Here’s a good article to read, Roger Ebert’s review of Blue Velvet. But it’s not his original review that they print in all his books, it’s a second (but still negative ) review that he wrote after interviewing the great David Lynch.
He doesn’t say so explicitly but it’s pretty obvious that this is his first sit down with Lynch and Ebert seems disarmed by Lynch’s own peculiar brand of being David Lynch. Of course we have the virtue of hindsight but imagine meeting David Lynch and not knowing what to expect.
Ebert is a great film reviewer but he has a natural gift of missing the point (see his review of the matrix. read that review and tell me he understood what that film was about). I understand that reasonable people can disagree about great films. No matter how great a film is it’s value is ultimately subject; I get that but after reading his two reviews I’m confident in saying that Ebert just doesn’t get this movie.
I think this second review explains a lot about Ebert’s problem with the film:
in ‘Blue Velvet,’ there are some scenes in which a woman is degraded and humiliated and made to suffer obscenely, and other scenes in which we’re supposed to giggle because the call letters of the local station are WOOD, and they give the time “at the sound of the falling tree.” Sorry, but I just couldn’t get my lips to smile.
I suppose I can see why one might confuse Blue Velvet for a spoof of some kind. Lynch approaches life from a slightly askew angle that grants even the most serious and deadpan scenario an aura of absurdity. Also there’s undeniably an element of humor to everything he does; but Lynch is the definition of sincere and he never descends into parody or mockery. What Ebert mistakes for parody is actually a very strange man’s idea of what normal people do behind closed doors.
John Campea has an interest to read but boringly named movie site called “the movie blog”. He might not know a lot about naming websites but he’s good at coming up with conversations starters.
Recently he’s created some controversy by coming out against the writers strike. Not only did he not display the “we support the writers” banner on his blog, he actually whipped up a anti writers guild banner with a big red cross-out over the writers guild, like he is to writers guilds what the ghostbusters are to ghosts.
I’m not putting up my own writers guild banner because that would imply that someone asked my opinion or gave a fuck what I think. But the point is that John is completely wrong on this.
1. John compares the writers asking for a cut on the finished to a carpenter asking for a cut every time someone sits in a chair they made. That’s cute but it’s an invalid analogy. Every business has a unique business model, and you can’t compare carpenters to writers.
2. Almost the entirety of John’s argument is that he disagrees with the residual system. That’s fine but it has nothing to do with the specifics of the strike, residuals are the way the movie business model work. If you don’t agree you’re entitled to your opinion, you might even have a good point, but that’s irrelevant to this particular strike.
This is the system they have and the writers are just looking to make their living within that system. And if the residual system were really so terrible the studio could just offer the writers a pay increase and be done with it. Frankly it’s a weird complaint from John. Since he’s not employed by the Hollywood machine what does he care about the specifics of how the revenue is distributed.
3. The writers aren’t just asking for more residuals, their point is that there are whole new avenues of revenue that didn’t exist at the time of their last negotiation. DVD sales, downloads, streaming; all these new media don’t just add to the revenue coming in, they cut into the old streams of revenue. Imagine if instead of a raise the studios gave the writers a cut of the profits from theatrical releases. Now suppose the studio’s decided the next day tat theatrical releases where a waste of time and they were going to premiere their new movies on TV. The writers would be justified in wanting to renegotiate in that particular case.
