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Journal sielwolf's Journal: Chicago Theory and the Pretty-Boy Kissy Face 17

Journal by sielwolf

Preliminary reviews of Batman Begins are very good. Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars. Says it was the Batman movie he had never known he had always wanted. Below are a cumulation of things related to this topic.

The Chicago Theory of Roger Ebert's Reviews

There are many ways to read Roger Ebert, much like any other form of literature. He is a devout Auteurist, as compared to having a Formalist view of film (i.e. he prefers readings focused on the affect of the director over the choices in lighting, shot selection, or set design... genrism... SF, Film Noir, etc.). Films to Ebert are the act of directors, screenwriters and (to a lesser extent but still visible. See Merchant-Ivory) producers. There are people Ebert "likes" and so formality is a rare sticking point of his. So though a formalist argument can be made that Ebert has a boner for anime, one can look at his reviews to notice he namedrops Miyazaki. And even though he kind of obviously dislikes Howl's Moving Castle he still gives it 2.5 stars (the bare minimum for him to give it a Thumbs Up on "At the Movies"). Why? Miyazaki. Crash? Haggis, who Ebert lauded for scripting his favorite movie last year, $M-bar Baby. Jackie Chan constantly gets good reviews. Jet Li: nothing but bad. However, these film theories only provide limited insight. A stronger literary analysis is needed. Hence:

The Chicago Theory of Roger Ebert reviews: a movie's rating is proportional to its proximity to Chicago.

Take a look at the Batman Begins : Ebert makes direct reference to the movie being filmed in Chicago (standing in for Gotham). Result: 4 stars. The Fugitive. Takes place in Chicago: 4 stars. Hoop Dreams. Chicago, 4 stars.

But that's not fair, right? There's acting, editing, dramatic elements, Formalist and Auteurist elements in play that can easily explain why all those movies might actually be "good". Hoop Dreams is in this boy's Top 5. The Fugitive won Academy Awards.

So let's look at some other movies. The John Hughes catalog. Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Home Alone... 3 to 4 stars. Ferris Bueller, which makes Ebert shake his head every time he hears its someone's favorite movie still got 3 stars. Home Alone 2, which took place in New York City? 2 stars. Only Uncle Buck falls under the 2 star limit and, well, that movie was a complete turd. But it still got 1.5 stars. And Ebert qualifies it by saying it was an unnecessary reuptake of Planes, Trains.... Raising Arizona by the Coen Brothers? Arizona != Chicago. Hence, 1.5 stars. That movie's in your boy's Top 5 too.

Stir of Echoes, that horrible neuhorror/drama starring Kevin Bacon that came out a few months after The Sixth Sense: 3 unbelievable stars.

U.S. Marshals, the result of taking The Fugitive and supercolliding it with any Wesley Snipes vehicle, where Wesley Snipes wears a page-boy wig, Robert Downey Jr. plays a two-faced FBI agent, and Tommy Lee Jones mercilessly cashes in: 3 godless stars. Most Wanted starring Keenan Ivory Wayans, a film nigh-identical to U.S. Marshals, Ebert wouldn't even review.

It even gets subconscious. Take The Matrix. Filmed in Sydney right? Takes place in some fake non-place in a computer? Check out the street names. ALL of them: Chicago. *boy-yoy-yoing!*

Readers and critics have complained about Ebert's subjectivity. How he can laud one movie then blast the same movie arbitrarily. How movies he harranges get 3 stars while movies he talks about doing anything creative get the 'shed. The problem with all of those readings is that they are structural: they trust the authenticity of his writing and take it at face value (Derrida "scoffs"). The Chicago Theory eschews that focusing singularly on the context of the movie and the critic's geographical relation to it and, in the process, finding a high correlary between them. Movie studios take note.

The Pretty-Boy Kissy Face

For some of you Batman Begins might be your first experience with the Pretty-Boy Kissy Face and exposure when unprepared can permanently scramble your brain. Luckily once you've been warned, you won't be forced to work out the wierd tick your face develops.

Hollywood has been home to many great faces. Greatest of all might be the De Niro face: eyes in half squint, eyebrows arched in mild shock, cressed brow, taut lips with the tip of the tongue slightly exposed. However there is one face that has been known to paralyze man and woman alike at a good hundred yards: the Pretty-Boy Kissy Face.

The PBKF can trace back its geneology to somewhere in the late 70's. Some say that it might trace back to the focused method-acting energy of Steve McQueen. However facialinguistic analysis shows a high correlary to the Roger Moore You-Caught-Me-With-My-Hand-In-The-Cookie-Jar Dumb Smirk which popped up about half way into Live and Let Die and they never let Jaws beat it out of him. A younger generation, emboldened by the new Bond's slapstick style and post-Bowie androgyny began to prissify in the mid 80's. Pretty young pederast-candy like the Coreys and Judd Nelson were caught in a stunted masculine adolescence between manhood and archtypical teen girl uselessness. All at once young celebrities across the globe cut The Roger Moore with the Five-Year-Old-Girl-Stamping-Her-Foot-And-Making-A-Scene-Cause-Mommy-Won't-Buy-Her -Pony Pout. The Pretty-Boy Kissy Face was born. An odd amalgam of unaware braggadocio and eternal juvenile avoidance of responsibility. The volatile mix of features was hypnotic. America couldn't figure out if these assholes were serious or not. Suddenly a whole new generation of fancy boys were Hungry-Like-The-Wolfing down the boardwalk.

