Friday, August 31, 2007 Rant Archive
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It’s hard to put into words just how stupid BALLS OF FURY truly is. From all appearances, this movie probably sprung into being after the creators smoked a bale of weed and overdosed on chop-socky flicks, up to and including ENTER THE DRAGON. If Uma hadn’t already stolen the yellow suit for KILL BILL, it probably would have shown up here. I would guess the pitch to the studio must have also involved getting baked.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is a place in any film lover’s heart for gloriously idiotic films, especially when made by smart people who are gleefully aware how insane their material is. BALLS OF FURY definitely falls into this category; the fact that a good chunk of the creative team is involved with RENO 911 should give you a rough idea where the humor is pitched.
Still, if you’re going to go this route, you need to really have the courage of your convictions and go for broke. The real problem with BALLS OF FURY is that it’s too tame. Whether this is a side effect of the studio wanting to keep the golden PG-13 or just that half the script was illegible when the writers sobered up, it’s tough to say. My guess is it’s mostly the writers’ fault, as many of the supposed one-liners seemed a little pale, but given the pucker factor of most Hollywood studios anymore, I wouldn’t bet against the “rewrite by committee” option.
MAD MEN is a difficult show to get a grip on. I don’t mean that in the sense that I don’t understand what’s going on. It’s more that the plot is less important then the subtle changes in tone and dialogue. Everyday things happen, but some tiny tidbit is revealed and relations between characters roll forward towards clarity or backwards away from it, just a little bit. It’s pretty deep stuff, and makes the show more of a grower then a show-er.
We are used to shows that offer a lot of bang; LOST, HEROES, even THE SOPRANOS, which is what Matthew Weiner, the creator of MAD MEN cut his teeth on. It’s not that there weren’t subtleties in THE SOPRANOS; there were: The home décor at casa de la Soprano, Carmela’s condescending greeting, “What’s going on your little part of the world?” come to mind. But there was usually a bang. Of course there was - it was a show about the mafia.
I sit before you confused. The only conclusion I can draw about the current state of BIG BROTHER Season 8 is that it has finally crossed into postmodern territory. French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard defined postmodernism when, “The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements--narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on...Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?”
Like you, I don’t know what most of that means but to me it feels like I watch BIG BROTHER now and I’m sure someone is having a laugh at my expense and I can’t catch the joke. Nobody is likable. All remaining contestants are sloppy excuses for human beings and yet I watch…three times a week. I realized I’m rooting for a giant meteor to come and wipe out the whole production. And then the meteor will get up and go after the creators and producers who green lit this show along the way. And then the meteor will come and get me.