| *SPOILERS*
Where it gets silly, for me, is when Meryl Streep says "I guess we'll have to kill him." I just felt the "tacked on Hollywood ending" critique was already done, and much better, in The Player.
I didn't think Laroche was a secondary character, I thought he was the main character, and that Kaufman created a really good, moving, non-pomo portrait of him, and adding Streep as a love interest was weirdly moving, too. Unfortunately that would have only been a 45 minute film, so Kaufman padded it out with all the theory and Woody Allen stuff about being a bald, sweaty blocked writer.
I know I'm being snotty. I'm like Jim Louis--I don't want any more brainy postmodernism, I want to be told a story (even though I don't follow that advice on my page).
And being from the South (well, Texas) I admit to having an affection for stories about southern intellectuals who manage to thrive and be visionaries without moving to the Northeast or California. Laroche is the real deal, while Kaufman is merely clever. I couldn't help but feel the movie was Kaufman's unconscious revenge on a character he envied. He created this beautiful sketch and then buried it in narcissistic ugliness.
That's just my (admittedly extreme) take.
|
Where it gets silly, for me, is when Meryl Streep says "I guess we'll have to kill him." I just felt the "tacked on Hollywood ending" critique was already done, and much better, in The Player.
I didn't think Laroche was a secondary character, I thought he was the main character, and that Kaufman created a really good, moving, non-pomo portrait of him, and adding Streep as a love interest was weirdly moving, too. Unfortunately that would have only been a 45 minute film, so Kaufman padded it out with all the theory and Woody Allen stuff about being a bald, sweaty blocked writer.
I know I'm being snotty. I'm like Jim Louis--I don't want any more brainy postmodernism, I want to be told a story (even though I don't follow that advice on my page).
And being from the South (well, Texas) I admit to having an affection for stories about southern intellectuals who manage to thrive and be visionaries without moving to the Northeast or California. Laroche is the real deal, while Kaufman is merely clever. I couldn't help but feel the movie was Kaufman's unconscious revenge on a character he envied. He created this beautiful sketch and then buried it in narcissistic ugliness.
That's just my (admittedly extreme) take.
- tom moody 1-13-2003 1:44 am