Appreciation: Richard Corliss (1944-2015)

Film critic Richard Corliss, who wrote over 2500 reviews for Time magazine for 35 years, died April 24 at 71 following a stroke last week. He was the last of the major critics whose reviews I read since the 1980s.

It didn’t matter to me whether or not the movies Corliss reviewed he liked. What attracted me to his works was the way he wrote. He always knew how to make the reviews come alive, like those interactive advertisements' software wizards conjure up that can jump at you the minute you pull up a website where one immediately sees the words flash on the web page, “Get published!” that might get one to actually consider writing for a campus newspaper.

Reading Corliss’ works, along with Chicago film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and Playboy’s Bruce Williamson were what inspired me to write my own movie reviews which I have been doing since high school and still do whenever time allows today on my own blog at www.darthrant.com.

I admit it was foolish of me to believe Corliss would always be around so I can check out his review of the latest blockbuster film on either Time’s website or in the printed edition. I rarely ponder the thought of mortality where we are only here on earth for so long, if at all.

Yet upon hearing his passing, as much as I often read his columns the past three decades, I found myself not fully appreciating his writing until after he was gone. It’s the same feeling I often get upon hearing some actor, actress or musician had passed and upon looking back at their works I ask myself, why didn’t I appreciate them more when they were around.

For the first time I went to the Rotten Tomatoes movie site to get samplings of Corliss’ reviews of films I either liked or didn’t like and again, not only did the creatively colorful zingers he wrote about various movies come back to mind but I found everything he said about a number of those pictures still stands today. Some samplings:

On the controversial gangster drama, "Scarface" (1983) with Al Pacino, for example, Corliss wrote “Scarface is no fouler of mouth than Richard Pryor on a good day, and less graphic than the last three dozen splatter movies. It is a serious, often hilarious peek under the rock where nightmares strut in $800 suits and Armageddon lies around the next twist of treason. The only X this movie deserves is the one in explosive.”

I didn’t agree with his assessment of director James Cameron’s "Titanic" (1997) but I didn’t fault him for his negative opinion either when he wrote, "Tales of this film’s agonizing gestation and tardy birth, though already the stuff of legend, will mean little to moviegoers, who will pay the same $7 or $8 to see Titanic that they spend on films made for a thousandth its cost. Ultimately, Titanic will sail or sink not on its budget but on its merits as drama and spectacle. The regretful verdict here: Dead in the water."

On director David Cronenberg’s remake of "The Fly" (1986), which is on my personal list of four star films as I found it to be a clever tragic modern version of "Beauty and the Beast," I agreed with Corliss’ comment in which he called it “A gross-your-eyes-out horror movie that is also the year’s most poignant romance.”

Though Corliss didn’t comment about any of the upcoming 2015 summer blockbusters ("Avengers: Age of Ultron," the Poltergeist remake, the Mad Max/Terminator reboots) there is one line I found on the Rotten Tomatoes site that describes why I will not be seeing a majority of this summer’s movies until they go to either disc or video-on-demand come fall. That line is from what Corliss wrote about the documentary, "Jodorowsky’s Dune" (2014).

“The message to take from Jodorowsky’s Dune: movies once had brains and balls and lost them.” None of this summer’s releases have any “brains and balls” in my opinion.

“His (Corliss) reviews were authoritative but never intimidating,” wrote Time magazine’s theater critic Richard Zoglin in an online tribute. “He had an encyclopedic knowledge of film but never flaunted it. His prose was zestful and sparkling – it simply jumped off the page.”

Such are the kind of creative license like Corliss’ critiques I look for in today’s film reviews which is sorely lacking in every article I’ve read from the want-to-be movie critics at the college papers to the ones paid by newspapers and magazines in both online and print. Thanks to the Internet, anyone can be a movie critic but more than 110 percent of them can’t write worth a damn which makes film reviewing a dying art in my opinion.

