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June 08, 2006
Treading Water at the Movies with the NY Press
I have not had a lot of motivation to pick up a copy of the New York Press since its owners and advertisers ritualistically eviscerated it last year. I still slog through Armond White's reviews when I can, and I frequently pray for a better berth for Matt Zoller Seitz. That was about the extent of my last four or five months' involvement with the paper before yesterday, when Bryce Dallas Howard's blank, mannequin face somehow enticed me to grab the Press's Film Issue from the lonely, scuffed green plastic stand down the street.
And I guess I am glad I did: Jim Knipfel's recollection of his old film critic aspirations is an enjoyable enough read ("Godfrey [Cheshire] was very good at what he did, but the impression I got was that they wanted someone a little more lowbrow."), and Jennifer Merin does the best she can with her profile of the catatonia-inducing Howard and a relatively old-news survey of experimental distribution models (though she overlooks relatively conspicuous quasi-DIY schemes like Truly Indie). Elsewhere, Jerry Portwood fluffs up Amy Sedaris while Tony Dokoupil bores everybody by capitulating to Jon Voight's publicist over the issue of Brangelina.
The Press avoids its usual surfeit of house ads by asking a handful of New York Z-listers to supply their top five movies of all time (Flannel Pajamas got a vote! From a pornographer!), and John DeSio offers a mildly stirring call to action for a cinema renaissance in the Bronx. Meanwhile, you have to read allllllll the way down to the very end of Andrea Janes's essay about the grueling racket of film internships before getting to the best part: "Think about it the next time you’re trudging out the door at 7 a.m., and make sure that, wherever you’re going, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be." Amen to that.
But speaking of saving the best for last, I have got to give it up to Armond White, whose brain chemistry is calibrated just well enough this week to qualify his Prairie Home Companion rave in clear, classy English:
It’s ... a one-movie (Robert) Altman film festival. Everything here has been seen before--in Countdown, Brewster McCloud, Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, The Company, Health, Popeye, etc.--but the tone is different. It is metaphysical and elegiac. Some musical numbers match what Jonathan Demme achieved in Neil Young: Heart of Gold; the songs comment on the “drama” while the performers’ faces and composure show life’s lessons. Every Tomlin-Streep scene is a duet; their whirling medleys of regrets and ambitions become the film’s high points but are consistent with its sharp details and noble rhythm. Don’t make the mistake of calling Prairie Altman’s swan-song ... it is a preview of everyone’s.
Although I could not have said it better myself, I soon felt like I missed the old Armond. But thank God for Cars:
Pixar’s all about American product. Sure, the snub-nosed vehicles are cute, turning the screen into the largest-ever model car collection, but so what? Lasseter’s vistas of toy-car characters in a desert landscape suggest excitement for Western expansionism and 20th century ingenuity, yet teach nothing about today’s capitalist-imperialist hysteria. It’s unearned nostalgia.
Perfect! Now that is a New York Press film issue.
Posted by stvanairsdale at June 8, 2006 10:47 AM
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