Movies into Film

I never wrote for my college newspaper. I suppose if I had, I might be firmly ensconced in hackdom by now. Or maybe not. Instead, I began my publishing life with the austere journal pictured above. If you follow the link (just click on the statue) you’ll find only a storefront website. Desiring an Internet presence for my work, I came up with MoviesIntoFilm.com. This site archives the movie criticism that I’ve written for Vigilance since 2002; it also allows room for new pieces, lengthier considerations that an alt-monthly (which happens to be about many, many things besides movies) couldn’t accommodate. A few of these essays betray their Pacific Northwest origins. Rather than remove the references or, worse still, provide footnotes, I’ve inserted links to illumine said points of local color.

Neither my columns for Vigilance nor the discussions here are intended to cover everything. Seeing every movie that comes down the pike isn’t necessarily a good idea for anyone who loves the medium. It causes burnout and rots one’s judgment. If the reviewers who write for dailies weren’t obligated to sit through trash, if they were allowed to be more selective in their coverage, then I doubt we would have seen the cinematic mediocrities Far From Heaven and Lost in Translation as embarrassingly over-praised as they were. If movies in general were smarter and better, then Sofia Coppola might have received the trouncing she deserves for making a blatantly racist film that panders to middle-aged men’s fantasies of being found attractive by young and not very assertive women.

No assertiveness problems here: Grant and Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (RKO Pictures)

This site isn’t concerned with “the industry,” nor will you stumble across any obsessive patter about “box office.” There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of independently managed cinema sites on the Internet and most of them fuss and fixate over numbers as if every movie journal should compete with Variety. The cumulative effect of all these numbing recitations of statistics makes for a soulless, empty experience; it’s increasingly rare (online or in print) to find what I think most people crave: a passionate, conversant approach to evaluating a movie. The laundry list reviews that coast on plot summaries, the cheap-shot raspberries that masquerade as wit—those are of no interest to me.

Uninspired reviewing prevails in major dailies, alt-weeklies, and on the airwaves. One of my favorite examples of how not to be a movie critic was perfectly demonstrated on an NPR-affiliate show (it matters not which one) when the host asked the guest reviewer his opinion of a particular movie. “I think it’s going to bomb,” was the addled reply. The host tried another and equally unsuccessful approach to jump-start their segment: “Well, how do you think it’s going to do with the public?” Again, verbatim, with zero elaboration: “I think it’s going to bomb.” Never mind that the host couldn’t frame a lead question worth a damn (I might mention here that I worked in radio for 14 years, mostly at NPR stations, and in fact am a recovering NPR-liberal), the critic has a responsibility to be lively and alert. And thought-provoking. Can you imagine any visual arts columnist worth his or her salt saying, “I think this abstract sculpture is going to bomb”? Well, same difference.

A snowy sidewalk in Manhattan (United Artists)

No website that names itself for John Simon’s out-of-print 1971 book Movies into Film (Dial Press) can or should skirt by without a mention of Mr. Simon. His often scathing, laugh-out-loud film (and theatre and book and music) essays are enduring sources of pleasure for me. Although he and I have similar musical interests (we both admire Charles Koechlin and Toru Takemitsu), I don’t share his cinematic tastes. I would defend The Last Picture Show as a masterpiece any day over Lina Wertmüller’s Seven Beauties. For Mr. Simon, precisely the reverse holds true. His writing, which can be quite poignant, nonetheless has influenced mine. So has the style of Mr. Simon’s former sparring partner, the late Pauline Kael. And while I’m citing critics, film or otherwise, whose approaches I’ve savored, it seems right to acknowledge Dwight Macdonald, Renata Adler, Arlene Croce, Gary Giddins, Janet Maslin, E.M. Forster, and H.L. Mencken.

N.P. THOMPSON

April 2004

npt (at) moviesintofilm (dot) com

Movies into Film

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