Bummer!
Here’s a typically snide British piece from The Guardian’s John Patterson on the resurgence of the 60’s film by way of the Peter Seller’s influenced THE LOVE GURU and the big screen version of GET SMART. But he’s way off. Sure, Myers obviously knows THE PARTY but THE LOVE GURU is a parody of Deepak Chopra and other new age spiritualists. GET SMART has no cultural baggage outside its updating to a post 9/11 spy world. So what is Patterson on about? He even includes acknowledged classics like THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST (1967) in the category of tired ’60’s films. He goes on to praise Godard as the symbol of what filmmakers should be duplicating, and on that I’d agree, but Patterson is firing an uzi at a birdcage here. We should be so lucky to have a paranoid conspiracy satire such as THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST today. The decade inspires filmmakers because of its liberated experimentation. That’s a Good Thing. And guess which film Patterson uses to showcase his misguided disgust with the new cinema era?
In the end, the 60s got under everybody’s skin, even the geriatrics’. The apogee of this regrettable tendency was Otto Preminger’s Skidoo, in which audiences were treated to doddering burn-outs and has-beens such as Jackie Gleason and Groucho Marx, the former enduring an acid freak-out, the latter brandishing a joint where formerly a cigar had been more than adequate.
And yet Mike Myers is still selling us his retread renditions of this cultural backwater – their satirical content long since depleted. The Austin Powers franchise may be definitively tapped out; The Guru is just another way to sell us the same old thing. Include me out.
June 7, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Interview Request
Hello Dear and Respected,
I hope you are fine and carrying on the great work you have been doing for the Internet surfers. I am Ghazala Khan from The Pakistani Spectator (TPS), We at TPS throw a candid look on everything happening in and for Pakistan in the world. We are trying to contribute our humble share in the webosphere. Our aim is to foster peace, progress and harmony with passion.
We at TPS are carrying out a new series of interviews with the notable passionate bloggers, writers, and webmasters. In that regard, we would like to interview you, if you don’t mind. Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address “ghazala.khi at gmail.com”, so that I could send you the Interview questions. We would be extremely grateful.
regards.
Ghazala Khan
The Pakistani Spectator
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June 7, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I hate Patterson. I hate whatsisname too…the American who used to write that snarky piece of shit for Premiere or EW or Movieline or whatever it was…Joe Queenan. Hate that guy.
I love Pakistanis though.
June 7, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Yes, Patterson and Queenan should move in together and finish each other’s sentences.
Pakistanis are cool. It’s true, I am a notable passionate blogger writer webmaster.
June 9, 2008 at 5:27 am
Another thing I’d like to see come back from the 60’s & 70’s are real film critics speaking from an actual knowledge base with more than a rudimentary understanding of the English language and partaking in some actual film analysis and criticism. There are very few “professional” film critics out there working today who have earned their title.
Keep up the good work, Christian. You’re one of the few.
June 10, 2008 at 6:45 am
I agree Hal. If you go back and critics from the late 60’s and 70’s, they have a wide breadth of knowledge. John Simon, acidic tho he be, is a great example.
June 12, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I’m baffled by your criticism of Patterson, firstly because you agree on so much. He writes:
“The bubblegum comes to us in the form of Get Smart and The Guru, two throwbacks to that moment in the 1960s when TV networks and the movie studios completely lost their grip on the youth audience and flailed around desperately trying to win it back. It was a time when faux hipness was grafted on to actual squareness, with predictably laughable results in search of the wayward teen and young-adult demographics…”
Reading this, I’m reminded of your analysis of Skidoo, which you rightly describe as a “train wreck,” and your insightful observation that the film represents an mind-bogglingly ill-conceived collision of Old and New Hollywood, i.e., the “grafting,” to use Patterson’s word, of incompatible sensibilities.
Patterson’s impatience with the a certain type of film comedy of the ’60s, or what I call Anarchist or Psychadelic Satire, is no less understandable than your affection for the same. It’s hard to argue that this was a cultural-aesthetic movement of any great success. Though one or two films were indeed at once zeitgeist-defining and inspired — “Dr. Strangelove,” of course, leads the pack — most were bloated, self-indulgent monstrosities: “Casino Royale” and “The Magic Christian” being among the most egregious examples, although “Skidoo,” which has no more noble champion than you, probably takes the cake.
As for “The Love Guru,” I haven’t seen the film (nor have you), so it’s hard for me to ascertain the degree to which he’s channeled the ’60s Pscychadlic Satire. However, the trailer suggests a retread of the tedious Rip Van Winkle formula he employed in the insipid Austin Powers triology: Man from another time/place with funny/anachronistic clothes, hairstyle and mannerisms is transported to contemporary post-modern society to intended hilarious effect.
