Saturday, June 24, 2023
Will James Mangold's Star Wars Film Survive Indiana Jones' Reception?
I recently discussed Disney's pattern of hiring fashionable directors to make Star Wars movies, and then discarding them when they stopped being fashionable--as with a Josh Trank, or a Patty Jenkins. After James Mangold's stock rose on the basis of a favorable response to his X-Men film Logan, and he was enlisted to helm Indiana Jones 5, Disney also announced that he would be directing a Star Wars film. However, following the decay of expectations regarding the film's reception (a Solo-like flop looks increasingly probable) I suspect that a James Mangold Star Wars film will also be a casualty--the Dawn of the Jedi project be either abandoned, or handed over to someone else who in their turn may or may not finish it as Disney-Lucasfilm goes about its business of not making Star Wars movies (at which it has succeeded brilliantly).
What Might the Reported Production Delays Mean for the MCU?
Before we go any further let us acknowledge that, whatever else anyone can say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still just about the biggest moneymaker around in Hollywood these days, creating plenty of reason for "Marvel envy" among the other major studios.
Still, the franchise's best days appear to be behind it, with Phase Four less than the sum of its often underperforming parts, and Phase Five not off to the start hoped for (with Ant-Man 3 a flop; Guardians of the Galaxy 3, if doing better, lagging its predecessors; and Captain Marvel 2 bumped from July to November to uncertain results).
Now, as if that were not enough, the movies of the next summer, and after, have been subject to delay--with Captain America 4 bumped from the first-weekend-in-May traditionally launching Marvel's more prestigious releases (like the original The Avengers) to an almost-in-the-dump-month-of-August late July date, as that weekend instead goes to the second-stringer Deadpool 3, with the subsequent releases correspondingly bumped down the road.
Moreover, all of this seems tentative given its apparent connection with the ongoing Writer's Guild of America strike that is not over yet--and whose disruptive effect may not yet be fully appreciated, especially given the film industry's already much-shaken condition (amid pandemic, inflationary and interest shocks, and now decreasing access to the hugely important Chinese market).
Granted, all this is unlikely to be fatal, of course. Still, a franchise on a downward trajectory and already facing plenty of headwinds may nonetheless suffer for it as the Marvel hit machine slows down.
Still, the franchise's best days appear to be behind it, with Phase Four less than the sum of its often underperforming parts, and Phase Five not off to the start hoped for (with Ant-Man 3 a flop; Guardians of the Galaxy 3, if doing better, lagging its predecessors; and Captain Marvel 2 bumped from July to November to uncertain results).
Now, as if that were not enough, the movies of the next summer, and after, have been subject to delay--with Captain America 4 bumped from the first-weekend-in-May traditionally launching Marvel's more prestigious releases (like the original The Avengers) to an almost-in-the-dump-month-of-August late July date, as that weekend instead goes to the second-stringer Deadpool 3, with the subsequent releases correspondingly bumped down the road.
Moreover, all of this seems tentative given its apparent connection with the ongoing Writer's Guild of America strike that is not over yet--and whose disruptive effect may not yet be fully appreciated, especially given the film industry's already much-shaken condition (amid pandemic, inflationary and interest shocks, and now decreasing access to the hugely important Chinese market).
Granted, all this is unlikely to be fatal, of course. Still, a franchise on a downward trajectory and already facing plenty of headwinds may nonetheless suffer for it as the Marvel hit machine slows down.
The "Aspiring Author"
The phrase "aspiring author" is much used--and like a great many much-used phrases, unhelpfully vague.
Putting it bluntly, at what point does the "aspiring" author come to be recognized as a just plain "author?"
Admittedly there are professional organizations that have criteria for membership that imply a particular bar of achievement for no longer being seen as "aspiring," but often these are debatable, precisely because they emerged in another time--like back when people could eke out a marginal living selling short stories. Today, for all practical purposes, a very successful short story writer--even a novelist--would still be only aspiring from the standpoint of trying to make a living at what they do.
Putting it bluntly, at what point does the "aspiring" author come to be recognized as a just plain "author?"