The PBKF is completely fresh as it focuses wholly on the mouth. The lips are pursed as if sucking on an Altoid or catching a lick of a flavorburst. The mouth is then pushed in and out at odd intervals, giving the sense of kissing invisibly at the air.

Now the PBKF has many adherrants, like Feng Shui or AIDS, but there are a few men, so pretty and so goddamn out of their heads, that they are nothing less than Kissy Face Princes: Simon Le Bon, Jude Law, Nelson and the prettiest of them all, Christian Bale. Christian has made an entire career kissy facing from one side of the globe to the next. As a young boy, as a psycho, as a psycho but in a totally different movie, as a crazy guy who isn't psycho exactly but kind of really fucked up, and now, as BATMAN. What is so great about the Batman role is that the Batman outfit completely obscures the body, annihilates it in fact, in a sea of flat black, save the diameter around the mouth... the very heart of the Kissy Face's power. Our eyes are forced right into its vortex of boy faced glee. It was the role Bale was BORN for, lips moistened in a balm of saliva, pucker at the ready (plus the fact that he's a shit-kicking actor helps too). You have been warned.

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Chicago Theory and the Pretty-Boy Kissy Face More

Chicago Theory and the Pretty-Boy Kissy Face

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  • Not sure about Ebert's writing, but I find myself agreeing with him more often than not WRT movies. I find he is more willing to rank a movie on that movie's terms rather than comparing, say, Citizen Kane to Cheaper by the Dozen. That often tends to be what qualifies the 1.5->2.5 ratings.

    As far as PBKF, how could you have only gone back to Roger Moore? Surely it dates back at least as far as Cary Grant.

    Or, upon rereading, perhaps Grant doesn't fall into the PBKF definition due to the fact that if anyth
    • I like Ebert. He has explained his own insecurity in giving Godfather II less than the first because, well, up to that point no sequel had ever surpassed the original, let alone a masterpiece like The Godfather. Also he has shown the reason to like movies from cultural ghettos. He really liked American Pie and There's Something About Mary when criticheads were still turning up their noses. He can sit down and enjoy himself for 90 minutes and say that. I respect that.

      The Chicago thing is just a trend
      • And I like being a dick about pointless shit like that.

        I think we all got that.

      • Greetings sielwolf, I'm writing from the show 848 on Chicago Public Radio. I'd love to chat with you about your Ebert/Chicago theory sometime today. Can you please email me with contact information--848@chicagopublicradio.org Thanks, Adriene Hill
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I still like Keaton's take on Batman the best. It definately captures the feel of The Dark Knight comics. Of course you could say the quality and watchablity of those movies had much more to do with Burton than Keaton.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Clooney certainly looked the part in the bat suit but the movie sucked.

            Part of what makes Keaton as Batman work for me is he did such a good job at playing Bruce Wayne. Yea he wasn't as convincing in the bat suit, but to me that is a minor quibble with two otherwise very well done films.
  • You form an early opinion of someone and it sticks.

    Shrug, nothing wrong with that. I like Ebert, the trick to Ebert is knowing Ebert.

    Anyway, next time I'm down in FELLS POINT, I'm gonna have to try out the awesome power of the PBKF.
  • you want ebert to kiss christian bale in chicago???

    *runs for secure bunker*


  • This is actually the first JE I've read of yours that: I got through all the way AND didn't make me feel like an idiot. Usually I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but this time I was able to follow along. I only had to look up two words at Dictionary.com too. I think you are making me smarter.

    Oh, and am I the only one who thought of Blue Steel [paolipres.org] when PBKF was mentioned?

    • Glad to... uh... help? :p Sometimes I wonder if I make people smarter or more cynical.
      • smarter or more cynical.

        There's a difference?
      • i was thinking "scared". :)

      • If I take the time to slowly read what you have to say, and use Dictionary.com to help me with the big words (my vocabulary is the suxx0rs), I usually learn something.

        The problem is, I've insulted myself for most of my life to a limited amount of entertainment, so I don't usually have the sort of background knowledge necessary to get a lot of your references. I'm thinking I might go through and download every album you had listed in your Canon to help catch me up.

    • This is actually the first JE I've read of yours that: I got through all the way AND didn't make me feel like an idiot. Usually I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but this time I was able to follow along. I only had to look up two words at Dictionary.com too. I think you are making me smarter.

      Either that or Siel is getting dumbed down by reading our journals :)

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