Going to the Movies

 Thanks to my friend Barry Wurst, I'm still a member of the Hawaii Film Critics Society. There are many reasons I shouldn't be. I retired from being a newspaper entertainment editor almost a decade ago and stopped being a columnist some years after that. After the hundreds of thousands of words and drums of ink devoted to writing about moviemaking, my official credentials and the free tickets that came with them have been over for a while now.

I'm not even a Hawaii film critic for the time being. I'm still in Tucson, stuck in my own movie that can't decide whether it's “Groundhog Day” in the age of Covid, a gritty Quentin Tarantino nouveau Western, or a Hallmark Channel heart warmer called “Meet the Grandparents.” 

It's obviously more authentic – although more dangerous and perplexing – trying to write your way through your own movie than it is to lob bon mots at films made by others. But Barry, a dedicated film reviewer and popular Maui College media instructor who created the fledgling “society” of folks lucky enough to 1) live in Hawaii and 2) make professions out of watching movies, has kept me on the list. It's sort of an emeritus thing. I am so not worthy; I am so grateful. 

It's debatable whether there's any such thing as genuine film critics anymore, now that anyone with a keyboard can be one. But when awards season rolls around, it's time to make your list. 

To sweeten the deal, awards season showers gifts on professional film watchers. Screener DVDs. Links to restricted viewing sites. CDs of movie soundtracks and songs. Bound copies of screenplays. And in some cases, glossy coffee table books chronicling The making of…. Studio marketing departments send them “For Your Consideration.” It's not payola, per se … just another perk in a profession built on freeloading.

I'm not saying that it works, but one DVD was a movie called “Gunda,” a Dutch production directed by Victor Kassakovsky, coproduced by Oscar winner and 2019 PETA Person of the Year, Joaquin Phoenix. It was shot in black and white in a farmyard and stars a family of pigs, some cows and a one-legged rooster. Real ones, not the cast of “Charlotte's Web.” Not to say it's slow, but it's, uh, slow. If you eliminate cute, and don't anthropomorphize – self-discipline most humans aren't capable of – almost nothing happens for the hour and a half it's on the screen. Just life. That's the point.

That's too cosmic, even for me. I watched the mother pig suckling her piglets for a while then went for a swim, leaving my wife Karen in front of the screen as she talked to a friend on the phone. When I got back an hour later, she was still talking and the piglets were still suckling.

“Call me when they get to the bank robbery,” I said.

A critic for The New York Times put it on his 10-best list. 

Such lists had to be done by the end of last year. The Hawaii Film Critics cast their ballots a short time later. “The Trial of the Chicago 7” won best picture… but beyond Sacha Baron Cohen's superb portrayal of Abbie Hoffman among its A-list performances, it didn't make my cut for any categories above writing, editing and costume design.

The Golden Globe nominations came a little later. The closest my favorite “News of the World” got to gold was a nomination for 12-year-old Helena Zengel in the supporting actress category. The Globes did heap noms on my other favorite, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” showcasing even more wonders of Sacha Baron Cohen. The Globes are bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and “Borat” is about as foreign as you can get, 

For the next little while I'm going to write about movies in this space. I know, it's a tough job but someone's gotta … right? Film reviewing has gone through many changes from times when the words were on newsprint and movies were on film, to the present moment where digital domains like Netflix and Amazon have replaced the storied studios of Hollywood. Not only does Netflix lead this year's nominees, but one of its strongest contenders, “Mank,” depicts the genesis of the classic “Citizen Kane” in the studios' so-called golden age.

Even though we no longer “go to the movies,” especially in these Covid times, my friend Kevin Samson assures me there are people looking for tips about what to click on, stream, subscribe to, or otherwise watch as they hunker at home. 

So let's see how it feels to get back in the saddle, for me and for you. It you don't like it, Delete is only a click away. And maybe I can finally stop feeling so guilty about all those new books on the shelf.