Sunday 6 January 2013

The ‘Cheap Target’ of Cinema [Jack & Jill (2011)]

From http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/images/2012/02/Jack-and-Jill-2011.jpg

Dir. Dennis Dugan
USA
Film #6 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema

During the next two months I am trying to catch up with films released in 2012 in my country as well as work on this project. Ironically, my first film in this plan, my first Whit Stillman film Damsels In Distress, has a scene within it that throws over this review a fitting metaphor for the issues surrounding what is another Adam Sandler film, the first I have seen since I was an adolescent but a film that has ended up with a cloud around it of some significance. Even though the issues of both are radically different, the structure and central concern of Stillman’s scene are suitable for the conundrum. In the scene in that film, the editor of a student newspaper on a university campus Rick DeWolfe (Zach Woods) is decrying the fraternity houses in front of a group of people as the worst of culture; he is the stereotypical liberal, as I should aspire to be as one myself, believing his words are the only truth. Put in his place the (usually) liberal, (usually) middle class or geek culture film critic – especially those who write for online sites and have podcasts – who decries Jack & Jill not only a cinematic abortion, but goes as far as saying Sandler is a conman and a bully. In Damsels In Distress, a main character Violet (Greta Gerwig) criticises DeWolfe’s cruelty, only for him to show himself as an obnoxious egotist who merely dismisses her with insults rather than a judged argument. This opposition, the Violets, can be in danger of being contrarians and behaving in the same ways, but they have also shown themselves to be the more level headed individuals regardless of whether they praise or criticise Jack & Jill. Some of the criticisms are worth bringing up against the film, but most of it, to borrow a term used in a negative video review by Red Letter Media, is the words of ‘snarky nitpicking assholes’, words full of cheap metaphors, hyperbole and belligerent swearing that drowns out a judged critique.

From http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/jack_and_jill.jpg

The film is not a great one, just an entertaining ninety or so minutes and nothing more, but I have to wonder if some critics are using this as a distraction from daring to write a similar critique of films allowed to escape scrutiny, with critical praised flowered on them, without actually considering their content. About a family man (Adam Sandler) with a divided relationship with his twin sister (Adam Sandler), as well trying to convince Al Pacino (Al Pacino) to do a Dunkin’ Doughnuts advert for his failing company, the film is as plot-by-numbers as you expect with fart jokes, physical injury jokes and such things seen in a lot of American comedy now. But, to immediately go into the criticisms levelled at the film, it amazes me how critically destroyed this film was when I have encountered far worse in cinema. The repetition of the plot is one such criticism but bear in mind that the repetition of story narratives in all genres of cinema has been an issue for a long time now – even in arthouse dramas – and that it depends on how you gage with everything around the repeated narrative like the humour. For the most part here, the film is charming and amusing. The only real problem is the saccharine tone of the ending. It is not the dialogue however, or the tone, which could still work and has a funny gag involving Al Pacino and a ceiling fan, but a problem of the music, music that creeps into many Hollywood films and ruins the sweet moments, the over precious songs and string scores that forcibly try to wrench emotions out of you but feels bullying and irritating. That single music style is more aborrant than any repetition of wacky scenario or joke within Jack & Jill and should probably be blamed more on the practices of certain film composers than someone like Sandler.

From http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jack_and_jill_c06.jpg

The humour is that which gets rabidly criticised as well. It is strange however that the criticisms are about the type of humour – of bodily functions and people being hit in the head or genitals – rather than the quality of the writing and performances which it should be. We are a species that spends a great deal of our lives in the bathroom, and our relationship with our bodily fluids like faeces and vomit is usually messy and embarrassing, so why ostracise a type of humour that can allow us to laugh at our flawed bodies and feel more better about it, even if it ends in a diarrhoea joke? Pratfalls can be argued for in the same way too, and to dismiss this kind of humour as ‘below’ you, rather than argue that it doesn’t work and is not well done when it could have been better and funny, is elitist in attitude and shows a unwillingness to face one’s physical being in such a bluntly honest way. I also cannot help but think of the fact that Yasujirô Ozu, one of the most critically acclaimed film directors in existence, had farting as a running joke in his 1959 film Good Morning; it is done very well and is hilarious each time, but it is still a reoccurring fart joke in an Ozu film that I have yet to hear be dismissed as ‘low’ from the director, a fact that makes the dismissals of such humour in films like Jack & Jill even more questionable.

