POP FILTER

VS.

THE RULES OF THE GAME

 

ROUND ONE: DANIEL TOMPKINS

FIGHT.

World War II was a terrible time and France is a terrible place. Most good art comes out of shitty circumstances so it would make sense that what is considered one of the greatest movies of all time was born amidst mass genocide and a bunch of French shit. What doesn’t make sense is that that movie was The Rules of the Game. Either serious film critics have some sort of magical third eye or they’re all full of shit (it’s this one) because this movie is in no shape or form better than – for instance – Red Dawn. I understand that in 1939 they didn’t have color technology or Patrick Swayze so we should cut them some slack but we don’t have Patrick Swayze now either and we’ve gotten along just fine.

In painting and reading and poetry and just about any other medium there are certain forms that are strictly by artists, for artists. This movie falls into that category. It falls into it hard. If you like to talk about camera angles and lenses and lighting and all that stuff then The Rules of the Game will just give you one giant stiffy but don’t go into this movie looking for a solid plot, character development, a sense of tension or at least some fucking explosions. That is what I looked for in this movie and I was sorely disappointed. (there are zero explosions) Where some people might see the director’s invisible paint brush stroking each scene to life, all I saw were a few French and I guess one Austrian person running around cheating on each other and being snobby. Seriously, the entire plot of the movie is that everyone is cheating on their spouse with someone else and they keep changing partners and just being creepy and French the whole time. It wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t get the feeling that it wasn’t even something they were going for but just how every French movie ends up. Also, there very are few times in my life that a movie has ended with someone getting blasted point blank with a shotgun and I wasn’t impressed. I am sad to say that this is one of those times.

There’s a reason people make movies differently now. The art of film is barely a century old so we’re still kind of figuring it out. Even now we fuck it up pretty often. As bad as some of the crap they’re putting out today is we still know how to make movies better than we did fifty years ago. This movie is case in point. The acting is actually pretty terrible. Somewhere around the 50 minute mark it basically breaks down into a series of fights and chases that I can only pray are supposed to be slapstick. Some film buffs will ignore this and focus on…whatever they focus on. Not me. If I want to see people chase each other around a table in black and white I’ll watch a Marx brothers movie, where it’s actually supposed to look funny. Film is a visual art. If you can’t manage to not act ridiculous on-screen I’m going to notice and it’s going to make me angry. More importantly, film is about entertaining me. You can have your messages about how rich French people are somehow even worse than regular ones. Just find a way to make it interesting for me to watch.

So here’s my parting advice: someone, somewhere decided this movie was a classic and good on them. Maybe they were right and I’m just an asshole. If you want to check it out for yourself, grab a bottle of wine and some tasting cheeses and have at it Mr. Fancy Pants. Just don’t go into this thing with a “movie theatre” attitude. Imagine yourself going to an art gallery or a ballet or something else thats boring and artsy. Then think of Rocky IV. If you’d rather go to a ballet or an art gallery than watch Rocky IV you should totally watch The Rules of the Game. You’re also extremely un-American, you bastard.

ROUND TWO: KAY AITCH

FIGHT

Full disclosure, I’m a total Francophile. If you don’t know what that means, that means I’m smarter than you.  Now that we’ve established that I’m a snob, I should point out that the movie is in black and white and has subtitles. If either of those things bothers you, you are a stupid baby and probably only ended up at this review when you got lost on your way to this video:

So, don’t be a noob and focus on the surface-level shittiness, come on a journey with me to the deeper levels of shitty that I was forced to discover because I wasn’t allowed to not finish the movie because my wranglers won’t love me anymore if I don’t watch all my movies.

Favorite quote:
“Only Muslims show a little logic in matters of male-female relations.”

Best scene:
At one point for no obvious reason, they cut to frogs just sitting there for about 20 seconds. I think someone mixed up the film in editing and no one noticed the change. Snare snare cymbol crash.

This “classic farce” is still funny to modern viewers, but only if you take a huge step back, and maybe a huge bong rip, and realize that the joke is on the audience. It is a combination endurance test and practical joke. The movie fully commits to 90 minutes of crappy, poopy, shitty stinkiness, so that the hard little 15-minute nugget of ANYTHING AT ALL HAPPENING at the end feels like a delightful reward. Then you realize, “hey, but why didn’t they just make a movie that was good all the way through, or at least very short?” The funny part is watching your eyes light up at the end of the movie, and then watching that light die again as you realize you’ve been duped. Plus, they make you watch like 10 bunnies die.

Now I’m going to spoil this movie for you by telling you that it ends in a murder, just so I can tell you that I think it’s super awesome that rich people think covering up a murder is “classy.”

Disclaimer: I realize that if I were a historian specializing pre-WW2 Europe, I would appreciate more of the jokes in this movie. Apparently the guy in the bear suit is a joke aimed at an Austrian puppeteer from that era? Aw, snap! Possibly I’d like this movie more if I watched it a second time, but I’m not going to fall for that one again.