Corliss apparently knew the landscape of movie reviewing was changing long before the Internet came along. In an essay he wrote in 1990 in Film Comment, Corliss wrote, “The long view of cinema aesthetics is irrelevant to a moviegoer for whom history began with ‘Star Wars’. A well-turned phrase is so much throat-clearing to a reader who wants the critic to cut to the chase: What movie is worth my two hours and six bucks this weekend? Movie criticism of the elevated sort, as practiced over the past half-century by James Agee and Manny Farber, Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, J. Hoberman and Dave Kehr — in the mainstream press and in magazines like ‘Film Comment’— is an endangered species. Once it flourished; soon it may perish, to be replaced by a consumer service that is no brains and all thumbs.”

In addition to writing for Time, Corliss, who is survived by his wife, Mary, also wrote reviews for National Review, SoHo Weekly News and New Times. He was also editor of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Film Comment magazine starting in 1970 as well as serving on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival for a number of years according to a 4/24/15 article in The Hollywood Reporter.

"Richard Corliss and his late, great friend Roger Ebert were the two great and glib (in a good way) wordsmiths among the generation of film critics and journalists who came to the fore in the late '60s,” said Todd McCarthy, chief film critic of The Hollywood Reporter. “And I stress 'journalists,' as words flowed off their keyboards as quickly and easily as if they were speaking.

Time magazine theater critic Zoglin was right when he wrote online about Corliss’ passing, “The magazine, along with all lovers of film and great critical writing, will have a hard time recovering.”

Boy is he right.

©4/29/15

Latest Star Wars trailer brings back memories of seeing the original trilogy at theaters

The moment I saw the second trailer of "Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens" a couple weeks ago I could not help but recall the fond memories I had seeing "Star Wars" (1977), "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "Return of the Jedi" (1983) at theaters over 30 years ago, and in many cases, more than once.

Everyone my age who remembers seeing episodes IV-VI has a story of when they saw the original trilogy the first time. I am sure most recall the long lines outside movie theaters as back then, blockbuster movies were not released on 4000 plus screens nationwide. They were released on only 500 screens if that many, which made seeing them on the big screen all the more special as chances were most of the showings were sold out the first few weeks.

I still remember the packed theaters and cheers from the audience as the Death Star blew up at the end of Star Wars and the laughs from the kids who embraced those little teddy bears called Ewoks. My sister couldn’t look at the screen when Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) removed Darth Vader’s mask near the end of Return of the Jedi so his father can look at his son with his own eyes before dying.

I remember the scene in "The Empire Strikes Back" when one of the Imperial officers tells Captain Needa that Lord Vader wants an update on the pursuit of the Millennium Falcon, I heard someone in front of me knowing full well that that officer was about to meet an early demise getting an invisible choke-hold from Darth Vader in an upcoming scene yell, “He’s dead now!”

My parents did not take me to see "Star Wars" until August 1977 a few days before I was to begin second grade. We arrived about 10-15 minutes late, so it wasn’t until we stayed for the next showing to see what we missed that I was able to figure what the story was about. Up until that time, I was more in awe of all the visual effects and Han Solo’s sarcastic self-assuredness.

When I saw "The Empire Strikes Back" in summer 1980, I was disappointed that the film ended on a cliffhanger. I got a little emotional seeing Han Solo (Harrison Ford) being put into carbon freeze and taken away by bounty hunter Boba Fett. I’d have to wait until summer 1983 for him to be rescued and for the Empire to be defeated.

While I admit "Return of the Jedi" could have gone out with a bigger bang, I still look back on that film today with a sense of nostalgia. I was going into second grade when I saw Star Wars and for the next three to four years my interest would be in Star Wars toys.

I was going into eighth grade when I saw Return of the Jedi. The following year I would be a freshman in high school. With the original trilogy ending in 1983, I saw it as a closing chapter of my grade school years especially since by the time I was in eighth grade my interest in Star Wars toys was already fading.

Seeing Imperial Stormtroopers, whose helmets in The Force Awakens trailers looks like they are smiling as they wait for who I assume is another Emperor/Dark Lord to address them, a menacing bounty hunter or maybe he/she is a hot shot Tie Fighter pilot in black armor who actually knows how to aim at their target, redesigned X-Wing fighters soaring above a planetary lake or a giant puddle and hearing the voice of Hamill’s Luke Skywalker utter the familiar line off screen from 83’s Jedi, “The Force is strong in my family”, that warm feeling of nostalgia came over me again. It’s as though this time, “The Force” is officially back for all those “stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herders” who were left with a bad taste in their mouths from the bad dialogue, and in some cases, bad acting and Jar Jar Binks director/screenwriter George Lucas supplied from episodes I-III (1999-2005).

