how to win an oscar, aka why i didn’t like ’12 years a slave’

jenn and i just watched 12 years a slave the other day. i know i’m 3 years late to the party but that’s beside the point. what i want to say is that it’s a crazy, nightmarish story and it’s hard to believe that such atrocities were ever widely accepted here. it’s eye-opening stuff.

but i think the film itself sucked. not because some of the acting was garbage, and not because i got really tired of the overuse of super long, largely static, ‘this is going to disturb you’ shots, but because the film took an extremely serious, weighty story and turned it into a one-dimensional, easy to market, typical hollywood story.

how does one make a one-dimensional, easy to market, typical hollywood story?

1. establish main character as strong, faultless, morally sound, devout family man/woman in a simple but pleasant living situation.
2. inflict cruel injustices upon main character, eg kill their family, separate them from their family, convict them of a crime they didn’t commit, enslave them, etc.
3. tempt main character to break their strong moral code but have them rise above the temptation and continue on with their dignity and values still intact, head held high.
4. allow main character some kind of quiet or proud redemption.

ta daaaa, that’s it. now flesh it out with some details and sit back and rake in the phony awards for your mantelpiece.

you know you’ve made a tawdry piece of shit when a bunch of professional critics are falling over themselves to suck your dick.

12 years a slave hits on all those things i just listed. so does gladiator. so does braveheart. and guess what, they won a bunch of academy awards too. so it’s no surprise that soulless film makers keep coming back to a formula that is proven to illicit tears and make people proclaim it “the best movie of the year.” why make something original when you can make something successful?

needless to say, that formula is hollywood cookie cutter shit, fairy tale shit. real people aren’t flawless heroes or perversely evil villains. real people are somewhere between those extremes. but if you want an old-fashioned hollywood tearjerker you need to simplify characters into good/evil, right/wrong terms so that it’s really easy to root for one person to win, and the other to lose — no shades of grey, nothing that might confuse the bovine audience.

for example, 12 years a slave implied that northup was steadfastly devout to his wife the whole time he was enslaved. i think that’s absurd. even if he personally maintained it was the truth, i wouldn’t believe him. i think that in 12 years, trapped in a world where sex would be one of the very few pleasures you could attain, i would bet my balls that 99.9% of even the most morally sound people would end up fucking a few other people. suggesting northup was some kind of moral superman who never even considered something like that was just plain dumb to me. but that’s what the dummies want to see — the perfect man.

the other characters were similarly bone simple. edwin epps was cruel and evil without a good bone in his body. samuel bass (the little we saw of him anyway) was confident and virtuous. well, that certainly makes it easy to tell who to cheer for.

fuck off. disney-style villains and heroes in a story based on real, horrific events. that’s insulting. it carefully, intentionally turns a true travesty into a marketable product that fits the tried and true formula. i don’t like that.

but shit, thinking about it now, that sums up an awful lot of big, ‘loosely based on historical event’ films.

oh well. i don’t like them either.

stephen king fucked up: the 1997 remake of the shining is a piece of shit and everyone who says otherwise is a delusional idiot

Disclaimer: I wrote this post a long time ago, when I used to get a kick out of being a bit edgier, more offensive. It’s not my style now, but I also don’t yet feel the need to edit the tone of this post. Instead, I think giving it this “if I offend you, I hope you can turn the other cheek” disclaimer suffices. Thanks in advance.

***

dana and i just finished watching stephen king’s 1997 remake of the shining. i say with absolutely no irony or exaggeration that it was a foul fucking piece of shit in every way possible.

what were we thinking? we were curious, mainly. we knew it would probably be pretty bad, like most film adaptations of king’s books, but we wanted to see exactly what king had envisioned, what he wanted to do differently from kubrick and his classic 1980 version film, what king thought he could do better.

nothing was better. everything was worse. it was so laughably cheap and terrible, from the start to the finish…4 and 1/2 hours later. yep, king’s piece of crap is an epic piece of crap.

here’s what was so fucking awful i had to blog about it.

that mouth. yuck.

• all the actors sucked. the guy from wings, the kid with the gross and horribly distracting weirdly-shaped mouth, the black guy, the hotel ghosts…all d-grade performances. rebecca de mornay was the only decent one.

