For some reason, I've been writing quite a few "compare and contrast" reviews lately. Personally, I like all kinds of essays myself, and I also like film, and so therefore those are at least two of the reasons that I like reading reviews and essays from the late-great Roger Ebert. But do you remember back in junior high, when the teacher made you write essay after essay, and you just rolled your eyes and groaned? Well, sometimes teachers know best. (Don't ask them about politics, however, as they're almost always on the "wrong side." At least in my opinion.)
With regards to "compare and contrast," I wrote a "Carrie" versus "Case 39" review recently. Personally, I liked the latter more than the former -- and that opinion holds for all of the "Carrie" versions -- which seems to contradict the crowd. I did find a couple of reviews around the web from true horror afficianados who seem to agree with me; they thought that "Case 39" was really underrated. But for the compare-and-contrast part, you'll notice that parents of a young girl tried to kill her at the beginning of each film. Well at least in the new "Carrie" remake; I can't remember the original exactly, but it definitely holds in "Case 39" too. But after that, the films diverge a bit.
"Where is this all going?!?" you're probably asking to yourself and if you're still reading, which most likely you are not. But if you are, I wanted to compare and contrast this film with some more recent films made about music. In particular, I just watched "Metallica: Through the Never" recently, not because I'm a Metallica fan -- I saw them live once but I find them to be mostly a headache-fest of a metal band -- but rather because, on my Apple TV box, when I was perusing films, that film made the assertion that if I liked "Spinal Tap" that I would like "Into the Never" too. I thought, "Killer! I love 'Spinal Tap' so 'Never' must be great too!" (By the way: the dictionary defines "never" as being an adverb. Why is Metallica using it as a noun? And that reminds me of another "music" film: "One Direction: This is Us." Now, I believe that the title should be "One Direction: This is We." Yeah, it sounds strange, but the to-be-and-linking-verb "is" might be the clue. And remember when you answer the phone? You're supposed to say proudly, "This is he," or "This is she," both examples of the correct-but-odd-sounding-predicate-nominative case. I highly recommend reading Grammar Girl's musings on these issues; she's excellent:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/it-is-i-versus-it-is-me
)
Now, the actors in "Spinal Tap" -- at least the characters they are playing -- know little to nothing about adverbs, nouns, or even the more tricky predicate-nominative case. But who cares? While this film has fun with the characters, it really never makes fun of them per se. In reality, even though they're nearly crazy, and even though they don't seem to understand that making the highest volume on an amplifier 11 doesn't make it actually louder than if it were simply 10 (there is always a linear transformation in any of these types of problems, after all), the film will laugh with the characters and not usually at them. Even the audience will laugh, but they still find these characters oddly charming and mostly sympathetic. But most important: this film is clever while doing it. Very clever.
On the other hand, I found "Into the Never" neither entertaining nor clever. And I recently tried to watch "Rock of Ages," and I hated it too. The tone was all wrong, and the characters were neither believable nor interesting. Now, if you watch "Glee," the singers on that very funny TV show do covers of rock songs -- like Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" as an example -- and they do those covers in a slightly cheesy manner. But they are supposed to be cheesy; they're in Glee, for God's sakes! How many people in any glee clubs that you know are bullies? But in "Rock of Ages," minus perhaps Tom Cruise, the character are whimps and it just doesn't work. Rockers are supposed to be tough guys.
I could go on all day, but I hope that you see my point. And I also hope that you'll think about those junior high days, think about those essays that you wrote that made you hate your teachers. But maybe you should thank those teachers now, since they gave you a skill, a skill that allows you to give evidence that "Spinal Tap" is "pure awesomeness" (as Jack Black might say), while "Metallica: Into the Never" and "One Direction: This is Us" not only have possible English issues with regards to their titles, but are also possibly uninteresting films. Which is worse?
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This Videocassette contains previously unreleased theatrical material: The explosively familiar "HELL HOLE" video (as seen on MTV)! Plus 'HEAVY METAL MEMORIES", the unforgettable greatest-hits commercial that could not be suppressed!"One of the brightest, funniest American parodies to come along since 'AIRPLANE'." -- Vincent Canby, NEW YORK TIMES"PERFECT . . . EVERY DETAIL IS A ZINGER." -- Sheila Benson, LOS ANGELES TIMES"HILARIOUS . . . witty, mischievous satire." -- Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES"One of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time." -- Roger Ebert, AT THE MOVIES
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Ritvik Chaturvedi
Worth the wait!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2017
