Musings from the Land with the Big Fancy Sign: Old Boy bashing with the cool kids

Friday, December 6, 2013

Old Boy bashing with the cool kids

A few weeks back I found

myself in a screening of epic

magnitudes. This was a

screening for Spike Lee's

Oldboy and I went in as fresh

and clueless to what it was as

anyone could ever hope for

when going to a screening.

I didn't know it was a Spike

Lee joint, and I didn't know

that it was a remake of a

Korean film of the same name

based off a (Manga?) series.

And of course when I got there Mr. Goldsmith who does the majority of our A and Ques at mount super fabulous had announced the previous night at the Monsters University screening that we would have a special guest.

So who shows up?

Fucking Spike FUCKING Lee!!!!

And so my mind was blown.

For one, I've never actually have seen a Spike Lee joint all the way through.

I tried with

and

And in both instances I couldn't get through them.

I did however manage to get through his Hurricane Katrina 4 part HBO mini-series but I don't count that one.

So now I know this will be the first Spike Lee joint I'm gonna get through and then low and behold Mr. Lee actually watched the movie with us and brought along some of his top people in his crew. Plus it was an advanced screening so this was a major WINNING!!! night for me.

If your going to break your Spike Lee joint movie cherry I couldn't have thought that up in my craziest shittiest pipe dream from when I lived in the cheese wiz utopia.

As for the movie I loved it.

Since I was not tainted by knowing the history of the franchise and seeing it fresh I thought it had a lot of balls, didn't hold back, and I could tell that 'they' really tried to pay homage to the original.

The Q and A was interesting and I have posted a link to it below. And I really understand now much clearly why Spike Lee can be such a controversial figure. He's not the easiest interview and it seemed to me that Goldsmith was a bit more nervous in this than usual.

Also last week I saw an article about the poster art and the designer of that not getting his compensation and then Mr. Lee responding in a fashion that to me was not surprising. His tact was how I would define as being very brash and that high brow attitude so prevailant from the ultra super fabulous people in the Land with the Big Fancy Sign.

Here is the Link to the article from the holy fabulous Thee Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/spike-lee-slams-designer-who-660765

As for the screening, it was one of those screening nights that I will remember for the rest of my days.

So about a week later the movie is released to very bad reviews and my classmates who are the biggest fans of the Franchise you can imagine are bashing a movie they have not seen. And then on social media it was the same thing. The most surprising thing for me was the fact that so many people are actually watching foreign subtitled films from South Korea???

Who knew???

Cause when we screened the original 'Dragon Tattoo' at Mount Super Fabulous

approximately 4 people showed up.

Now, I can understand that a fan boys love and devotion to the original can be border lined fanatical but my problem is judging a movie you have not seen and already declaring it blasphemy and then judging it again because Spike Lee directed it.

I'm not the biggest Spike Lee fan and if I remember correctly he had the same sort of attitude with 'Django' which I thought was amazing but of course he loved '12 Years a Slave' which I thought was very much less amazing. And then even Morgan Freeman for reasons of his own stated that he would refuse to see '12 Years a Slave.' ???

And I have mad respect for Mr. Freeman and his whole take on BET.

I mean really?? They really do need a WET channel.

Which gives me an interesting flashback to some other awesomness:

Back to Old Boy and in the A and Que Mr. Lee talks about how the original stands on it's own as it's own masterpiece and that his version is a re-interpreting. And to really watch it as such.

And like I had written previously in the The Worst Movie of 2013 post people have such an emotional attachment that they are unwilling to see something that they deem to be blasphemy to a masterpiece.

And it almost seems to me to be the 'cool' thing to do is to blast Old Boy without having seen it because it's what all the cool kids are doing since they all spend their time watching foreign subtitled films from South Korea???

So at least that gives me hope and I'm in an environment where that's actually a reality even if it seems to be what all the 'cool' kids are doing.

Go figure that one???

Here is the link to the Old Boy A and Que

featuring screenwriter Mark Protosevich and director Spike Lee

moderated by Jeff Goldsmith:

http://www.theqandapodcast.com/2013/11/oldboy-q.html