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Gratifications

By David Edelstein
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 29, 1998, at 2:19 PM ET

Dear Jonathan:

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Although I cited Darren Aronofsky's Pi in my note yesterday, I inexplicably omitted it from my 10 Best list. Rather than drop one of the other films, I'm going to make this a Spinal Tap 10 Best: It goes up to 11.

Anyway, thanks for not disappointing me: You're as patronizing as always. You know in advance that Enemy of the State and The Opposite of Sex are not worth bothering about--presumably, you also know that they, along with the other movies on my list, are about "adolescent gratification." I'm not sure what three of your own choices--Rushmore, Small Soldiers, and Pleasantville --involve if not "adolescent gratification," although the latter two (and maybe the first, come to think of it) come with a satirical anticapitalist patina that I recall pops your cork. (Did you really go for the kindergarten Civil Rights allegory of Pleasantville?) Actually, I omitted Small Soldiers from my runner-up list by accident: I found it rollickingly subversive, Joe Dante's surest work since his great Twilight Zone--The Movie episode. How is it that this entertaining adventure was received by so many critics as an example of the very commercial jingoism that it so successfully lampooned?

While the birth of my daughter this year has kept me from jetting to sundry international festivals, I made it to more than my local multiplex or video store, as you imply. I found Taste of Cherry fascinating, although I did initially misinterpret the "it's only a movie" ending, thinking that the soldiers on display had showed up to stop the filming--the public discussion of suicide not being high on the Tehran government's list of approved topics. I was entranced by those endless circular drives and the long shots of that implacable desert landscape, and I didn't much care that the protagonist wasn't especially filled-in. The movie is not on my list because it was too allusive for my taste. (If it means anything, I feel the same way about late Beckett, late Bresson, and early Hou Hsiao-hsien. Not enough adolescent gratification, I guess.)

Speaking of adolescent, the slur you perceive against the Windy City by the studios is nothing more than Oscar positioning: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences dictates that a film has to play in New York and Los Angeles for at least a week to qualify for that year's awards. Hence, these absurd one-week Manhattan/L.A. runs that precede January or February wide releases. Although I've not been so peevish as to exclude them from best-of-the-year consideration, I have decided to wait until January to write about The Thin Red Line, A Civil Action, Affliction, Hurlyburly, Hilary and Jackie, Rushmore, and The Hi-Lo Country because the majority of Slate readers won't be able to see them until 1999. (Well, OK, I also had a nasty sinus infection until two days ago.)

Thank you for your warm words on There's Something About Mary (much adolescent gratification), Living Out Loud (no adolescent gratification), and Jennifer Lopez (adolescent gratification at its most splendid). Your comments about Buffalo 66 are interesting insofar as they help pinpoint what I liked about the film--a home-movieish ego trip that, to my mind, transcended its star's narcissism. Vincent Gallo's preternatural combination of crudeness and sophistication made me feel his feverish alienation in much the same way that Abbas Kiarostami made me feel his protagonist's detached hopelessness in Taste of Cherry; Gallo's anger burned through the cooling fog of irony. And how about Christina Ricci's bowling alley tap-dance? Pure movie magic or what?

Mostly I detest movies that "pummel me into submission," despite the opportunities they offer for adolescent gratification. I guess I make an exception in the case of the opening of Saving Private Ryan because I respect Spielberg's strategy of allowing us no distance from the horror--reducing the world of combat to pure sensation, so that words like "bravery" and "heroism" take a back seat to more elemental things, like getting from Point A to Point B without having your brains splattered over the beach.

Now some questions: What for you were the movie highlights of 1998 and why? I'm sure you'd agree that the re-publication of Manny Farber's great Negative Space is up there, along with the Touch of Evil re-edit on which you served as a consultant. Would you also agree that the AFI list of America's 100 Greatest Movies was a piece of corporate flimflam and would have been a laugh riot were it not so infuriating? Would you agree that Seagram's decision to unload Happiness because it didn't demonize a pedophile sent a troubling signal to all those "independent" companies that had allowed themselves to be gobbled up by the majors with assurances that there would be no editorial interference? And what about Life Is Beautiful? Do you share my view that it's an obscenity? Give me some gratification, damn it!

Best,
David