Genre Hierarchy and Film Criticism
Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 1:17 pm
While thoroughly enjoying Pineapple Express last night, I was having a bit of a conflict in my mind. Express is a very well crafted film, seriously contending with the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in terms of quality comedies being made in the past five years.
So why do I feel more apprehensive to heap the praise onto Pineapple Express that I know it deserves?
Simple: It's a marijuana comedy. If anything, movies like How High and Strange Wilderness have taught us that this genre is supposed to be the lowest of the low. Even the best movies of the genre, such as the first Friday movie, would never be considered to be Oscar-worthy.
But if there were an Oscar for Best Action Sequences, which there isn't, the final 20 minutes or so of Pineapple Express would be deserving of the nod. Realistically, the award would end up going to The Dark Knight, not because it has better fight sequences (in fact, the fight sequences were easily Dark Knight's weakest point), but because it makes more sense for an action movie to win Best Action Sequences than a marijuana comedy, and The Dark Knight was the most acclaimed action movie of the summer.
I could go on about how there was no way in hell that The Departed should've won that Best Editing award, but that would be beside the point.
I sincerely believe that Kill Bill is one of the best films of the past decade, not only in terms of entertainment value, but craftsmanship and artistic value, also. The epic battle in the House of Blue leaves is quite possibly one of the greatest sequences ever filmed, the musical queues are placed perfectly, the long takes in Vol. 2 are up to the level of Sergio Leone's... I could go on. But the fact is, Kill Bill will never appear on any lists of many well respected film critics. Why? Because it's a Kung Fu Samurai Spaghetti Western Revenge flick.
Meanwhile, a film like Capote, a biopic which boasts an excellent performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman but is otherwise stylistically only competent, receives far more acclaim, simply due to the fact that the genre hierarchy tells us that biopics have more artistic merit than Kung Fu Samurai Spaghetti Western flicks.
Roger Ebert admits to criticizing within the genre hierarchy in his review of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: "Looking up my old review, I see I described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a "spaghetti Western" and so could not be art."
I'm not really sure how to end this rant in a professional manner, so I'm just going to end it abruptly with a question. Any thoughts?
So why do I feel more apprehensive to heap the praise onto Pineapple Express that I know it deserves?
Simple: It's a marijuana comedy. If anything, movies like How High and Strange Wilderness have taught us that this genre is supposed to be the lowest of the low. Even the best movies of the genre, such as the first Friday movie, would never be considered to be Oscar-worthy.
But if there were an Oscar for Best Action Sequences, which there isn't, the final 20 minutes or so of Pineapple Express would be deserving of the nod. Realistically, the award would end up going to The Dark Knight, not because it has better fight sequences (in fact, the fight sequences were easily Dark Knight's weakest point), but because it makes more sense for an action movie to win Best Action Sequences than a marijuana comedy, and The Dark Knight was the most acclaimed action movie of the summer.
I could go on about how there was no way in hell that The Departed should've won that Best Editing award, but that would be beside the point.
I sincerely believe that Kill Bill is one of the best films of the past decade, not only in terms of entertainment value, but craftsmanship and artistic value, also. The epic battle in the House of Blue leaves is quite possibly one of the greatest sequences ever filmed, the musical queues are placed perfectly, the long takes in Vol. 2 are up to the level of Sergio Leone's... I could go on. But the fact is, Kill Bill will never appear on any lists of many well respected film critics. Why? Because it's a Kung Fu Samurai Spaghetti Western Revenge flick.
Meanwhile, a film like Capote, a biopic which boasts an excellent performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman but is otherwise stylistically only competent, receives far more acclaim, simply due to the fact that the genre hierarchy tells us that biopics have more artistic merit than Kung Fu Samurai Spaghetti Western flicks.
Roger Ebert admits to criticizing within the genre hierarchy in his review of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: "Looking up my old review, I see I described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a "spaghetti Western" and so could not be art."
I'm not really sure how to end this rant in a professional manner, so I'm just going to end it abruptly with a question. Any thoughts?