Kitsch Has Its Limits

I am an advocate for kitsch, across various realms. Rocky movies, Gone With The Wind, and several professional sports franchises have attained a sufficient level of broad acclaim, but objectively these should never entice me. They do, though.

Everyone immediately thinks of the first Rocky as the beacon of the franchise. I'll admit it's good. This was, also, reminiscent of a era of yore when Sylvester Stallone did not challenge Mickey Rourke for the mantle of the most absurd, plastic-looking male movie actor. For my money, though, I'll go with Rocky IV as the most enjoyable and watchful of the bunch, of which there are five. (I'm not counting Rocky V as a full addition to the batch, and am grudgingly accepting Rocky Balboa. The absence of Talia Shire is palpable, but she wisely walked away after the street-fight debacle of the fifth movie, with the HIV-positive zephyr Tommy Morrison. Hence, I'm combining the two as a bruised example of the last installment.) A call I can't make, though, is which 80s movie I like better: that or Die Hard.

The first one was an exciting, relatively comical, action movie. Bruce Willis plays John McClane, a NYPD officer who battles a gaggle of thieves (NOT terrorists) that take over the Nakatomi Building, where his wife, from which he is separated, works in LA. It contains numerous bursts of great dialogue--it's hard not to with Alan Rickman, who insists that he is an "exceptional thief." Bonnie Bedelia is his potentially ex wife, and every time I see her I wonder what happened to her. Hopefully at some point she plays herself tongue-in-cheekly, like Elisabeth Shue did in Hamlet
2, which I maintain is underrated (just ignore the cloying presence of the guy who plays the teacher's pet). You can't hate anything with Steve Coogan--he's like the inverse of Matthew McConaughey.

Lest we forget, though, the last one was riddled with insane CGI effects and the third one, even though it had the always-stellar Jeremy Irons, buckled under the histrionic outbursts of Samuel L. Jackson. Dave Chappelle's impression of him is great in that it appears like an exaggeration. In fact, though, it's spot-on, and maybe even a little understated. (I still like him, though, and always watch The Negotiator when it's on. And, of course, Pulp Fiction is astoundingly great.)

The same early appreciation and later mire plagues U2. I frequently double back on myself, so I understand the possible ephemerality of broad proclamations, but I'll say it--U2 sucks now. This wasn't always the case. Their early albums--from Boy to War--had fist-pumping anthemic songs that reached maybe the broadest expression with The Joshua Tree. They also, though, had interesting sonically experimental songs like "An Cat Dubh."

I draw the line, though, at the vapid messes that the band has cranked out over the last few albums. Besides "Vertigo," How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was forgettable. Then came whatever the last one was called, and its unlistenable "Kick Off Your Boots" single. That band has wasted my cache of patience, and it would take a great, great release to make me give it anything more than a dismissive shrug. (LNE, an avowed U2 acolyte, won't even try to argue, or validate whatever the band has done in the last five years, and that's a bad sign for them.)

The Harry Potter books and also the Twilight series, likewise, irk me. The series are beyond trite. I won't even cite examples here because I refuse to look them up. One potential validation of them is that "At least they get kids to read." True, but I doubt that adults--parents and teachers included--asserting their aesthetic value bodes well for the child's intellectual development.

I too read crap when I was younger. In grammar school, I loved RL Stine. I was ten, though, and now wouldn't even think of picking up a Fear Street installment without irony. Now, though, mothers proudly clutch the latest Twilight tome. News Flash: that makes you look dumber than the kid next to you.

John Waters may claim that kitsch has an intrinsic, ironic value, but remember: he directed Cry-Baby and, more recently, Cecil B. Demented. Pink Flamingos may have been interesting once, but its time has passed.

R