We Hate Hollywood

Warning: This blog entry contains very explicit language that you wouldn’t normally see on this site. But to make a point, I am going to use it here.

Recently, I’ve listened to several film podcasts concerning Kick-Ass and read several reviews. I admit that I seem to be in the minority when it comes to judgments on the film. But what bothers me is how angry and defensive people get about the movie. I’m not going to name specific people, but I’ve heard some in the industry make fun of people that were offended by the film. Now me personally…I never said I was offended. I just personally found the experience disturbing to see an 11-year-old girl slaughtering guys left and right and spouting extreme profanities. As I said…in the spirit of satire, I could appreciate it but this wasn’t satire (see my review). People have suggested that if one was offended or disturbed by Hit Girl, remember that young girls have always done disturbing things in film (most notably Taxi Driver and The Professional). Okay, dumdums, for one thing, those films were dramas and in the context of the film, the actions of the young girls made sense. Kick-Ass is a comedy and seems to get a perverse thrill from Hit Girl’s killings and expletives. If it is trying to be a satire, it fails miserably in that it eventually becomes the very film it is making fun of.  If you loved the movie, fine.  We can have a discussion about its merits but don’t just label me “out of touch”, a pansy, or whatever name makes you feel better.

But what really bothers me is this pretentious anger that erupts towards people who are offended or disturbed by its content. Really? I, and people like me, just happen to be bothered by an 11-year-old girl saying “motherfucker”, “cock”, and “cunt” (for no other reason but to shock and elicit cheers and guffaws from the audience) and we’re the bad guys? Because we find it repulsive that a man would abuse his child by raising her to be a savage killer, we are the assholes who don’t understand the film’s artistic qualities? I hate to be repetitive, but I do have a very high tolerance for profanity and violence in film. I’m far from a prude. Ask anyone who knows me.  In fact, I’m not even against children cursing in movies.  It’s just this particular movie, in my opinion, handled it in very bad taste.  And had this been satire, I would have appreciated it (see previous paragraph). It is very troubling to me…this attitude in Hollywood that if I don’t “get” perversity, it makes me some kind of Pollyanna jerkoff.  Screw you.

I’m sickened sometimes by what passes as art these days. Artists, so often, insist that you accept everything they do as art no matter how offensive or ridiculous it is. You can’t shit in a box and call it art. Well you can, but I won’t buy it. I’ve also heard people laughing at this idea in regards to Kick-Ass and saying things like “It’s just a movie!” or “Don’t take it so seriously”. The message is “This isn’t art. It’s just entertainment!” Ok. Fine. And you’re entertained by Hit Girl?

Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn
Starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage
Rated R for strong violence, sexual content, and profanity
Rating - 3 bullet holes

Watching Kick-Ass is a miserable experience.  The film is a morass of depraved morality, shitty acting, laughable dialogue (ridiculous lines like “I’m going to knock his lungs through his ass”), and bewildering ambitions.  I have not read the source material comic nor do I want to.  So, don’t even try to justify the film by saying that it is loyal to the source comic.  A film should stand on its own.

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a nerdy New York teenager obsessed with comic books and the heroes they produce.  He begins to wonder why no one in real life has tried to become a superhero.  His theory is that, like Bruce Wayne, you don’t even need special powers.  Just a flashy suit and an enthusiasm for standing up to bad guys.  So, he purchases a green and yellow wetsuit and adopts the name Kick-Ass becoming a media phenomenon.  Along the way, he meets Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and her father Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) who have had much better luck at being superheros thanks to Big Daddy’s intense need for revenge against local crimeboss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong).

Before you accuse me (or any others who hate this film) of being a square or prude, please read my website.  It’s pretty evident that I don’t shy away from violent films.  There are some truly great ones that have been made.  Kick-Ass is not one of them.  Hit Girl is a deplorable character.  She is an 11 year old girl who brutally and almost gleefully eviscerates her opponents.  In fact, she kills some people that aren’t even armed and are guilty, I guess, by association.  She also has a mouth that would make a union organizer blush.  Hit Girl uses every profanity imaginable.  And I mean every one. She uses words that you can go through other R-rated films without ever hearing.  But even her profanity doesn’t ring as true.  There is no cadence or frequency in her profanity to make you think it’s her normal speech.  She seems to use every major curse word only once.  It is simply a gimmick, and you get the sense that the screenwriter really gets off on the fact that a little girl is cursing and is showboating.