Admittedly there are professional organizations that have criteria for membership that imply a particular bar of achievement for no longer being seen as "aspiring," but often these are debatable, precisely because they emerged in another time--like back when people could eke out a marginal living selling short stories. Today, for all practical purposes, a very successful short story writer--even a novelist--would still be only aspiring from the standpoint of trying to make a living at what they do.
On "Falsehoods"
Few things are more alien to the mentality of those who staff the upper tiers of the mainstream of our media as equality, few things more ingrained than deference to elites.
The use of the word "falsehood" has long seemed to me emblematic of that.
An "ordinary" person's false statement would be flatly called a lie. It might even be called a "[expletive deleted] lie." And as a speaker of such they would be regarded as a "liar."
However, a person in a position of power is considered by them to have spoken a "falsehood," not a "lie," and to be no more than a person who uttered such, rather than anything so low as a "liar."
It is a truly pathetic display of servility indeed.
The use of the word "falsehood" has long seemed to me emblematic of that.
An "ordinary" person's false statement would be flatly called a lie. It might even be called a "[expletive deleted] lie." And as a speaker of such they would be regarded as a "liar."
However, a person in a position of power is considered by them to have spoken a "falsehood," not a "lie," and to be no more than a person who uttered such, rather than anything so low as a "liar."
It is a truly pathetic display of servility indeed.
Of "Armchair Movie Executives": Further Thoughts
Recently taking up the topic of the "armchair movie executive" my focus was on the ways in which, apart from the relevant information having become much more widely available, the way movies are made and promoted ceaselessly encourages those with any such inclinations to think about that information in a quasi-movie executive-like way. (Indeed, I was struck by how the New Yorker's recent epic-length recounting of the Marvel Cinematic Universe basically asked us to be in awe of what was in the end a marketing achievement rather than an artistic one.)
However, it also seems to me that this is partly motivated by the way that those interested in the subject may not be entirely satisfied with the ways that the "pros" to whom those whining about the "armchair executives" would like to see the job left. The fact that the entertainment press is basically a pack of claqueurs (and the ways in which Hollywood has so consistently disappointed or annoyed the public) means that there is plenty of room for other views--which they express themselves, and which find an audience.
However, it also seems to me that this is partly motivated by the way that those interested in the subject may not be entirely satisfied with the ways that the "pros" to whom those whining about the "armchair executives" would like to see the job left. The fact that the entertainment press is basically a pack of claqueurs (and the ways in which Hollywood has so consistently disappointed or annoyed the public) means that there is plenty of room for other views--which they express themselves, and which find an audience.
Is the Reason Streaming Shows Don't Make it into the "Zeitgeist" That Nothing Does?
Quentin Tarantino recently remarked that streaming content fails to make it into the "zeitgeist."
I don't think he's wrong about that.
But that still leaves the question of why that is the case.
My first thought was that it is because there are so many streaming services dividing up the market between them. But some streaming services really are used by really large proportions of the country. We are told that 62 percent of American households subscribe to Netflix. A significant majority of the country, that is a bigger subscriber base than HBO has--which has so often seen its shows acquire "zeitgeist" status, as revealed not just by older hits like The Sopranos and Sex and the City and Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones.
But then the newest of those shows, Thrones, made its debut over a decade ago--even before Netflix got heavily into the production of original content, whereas more recent shows have had less traction that way. We are endlessly told by entertainment writers euphoric over Euphoria the way they sang The Sopranos that it draws massive audiences--but does it really have that kind of zeitgeist status? They say that it does, but it seems to me that whereas I remember getting positively sick of hearing about HBO hits of the past wherever I turned it seems that, apart from the entertainment press' ravings about these things, I can forget that it exists at all in a way that seemed impossible with talk about THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS blaring at us from every direction all day.
That being the case the issue seems something else--not that streaming services are chopping up the market so that very few people are watching any one thing, but that even when a lot of them are watching something the rest of us are able to ignore the fact as we go about our lives, pop culture too crowded and fragmented for any really recent thing, even when successful, to impose itself on our attention in the same way.
At least, when we get older and stop pretending that we care about following this stuff along anymore so that we no longer need go very far out of our way.