• weird, super bright colours. everything in the film had this strange look, like it was fake, because all the colours were so bright. sort of like when you could turn the contrast up so far on old tv’s that the colours would start to bleed into each other and distort. they were almost that bright, and it looked stupid.

• CHEAP special effects. the CGI was god awful but what was even worse was the non-CGI stuff, like when jack is being stalked by the hedge animals. it just goes back and forth between shots of jack panicking and still-shots of hedge animals with some bear and lion growls added in. no joke. my pal rid saw this on tv when he was like 10 and said he thought it was stupid even back then.

yikes. the scariest things here are the production values.

• the evil ghosts are inept. at the end of the movie, both jack AND the ghosts have forgotten to release the pressure on the boiler. give me a break. oh no, that means the ghost’s precious home is about to be blown up! so the ghosts get upset and start squabbling and try to open the pressure relief valve themselves, but they can’t! because they’re ghosts and their hands go right through the valve handle!! what a fucking joke. bumbling ghosts aren’t scary.

• a croquet mallet instead of an axe? jack’s weapon of choice throughout the movie is a croquet mallet, not an axe like in the kubrick film. i haven’t read the book (i tried years ago but quit because it came off like it was written for 12-yr old kids) but the croquet mallet is certainly a lot less menacing. it’s even comical, stupid-looking.

• “pup.” again, i don’t know if this was in the book or if it was changed for the sake of making a PG tv miniseries but it doesn’t really matter because no matter what, when the wings guy is supposed to be really fired up and angry at his son and shouts half-heartedly that he’s a “young pup,” it just sounds stupid. maybe a real actor could pull off a convincing delivery of that line but this guy didn’t.

• shitty ‘scary’ lighting. everything that is supposed to be scary in this piece of crap automatically gets a green light bulb placed over it. it reminds me of shitty haunted houses where they make you put your hand in bowls of spaghetti noodles and peeled grapes and say, “these are brains, and these are eyeballs.” fuck off. only 5-yr olds might think green lights are creepy. you can see an example of the scary green light in the pic above.

• super, super corny happy ending. i hate super happy endings, especially in movies that are scary or disturbing since it totally ruins the bad feelings you’ve been building up for the last hour and a half, but it’s sort of fitting here — the childishly scary show gets a childishly happy ending. and the whole “kissin’, kissin’, that’s what i’ve been missin'” recurring line is fucking gross and annoying. what a perfectly dreadful way to end a perfectly dreadful 4.5 hr slog of a film.

for those reasons, i think the miniseries version of the shining is straight up garbage. but what makes all of this even worse is that stephen king not only likes it, but thinks it’s infinitely superior to kubrick’s version.

king is an idiot.

king doesn’t think kubrick focused enough on jack’s alcoholism and the disintegration of the family’s relationship. he thinks shelley duvall “just screamed and acted stupid” in kubrick’s version. he thinks kubrick downplayed the supernatural elements of the story and played up the psychological ones. he thinks that because kubrick himself was an atheist, he couldn’t make a film about about ghosts that was scary or believable.

king’s preferred version of the shining

that’s all asinine horseshit. i think kubrick did a fantastic job of balancing jack’s alcoholism, the disintegration of the family, and both the psychological and supernatural elements in the film. king’s problem is that he’s a ham-fisted dunce who likes his films to be like kids’ colouring books with really thick, clear lines so that even fucking dummies can understand exactly what king intended. he wants to beat you over the head with each theme. he has no understanding of subtlety, tastefulness, balance, etc. and please, before you leave a comment about how i just need to read the book, let me say that i tried to read it twice but quit both times because i couldn’t stomach how childish it was. it read like one of the scary campfire tales books i bought through my elementary school, like goosebumps or something like that.

as for duvall’s performance, i guess it was very different from what king had written in his book (if rebecca de mornay’s version of wendy is any indication) but i certainly don’t think she portrays wendy as simply a screaming, stupid woman. i think her character is complex and believable — she’s a loving mother and partner, submissive, terribly nervous of rocking jack’s boat (and rightfully so considering his history of alcoholism and physical abuse), but ultimately unable to allow him to destroy her and danny. i think that’s probably pretty accurate for a lot of people who are partners with abusive alcoholics. in fact, i find that more believable than du mornay’s version of wendy, letting jack act like a psycho and toss her around without ever telling him, “you’re a violent freak, danny and i are leaving.” that response would be much more consistent with du mornay’s strong, reasonable character. but king is a dummy so he missed that inconsistency.

