The Death Of Classic DVDs Will Be the Death Of Me

I LOVE classic movies.  When a new one is released on DVD or shows up at the local rep theatre, my excitement is palpable.  People always ask me if I have Turner Classic Movies in my cable selection and I tell them that if I did, I would never leave the house (the other side of that coin is that due to my…’involvement’ with a local video store that has one of the largest rental collections in Canada, from whom I receive free rentals, we only have basic cable, which doesn’t include TCM).  Now, when I say ‘classic’, I don’t mean The Breakfast Club or Happy Gilmore.  I don’t even mean The Godfather or Rocky.  I mean black and white.  I mean movies that are older than your parents (in some cases, your grandparents).  I get all aflutter over movies with Errol Flynn, Jean Arthur and Cary Grant in them.  I become giddy as a schoolgirl when I think of movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Preston Sturges.  I actually know who Zasu Pitts, Franklin Pangborn and Edward Everett Horton are…and I like them!  When I say, “They don’t make them like they used to”, I mean it.  But my excitement came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago, thanks to an article in ‘Canada’s newsmagazine’, Maclean’s. 

On August 6, Maclean’s published an article entitled “Say goodbye to big screen classics”, (http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/06/say-goodbye-to-big-screen-classics/) which espoused the theory that classic movies on DVD would become as rare as the dodo, or a Toronto sports team winning a championship.  Through interviews with a smattering of highly placed studio execs, the story developed that studios, due to a downturn in sales, would be virtually discontinuing the release of classics, other than huge hits like The Wizard Of Oz and Gone With the Wind.  Even a ’boutique’ distribution company like Criterion would be paring back their schedule with more of a focus on modern film.  Well, I have a word or three to say on this…

I work in the trenches, retail trenches, that is.  As the sole person in charge of the ordering for one of the largest video stores in Canada (8,000 titles for rent, 10,000 titles for sale when the average Rogers and Blockbuster carries 1000-1500), I have a daily view into the soul of the DVD consumer and most of the time I don’t like what I see.  There has always and will always be crap.  The term ‘B movie’ came from the time when you went to the theatre for the evening, and saw two movies, the ‘big’ title, an ‘A’ title and a lower budget (and usually quality) ‘B’ title.  So yes, there will always be the Adam Sandler fan (don’t think he’s the first to make a fortune from lower-brow comedy…before him there was Chevy Chase, Jerry Lewis, Don Knotts, Lucille Ball, Arthur Lake (Blondie), Three Stooges and Fatty Arbuckle). 

It seems clear to me though that the quality of these classics are much higher than what today’s studios are putting out.  I don’t know if it’s the old studio ‘contract’ system which basically forced most actors and crew to appear in or work on whatever the studio heads told them to.  There wasn’t any of the script readings by actors and agents to decide if the potential movie fit his or her image (the studio head told YOU what fit your image).  You were on a weekly salary and you did what the bosses told you (which doesn’t sound all that different from my job, except for the pay scale).  A real difference is that while the Warners, David Selznick and Harry Cohn were businessmen first, they knew and loved movies while today’s execs are mostly MBA graduates who think that the French New Wave is Depeche Mode.  William Goldman famously said that in Hollywood, no one knows anything and that is more true today than ever. 

Yes, I admit that there is some good stuff coming out of Hollywood today (this year alone we’ve so far had Up, (500) Days of Summer, Away We Go, Inglourious Basterds and District 9) but most of this is coming from independent filmmakers or those who work outside the system with that system’s blessing.  I’ve already written a blog on the death of Hollywood (http://argento2665.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/the-blockbuster-and-the-death-of-hollywood/) so I don’t want to get back on that soapbox but I can’t help but think these issues are intrinsically tied together.  If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it and if someone removes that history, we have nothing to learn from.  Classic DVD’s are that history and I would hate to see a day when I’m forced to resort to trading with other movie buffs on the information superhighway for a fourth generation VHS dub of Sullivan’s Travels (a movie about movies that will change the way you think about movies).  I fear though that day is closer than we all think.

Liam Neeson-Action Hero? I’m taken with the idea!

