![Dana Stevens’ review of Robert Siegel’s “Big Fan” is smart but too short. Stevens tosses of glimmering insights in a few words without letting them expand – scattered sparks without the kindling to feed them.
An example is her description of the movie as an extension of its central character. She writes of Big Fan, “it’s ungainly, imperfect, a bit too self-serious—but so sincere you can’t help rooting for it anyway. Those same adjectives could also be used to describe Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt)[.]” This is kind of like a self-simile, but it’s fuller and subtler. Something similar was said about the last Hulk movie – that, like its hero, it was too massive, too interested in smashing things.
I like the idea that a character’s essence can pervade a movie so that the two become coextensive. Stevens returns to this thought, again too briefly, later in the review, when she says that the movie uses “digital video that looks appropriately dingy and cheap.” It’s as though Oswalt’s character determines the color and texture of the world around him, the way a bag of tea steeps in clear water.
In the first sentence of her review, Stevens calls Big Fan “a critique of American masculinity,” which was definitely my impression from the trailer, and one of the reasons I’m looking forward to seeing it. But Todd McCarthy, in his Variety review, writes that it’s “unlikely to appeal much to women, non-sports fans and mainstreamers.” This surprised me, and based on the trailer, seems wrong. I am not a sports fan. Someday I’ll write about all the things that I think are wrong with sports. Essentially, I believe they’re bad for men. If Big Fan is a critique of American masculinity through the lens of sports fanaticism, I want to know what it has to say. But Stevens’ review just calls it “a critique,” and drops the issue after that. Maybe that’s for film scholars, not movie reviewers, to explore; but I wish that Stevens didn’t shy from addressing whatever questions the movie raises. There can be fruitful commentary about that stuff for us “mainstreamers” without getting dry and academic.
Stevens’ commentary isn’t quite fruitful, but it does, uh, plant a lot of seeds. For example, she writes that Kevin Corrigan’s mere presence onscreen “allows the movie a coattail ride on Corrigan’s Law, which stipulates that no movie with Kevin Corrigan in it can be entirely bad. See also: Harry Dean Stanton Rule, Catherine Keener Correlative.” When taken together with her remarks about Patton Oswalt’s centrality, it starts to look like Stevens thinks that actors are the driving forces in a movie. It’s not necessarily untrue, and the “celebrity culture” that Stevens mentions clearly reflects that. I’m reminded of what’s called the “great man theory” in historiography. To quote from Wikipedia:
The Great man theory is a philosophical theory that aims to explain history by the impact of “Great men”, or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence and wisdom or Machiavellianism, used power in a way that had a decisive historical impact.
My high school history teacher taught me to be skeptical of the great man theory, urging instead that we consider other approaches to history. I wonder if there’s a similar thing in film – the great man theory could translate to actors, whereas teleology could translate to, say, screenwriting. Once more, Stevens sets up a good premise but doesn’t follow it anywhere.
Stevens criticizes the supporting cast as caricatures, calling them “overdrawn, a gallery of working-class grotesques with spray tans and boob jobs.” If Stevens had fleshed out her suggestion that Big Fan is really an extension of Paul Aufiero, then she might have argued that these characters are distorted by Paul’s perception of them. Stevens is basically faulting Big Fan for having the filmic equivalent of an unreliable narrator. But by scattering her good ideas without showing readers how they might connect, she’s guilty of the same thing herself.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpbv4hoCz01qzcnpmo1_400.jpg)
Dana Stevens’ review of Robert Siegel’s “Big Fan” is smart but too short. Stevens tosses of glimmering insights in a few words without letting them expand – scattered sparks without the kindling to feed them.
An example is her description of the movie as an extension of its central character. She writes of Big Fan, “it’s ungainly, imperfect, a bit too self-serious—but so sincere you can’t help rooting for it anyway. Those same adjectives could also be used to describe Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt)[.]” This is kind of like a self-simile, but it’s fuller and subtler. Something similar was said about the last Hulk movie – that, like its hero, it was too massive, too interested in smashing things.
I like the idea that a character’s essence can pervade a movie so that the two become coextensive. Stevens returns to this thought, again too briefly, later in the review, when she says that the movie uses “digital video that looks appropriately dingy and cheap.” It’s as though Oswalt’s character determines the color and texture of the world around him, the way a bag of tea steeps in clear water.
In the first sentence of her review, Stevens calls Big Fan “a critique of American masculinity,” which was definitely my impression from the trailer, and one of the reasons I’m looking forward to seeing it. But Todd McCarthy, in his Variety review, writes that it’s “unlikely to appeal much to women, non-sports fans and mainstreamers.” This surprised me, and based on the trailer, seems wrong. I am not a sports fan. Someday I’ll write about all the things that I think are wrong with sports. Essentially, I believe they’re bad for men. If Big Fan is a critique of American masculinity through the lens of sports fanaticism, I want to know what it has to say. But Stevens’ review just calls it “a critique,” and drops the issue after that. Maybe that’s for film scholars, not movie reviewers, to explore; but I wish that Stevens didn’t shy from addressing whatever questions the movie raises. There can be fruitful commentary about that stuff for us “mainstreamers” without getting dry and academic.
Stevens’ commentary isn’t quite fruitful, but it does, uh, plant a lot of seeds. For example, she writes that Kevin Corrigan’s mere presence onscreen “allows the movie a coattail ride on Corrigan’s Law, which stipulates that no movie with Kevin Corrigan in it can be entirely bad. See also: Harry Dean Stanton Rule, Catherine Keener Correlative.” When taken together with her remarks about Patton Oswalt’s centrality, it starts to look like Stevens thinks that actors are the driving forces in a movie. It’s not necessarily untrue, and the “celebrity culture” that Stevens mentions clearly reflects that. I’m reminded of what’s called the “great man theory” in historiography. To quote from Wikipedia:
The Great man theory is a philosophical theory that aims to explain history by the impact of “Great men”, or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence and wisdom or Machiavellianism, used power in a way that had a decisive historical impact.
My high school history teacher taught me to be skeptical of the great man theory, urging instead that we consider other approaches to history. I wonder if there’s a similar thing in film – the great man theory could translate to actors, whereas teleology could translate to, say, screenwriting. Once more, Stevens sets up a good premise but doesn’t follow it anywhere.
Stevens criticizes the supporting cast as caricatures, calling them “overdrawn, a gallery of working-class grotesques with spray tans and boob jobs.” If Stevens had fleshed out her suggestion that Big Fan is really an extension of Paul Aufiero, then she might have argued that these characters are distorted by Paul’s perception of them. Stevens is basically faulting Big Fan for having the filmic equivalent of an unreliable narrator. But by scattering her good ideas without showing readers how they might connect, she’s guilty of the same thing herself.
