#43 | July 16 - 30, 1998  

Hot on the heels of Godzilla we have Deep Impact, the first of the summer's doomsday comet movies and yet another post-Independence Day F/Xercise in which a phallic symbol of Biblical proportions threatens to destroy New York and the rest of the world (in that order) as a detestable bunch of humanoids resort to their pathetic little We Shall Overcome cheerleading bit-which nevertheless works, again, saving the human (i.e., American) race from certain extinction for like the 18th time in as many months. "Oceans rise. Cities fall. Hope survives." My ass it does.

Whereas last week the devious French-with their reckless nuke testing and malleable ethical code-were to blame for humanity's near annihilation, the new guilty party is our very own galaxy, which has sent flying toward us a Belarus-sized chunk of celestial detritus. This is exactly the kind of convenient cop-out we've come to expect of a gutless Steven Spielberg production-there must be absolutely no assigning or assuming of blame; every potential demographic gets off scot-free. But that's not the real world: a wayward comet doesn't just render an entire planet uninhabitable without someone getting rich. Maybe it's those pesky Serbs. Or perhaps the notoriously corrupt Nigerians. And there's always the Mafia or the Church of Scientology, either of which would profit big time from a holocaust of this magnitude. Whoever the culprit, we certainly can't rely on Spielberg to tell the truth: he'll stick to his flimsy "it's an inevitable cosmic event" explanation as long as it's worth a few more bucks in ticket sales. What a jerk.

As with the very first DreamWorks SKG product (The Peacemaker), the director here is Spielberg lackey Mimi Leder. It was bad enough when Steve's middlebrow dross only appeared every two years or so. Now that Geffen and Katzner are paying the bills, he's using his granola-girl "prodigies" to unleash 10 times as many cinematic atrocities as he ever could on his own. I think it's about time we just said "No" to Steve and his pudgy band of bearded, bespectacled, Jewish backing musicians (i.e., Francis Coppola, Yury Shevchuk, Gerry Adams, and especially that little dweeb on the triangle). These people will not stop until they've turned us all into asexual, Dockers-wearing cigar aficionados.

Sorry about that, folks-pretentious beard boys always bring out my angry Mick side. As I was saying, Deep Impact is basically same city pounded to shit, different day as Godzilla. Again, there's blonde tele-journalist (more attractive this time) attempting to use destruction of earth to further her stalled career. Both upstart newsies are, of course, simply the natural evolution of Jeff Goldblum's Babbling Scientist into a more consumer-friendly commodity. It should surprise no one that ditzy blondes with nice legs have less trouble finding audiences for their ramblings than an overeducated lab rat. The biggest insult of all is the way opportunistic reporter gal inevitably has career-making story dropped in her photogenic lap, while dweeb boy discovers truth only after manipulating his way through reams of terribly unsexy mathematical formulas.

The countless other similarities between the two flicks have one very important thing in common: an extremely unpleasant human element. It used to be you could watch an entire blockbuster without ever having to deal with alleged people. Just 90 minutes of mayhem, destruction, explosions, machine-language banter, and dopey one-liners-a misanthrope's dream. But after years of bearded critics chanting the "old movies is better movies" mantra, it was inevitable that the good old summer action movie would be absorbed by the romantic-comedy and dysfunctional-family-drama genres to create a most unpleasant hybrid: the disaster flick for chicks (DFC).

This lumbering crossbreed generally has a 50Ð70-percent longer running time than its high-adrenaline predecessor, but the actual action content has been trimmed to like 50 minutes at best. The remainder of a DFC comprises unwatchable faux-drama sequences with cereal-box characters interacting in ways that wouldn't even wash on a Full House spin-off. This is pretty much what the popcorn-munching pundits were asking for, but-surprise, surprise-they aren't too pleased with the abominations resulting from their misguided tinkering. But whether you like it or not, the DFC is clearly an idea whose time has come-Godzilla and Deep Impact are just the tip of the iceberg in a post-Titanic sweepstakes that shows every sign of sticking around until we're all unable to control our bowel movements. Decades down the road, film historians might even be calling the summer of '98 the season DFCs took over Hollywood for good. And you'll be able to tell your grandkids how you saw it all happening, right in front of your eyes. Just don't forget to kick yourself repeatedly in the crotch for not doing anything to stop it.