And this is the problem…if Kick-Ass were meant to be satire, it would make sense.  But it’s, not.  Satire, to me, is exaggeration with a purpose.  The violence and profanity in Kick-Ass are definitely exaggerated.  But to what end?  They are certainly not satirizing anything because this is a film that is rejoicing in the genre…in love with it in the sense that a man might have a sick obsession with an underage neighborhood girl down the street.  When bad guys were getting mowed down, the moviegoers I were with began laughing, applauding, and hooting like mentally deranged baboons attempting to entice a mate.  That is not satire what your film elicits that kind of reaction.

Dave Lizewski is a likable enough character when we first meet him.  After he meets Hit Girl, however, he begins to become more violent and quickly becomes a douchebag…to me anyway.  He also gets involved in yet another ridiculous subplot when a girl he likes in school thinks he’s gay, so he has to go along with it to be closer to her.  *yaaaaaawn*  Another eye-rolling character is Christopher Mintz-Plasse as D’Amico’s son Chris.  Chris wants to get into a life of crime like his father and because he is also a comic book geek, he adopts the persona of Red Mist to help his dad find out the whereabouts of Big Daddy and Hit Girl.  The film sets up Red Mist to become the main villain of the inevitable sequel.  Good luck with that.  Mintz-Plasse is a terrible actor.  He was enjoyable in Superbad and Role Models but is playing the same character here.  We are supposed to just accept his capacity for evil when he is laughably awful at it (and not intentionally).  McLovin as a villain.  O…k.

Kick-Ass uses a troubling technique that I’ve noticed over the last few years - CGI blood.  I am shocked at this direction the industry is going.  Since when did using blood squibs become so expensive?  You cannot convince me that a film’s budget cannot allow for them.  Nothing ruins an action film for me quicker than seeing this.  Now, if the CGI blood is done effectively to where you can’t tell, fine.  But, I have yet to see a film accomplish this.  In this age of computer graphics and 3-D, give us something that’s real.  Use blood squibs or air compressors or something!  Give us visual effects, not special effects for our blood!

One of the only things saving Kick-Ass from being rated a bomb is the opening two minutes (which you can see most of at the beginning of the trailer below).  It is a twisted but truly funny opening.  In fact, it’s one of the funniest openings you’ll ever see for a superhero film.  Or possibly any movie.  Then, there is another darkly comic sequence involving Big Daddy shooting Hit Girl to get her used to taking a bullet with a Kevlar vest on. The rest of the film is a truly disturbing experience.  I considering walking out of it, but I was so shocked at how bad it was that I wanted to see where it was going.  And where did it go?  Straight into the toilet of bullshit cinema that tries to pass itself off as art and really pisses me off.

The news a couple of weeks ago that ABC’s long running movie review show “At the Movies” was canceled was not a surprise but certainly does mark the closing of a chapter in film criticism. Of course, the show was made popular by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, maybe the two best film critics to ever hold that position. Certainly, they were key in shaping the landscape of film criticism. The show has tried other pairings since Siskel died and Ebert was forced to leave due to his battle with cancer.

Currently, Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott run the show. Were they bad hosts? Actually, no. I was probably one of three people on the planet still watching them. But, I believe the low ratings were for 2 reasons. One, Disney-ABC Domestic TV had no idea what they were doing with the show. They jettisoned the thumbs ratings and implemented a new scale of “See It”, “Rent It”, or “Skip It”. Huh? I felt bad for Phillips and Scott watching them awkwardly give these stupid ratings. I won’t even get into the two Bens.

But, I think the most obvious reason is the raging popularity of online media. Newspapers across the country are letting film reviewers go at record paces. Richard Roeper now has his own site complete with video reviews. Hundreds if not thousands of regular Joes have started their own film sites and/or podcasts. Some succeed. Most fail. But the online review business in general is huge. I’ve read many articles where “experts” say that film criticism is dying. It certainly doesn’t look that way to me. New sites continue to spring up. Ask any ten people what their favorite review sites are, and you’ll get ten different answers. Matty Robinson of Filmspotting suggests that, if anything, film reviewers are more essential now than ever for the very reason that so much film is now so readily available.

Think about it…were you like me and grew up watching At the Movies seeing previews of obscure films that you knew would never come to your local theater? Now, just about anything committed to celluloid is available thanks to Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, etc. So, we find ourselves in an age where an enormous menu is suddenly available. So how does the average moviegoer know what’s worth watching? That’s where sites such as this one come in.

This site is going through some changes as I continue to strive to get new content up. I love talking about film and helping you find your way through this vast frontier of movies at your fingertips.  It is a real joy for me to highlight a film (be it in theaters currently or years old on DVD) and have someone discover something they love that they never knew existed.

Look for more posts in the future about how this site is changing. This site is not just a forum for my voice. “We” includes you. Be a part of this changing landscape!