Music People vs. “Movie” People
By Mitch Berg
Yesterday, I took a swipe at the Butthead of American cinema, Quentin Tarantino.
My tastes in movies don’t run to Tarantino – I figure if I want to watch contrived homages to seventies grade-D movies, I’ll watch Mystery Science Theatre, see the real thing in its most appropriate context, and save eight bucks.
Tracy at Anti-Strib took his best shot at a Pauline Kael impression by way of voicing his umbrage:
[I go] on to underscore [my] thundering ignorance by disparaging Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill (no mention of 1 or 2. He probably only saw 1 and thought the ending sucked!) and, worst of all, Reservoir Dogs!
Now, let’s be perfectly straight here; I didn’t disparage any of these movies; merely said that they, Pulp and Dogs and the entire flock of Bills, and Tarantino’s entire oeuvre, bore me stiff.
I have long suspected that most people who are really into music have absolutley [sic] no taste, Berg proves it today. These guys that get wood over hearing some grungy, stoned garage band are obviously too damned dense, or just plain stoned, to get the complex elegance of a truely [sic] great movie.
I must assume the “wood” he’s referring to is the cello I’ve been playing for 34 years, presumably playing along with stoned garage bands (though I can’t remember, having apparently been sniffing glue the whole time).
I digress:
Events like this add to my understanding of how the other small, lonely, boring people live. They obviously are too emotionally and intellectually stunted to appreciate a thing like a fine movie, an aged cigar or an excellent wine. I’d feel a tiny bit sad for them if they weren’t so smug about seeing “the Mat’s” [sic] back for [sic] they never [sic] made it big.
Indeed, I have not recently wasted a weekend curled in a fetal position in front of a DVD player, guzzling cheap blends from the MGM discount rack and smoking all the oxygen out of my brain as I watch my umpteenth Tarentino Marathon. Guilty as charged.
If you do have to interact with a musicophile, be sure to use small words and keep your sentences simple.
Especially if you’re talking to us in Italian.
Grunting is probably the prefered [sic] mode of communication. They most liley [sic] can’t hear you anyway, as they have destroyed their hearing by climbing numberous [sic] Marshall stacks for assinine [sic] stage diving.
So let me get this straight? Tracy is pulling the culcha card – drawing his line in the sand to defend civilization and culture against the drooling barbarians – on behalf of Grindhouse?
Not choosing Hitchcock or Hawks or Ford or Godard as the bastion of culture against the rabble, but Quentin Tarentino, who is the film equivalent of The Doors – flashy, culty and utterly intellectually and emotionally barren and contrived?
Tracy must have gotten into some bad cigars. We’ll forgive him.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:23 am
You are misguided in picking on Tracy’s spelling. It’s his tradmark (sic).
April 10th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Ah and the garage bands that your side worships are the equivalent of Bach and Brahms? I think not. Every industry has it’s classic greats. The point is that for those of us wanting to view current works, you are naturally restricted to what is currently being produced. In that respect, Tarantino is very, very good for a working director with our current studio system. (Does anyone think Mel Brooks could make Blazing Saddles today?)
To put it in terms that a musician might understand, Guns and Roses released Appetite for Destruction in 1987. It was definitely one of the best albums of the year, yet I wouldn’t compare GnR to the Beattles, Elvis or even the Beach Boys, but in 1987, Appetite was as good as you got.
(Of course U2 won the Grammy for “Josua Tree” and Rolling Stone Picked “Tunnel of Love”. The 80’s are to music are what 1939 was to film.)
Capeesh?!
As for the spelling, I was attending a public school during those long dark years when you were still defending public schools. Would that people have woken up 30 years ago about the impending cesspools that our schools would become, I might have better spelling and typing skills. Or maybe not!
April 10th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Ah and the garage bands that your side worships are the equivalent of Bach and Brahms? I think not.
I’m not sure what this “side” is you’re talking about. I’ve been playing classical cello since I was ten years old. I’ve been playing in bands – garage, jazz, punk, pit, cover, concert and party – since I was 15. I’ve got equal jones for heartland punk (the Iron City Houserockers) and Gustav Mahler.
Not sure what “side” I’m on, here…
Every industry has it’s classic greats. The point is that for those of us wanting to view current works, you are naturally restricted to what is currently being produced. In that respect, Tarantino is very, very good for a working director with our current studio system. (Does anyone think Mel Brooks could make Blazing Saddles today?)
A good point, as far as it goes. Yes, Tarantino is – within the current system – a defining practicioner. He happens to practice a genre that I don’t care for, much.
Which is fine – I look at most “art” two ways; things that I can respect as pure craft, and stuff that grabs me in the liver and says “THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING”.
I can nod to Tarantino the same way I can nod at Journey, or the Backstreet Boys for that matter, and say “He/They do what they do very well. It doesn’t grab me by the liver – it might bore me stiff, in fact – but I know that they’re good at what they do”.
But while I nod to Neil Schon’s guitar chops (he’s great, and kinda underrated), I wouldn’t miss a Clash concert to see him play (especially given the whole “resurrection of Joe Strummer” that’d be involved. OK, not the best example). Ditto Tarantino; I know he does what he does well; I just don’t care for what he does!
