Going to see Steven Spielberg’s movie Lincoln
Last week Rachelle and I went to see Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed new movie Lincoln. We did this after dinner, a meal that included a big piece of meat and several glasses of wine. This wasn’t good planning as the movie is two and a half hours in length, and after a spell, it feels like it’s longer. Designed to be admired more than enjoyed, Lincoln sat in front of us like a windy Baby Boomer talking about a recent vacation, real estate, golf and then politics, and soon enough Rachelle and I (we had to sit apart as the theatre was packed) began to text one another.
Me: That steak was good.
Rachelle: It was.
Me: Really glad I’m here cuz after the US election really didn’t feel like I’d had enough politics!
Rachelle: Haha!!
Me: What movie would u like to be watching right now?
Rachelle: Babe: Pig in the city.
Me: Yeah, that was good– no nudity though.
Rachelle: Babe was nude.
Me: True.
Me: I thought Lincoln might emancipate a nude slave or something.
Rachelle: Ur thinking Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
Me: Nude vampire slaves? Why r we here????
Rachelle: U still in the theatre?
Me: YES!
Rachelle: Poor, brave pickle!
Me: Where are u?
Rachelle: Walking home from the subway.
Me: Why didn’t u tell me u were leaving?!
Rachelle: U were asleep. Snoring so horribly, I was embarrassed to know u.
Me: The usher has woken up 3 people that I’ve seen, so I wasn’t alone.
Rachelle: You were probably asleep for about 20 more wake-ups!
Me: Hope Lincoln gets assassinated soon.
Rachelle: That’s not very nice, he was a great American!
Me: Lots of “acting” in this movie. Wigs everywhere.
Rachelle: It’s a nice night for a stroll, and look, I just found a five dollar bill on the street!
Me: ur a very lucky woman.
Rachelle: You make your own luck, they say!
Me: I think there’s about 45 minutes left in this movie.
Rachelle: Why don’t u just leave?
Me: Still might be some tasteful nudity.
Rachelle: U want to see Lincoln nude, don’t u!
Me: No! I’m just not leaving till the slaves are free, dammit! I care!
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Michael, why does everything you write sound so much like me? Yeah, that Babe was one hot pig *insert Pulp Fiction quotation here*
It’s spooky, Kevin, and “Naw man. I’m pretty fuckin’ far from okay.”
Michael – That’s a damn good review. I’m gonna make a hot drink and read it again.
Craig–thank you. I like to think I’m pioneering a new form of movie review. I’m a ground breaker, you know.
Michael – I’ve now read it three times! In fact, I just read it out loud to my wife Liza, after seeing that Lincoln leads all “noms” at the Golden Globes. As a lapsed movie critic, I can generally say I hate almost all Oscar-related entertainments. This time of year it’s good to see something by Tarkovsky or maybe one of Michael Snow’s early experimental works. Or: as you guys point out, Babe: Pig In The City. That’s a good choice too.
Craig–it seems that whatever age you are, the Oscar’s always seem to cater to the sensibilities of your parent’s. I don’t think I’ve ever felt in synch with their choices, now expanded to 24 nominees, or whatever the number is, in order to achieve maximum marketability. Lincoln is one such movie. I hear that Tony Kushner’s script was actually 5000 pages long, and so they extracted just this one narrow strip and made a movie of it, calling it Lincoln instead of the more appropriate, The Politics Behind the Emancipation Proclamation. It was finely crafted and you knew you were supposed to be liking it, that it was serious Hollywood, but Lord, the truth was that it was quite simply not the way you wanted to be spending 150 minutes of your life. If I were Spielberg, something I cannot imagine being, I might add, I would have made a motherfucking kissass HBO show called Lincoln taking full advantage of Kushner’s massive, sprawling script, and making a smaller, almost prequel kind of film set to launch the TV project. ( I have decided that TV is better than film–HBO versus the Academy)
Michael, Yeah, high-end TV now is ‘better’ than Hollywood, no question. I was just reading a long article in the New Yorker about Trent Reznor and (parenthetically) his having composed The Social Network score. I can’t think of a more conventional, bum-numbing experience than sitting through Fincher’s conventional telling of that tale, which, dispiritingly, earned something like 412 Oscar nominations (under the new scoring system you allude to). Of course, the critics l-o-v-e-d it. I dread the first Sunday in March, when I’m dragged to an Oscar party at a friend’s house, where most gathered assume the position of acolytes at the Spielbergian altar, while I guzzle too much wine in an effort to become insensate before they hand out the Best Supporting Actress award. Anyway, my only point here is that I loved your riff on Lincoln. It’s the kind of inventive, slightly-berserk writing that you always wish the MSM would attempt, but hardly ever do — preening, self-admiring loogans that they are.
Craig–
I will go with you to that party, and thank you for your kind words regarding my little Lincoln piece.
Movie reviews are hardly under represented, proliferating in blogs, web sites and papers across the world as if it was the highest artistic form within which one could work. What has always puzzled me is how orthodox all the reviews have remained. There is a form, and writers always seem to follow that form. At a certain point, it becomes almost pointless to try to distinguish one critic from the next ( apart from obvious and personal exceptions) and I’ve always thought that movie reviews should be highly personal and whimsical, more personal essay than an attempt at objective criticism, as there is an over-abundance of the latter.
And I will say this, much to your disgust, I imagine, but I LIKED the Social Network. As much as I hate Sorkin, I also love him, and find myself drawn into whatever he writes as if it was some cyclone of cotton candy and parades. I also liked the soundtrack. Now, let’s argue like critics!!
Michael – We have a love-hate relationship in this house with Sorkin too. My wife Liza loves him and I (kinda) hate him. I would not care to argue right now with anyone about anything, being full of egg nog and good cheer. The point is, reviews, as you say, should be personal and non-formulaic, but because journalism hitches its cart to the industrial beast, writers on most staffs are required to churn out four or five or six reviews a week, which not only deadens the writerly spirit but practically demands a ‘formula’ to guide one’s self through the thicket of constant screenings and deadlines. I’m not sure what the answer is: I just know that after five or six years on the Movie beat at the Star I was a burnt-out case, no better or worse than the rest of my retina-seared counterparts. I left seventeen years ago. With some chagrin, I note that most of the others (Bruce Kirkland, Liam Lacey, Rick Groen, Peter Howell, Brian Johnson, Geoff Pevere et al), are still at it, locked in a hamster-wheel of their own devising. Happy New Year. I have enjoyed your postings, here and on Facebook the past 12 months. I eagerly await your next New Yorker caption contest victory…