P.S. Despite the improbably suggestive title, penile comets, and an unmistakable affection between Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall, Deep Impact is NOT a work of (homo)-erotic cinema. My apologies if this is a disappointment, but better to find out sooner than later.

Les Miserables is more of an old school cinematic event, deriving from a classic French novel by way of a wildly successful detour through the nauseating world of musical theater. Filmmaking linguists take note: a foreign-language title is acceptable only when your chosen subject has undergone mass-market popularization on the scale of a must-see Broadway musical or other such package-deal bus-trip fodder. (As a comparison, not even the supermodel phenomenon and the resulting mainstream usage of Frog fashion lingo could rescue Robert Altman's Pret-a-Porter from the cruelty of translation.)

Confession time: I haven't actually seen Les Miserables and, frankly, I don't know dick about it. I didn't even bother to look up the name of the director on the internet. Why? Hey, I've got my reasonsÉthe way people seem to get off on calling it "Lay Miz," for starters. Also, I believe Claire Danes is one of the stars, and I'm getting awfully sick of her unconventional impish beauty and disconcertingly bony elbows.

But I wasn't merely being frivolous or lax in my duties. I was thinking about seeing the damn thing for about five minutes on Saturday afternoon, at which point I abruptly came down with Jean MacKenzie's dreaded summer flu. I know a direct spiritual order when it forcibly occupies my breathing passages, so I devoted the remainder of the day to domestic concerns instead.

Subsequently, I have listened with professional interest to a number of private opinions concerning the film's merits-opinions issuing from individuals who have even watched the work in question! The response has been markedly bipolar in nature. Approximately one-half of those surveyed found the film to be skillfully made and refreshingly free of gratuitous ostentation. Most of the rest recall the roughly 150 minutes spent in the film's tedious presence with the phlegmatic apathy of those who are stingy with their acrimony. I expect you are old enough to determine which side of the fence best suits your temperament and tastes. I also trust you do not need me to tell you where my propensities lie.

Has France's unexpected triomphe at the World Cup inspired you to seek transcendence of Hollywood's brutish cultural imperialism? Do you crave the spiritual rejuvenation that only a dose of full-on Euro-pretension can provide? Then do your best impression of a Moscow Times reader and "check out" the final showing of the Russian independent film Bruner's Trial at TV Gallery this Friday.

Co-written, directed, and produced by Moscow filmmakers Olga Stolpovskaya and Dmitry Troitsky, this 10-minute short features Andrei Gluck in the role of Alexander Bruner-a young painter who stunned the art world in 1992 by entering an Amsterdam museum and defacing Kazimir Malevich's renowned "White Cross" with a spray-painted green dollar sign in protest of the increasing commercialization of modern art. Combining abrupt temporal shifts, alternating visual styles, and a sort of tug-of-war soundtrack between two unrelated musical compositions, the English-language film maintains a partisan detachment, never asserting definitively whether Bruner's act should be viewed as a crime, an act of artistic expression in its own right, or some hazy combination of the two.

The exhibition also features still photos from the making of the film and an installation comprising defaced copies of the Malevich and a graffiti-covered wooden cross. As part of the closing festivities, audience-members will themselves be able to deface copies of the Malevich painting, after which these and the other exhibits will be auctioned off. I won't even attempt to assess the level of pretension that involves.

Bruner's Trial. Friday, July 17: 19.00. TV Gallery is located at Bolshaya Yakimanka 6 (M: Polyanka); tel. 238-0269.