The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Reason's Jesse Walker sent out a link this morning to this Wikipedia entry for David Bowie's album Lodger. It includes the line:
Indifferently received by critics on its initial release, it is now widely considered one of Bowie's most underrated albums.
"What does it mean to be "widely considered" one of the "most underrated"?" he asked. It reminded me of a piece I read yesterday headlined "11 Early Scathing Reviews of Works Now Considered Masterpieces."
We learn what some early critics said of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Beethoven's No. 9 in D Minor, Bizet's Carmen, Melville's Moby-Dick, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Joyce's Ulysses, Orwell's Animal Farm, Keats' Endymion and all of the Impressionists during the 19th century. The most shocking?
11. Fred Astaire (1899 – 1987)
Modern Status: “…like Bach, who in his time had a great concentration of ability, essence, knowledge, a spread of music…Astaire has that same concentration of genius.” –Balanchine
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“…simply the greatest, most imaginative dancer of our time.” –Nureyev
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“What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It’s no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he’s too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It’s too hard to face.” –BaryshnikovEarly Reaction: “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” –MGM Testing Director’s response to Astaire’s first screen test
I'm curious what musicians, actors, dancers, books, artwork, albums, etc. are criminally underrated or will go from being dismissed to considered masterpieces. My vote is on The Last Action Hero. Widely panned by critics and nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, it's my view that the film was just too much truth for Hollywood and its audiences to handle. They'll come around some day.
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Dec '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Army of Darkness.
Mar '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
-- The Chicago Times, November 20, 1863, the day after the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Mitt Romney as candidate/president
Sep '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Anyone who has achieved success in the arts has experienced dismissal and rejection from gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are gatekeepers because they are spectacularly uncreative, lack vision, and yet have strong opinions. Sometimes they are right, and many, many times horribly wrong.
I found the article lacking in the one thing that matters here - the difference between what one person might say, as in the Animal Farm rejection from a publisher (really, how many authors of masterpieces can produce rejection letters from publishers? )or a testing directors view of Fred Astaire's talents versus rejection by the public at large as in the Moby Dick case.
The article lends credence to the myth that cognoscenti in a given field will know talent and ability when they see it, and that these dismissals are aberations. They are the norm.
We will rarely know what is criminally underrated since, if you know of a musician, actor, dancer, they are already half-way famous yet still haven't achieved the level of near universal acceptance - and this is usually for a reason. As you say Mollie, you believe the film the Last Action Hero was too much truth for Hollywood and audiences to handle.
May '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
I agree that Last Action Hero is underrated. Modern film writing is so bad that it is difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief. The "action comedy" genre that Arnold hoped to create with this film turned that weakness into a strength. He went over the top with bits that would have ruined pure action films by breaking the suspension of disbelief.
Sep '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Mistake of rule #3 :Know your audience.
Art cannot exist in a vacuum. If it doesn't resonate with the public it is either too advanced, too far behind (obvious or trite) or it doesn't communicate a coherant idea.
We always lament the too far advanced.
Mario Puzo wrote several literary works with little impact. Then he deliberately wrote The Godfather as a popular bestseller type of book. Which was more valid, the books no one read, or the bestseller that was popular and perhaps not as stunningly brilliant, but had to have been informed artistically in spite of Puzo's goal for it to be a bestseller?
May '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Franco
Art cannot exist in a vacuum. If it doesn't resonate with the public it is either too advanced, too far behind (obvious or trite) or it doesn't communicate a coherant idea.
Back then, was the crucial "audience" critics or moviegoers?
There's a huge difference between now and when Last Action Hero hit theaters.
Critics are not the filter they once were. Word of mouth can bypass the critics much more easily now.
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
I somewhat agree about The Last Action Hero, but I totally understand why so many people hated it. The premise was interesting, and the action sequences were some of the best of that era. It should have been a very good action movie.
The problem was that most of the jokes were simply awful, and that one small factor really ruined the experience for many viewers.
It's like how a single plot hole can ruin an otherwise very well-made movie.
A fantasy movie is based on a contract between the filmmakers and the audience. In exchange for suspending disbelief and accepting an impossible fantasy premise, the audience is supposed to get a movie of the highest standards that conforms to the internal logic of the fictional setting. A single violation of that contract, like a plot hole or a bad special effect, can destroy the suspension of disbelief and ruin the movie-going experience.
That's what happens in The Last Action Hero. They broke the contract by including too many really corny jokes, which was a violation of the internal logic of the big-budget action movie fictional setting.
May '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Cultural critics aren't any brighter than political pundits. Even projects that are universally acclaimed as bad had scores of people behind it that thought they were good ideas to begin with.
As for the famous (or infamous) review of Fred Astaire few people who trot that out don't realize that Astaire was already a huge star on Broadway when that assessment was made. It isn't like that idiot at MGM stood between Astaire and greatness.