I don't think he's wrong about that.
But that still leaves the question of why that is the case.
My first thought was that it is because there are so many streaming services dividing up the market between them. But some streaming services really are used by really large proportions of the country. We are told that 62 percent of American households subscribe to Netflix. A significant majority of the country, that is a bigger subscriber base than HBO has--which has so often seen its shows acquire "zeitgeist" status, as revealed not just by older hits like The Sopranos and Sex and the City and Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones.
But then the newest of those shows, Thrones, made its debut over a decade ago--even before Netflix got heavily into the production of original content, whereas more recent shows have had less traction that way. We are endlessly told by entertainment writers euphoric over Euphoria the way they sang The Sopranos that it draws massive audiences--but does it really have that kind of zeitgeist status? They say that it does, but it seems to me that whereas I remember getting positively sick of hearing about HBO hits of the past wherever I turned it seems that, apart from the entertainment press' ravings about these things, I can forget that it exists at all in a way that seemed impossible with talk about THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS THE SOPRANOS blaring at us from every direction all day.
That being the case the issue seems something else--not that streaming services are chopping up the market so that very few people are watching any one thing, but that even when a lot of them are watching something the rest of us are able to ignore the fact as we go about our lives, pop culture too crowded and fragmented for any really recent thing, even when successful, to impose itself on our attention in the same way.
At least, when we get older and stop pretending that we care about following this stuff along anymore so that we no longer need go very far out of our way.
Quentin Tarantino's Recent Deadline Interview
The Hollywood news site Deadline recently published a two-part interview with Quentin Tarantino--dealing with, among much else, his experience with attempting to film a version of Casino Royale back in the '90s, his thoughts on the age of streaming, and his plans for his next, tenth and (he has long declared) last, film, The Movie Critic.
I will have more to say about this in upcoming posts--but perhaps what was most striking was, arguably, how Tarantino, who in many ways epitomized and represented the '90s indie film scene that was supposed to be the "cool new thing," bringing a measure of vibrancy to the recorporatized, stultified and stultifying post-New Hollywood Hollywood, sixty years old now, is now the old man longingly looking backward as the world changes and giving the impression that it has passed him by as he talks about the theatrical experience, and the ephemeral, never-making-it-into-the-zeitgeist character of streaming content.
I will have more to say about this in upcoming posts--but perhaps what was most striking was, arguably, how Tarantino, who in many ways epitomized and represented the '90s indie film scene that was supposed to be the "cool new thing," bringing a measure of vibrancy to the recorporatized, stultified and stultifying post-New Hollywood Hollywood, sixty years old now, is now the old man longingly looking backward as the world changes and giving the impression that it has passed him by as he talks about the theatrical experience, and the ephemeral, never-making-it-into-the-zeitgeist character of streaming content.
Gladiator 2? Seriously?
The original Gladiator was a visual marvel, while being absolutely silly stuff from the standpoint of history. (Its plot was more like alternate history, and clumsily wrought alternate history at that, while it made Roman politics look like the spectacles of the WWE so in vogue about the time of the film's making.)
The result is that despite gestures in the direction of Anthony Mann-like historical epic it worked mainly as an action movie, and at that an '80s-style "You killed my favorite second cousin" action movie (betrayed super-soldier goes for revenge) with the novelty of a period setting--and its story wrapped up tidily at the end.
Especially as other such films having comparable success seems a long shot (thus did the attempts at imitation peter out fairly quickly in the early '00s), there seems no good reason to revisit it--especially a quarter of a century on when enthusiasm for any such idea must have declined, as the American public grew only more reserved toward period pieces.
But revisit it is what they are doing--the movie not only greenlit but actually in production.
My expectation is that extending an already silly narrative will produce something sillier still--all as few of the public show up, and the Hollywood Suits whose courtiers in the press ceaselessly talk them up to the general public as the "smartest guys in the room" will put another gaping hole in their studio's books.
The result is that despite gestures in the direction of Anthony Mann-like historical epic it worked mainly as an action movie, and at that an '80s-style "You killed my favorite second cousin" action movie (betrayed super-soldier goes for revenge) with the novelty of a period setting--and its story wrapped up tidily at the end.