Perhaps this WILL be the year fans like me get the chance, if for only a brief moment, be able to go back and relive their childhoods. The question remains though; will I get back into collecting Star Wars toys as a result? Will I head over to Toys R Us the morning after everyone else rushed out to the midnight madness sales in early December to get the newest toys based on The Force Awakens to see what’s left? Will episode VII actually live up to the hype?

To quote Yoda, “Difficult to see. Always in motion the future is.”

I’ll find out the morning of December 18 (my birthday) when I am in line for the first showing (yes, I have already put in a request to be off that day as I refuse to work on my birthday, even if I’m spending the day alone).

For now, I’ll settle for that one scene at the end of The Force Awakens trailer that left most everyone with goosebumps showing 200-year-old Wookie, Chewbacca, who apparently doesn’t get grey hair, and a much older Han Solo inside the halls of the Millennium Falcon utter the words with that sarcastic, half-grin on his face, “Chewie, we’re home.”

©4/22/15

My problem with Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential run

When Texas Senator Ted Cruz threw his hat into the ring, being the first Republican announcing his 2016 presidential run March 23 to a packed audience at Liberty University in Virginia, a part of me wanted to cheer him on simply because he is Hispanic and I, too, am a combination of both Hispanic and Italian (though in reality I am likely more Italian based on my temper and love of all Italian foods carb related).

For over 20 years now, in particular the past six years that President Barack Obama has been in office, I have repeatedly heard Obama supporters telling me how I should vote Democrat because I am a minority. Yet, when I asked all those people why I should be for Obama and the Democratic Party not a single one of them could offer any justification on why I should vote for him.

I equate being told to vote Democrat just because I am a minority as the equivalent of asking, “Why do bad things happen?” like when people are taken away from us too soon and I get the same answer, “It’s a part of God’s plan.” I am as sick and tired of hearing that same vague religious answer and being told to become a certified liberal Democrat simply because of my race.

Unlike the ones I personally know who voted for Obama simply because it was time for an African American to be in the White House taking the “We shall overcome” stance and not look at what it was he stood for and wanted to accomplish, I actually attempted to get more information about Cruz. I didn’t vote for him when he ran as senator and the most I really know about him is his reading Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” on the senate floor in 2013 speaking out against Obamacare.

To quote the line from Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” “And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” instead of listening to the liberal drive-by media who loathe Republican conservatives anyway, especially those running for president and who pledge their allegiance to Obama and the Democratic Party. With the mass amounts of bile I saw posted at the end of various Cruz articles bashing his presidential aspirations, I went to the senator’s website, http://www.tedcruz.org, to see what the congressman stands for and what he could do as president.

Under the heading on his site titled Our Standard: The Constitution, I read some of the highlights that included keeping the words, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and supporting students’ rights to display banners containing religious content at school sporting events.

On the subject of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, Cruz argued against gun restrictions before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and called for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS’ targeting of conservatives.

After reading some of Cruz’ accomplishments, I found that they are not enough for me to back him as a presidential candidate. Some may argue, like Obama’s single term as a senator, Cruz still has limited experience in Congress.

“Real problem, I think is this: I mean senators are going to have a hard time; first term senators, we already tried a first-term senator (Obama),” said Charles Krauthammer on Fox News’ “Special Report.” “Cruz talks, but you have to ‘walk the walk’ rather than just talk the talk. You have to have done something. But that’s not his record in the Senate.”

I didn’t vote for Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections. But upon his winning on election night in 2008, my temporary support of him was not based on him being African American and was now the country’s first black president. I wanted to support him based on what he could accomplish in the next four to eight years.

With his second term almost over, this country is still in dire need of a positive change, but I am not sure Cruz, if the presidential election were held today, would be the country’s best choice. Do Americans want to make the same mistake again on the Republican side?

There is a lot more to voting for president than just race. I will be proud should the country one day elect a Hispanic or a female president on the Republican side.

If I vote for that person, however, it will be based on what they stand for and not because I am a minority and should vote for that person, regardless of their platform.

©4/1/15