time, Carpenter was quite rightly proud of The Thing as being the only horror movie in which the monster didn't turn out to be a guy in a monster suit. Even Alien, as scary as it may be, is just a guy in an alien suit.

    Not so The Thing. The Thing is the most horrible and repulsive thing I've ever seen, and that's a GOOD thing. It's A HORROR FILM, for Christ sake, and what could be more horrible than to see a man's head pull itself off his body, grow spider legs, and go scurrying across the room. Completely and totally horrifying. A "non-stop parade of slimy, repulsive special effects," according to Maltin. Yep. That's why we're scared of it. To put down The Thing because the monster is too horrible makes no sense whatsoever. That's why it's one of the BEST horror films of all time, not one of the worst.

    The greatest moments in any horror film, the ones we wait for, the entire reason we go to them, are the moments when we're glad we're not there, when we want to scream to the characters "Oh shit, get the hell out! You're dead! Get moving! It's right behind you!" These scenes get our adrenaline pumping like no others in the world of the cinematic thrill ride, and The Thing has the king of them all.

    As in The Shining, all the characters are trapped in a building in the middle of nowhere with no possibility of escape. The Thing can change itself into any shape it wants. They are all in one room and they know one of them is The Thing and they've got to find out which one before it kills them all. It's like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians from hell.

    They devise a little test. All the suspects are tied to their chairs so they can't escape. They figure that every cell of The Thing is the equivalent of The Thing itself, so they each give a little blood and jab it with a hot poker, knowing The Thing's blood will react differently. It does. It turns into The Thing while the suspects are still tied to their chairs, unable to escape while this hideous killer THING grows and grows into a Boschian nightmare. Possibly the single scariest scene in any movie ever made.

    In the end, there's only one human left. Talk about pessimism. The Thing leaves us with a moral quandary in which the only solution, the only way to save mankind from a horrible fate, is suicide. Aside from its nihilism and total lack of a happy ending, The Thing is the quintessential film NOT to show to your kids before bedtime, which is another reason Maltin must hate it. I'd give it 4 stars. Maltin should give it at least 3.

 

 

    Maltin must be the only person on earth who thinks Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (2 stars) is better than Blade Runner (1 1/2 stars). I don't care how much you hate Blade Runner. You can hate it as much as I hate Gone with the Wind or Spike Lee must hate Birth of a Nation, but it is unquestionably one of the most influential movies ever made, not only influencing every subsequent futuristic film but the actual future itself. It's view of a multi-cultural crowded planet is THIS close to coming true.

    Sure, they're called replicants in the film, but the debate they stir is completely relevant to the current debate about cloning. What happens when mankind develops the ability to clone humans who are actually better than us? Blade Runner, that's what.

    For Maltin to complain that Blade Runner has "main characters with no appeal whatsoever" is simply nuts. The quest of the replicants to find their creator and ask him why they were given limited lifespans is one with which every human can identify. How more serious can a movie be than one that asks "why do we die?" We might not identify with the replicant's methods or lifestyle, but how can we not identify with their quest for a longer life? The scene in which a replicant doesn't get the answer he wants and proceeds to kill his creator, with a brilliant performance by Rutger Hauer, is one of the most profound in cinema.

    Other than crappy movies that have no meaning whatsoever, there are basically only two kinds of films: those that say life is worth living, that everything will work out in the end, that man is, by nature, good (Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, et al.), and those that say life is a bowl of crap, that nothing works out in the end, that man is, by nature, self-destructive (Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, et al.). Whichever of these philosophies you find most like your own, in the objective world, they have nothing to do with whether a film is good or bad. There are lousy movies full of optimism and brilliant movies full of pessimism. Maltin hates the latter and lets it cloud his objectivity. (Not always. Clockwork Orange has the most pessimistic view of mankind imaginable and he gives it the stars it deserves.)

    Maltin's supposed to be devoted to artistry. There is absolutely no excuse for giving Blade Runner such a low grade. It's 4 stars all the way.

 

 

What the hell, your old copy's shot to shit.

Order Maltin's new 2003 Film & Video Guide here.

 

Leonard Maltin's 100 MUST-SEE FILMS OF THE 20th CENTURY.

 

Personal note: When I was charged with contempt of court for allowing CBS to make a movie about my life, Leonard Maltin wrote a personal letter to the judge defending me, so everything I've said here is with the utmost love and respect.

 

 

Special Personal Bonus Story about Maltin & Me

 

    When you get into the WGA (Writer's Guild of America), the first thing you do is attend a monthly orientation meeting for all new members. I was given a date and a time to be there, I showed up, and there was no one in the room. I asked somebody wandering by where the orientation meeting was and they gave me a different room number. I went to the room, opened the door, and sat down. There was a long oval table surrounded by about 12 people. Hmmm, small turnout. They started talking serious WGA matters, like how to publicize the opening of the new building and what famous artist to hire to decorate the outside. Within minutes I realized this couldn't possibly be a meeting of new members. This was serious, high-level shit.

     At some convenient lull in the conversation, I said "This isn't the orientation meeting for new members, is it?" I was told the orientation meeting was tomorrow, I got the date wrong, this was a meeting of the all-powerful Media Relations Committee, that all committee meetings were open to the membership, and I was welcome to just hang out.

    They started talking about the problem of publicizing the work of the writers and how to get them more awards. "I have an idea about that," I said. I was told to keep my mouth shut, that though I was invited to ATTEND the meeting, I was not welcome to join in the discussion. I was not an actual MEMBER of the all-powerful Media Relations Committee, so my comments were not welcome.