Especially as other such films having comparable success seems a long shot (thus did the attempts at imitation peter out fairly quickly in the early '00s), there seems no good reason to revisit it--especially a quarter of a century on when enthusiasm for any such idea must have declined, as the American public grew only more reserved toward period pieces.
But revisit it is what they are doing--the movie not only greenlit but actually in production.
My expectation is that extending an already silly narrative will produce something sillier still--all as few of the public show up, and the Hollywood Suits whose courtiers in the press ceaselessly talk them up to the general public as the "smartest guys in the room" will put another gaping hole in their studio's books.
The Flow of Time on TV (The Supposed "Realism" of Friday Night Lights)
It is a truism that the characters we see on TV tend to be far more affluent than the overall audience--the "First World," "middle-class" viewers of the shows only able to fantasize about having such homes and clothes and disposable income as those they see on the screen.
Those characters also tend to have much more disposable time on their hands.
Of course, this can seem a narrative convenience. People who don't have so much time are less likely to be able to have a wacky adventure or piece of melodrama every week.
Still, it can get ridiculous, with one case that has always seemed to me especially glaring Friday Night Lights--what I saw of it in reruns, anyway. This was in part because the "sell" here was so strongly based on its "realism," which such devices as the "shaky cam" were supposed to consider.
Think, for a moment, about the football players. In real life an intelligent, dedicated and energetic high school student has their hands quite full just keeping up decent grades while putting the hours into their sport. But we were constantly given the impression that this "realistic" show's football players were all, or if they weren't could be if they cared to be, honors students and state champions, all while putting in long hours on part-time jobs, and coping with levels of family melodrama that drive adults to nervous breakdown, while having immense amounts of time for hobbies, girlfriends, and "hanging with their buds" for endless hours in a bar (guess they don't "card" in this time), all without anyone ever apparently suffering from exhaustion.
Yet no one has ever remarked all this in the slightest.
Some grasp of reality, that, on the part of those who called it "realistic."
Those characters also tend to have much more disposable time on their hands.
Of course, this can seem a narrative convenience. People who don't have so much time are less likely to be able to have a wacky adventure or piece of melodrama every week.
Still, it can get ridiculous, with one case that has always seemed to me especially glaring Friday Night Lights--what I saw of it in reruns, anyway. This was in part because the "sell" here was so strongly based on its "realism," which such devices as the "shaky cam" were supposed to consider.
Think, for a moment, about the football players. In real life an intelligent, dedicated and energetic high school student has their hands quite full just keeping up decent grades while putting the hours into their sport. But we were constantly given the impression that this "realistic" show's football players were all, or if they weren't could be if they cared to be, honors students and state champions, all while putting in long hours on part-time jobs, and coping with levels of family melodrama that drive adults to nervous breakdown, while having immense amounts of time for hobbies, girlfriends, and "hanging with their buds" for endless hours in a bar (guess they don't "card" in this time), all without anyone ever apparently suffering from exhaustion.
Yet no one has ever remarked all this in the slightest.
Some grasp of reality, that, on the part of those who called it "realistic."
AI and the Artists
It was a cliché of science fiction that a high-tech world of advanced automation would see the inhabitants relieved of drudgery, and free to pursue what calling truly attracted them--a scenario that for many doubtless looked attractive, with one possibility a world where a very large number of people were artists of some type or other. (Certainly those kept from their genuine vocations by the inability to make enough money at them seem to have expected, or hoped for, something of the kind.)
However, it looks as if artists--a group which has, on the whole, not done very well out of an era in which science triumphed over letters, and engineering over artisanship--are going to see even less opportunity to be an artist as a result of automation. Already we are hearing of the Chinese video game industry dispensing with its artists in favor of AI-generated art, with artists who had recently been making a fairly good living at their craft finding demand for their work collapse as they are reduced to providing "small fixes, like tweaking the lighting and skewed body parts" in AI-generated art for a small fraction of their prior income.
What is already happening to artists in China is unlikely to be confined to China--while I would imagine that generators of words are even more vulnerable to displacement than generators of images, with one reflection the way the matter has entered into the big WGA strike out in Hollywood.
