When choosing films to watch, let alone post about, I follow my intuitions and desires. I can predict with pretty great accuracy that if Blockbuster's got a whole wall of something in stock, I won't like it. And running the trailer 19, 000 times during prime-time television is a pretty good way to run me out of the theatre. It's OK, though. These movies seem to do just fine without my support. Keeping me awake through a movie full of explosions, car chases, sloppy romantic endings, gratuitous special effects, fantasy worlds or anything else that takes a lot of money to create-- either through effects or stars' paychecks-- is really quite a feat. It seems there is little I can to do force myself to find "entertainment" entertaining.
For my readers who don't read poetry (*sigh*), Joshua Clover is a pretty great poet. He is what another blogger-poet might (in a totally tongue-in-cheek manner) call a CEP (Culturally Elite Poet). But he likes to post on his blog about the mainstreamiest drivel Hollywood has to offer (in my humble opinion). He talks about all the Transformers and the Harry Potters and the Knocked Ups in the world and he says brilliant things about them. I am totally envious of his blog because he is able to cleverly and insightfully tease out all the ways in which big-budget movies, tried-and-true formulaic movies, and genre films of all sorts are reflective of peculiar American mindsets and other cultural biases.
So, am I having a crisis of project tonight? In posting about nothing but the weirdest, most elitist, most abstract oddball films from the dustiest corners of the video rental store, am I missing out on some major revelations about some intellectual meta-landscape that can only be found in the films to which the masses flock? I suppose I am forced to admit that this is a likelihood. But what's my alternative? Go spend $9 to doze through three thousand fake explosions dubiously attributed to xenophobic robots? I can't help it. That does NOT sound like my idea of a fun night out... especially when I could be watching some penetrating documentary or some twisted arthouse softcore porn!
So, if my weird tastes entertain you, please keep reading. But if you're really starving for some sharp analysis of some tiresome movies (so sharp, in fact, that it makes me ALMOST want to see some of them), please go visit Mr. Clover. And then come right back for some more of my weird taste, OK? I'd miss you if you left me for good, but I highly encourage nonmonogamous, exploratory blog reading.
2 comments:
That whole CEP business started when another poet-blogger called ME and some other poets that. Since we started our own presses and magazines, we therefore have something called cultural capital which therefore makes us powerful or evil or going to hell or something. I think it's a hiliarious term and I do occasionally use it for comic effect, but can't imagine anyone who'd truly fit the description.
I once met Joshua at AWP and called him something else, but I was really drunk and probably shouldn't have, but he seemed to take it in stride. I hope. I insulted many people that night.
HA! Yeah, I did giggle through your posts about the CEPs and have since incorporated the term into my vocabulary. I find it useful, particularly in terms of keeping my own elitist ego in check.
When I worked for the UofA Poetry Center in Tucson, Joshua Clover came to read for us--and he delivered an interesting mini-lecture on his internal debate about the pretentiousness of titling one of his books a French word. Also hilarious.
Anyway, thanks for commenting! I enjoy your blog quite a lot!
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