Even the most ardent defender of the Anarchic/Psychedelic cinema of the ’60s would have to agree that films like Myers’ embody the most craven impulses of the soulless Hollywood regimes of the moment and their mind-numbing preoccupation with cannibilizing the film and TV of the past four decades. What makes the Austin Powers films so stale and lifeless is their utter disconnection to the subversive and revolutionary spirit of the films being sent up; like classic punk rock that’s co-opted and reconstituted decades later for Coca-Cola commercials, Myers’ films trivialize their progenetors by borrowing (stealing) little more than the surface iconography, the goofy/exotic cultural touchstones which are then repurposed into quaint, hollow sight gags and strung together into spineless, dumbed-down “high concept” multiplex vehicles. In the process the guiding spirit of the original films — anarchic, revolutionary satire — bad as those films may have been, is not only lost, it’s been perverted and trashed. No wonder Patterson says, “Include me out.”
June 13, 2008 at 6:20 am
Wow. What a great analysis. Yours is far superior to Patterson’s.
But. But. But.
Get Smart was a funny show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and I don’t consider them “out of it” in the 60’s considering their pedigree. Patterson misses completely that Get Smart was actually one of the very best satires on TV, not grafted Hollywood.
As for the “psychedelic satire” genre being a failure, of course I disagree 100 percent. It’s one of the most vital and interesting of the era. Have you watched THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST lately? It’s visionary. And sure, not all the films worked narratively, often overpacked with the stylistic tropes of the decade such as fast zooms, elliptical editing, etc. But even CASINO ROYALE I find imminently watchable — a mess, yes. But it’s worth it just for the expressionist segment with Joana Pettet in East Berlin, directed by Ken Hughes. For every THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN there was a BEDAZZLED.
What Myers is doing is no more 60’s than CROCODILE DUNDEE. “Fish out of water” is a narrative standby for any decade. Obviously Myers wishes he were Peter Sellers and he has an understanding for the 60’s films. The first AUSTIN POWERS is terrific, one of the best comedies of the 90. Some of it is stupid, but he nails the stereotype of a Carnaby Street Swinger circa 67. And the first AP is actually about that cultural divide, including the hedonism of the Bond era (a subject well worth satirizing) which wraps up in his final meeting with Dr. Evil, who tells him, “There’s nothing worse than an aging hipster.” That’s a great line. And more self-aware than Patterson or you claim.
What’s wrong with a Hollywood remake of GET SMART is not the 60’s retro-fit but that it has no resonance culturally. The people young enough to not remember the series won’t care what GET SMART once meant, and the older folk resent the hubris or stupidity. So Patterson misses the boat by analyzing these films as 60’s throwbacks, which they really are not. How can THE LOVE GURU be a 60’s retread with Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and a plot about a guru owning a hockey team?
Anyway. Thanks for the well thought out words.
It’s my happening and it freaks me out!
June 13, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Um…Could I interject for a moment?
PETER SELLERS was a genius. My mama thought I was absolutely nuts but he was particularly brilliant in everything he chose to take on. I’ve always worshipped the Brits.
They know where it’s at. To this day…
Plus I want to confess my undying devotion to CASINO ROYALE, which was one of my favourites growing up. (Yeah, I was a most unusual little girl. As if there would be any doubt about that…)
It may be a mess. But it’s a bloody glorious one. How many flicks have DAVID NIVEN, the aforementioned MR. SELLERS, ORSON WELLES, DEBORAH KERR, WILLIAM HOLDEN, JOHN HUSTON, WOODY ALLEN, PETER O’TOOLE and JACQUELINE BISSET in cameos, a very cool theme that involves Herb Alpert and the goddess Dusty singing THE LOOK OF LOVE?
Every time I watch it, it makes me laugh. I mean, taking cabs from London to East Berlin?
It’s outrageous and patently absurd.
But, COME ON. IT WAS THE SIXTIES….
June 15, 2008 at 12:49 am
Yes, it was. And like I said, there’s much to enjoy in CR, despite the fact that Sellers was so unreliable the producers killed him out of the film. But knowing it was directed by over five others makes it required viewing. Like I said, Joana Pettet would have been a sensation in a Mata Bond film. She’s the best 007 in this.
June 15, 2008 at 2:03 am
I never heard that about Peter. You know everything, don’t you, my darling Christian?
I’ve often wondered whatever happened to Joana Pettet. She really had some serious talent. She was awfully good in THE GROUP. I loved the book. Grew up with it, actually. I really need to find a copy of it NOW because it’s one of the few novels that I’ve ever read in my life that I could revisit consistently.
Joana’s a far cry from Ms. McCarthy’s physical description of Kay. But she was awesome nonetheless. Do dig the movie – and I do love the fact that my beloved Candy Bergen had the guts to play gay when it was far from fashionable. Not to mention a savage career killer.
Never found it on DVD but I’m not aware of any release.
So I do think Joana should’ve been a star. But it’s not the first time I’ve championed someone who never got their due…and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Being an actor’s a tough gig. Either you meet the right people and hook up with the correct projects or you don’t.
Them’s the breaks…
June 15, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I wish THE GROUP was on dvd. I’ve never seen it.
But you must read Pauline Kael’s long account of being on-set. I think it’s one of the few making-of essays she wrote and boy, it couldn’t be done today. She’s brutal, honest, understanding and dead on. Check it out.