Considering this those whose intellectual bent is Luddite are likely to simply feel that "technology" has, once again, played humans a dirty trick. However, those who know better--who know that, contrary to Margaret Thatcher, there is such a thing as society--recognize a more complex reality, one where technological change, for all its potentials, has not been about liberating humans from drudgery or anything else but serving the needs of the powerful, as by cutting their wage bills, which is, of course, something that replacing an artist with an app does.
The situation bespeaks alongside this not only the successes of artificial intelligence research, but its failures. AI researchers have long struggled to develop systems which can cope with the demands of "perception and manipulation," and "finger" and "manual" dexterity--struggled so ineffectively for so long that their progress has been outstripped by efforts in other areas, like those at which the chatbots seem to excel, such that rather than automation's relieving humans of the drudge works frees humans to be artists, our art-making will be automated as humans go on enduring the drudgery required to keep the world running.
However, it looks as if artists--a group which has, on the whole, not done very well out of an era in which science triumphed over letters, and engineering over artisanship--are going to see even less opportunity to be an artist as a result of automation. Already we are hearing of the Chinese video game industry dispensing with its artists in favor of AI-generated art, with artists who had recently been making a fairly good living at their craft finding demand for their work collapse as they are reduced to providing "small fixes, like tweaking the lighting and skewed body parts" in AI-generated art for a small fraction of their prior income.
What is already happening to artists in China is unlikely to be confined to China--while I would imagine that generators of words are even more vulnerable to displacement than generators of images, with one reflection the way the matter has entered into the big WGA strike out in Hollywood.
Considering this those whose intellectual bent is Luddite are likely to simply feel that "technology" has, once again, played humans a dirty trick. However, those who know better--who know that, contrary to Margaret Thatcher, there is such a thing as society--recognize a more complex reality, one where technological change, for all its potentials, has not been about liberating humans from drudgery or anything else but serving the needs of the powerful, as by cutting their wage bills, which is, of course, something that replacing an artist with an app does.
The situation bespeaks alongside this not only the successes of artificial intelligence research, but its failures. AI researchers have long struggled to develop systems which can cope with the demands of "perception and manipulation," and "finger" and "manual" dexterity--struggled so ineffectively for so long that their progress has been outstripped by efforts in other areas, like those at which the chatbots seem to excel, such that rather than automation's relieving humans of the drudge works frees humans to be artists, our art-making will be automated as humans go on enduring the drudgery required to keep the world running.
The Relevance of the Novel to Our Thinking About Society
One doesn't see that anymore.
One reason may well be that social scientists, just like everyone else, read less fiction, which would mean that even if they did read more fiction it would be less useful as a point of reference as they tried to explain themselves.
However, while this seems to me very plausible it is also the case that contemporary fiction is a good deal less useful for such purposes than it used to be. The industry's extreme turn to escapist genre work without any interest in the lives of almost everyone on the planet; and the postmodernist dominance of the remainder, including what most call "literature" today; mean that there is unlikely to be any sociological substance or interest in what they produce--or the heads of its writers, as an examination of the sad and sorry work of the most celebrated of them goes to show.
On "Failure," Again
Recently considering the words "success" and "failure" I remarked the logic underlying the use of the words. This is a matter not just of respect for the outcomes allotted by "the system" and by extension society (as Daniel Bell put it in his classic of centrist thought, The End of Ideology, society is in the end nothing but "an organized system for the distribution of rewards and privileges"), but sanctification of those outcomes. Thus are those who have been given a great deal of reward and privilege glorified, with the more the case in as those who have not been so gifted are not only put on the wrong end of an invidious comparison, but pointedly insulted and humiliated.
In the process they underline that they deserve what they get, and get what they deserve, such that they have no right to complain, and no claim on anyone else's attention or sympathy.
Some practice, that.
In the process they underline that they deserve what they get, and get what they deserve, such that they have no right to complain, and no claim on anyone else's attention or sympathy.
Some practice, that.
