Marshall and the Movies

Well ... I'm bored. Yawwwwn.

Worst blog post ever.

Cinematical reports the curious case of Sondra Lowell, who is to sleep what James Cameron is to visual effects: a cinematic pioneer in refining the craft.  Here’s more:

“Sondra Lowell has made two insufferable movies that even she can’t endure, and yet by some standards she might be the most successful filmmaker to have ever lived. Lowell’s films ‘WebcamMurder.com’ and ‘Sublime Crime: A Subliminal Mystery’ are (ingeniously titled) features explicitly designed to put her audiences to sleep, and the critics agree that her work achieves its goals with a consistency seldom seen in the careers of even the most celebrated auteurs (the Los Angeles Times described ‘WebcamMurder.com’ as “The most boring talkie ever made”). With just two films to her name, Lowell is not only the progenitor of the “film sleepy” genre (a term she coined to describe her work), but also its greatest artistic force.”

Here’s my problem with Lowell: this has been a sub-genre for years, slyly incorporating its way into genre movies since the advent of cinema.  I’ll point to a recent classic, Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation,” and the best of 2010 so far would have to be Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction.”  So why bother trying to put people to sleep; so many filmmakers are so good at it that they can do it unintentionally!  I mean, how can you compete with Coppola, who can direct these movies in her sleep?  (Horrible pun fully intended.)