king’s criticism that kubrick couldn’t make a scary supernatural film because he didn’t believe in scary supernatural stuff is an interesting one. it’s a neat idea and somewhat intellectual, but it’s still complete bullshit. there is TONS of scary — legitimately scary, not ‘green lightbulb’ scary — supernatural stuff in kubrick’s version of the shining: the elevators releasing torrents of blood, the weird ghost twins, the woman in room 237, the unexplained men in the bedroom (one in an animal costume)…once again, king seems discontent with kubrick’s version of scary and would prefer more goofy shit like people wearing sheets jumping out and shouting BOO. king wants stupid simple scares, and plenty of em, and loathes anything remotely cerebral or legitimately scary.

anyone who claims this scene wasn’t scary is a liar

you know, maybe the reason king claims kubrick’s version stinks and isn’t scary is actually because king finds it terrifying. maybe his pride can’t bear to admit that kubrick made something infinitely darker and more sinister than king could have, and rather than say “well done sir, you took my crappy book and made it into a fantastic film. i owe you a beer,” he prefers to act too cool and say, “nah it’s not scary. it’s not true to my original vision. he totally changed stuff. mine was better.” i honestly can’t see any other way that someone could claim the tv miniseries version is better than kubrick’s. it’s that ridiculous to me.

FURTHERMORE, some of the positive reviews for the miniseries version are absolutely jam-packed full of shit. entertainment weekly said

“There’s a deep, rich creepiness suffusing Stephen King’s The Shining that makes this miniseries the most frightening TV movie ever made.”

and variety said

“At six hours, its slowness is carefully calculated; the edge-of-your-seat creepiness unfolds with a languid believability that will rope in viewers early and hold them. This mini earns its massive length, using every minute to paint a picture of surprising emotional complexity and depth.”

FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU

these dick-sucking, uber positive reviews of something that is clearly garbage only further my belief that many professional critics are actually just writers being paid by the companies behind the film to pump it up. there is no way that anyone on earth actually feels like that about such a wretched diarrhea shit of a tv miniseries.

oh, and it got a bunch of awards too, for best makeup, best miniseries, blah blah blah. but i’ve already bitched about how awards shows are the same kind of dick-sucking industry blowhard bullshit as the above reviews.

go fuck yourself, hollywood. and stephen king. you’re all disastrous lunatics. the miniseries version of the shining eats my shit, and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

i sacrificed 4.5 hrs of my life so that others wouldn’t have to.

irreconcilable differences

i keep reading about movie and music stars and their dramatic, troubled love lives. i find it all really disheartening. it seems like every star has been married at least 3 times, engaged another 3 separate times, and has multiple kids with multiple partners.

nuff said. and yuck, btw

when i say it like that, i imagine white trash living in trailer parks. it’s crazy that i’m actually talking about some of the most revered, wealthy, and recognized people in the world. rich white trash, indeed.

maybe that’s why the poor trash live like that. maybe they’re emulating the rich and famous people they see on tv. i think more than likely though, no one is emulating anyone else. they’re all probably just equally emotionally fucked up.

i understand that a lot of hollywood marriages are supposedly pure facade, just career moves to keep their names in the public spotlight so their music and films sell better, but i believe most of them are legit. i think most of them are people really trying to find love and a life partner, and they are actually failing miserably at it. there are a few reasons i believe this.

1. a fair amount of the marriages and engagements i’m reading about are to nobodies, and marrying a nobody doesn’t help a career out.
2. i think most stars are totally out of touch with reality due to being coddled by everyone around them. if all of your friends and family were sucking your dick 24-7 in the hopes of borrowing some money from you or making it into your will or being invited on vacation with you, you would certainly be emotionally stunted by it. i think it’s rare that people can live in that world and not be affected by it, and even more rare that stars are able to control their personal lives so tightly as to not allow any leech scum into their sphere.
3. i don’t believe people are so dishonest as to have multiple sham weddings and relationships. i should believe it. i mean, i think a lot of non-stars relationships are shams too. couples that lie to and cheat on each other have sham relationships, it’s just a different shade of sham. but the idea of talking with managers about who is hot right now, who could really help catapult my name to the cover of US and people again, of spending years with a person that i don’t really care about, of having kids with that same person i don’t care about…someone would have to be a right fucked sociopath to wear that mask for so long. and as much as i hate people and believe the worst about many of us, i just don’t think many people have the diligence or work ethic to keep that up and pull it off. so i don’t think many would sign up for it in the first place. or maybe they sign up for it, realize it sucks, and that’s why they divorce so quickly? maybe the line between manufactured relationships and real life emotions gets blurred, maybe it’s only contrived as far as stars can handle it, and then reality boils to the surface and the whole thing falls to shit.