The Movies of 2024 (What We Know So Far)
The recent announcement that the whole slate of upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe films will be subject to significant delay had me checking out the releases presently scheduled for 2024--which was even more appalling than I expected, especially when considering the higher-profile releases. A sequel to 1996's Twister? (How many people even remember the original now?) A Lion King prequel being compared to Godfather II? Transformers One (because that franchise didn't have enough numerical confusion as it was) and Gladiator 2 (really, who asked for this?) and, someone clearly not having got the memo about the poor chances of adaptations of TV shows from yesteryear in today's market, a big-screen version of The Fall Guy?
I fear that by the time we see the full list it will be even worse than all this portends.
But I'm sure we can count on the media claqueurs to do as they are instructed and talk up the freight train of garbage headed out way as they assure us that the Hollywood Suits are all both lovers of cinema, and geniuses at what they do.
I fear that by the time we see the full list it will be even worse than all this portends.
But I'm sure we can count on the media claqueurs to do as they are instructed and talk up the freight train of garbage headed out way as they assure us that the Hollywood Suits are all both lovers of cinema, and geniuses at what they do.
On "Success" and "Failure"
"Success" is a rather relativistic term. One can only speak of success--and its opposite, failure--in relation to some object.
Yet told that someone is "successful" at something people do not ask "Successful at what?" Rather it is taken for granted that the object is individual socioeconomic advancement, with success at that game the attainment of some given level of income and position.
There is a lot to unpack here. There is the implicit assumption that individual socioeconomic advancement is the sole proper focus of a person's endeavor--that anyone who has other priorities is behaving aberrantly. Also implicit is the idea that an individual's outcomes in this area reflect on themselves as a person--that one's choices and efforts are what make for success or its lack, all this mattering far, far more than background or chance, or for that matter, scruples or the lack thereof; that this makes the pursuit of success a "tough" but essentially fair game. Indeed, this is so much the case that those who are not "successful" are dismissed as, sneered at, as failures, without a second thought given to the cruelty involved in that.
The result is that the language of "success" and "failure" that pervades our culture is ultimately an ultra-conformist expectation that the world is some big meritocracy that rewards people according to their desserts, with those not doing so well as they would like not worth bothering about, and every utterance of these words and their derivatives in the sense discussed here reinforcing the deep roots all this has in contemporary speech, thought, feeling and action.
Yet told that someone is "successful" at something people do not ask "Successful at what?" Rather it is taken for granted that the object is individual socioeconomic advancement, with success at that game the attainment of some given level of income and position.
There is a lot to unpack here. There is the implicit assumption that individual socioeconomic advancement is the sole proper focus of a person's endeavor--that anyone who has other priorities is behaving aberrantly. Also implicit is the idea that an individual's outcomes in this area reflect on themselves as a person--that one's choices and efforts are what make for success or its lack, all this mattering far, far more than background or chance, or for that matter, scruples or the lack thereof; that this makes the pursuit of success a "tough" but essentially fair game. Indeed, this is so much the case that those who are not "successful" are dismissed as, sneered at, as failures, without a second thought given to the cruelty involved in that.
The result is that the language of "success" and "failure" that pervades our culture is ultimately an ultra-conformist expectation that the world is some big meritocracy that rewards people according to their desserts, with those not doing so well as they would like not worth bothering about, and every utterance of these words and their derivatives in the sense discussed here reinforcing the deep roots all this has in contemporary speech, thought, feeling and action.
Is the English Major in Decline Because Young People Less Often Aspire to Become Writers?
My thought was that it was because they read for pleasure, and had opportunities to get to like reading, and writing, and even aspire to do that professionally--and that one of the problems the STEM field had was fewer opportunities for young people to get to enjoy numbers the same way. Thus math ends up something they just do for school, and unsurprisingly few develop any deep attraction to it.
Now (I did say this was changing) one sees fewer young people pursuing English degrees--plausibly because they may have been put off of them by increasingly dire warnings about an increasingly dire economy, but also because in the age of the smart phone fewer had those pleasurable experiences with reading and writing that may drive them to try and become a writer, and maybe fall back on teaching, as they went about that.
From the standpoint of gaining a living income they may well be better off for this. But it does bespeak developments that are less than happy intellectually and culturally.
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