The Art of Oneself — Michael Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction

In many ways, the Transformers movies have always been somewhat plagued by a weird quasi-meshing of Spileberg's penchant boy-growing-up-among-the-awe narratives with Michael Bay's own crass maximalism (a meaningless word, but how else to describe what's on screen). Age of Extinction eliminates the main component of the former director's hand - Shia Labeouf's alienating and always too smug every-boy - in favor of Marky Mark Wahlberg, who mutates into whatever he needs to be from scene to scene (techie, overly concerned parent, football star, machine gun expert). It's a good metaphor for the film itself, which struck me as a work completely outside of its own interest as a film made by a studio for entertainment. Instead, it morphs into a parade of advertisement for each of its backers — Hasboro, Victoria's Secret, Chevrolet, and Budweiser (not to mention numerous Chinese sponsors I didn't recognize). The last of those companies comes up in a scene so crassly made that you could snip that 30 seconds from the film and it could have easily been a spot during the Super Bowl. A colleague of mine once posited that movie theaters are slowly morphing into the mall—a space for people to hang out more than experience film, and this film certainly made that experience seem like less a warning of doom than a proposition of truth. Goodbye Cinema, Hello Capitalism 2.0.

Link Round-Up: Summer Blues

If you look to the left, you can see the cover of my book. And soon enough, you can buy it! Neato!

My friend Kevin B. Lee, who came on the podcast in January of last year, has released his most ambitious video essay yet, entitled Transformers: The Premake. I discussed this work at The Film Stage. 

I also reviewed two more Blu-Rays for The Film Stage and tried to put them in conversation with each other: Antonioni's L'Eclisse and Kiarostami's Like Someone In Love. Both are wonderful and the transfers look fantastic.

A surprisingly decent transfer would also be the new DCP of Eric Rohmer's A Summer's Tale, which is finally receiving a theatrical release in the United States. It's my favorite movie of the year, and I explain why over here. I also review a so-called "new release" movie, Clint Eastwood's beguiling and somewhat wondrous Jersey Boys.

On The Cinephiliacs, Adam Nayman joins the show to talk about his book about Showgirls entitled It Doesn't Suck, and we also discuss Mia Hansen-Love's debut feature, All Is Forgiven. He also tears Jason Reitman to shreds. 

Over on Letterboxd...
New films! Nadiv Lapid's Policeman and Lord and Miller's 22 Jump Street
War documentaries! William Wyler's Memphis Belle and John Huston's San Pietro
From Asia! King Hu's A Touch of Zen and Kenji Mizoguchi's Women of the Night
Big Auteurs! Alain Resnais's Melo and James Cameron's The Abyss

Expressive Esoterica in the 21st Century—Or: What Is Vulgar Auteurism?

Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)

The following post was originally developed in a graduate seminar I participated in earlier this year on the state of contemporary cinephilia. I originally became interested in exploring Vulgar Auteurism after researching and talking to Ignatiy Vishnevetsky for a podcast. So for a half dozen weeks, I watched  the “canon” of Vulgar Auteurism and read every post, comment, tumblr, and criticism that had been written on the subject. What I have developed below is part of a project that I hope to bring to next year’s conference for the Society of Cinema and Media Studies. However, because Vulgar Auteurism has become somewhat of a hot debate after Calum Marsh’s Village Voice piece on the subject, I’ve decided to post a partial part of my work on the subject in order to give a full context and understanding how we can learn about contemporary cinephilia from the movement. As always, all feedback and comments are appreciated.

September 14, 2012 was a day of major anticipation for cinephiles that follow contemporary cinema. It was the official opening of auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012), a historical psychosexual epic shot in 70mm with two larger than life performances. However, there was another group of cinephiles excited for another release by Paul Anderson…Paul W.S. Anderson. Anderson’s Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), the fifth film in the zombie franchise starring Milla Jovovich, was released in 3,000 theaters without a single review to its name. For most critics who later watched the film, Retribution was a slog (Rotten Tomatoes describes the consensus: “[the franchise] seems to get more cynical and lazy with each film”).[i] But this set of very special cinephiles saw not just silly entertainment, but one made with as much craft and care as The Master. Ignaity Vishnevetsky, in his review at Mubi, argues, “Anderson is uncynical. His work is eye stuff: entertainment that rewards the viewer for watching rather than for being clever.”[ii] Critics disagree on films all the time, but what is going on with Retribution, and many other disregarded films of its like, is a new trend in cinephilia. Welcome to Vulgar Auteurism.

Since Jonathan Rosenbaum called cinema dead and cinephila the next step, critics and academics have spent countless words trying to define “contemporary cinephilia.” Some of this issue, perhaps, is that defining contemporary cinephilia as a whole is an impossible task—one must encompass bloggers, democratization, torrent cultures, DVDs and Blu-Rays, mashups, podcasts, social media, and the vast amount of stuff. To better understand cinephilia, I propose that instead of making an encompassing vision, we should instead take an in-depth examination of a small sect. Certainly, the cinephiles who laud and champion Vulgar Auteurism fit that definition.