To put it in terms that a musician might understand, Guns and Roses released Appetite for Destruction in 1987. It was definitely one of the best albums of the year, yet I wouldn’t compare GnR to the Beattles, Elvis or even the Beach Boys, but in 1987, Appetite was as good as you got.
(Of course U2 won the Grammy for “Josua Tree” and Rolling Stone Picked “Tunnel of Love”. The 80’s are to music are what 1939 was to film.)
Nah, the eighties were to music what the seventies were to film; very underrated.
As for the spelling, I was attending a public school during those long dark years when you were still defending public schools. Would that people have woken up 30 years ago about the impending cesspools that our schools would become, I might have better spelling and typing skills. Or maybe not!
“It’s someone else’s fault! I’m an innocent victim!”
It’s OK, Tracy. I’ll ease up and leave the self-esteem unbruised.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Oh I can tell things are going to be fun at the Eberly Manse on Saturday…..
LL
April 10th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Why? Is there a Tarantino marathon?
April 10th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I Tivo’d Caddyshack. I’m going to try and grab some classics for the TV.
I forgot how good Caddyshack is, even with the Kenny Loggins music.
As for spelling, I’ll cop to the real reasons.
1. I’m a 2 fingered typist. I have never learned to type correctly.
2. In HS I sat behind a beautiful cheerleader who hated math class. I did all of her Algebra and Pre-calculus homework in trade for her doing my spelling and vocabularly homework. On Friday’s I would copy her work and then take the spelling tests in the next class. I had pretty good short term memory, so I passed all the spelling tests without learning a thing. In reflection, I should have done my own homework.
If blogs would just get automatic spell check I’d be brilliant!
April 10th, 2007 at 11:24 am
“If blogs would just get automatic spell check I’d be brilliant!”
Tracy, I have it on both Haloscan and Blogger. I gets lots of red underlines.
“(T)he eighties were to music what the seventies were to film; very underrated.”
The Eighties were to music what polio was to basketball.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Bite your tongue, Kermit. After 1989, popular music went to crap IMO. “Alternative”, Grunge and rap/hip-hop could disappear off the face of the earth and i’d not shed a single tear. Granted, a lot of people accuse me of having poor taste in music. When Mitch did those memes about the top 100 songs a while back, I had a lot of them as songs I loved. I remember in 1986, when WLOL did their end of the year Top 100 countdown, I liked over 80 of the 100 songs. It started slowly going downhill after that, and I only liked about half of them from 1988 (year I graduated from HS). Once pop became uncool and “alternative” became pop, and grunge became trendy, I quit listening to the radio. Nowadays, I average probably only 5 new songs per year that I end up liking.
Classics like the Eagles, Beatles, and Beach Boys, yes I love those too, but they’re called classic rock for a reason. Rolling Stones are also a classic, but they don’t turn my crank.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Oh, there is SUCH a great post lurking in this thread.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
BillC just wants that old time rock and roll: “Classics like the Eagles, Beatles, and Beach Boys, yes I love those too, but they’re called classic rock for a reason.”
Is the reason cause ClearChannel needed something to call the market for aging white guys with no taste who can’t tolerate anything more challenging than a couple hundred tired old warhorse songs everybody else is long sick of? And “Oldies” was already taken?
April 10th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
“Nah, the eighties were to music what the seventies were to film; very underrated.”
Are you saying that films from the seventies are underrated? Maybe Tracy does have a point…
April 10th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Nah. The seventies was a great era for American movies. The eighties…
…well, no. As I’m going to note in an upcoming post, it’s wrong to look at music as “decades”. The cycle for music is about 5-7 years. 1982 had very little in common with 1989, musically; the fact that they fell into the same calendar decade is misleading.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
OK Bill, I’m convinced. I am going to dust off my Foreigner and Bad Company LPs right away! What DID I do with that gold vinyl copy of Grand Funk’s We’re an American Band?
April 11th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Is the reason cause ClearChannel needed something to call the market for aging white guys with no taste who can’t tolerate anything more challenging than a couple hundred tired old warhorse songs everybody else is long sick of? And “Oldies” was already taken?
First, I daresay you’re older than me, AC. I’m just guessing, but I’d guess you’re older than me.
And as far as ClearChannel is concerned, what terms they may or may not have ginned up to describe some demographic I might or might not be a part of, concerns me not one whit. If I cared one whit what other people thought of my personal tastes, I’d never leave my house. I’ve had plenty of experience over the years being knocked for my tastes in food, cars, clothes, religion and music. Big ducking feal.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
When Mitch admits that he thinks the era of Blaxpolitation is a high point in film, he pretty much has thrown in the towel.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Didn’t know “The Godfather” was a Blaxploitation film…
April 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
“I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse, sucka!”
April 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
“Who is the don, who’s got it going on?
[Corleone!] – Damn right!Who is the Guinea,
who hit the pillow with the whinny?
[Corleone!] Capisce?
Who’s the cat that’s been made,
who won’t crap out when things get frayed?
[Corleone!] Right on!
You see this cat Don is a bad madre–
[Shut your mouth]
But I’m talkin’ about Corleone
[Then we can dig it]
He’s a complicated guido,
but no one understands him but his family…
April 11th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Nice.