hollywood relationships are a lot like pro wrestling, actually.

whatever. regardless of why it happens, i think it’s fucked up and don’t like it. i like real life and real people.

why do stars date stars?

i don’t get it. i think most stars must realize how warped they are due to their status, like “i can’t go to the grocery store and have normal, transient interactions with other people because i’m a huge celebrity and would get mobbed. that must have a considerable effect on my social skills and how i view myself.” i can’t imagine how a star couldn’t realize that.

considering that, i think if i were a star who was aware that i was going to end up a little stunted, i would want to ground myself with lots of non-star people in my life. people who would keep me in touch with reality so that i wouldn’t go asking police “do you know my name? you’re about to find out who i am. you’re going to be on national news.” (that’s a reese witherspoon quote from when she had a run-in with police over disorderly conduct.)

give her a few drinks and even sweet little reese witherspoon can let loose her inner entitled brat. i guess deep down, she thinks it’s ok for her husband to DUI. sounds perfectly reasonable. i mean, she was in ‘legally blonde.’ who can argue with that?

i think the argument could be made that stars might need star spouses so that they always have someone who can relate to their special situations and struggles…but i don’t buy it. i think that’s like saying addicts should marry other addicts for the same reason. it’s just a bad idea. two people with the same problem are more likely to end up indulging each other, enabling and reinforcing the negative behaviours. i think stars would be better off with someone who does not have the same baggage, someone who would remind the star of what it’s like to be normal, to not be entitled, to not expect special treatment.

which kind of leads me to another point. i think it’s a good thing when couples have totally different baggage. for instance, say a person is always up for doing cool fun stuff but at the cost of putting serious priorities aside, while their partner is good at taking care of serious priorities but not very good at being spontaneous and social. i think there’s a good chance these qualities could balance each other out, and each person could learn a lot from the other; that both could become more well-rounded individuals eventually, as long as both partners are willing to admit their weaknesses and work to improve them.

look at me, i’m a fucking marriage counselor now.

patti stanger: barf-o-rama

the condo we stayed at on our vacation had full cable and jenn promptly went to town watching shows that had me in fits of rage. one such show was the abominable ‘millionaire matchmaker’, starring a troll named patti stanger. here is a pic of said troll as she appears on the show.

i knew instantly that this was some sort of mythological beast using a disguise to walk among us. so i looked up pics of her to see what she really looks like and found this.

sometimes my intuition amazes me.

now, normally i don’t sit around on my tropical vacations, looking up pictures of people i hate, but stanger really got me fired up for a few reasons. her phony ‘i’m brash and rude but i tell it like is’ approach, which is clearly just a poorly performed stage persona, is just cruel and hurtful. she emphasizes superficiality and physical attraction when she herself actually looks like your average wal-mart shopper. and, like any good wannabe diva hollywood show host phony, the focus must always be on her. never mind the people she is trying to set up, if she can find a reason to cut someone off mid-sentence to insult them, or barge in on a conversation between two people to criticize them for something inane, she will do it.

now, i understand this is tv designed for mass consumption by lowest common denominator white trash, and grizzled ol’ stanger is just being a savvy business woman by giving the pleebs what they want. but i guess i’m not ok with people acting phony, hurtful, and hypocritical for the sake of a fat paycheque.

you know what else i hate about the show? i hate grown adults acting like fucking kids, going “yaaaayyyy” and clapping their hands excitedly. stanger and her little helpers do it all the time. too bad it’s not cute or funny, no matter who does it. it’s childish as all hell, and thoroughly disingenuous. NOBODY actually reacts like that so if you see someone do it, slap them and say, “get real.” i also don’t like high-fiving very much.