Before Astaire ever set foot on a Hollywood sound stage the Gershwins had already written two shows for him and his sister Adele. And when Adele quit the stage his first solo effort was written by some guy named Cole Porter.
Same with Bob Hope. Rapid Robert was a star on Broadway in Roberta and doing well emceeing vaudeville and stage shows. His first effort at
movies was horrible. When Walter Winchell asked him how it turned out Hope told him that "when they catch that guy Dillinger they're going to make him watch it - twice!" He was fired the next day.
Hope wouldn't make another film for four years. Even in the first Road picture he was billed third!
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Well, critics at the time were comparing it to Evil Dead II. It's more popular as a stand-alone movie than as a sequel.
Evil Dead fans were generally disappointed by Army of Darkness, but people who had never seen an Evil Dead movie generally enjoyed Army of Darkness.
It's not just that it was popular with genre fans but unpopular with high-minded critics. For example, Roger Ebert gave Evil Dead 2 three-out-of-four stars, but only gave Army of Darkness two-out-of-fours stars.
Edited on April 24, 2012 at 4:49pmMar '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
It's a good thing that someone at Decca Records had the foresight to realize that "guitar bands are on the way out" and managed to pass on an opportunity to sign the Beatles in 1962.
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
ctlaw
Franco
Art cannot exist in a vacuum. If it doesn't resonate with the public it is either too advanced, too far behind (obvious or trite) or it doesn't communicate a coherant idea.
Back then, was the crucial "audience" critics or moviegoers?
In this case it didn't matter. They both hated it.
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
I think stories like this are illustrative, because they show just how many variables there are for artistic success, and how we really cannot predict the formula.
After all, who is to say that the Beatles would have become the same worldwide phenomenon if Decca Records had signed them?
It would have meant different managers, different recording studios, different marketing strategies, different producers, different engineers, etc, etc, etc.
May '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Worse yet, because Last Action Hero was panned we were all robbed of the sequel... Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can swing from a rope a little.
Sep '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Misthiocracy
I think stories like this are illustrative, because they show just how many variables there are for artistic success, and how we really cannot predict the formula.
After all, who is to say that the Beatles would have become the same worldwide phenomenon if Decca Recordshadsigned them?
It would have meant different managers, different recording studios, different marketing strategies, different producers, different engineers, etc, etc, etc. · 0 minutes ago
Exactly! We never know alternate scenarios because everything changes. As well, for every success story I don't think I've ever heard that some famous person hadn't been rejected numerous times. It's probably impossible to rise to the top (or near top) without rejection.
May '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Frank Peretti was rejected by dozens of publishers and went on to be HUGE in the Christian book market.
May '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
Misthiocracy:
That's what happens in The Last Action Hero. They broke the contract by including too many really corny jokes, which was a violation of the internal logic of the big-budget action movie fictional setting. · 37 minutes ago
I think that was the point.
That being said, the movie had a few continuity problems. In a few instances, it was hard to tell whether something like a transparent special effect or a jump cut was intentional to highlight the unrealness of the Slater movie scenes or was just bad filmmaking.
Jan '11
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
The twist in Mollie's question is that we aren't just evaluating talent. That can always be a shot in the dark. Think of Tom Brady or Michael Jordan, both of whom were overlooked for how talented they were. But, at the time of the evaluation, they hadn't done anything yet. It was still only a prediction of what they might do.
The curiosity with Mollie's post is that the Bowie album was already out there. The music itself didn't change ... only our reaction to it.
And, it isn't just that one guy was cranky that day and missed an obvious masterpiece. There are some movies and music that were widely disliked at the time, and the public came around. (Or, equally, there were some artworks that were loved when released, and now no one really cares about them.) In that case, art really is more a reflection of us ... it shows what we have changed.
It's a Wonderful Life comes to mind. Star Trek grew on us.
In a different way ... space exploration has faded. Growing up, NASA was the coolest place and a den of geniuses. Now? Meh.
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
I find that a person generally thinks a movie is "underrated" if that person thinks they "get" what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish. However, they either think that other people don't "get" it because other people are too dim, or they simply think other people should look past the film's obvious flaws and appreciate what the filmmaker was trying to do.
Examples:
Aug '10
Re: The Last Action Hero Is Criminally Underrated
ctlaw
I think that was the point.
I agree, but it was a point badly-made.
The problem isn't that the movie contains jokes. The problem is that the jokes aren't very good, and certainly aren't very clever. The jokes are too obvious.
The satire would have been much more effective if the humour has been less obvious and more subtle. The satire has to sneak up on the audience.
The kid isn't just trapped in an action movie, he's trapped in a bad action movie. If the kid had been trapped in a good action movie, the satire would have been much more effective.
After all, satirizing bad action movies is too easy. Satirizing good action movies, now that's a neat trick.
Good movies for comparison would be Paul Verhoeven's original Robocop, or Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, which are dripping with delicious satire but don't hit you over the head with corny jokes.