In the pantheon of great (and not-so-great) action heroes, there have been some memorable names: Lee, Norris, Willis, Snipes, Seagal, Van Damme, Chan and for the most part, these guys could do action.  Some were martial arts experts, some were perfectly sculpted examples of masculine physique, one was an ex-CIA operative, trained in…well, that what Pony-tail Boy would like us to believe.  With few exceptions however, these ‘actors’ don’t act.  They fight.  And that is what we pay to see them do but wouldn’t it be nice, just once, to have someone doing the fighting who can actually ACT?  Well, this week’s big release, Taken, stars not just a good actor but a bona-fide Oscar-winning actor, Liam Neeson.  Granted, Neeson, in the role of retired security expert Bryan Mills, isn’t going to receive an Oscar for this work but he displays a solidity that makes hima pleasure to watch.  In a stereotypical plot, he is a divorced dad trying to make up for the absent years and reconnect with his teenage daughter, played with alternating giddiness and fear by Maggie Grace.  When she and a friend announce they are going to stay in Paris for a couple of weeks with cousins, Mills’ ‘spidey sense’ starts tingling (and rightly so as they actually plan to play groupie and follow U2 on their European tour).  Well, daughter Kim and friend are kidnapped the day they arrive by Eurotrash sex peddlers and after a chilling cell-phone encounter with the kidnappers in which Neeson tells them what he does and what he will do, the action begins and doesn’t relent until the final minute as the self-described ex-CIA  ‘preventer’ Mills, moves through Paris, kicking ass and taking names, although it’s apparent his pen is out of ink as he leaves a multitude of bodies in his wake.  Now, this is truly not brain surgery and perhaps not even all parts of the brain were used to make this or are required to watch.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that you should turn your brain off while viewing because the more synapses that are firing, the loweryour enjoyment level.  The action is well-choreographed, from the Bourne school of hand-held camerawork and quick edits (director Pierre Morel’s only other directorial effort is the juiced-up martial arts extravaganza, District 13).  The supporting cast including  Famke Janssen and Xander Berkeley are adequate but Neeson, who is in virtually every frame, makes a (admittedly violent) silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  This opened in Europe over a year ago and the producers intended to unceremoniously dump this in the theatre in the doldrums of February for a week then a quick video release but it struck a chord with audiences and built up speed to the tune of over 200 million dollars worldwide (much to the producer’s joy), so that now a sequel is planned.  Without the emotional resonance of this one, I predict it won’t work.  But it will be great to see the newest action hero again.

Addendum:  I (unintentionally) saw this in the theatre on the evening of the day that Liam Neeson’s wife, Natasha Richardson, died after a skiing accident in Quebec.  As Neeson spends much of the movie in emotional pain, I couldn’t help but wonder throughout if this is how he was feeling at that moment.  It gave the movie a very different resonance.  Just saying.

I never thought I’d say these words: Jean Claude Van Damme can act!

Jean Claude Van Damme is an actor.  I know what you’re thinking and there was a time when you would have been right.  But based on his latest movie, today’s DVD release of JCVD, you’ll have to reassess.  Van Damme is now 48 years old and for most of the last 25 years, has appeared in movies that required little more of him than to flex his (admittedly impressive) muscles and perform martial arts assaults on exposed limbs, usually in edits so quick it obscured his true skill.  He is, after all, a former Mr. Belgium body builder and a European Karate middleweight champion (with 5 years of ballet, as well, which explains the fluidity of his movement).  With the exception of the occasional scene in which he attempts to convince us of his attachment to a wife/girlfriend/child, not a lot was asked from him thespically.  Well in JCVD (his initials), he plays a character who he can really get his mind around: himself.  Buried in the mire of a tough custody battle that is not going his way and having cash-flow issues, Van Damme comes home to Belgium and while stopping at a postal outlet/bank for a money transfer, he gets trapped in a botched robbery and hostage situation and to make matters worse, the hostages use Van Damme to get their demands met by making the authorities think Van Damme is one of them.  The characters are simply and sterotypically drawn and the plot is a standard hostage drama but all this simply works to accentuate how good Van Damme is in this.  With the exception of a terrific opening sequence that features Jean Claude moving through a nighttime war-torn city, killing and maiming in a extended 5 minute take with no cuts (that I can recall) and a short fight in the end, there is none of the violence associated with his past movies and the remaining 75 minutes has Van Damme…acting.  The highlight is a 5 minute soliloquy to the camera where Jean Claude rhapsodizes philosophically about his life and is even reduced to tears at one point.  I just wish all of this great work was in aid of something great.  Alas, it is the movie itself that fails Van Damme and not vice versa.  While stylish enough, the look of the movie is at best murky and at times, the action is difficult to make out while the script is at the same time simplistic and pretentious.  But I will say this: that Jean Claude Van Damme can act!