kidattypewriter

Saturday, May 21, 2005

What He Said

Metal City: Death of the Stiff - the Slightly Shorter Version

This film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap

Which, you could argue, is the point - since Star Wars has always been a pastiche. I disagree, though - the original trilogy is a pastiche, the prequels are far different creatures, spawned from a wannabe-auteur who is so insular and ineffectual as an artist that he can only create from within the vacuum of his own sphere: Star Wars has never been less relevant - or interesting - than it is at this point, because Star Wars is only capable of drawing from, being influenced by, and commenting on... itself. The Star Wars universe may be the ultimate in self-referential circle-jerking - and by trying to generate its own mythology from WITHIN its own mythology, it falls flat on its face. This was my main problem with the film - it was climax without context, repeated for two hours and thirty minutes. Every half an hour or so, there was another sequence which was SUPPOSED to be chilling and moving, and was supposed to make my spine tingle and my eyes water - all the signs were there. Swelling, dramatic music, anguish-gripped faces, soggy, waterlogged camera shots that suggest all the mopey resignation of a dog who's bone has just been stolen. But, in the end, what was I actually watching? Who is Anakin Skywalker? Who is Padme? What is a Jedi - really? Who ARE these people, and just WHAT am I watching? Oh, that's right. I'm watching 'Star Wars' - except that 'Star Wars' ceased to be a cycle of films in 1983, and has since been a vehicle to self-propogate its own mystique, fuelled by a multi-billion dollar marketing empire, at the expense of any semblance of artistry or soul.

This film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap this film is crap

Please read it all. It's a long, obscene, and oh-so-hateful review of the latest Star Wars film. Of course, as I said to David the other night, I don't hate anything - even something as undeniably crap as Star Wars. I just mildly dislike them. But he is right. Uncle David of Metal City is always right.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Timothy,

Unfortunately, I studied cinema for 6 of my eight years as a university student, and as a result, I have some rather set-in-stone methods of looking at and discussing film. The written sample you've reposted is, certainly, a far more traditional attempt at film criticism than the rest of the original Metal City piece. The rest of the writing is intended to be amusing - after all, who wants to hear me driliy yakking on about McLuhan, Anna Severin, Kael, and other film scholars in an attempt to attack Star Wars? It's far more amusing to simply make a bunch of dirty jokes.

Or, would you prefer I hit you up with a serious technical, academic analysis of the film?

Didn't think so.

TimT said...

Oh, it was highly amusing, in all the right ways. I've just re-edited the post, it should make more sense now.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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