POP FILTER

VS.

8 1/2

ROUND ONE: LYNZ FLOREN

FIGHT.

8.5 (out of 100)
I am an educated man.  I was raised with a WIDE variety of artistic and cultural influences.  I always examine art from multiple angles, through different lenses, and within a variety of contexts.  I say all of this because I don’t want to be considered an unsophisticated simpleton as I bash a “classic” film from a bygone era.  I am not saying that 8 1/2 does not have its merits; I am saying that I cannot see why you would leave it playing long enough to find any.  I tried 4 times to watch this movie.  I never made it through.  For the fourth attempt I picked it up 70 minutes into this 138 minute dinosaur.  On the upside, I was no more lost for having missed at least a half hour.  Also, surprisingly, the dialogue was beginning to display some signs of dramatic tension and conflict.  This gave me hope.  Aah hope, it always gets me.
Having retrieved my expectations from the septic tank, I plodded through. And fell asleep again.
Ok, so now it is time to read some reviews online and try to find what it is that I am missing from this dullard. It turns out this movie was the Get Shorty of its generation, minus the humor and editing.  It was a deep and revealing exploration of the blurry line between fact and fiction within the filmmaking world. Well that tells me all I need to know.  Let’s leave this one for the film students, filing it under “ancient history you can forget about, except when you can reference it to make your friends feel dumb”.  Congrats.  I feel dumb.

ROUND TWO: ALEX SCOTT WEBSTER

FIGHT.

In my four years of film school I had heard Federico Fellini’s name thrown around quite a bit, usually along with his opus 8 ½.  Even with all that universal praise, I had never bothered to see it until now, mainly because I knew it wasn’t going to be remotely up my grindhouse centric alley.  In spite of my predetermined dislike of it, I found myself really enjoying the film, which is possibly the greatest praise I can give something.
If you haven’t seen 8 ½, it follows filmmaker Guido Anselmi, who is supposed to be some characterization of Fellini himself, as he is attempting to plan and start his next film.  The entire film hinges on Guido, which presents a huge challenge as on the surface he’s kind of an asshole.  He’s a womanizer, he’s indecisive and he causes tons of grief for just about every person that depends upon him.  That Fellini is able to make him a completely sympathetic character is unbelievable but crucial to the quality of the film.  Fellini is able to use Guido’s flaws to make the character more human, adding a great sense of weight to the later scenes where he wrestles with the decisions he has to make.  The fact that I never once turned on Guido is proof to me of Fellini’s talent as a filmmaker.
Aside from the character moments, what really makes this movie deserving of its status is the use of surrealism.  As a horror fan I’ve often been underwhelmed by dream sequences in those films as I feel they never seem quite as random as most dream sequences.  With that in mind I was floored by the opening nightmare sequence.  It completely took me off guard and looks as random and creepy as a nightmare would be.  The awesome surrealism thankfully doesn’t end there as the narrative constantly shifts in and out of the present day, Gudio’s memories, and his daydreams.  My favorite is probably the scene where he imagines himself having an enormous harem of all the women he’s seen in the film (including a delicious looking young Barbara Steele).  After a few minutes of living it up, one of the girls starts a revolution against him that ends with him picking up a whip and acting as a lion tamer to the horde of angry women trying to bring him down.  The constant switches to these completely ridiculous scenes actually add to the film too as they serve to make Guido realize things about himself and how they translate to the film he is trying to make.
I was not looking forward to watching this thing but I’m really glad I did.  As I’ve already made clear, it deserves its status.  While I don’t think it’s the greatest thing ever made it’s still ridiculously good and deserving of all the verbal fellatio people give it.
Rating: ***1/2

WINNER: WHO GIVES A SHIT?

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS WITH “THE GENERAL!”