The humour in general in Jack & Jill is very absurdist and intentionally random at times. Some of it doesn’t work at all, a problem with the style itself if not strict in the construction and timing of a comedic line or act, but when it works, as with the adopted son’s obsession with tapping random objects and animals to his person, it is hilarious and even more so because it is so purposely abrupt and random. The jokes about race however is a more divisive area, made worse to discuss as, when one attempts to correlate one’s ideas on the subject, people have a terrible tendency to jump to words like ‘racist’ without stepping back for a brief moment to carefully dissect the issue at hand. Some of these jokes are cringe worthy, but it feels less like cruel, debasing humour, but a film that wants to poke at the viewer’s ideas on the subject, especially white politically correct audience members, but botches at times miserably in the writing and playing out of the jokes. Others, especially with the case of the gardener played by Eugenio Derbez, are purposely uncomfortable and succeed more because his character’s clear delight in making the white people around him feel that way is as much part of the joke; that can be seen as a cop-out, but Derbez, and the other Hispanic actors could have refused to make the film if they found the material offensive. There are few cases where someone is forced to make certain films that offend them to be able to feed themselves. Also this is a film with a reoccurring joke of Al Pacino’s attempting to communicate with his French staff in their tongue only to speak complete and utter gibberish, making the film as much a swipe at English speaking, white men and women as well. That this film has been called racist, to the point of Red Letter Media (again) calling it the most racist film since The Birth of a Nation (1915) is idiotic, completely hyperbolic and trivialising a serious issue where truly ‘racist’ attitudes are far more horrifying and insidious than the accusations levelled at this film.

It feels as if attacking Jack & Jill, unless I encounter a review which breaks down the author’s criticisms of the film with meditated thought and without irony, was just an excuse by some critics to be lazy, or far more seriously, to be cowards to avoid tackling far more controversial viewpoints on films that get a lot of critical praise. If any readers of this review hate Jack & Jill, I will understand completely, but the bile that has been used on it is totally worthless and time wasting. Some of the criticisms are justifiable, but many can be levelled at other films. The anger at the product placement is understandable, but so many American films now are as much commercial capital as well as cinema, such as with The Avengers (2012), and I find the idea of there being children’s costumes of Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker and Burger King tie-ins for a nihilistic, and intentionally dark and violent, film like The Dark Knight (2008) far more horrifying than Adam Sandler holding a bottle of Pepto-Bismol up in front of the camera. (Call me naive as well, but I hope my fellow man is intelligent enough to ignore such product placement in films too, only taking interest in one because the pre-existing desire within them was pushed forward by sight of a Coca-cola or something onscreen). The film is innocuous, not a one-movie plague on intelligent society that some critics seen to have viewed it as, a generally enjoyable film which, with documentary footage of real life twins talking about themselves at the beginning and end of the film, has a heart in its centre despite the attempts of the saccharine music to spoil it. To destroy a film like this when worse does indeed exist, as I am going to force myself through for this season, is lazy, and disappointing for someone like myself who, posting these amateur reviews online, desires to look up to professional film critics only to find that most of the writing is learning from, and is a waste of material and time. Like DeWolfe’s attitude in Damsels In Distress, I read the reviews of certain critics and find them narcissistically in love with their voice, something I fear a lot will happen to me with my writing, without anything of actual depth and meaning in the elaborate words used.  If I see more Adam Sandler films in the future, I hope that they attempt to be a little better; I would like his production company Happy Madison Productions to iron out some of the problems with the types of jokes they use and do something about the music, but Jack & Jill was good despite what it suffers from in terms of flaws. What is the point of throwing cheap punches at a film that merely desires to be funny and charming like this, and for the most part succeeds, when far more deserving failures in cinema are given a free pass?

From http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Jack-and-Jill-Main-Review.jpg

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