    I continued to sit there as they discussed the sad plight of the screenwriter and the horrible consequences of the auteur theory of filmmaking that gives all credit to the director. They hated the "Film by" credit accorded to directors who didn't write the film, the idea being that if Ridley Scott were conducting a performance of Beethoven's Ninth, the publicity wouldn't read "A Symphony by Ridley Scott," so how come every performance of a script by Ridley Scott is called "A Film by Ridley Scott?" The were in the midst of discussions with the DGA (Director's Guild of America) to change it, but it was obviously a fat chance. It would take a pretty goddam decent human being to give up a mandatory credit that might not be deserved, and Hollywood film directors don't have a reputation for being magnanimous.

    They went on to discuss other ways to give the writers the respect they deserved. One manifestation of the problem was Leonard Maltin's hugely popular film guide, which insisted on naming the director of every single film while barely ever mentioning the writer. The back of the book listed every director and their films with no similar list for writers.

    "Excuse me," I said.

    "Shut up," I was told.

    Finally the meeting was drawing to a close, so I stood up and went to the door while everyone was still sitting down. "I've got to go," I said. "Now that the meeting's over, can I just say a couple things."

    I was finally given permission to speak. They all looked up.

    "I'm a member of the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association. Last year some publicist actually sent every member of the association a copy of a script, and just by coincidence, we happened to give that film the award for Best Screenplay. So I've got to say that if you want your screenplay to win an award, send the goddam thing to the voters and actually let them read it."

    "Also, there happens to be a meeting of LAFCA tomorrow at the President's house. Since I'm going to be in his living room, would you like me to ask Leonard Maltin why he doesn't list writers in his book?"

    It was like that shot of the audience in The Producers right after the Springtime for Hitler number. Dazed faces, wide eyes, a bunch of jaw drops. The guy in the back whom they'd been telling to shut up had the answer to all their problems.

    "Sure, go ahead," someone said, giving me their card to call them back before I walked out.

    That was a moment.

 

 

    Going to LAFCA meetings was a trip because they always took place at a member's house, usually the President's, and the houses were always amazingly nice. Charles Champlin lived in Bel Air, Jorge Camara had one of those incredible Hollywood hillside cliffhangers, and Maltin had a giant suburban manor in the valley. Here I was, a professional critic grinding out paragraph after paragraph about the latest releases and barely able to make the rent on my squalid little bungalow, going to the abode of a millionaire who did the exact same thing I did. It was inspiring to see the possible outcome of my pitiful career.

    I loved Maltin's place and always brought my kids along to play with his kids during the meetings. The house was full of incredible knick-knacks from film history, and you could easily spend a day just going through his Disney memorabilia.

    Before the meeting started, I asked him about putting writers in his book. He said he understood and was on our side completely. He'd love to list writers in the book. The problem was purely physical. 

    "We're talking about the thickest paperback book ever produced," he told me. "It physically can't get any larger. The binding wouldn't hold. Every year we have to take things out in order to add things. The fight for space is so tight that right now we're going through it trying to get rid of widows and orphans." (Widows and orphans are those untidy single words that take up a whole line) He told me he'd do the best he could, and that he always mentioned the writer when they won the academy award.

    I reported back to the Media Relations Committee who were pleased. This year they achieved a balance with the directors of sorts. Maltin didn't add a list of writers to the back of his book. He took out the list of directors.

 

 

'TBH Politoons'

Thanks, again, Tim!

From Portland

In The Chaos Household

Global Peoples Forum

Korean environmental artist Choi Byung-Soo carves ice penguins in a protest against global warming, outside the Global Peoples Forum gathering at Nasrec in Johannesburg, August 26, 2002. The forum forms part of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development being held in the city.
Photo by Mike Hutchings

The Chickenhawk Database

Takes Mistaken ID in Stride

Moose & Squirrel Information One-Stop

''U.S. Needs International Reporting''

It's That Time Of Year Again

Burning Man festival participants walk toward the sunrise, Monday, Aug. 26, 2002, north of Gerlach, Nev. Monday was the opening day of the annual, weeklong festival in the Black Rock Desert.
Photo by Debra Reid

Revamping Program

Who served?

Begins NASA Training

In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends

24 Hours Underwater

Draft Dodging Conservatives

Starring In 'Everwood'

Dresden, Germany

Lightening is seen over the historical city of Dresden on August 22, 2002. Weather experts expects thunderstorms and rain over the area one week after the rain-swollen river spilled over its banks into several more towns of eastern Germany, wrecking roads and railways and chasing thousands of people to higher ground.
Photo by Michael Dalder

Cut by Fitch to 'BBB-Plus'

BartCop TV!

Causes Stir In Chile

Marks 15th Anniversary

Trading Cards: American Crusade 2001+

Pleads Guilty to DUI

Real Eye Opener?

In The Hospital

Archaeologists Plan Excavation

In a squalid suburb of northeast Cairo, a red granite obelisk towering above ramshackle homes is the last visible vestige of a nearly 7,000-year-old city where ancient Egyptians believed life began.

Archaeologists say they soon expect to unearth other artefacts and unlock the secrets of the sun-cult city of On buried beneath today's suburbs of Ain Shams, which means "eye of the sun" in Arabic, and the adjacent area of Matariya.

Archaeologists hope the 226,800 sq metre (2.44 million square feet) plot -- the largest designated for excavation in the area to date -- will boast extensive remains of temples and libraries of philosophy, astronomy and mathematics said to have been frequented by scholars such as Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras.

According to the oldest ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, the dusty suburb stands on the site where life itself started. Historians suggest the site probably dates back 7,000 years.

For a lot of details, 'On'

In Memory

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'The Osbournes'

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