Halftime Fumbling

By Thomas Willett

This past weekend, the Super Bowl happened. For me, I was nowhere near a party that devoured beer and laughed at the increasingly sexist GoDaddy.com commercials. Sports were never instilled in me just like movies were never instilled into Michael Bay fans. Due to my disinterest, I took advantage of local hot spots becoming ghost towns by going to see Chronicle. I was originally going to write my blog on found footage movies after director Josh Tranks’ portrayal infuriated me. It wasn’t until I returned that a million ideas relating to the one event I had purposefully missed came into fruition.

Last time I actually watched the program was the year Tom Petty was the halftime act in 2008. I am not a fan of his music, but I just kept wondering why he took the gig. He wasn’t spectacular. Cut to commercial, and it broke my heart to find out that it was all one big marketing gig for his addition to the King of the Hill cast. I love that show, but I found that move shallow. Despite loving 2007’s performer Prince (which I pleaded to perform “Purple Rain” until I proved my dad wrong), I think Petty was what kept me from watching again.

For the most part, I have been happy with skipping it. I haven’t cared about the Black Eyed Peas since their Dr. Pepper commercial . I also am not a fan of the concepts presented at halftime shows. As someone who likes music, I like to hear a song all the way through (or a very similar radio edit cutting out the various fades). I find medleys to be very disrespectful and I would rather hear three whole songs than nine stapled together. It’s what bothers me most when I turn on the radio to KDAY and they splice a Notorious B.I.G. song into a Kriss Kross song before the second verse. I want fulfillment. They worked hard on the whole thing, not just 90 seconds.

Yet, when it was announced that Madonna would be performing at this year’s show, I just decided to swallow my pride and accept that it would be a medley. An incoherent, big budgeted medley to sell a track that came out two days earlier called “Give Me All Your Loving .” When I got home from seeing Chronicle, it was my sister who hipped me to it by saying, “This is one they’ll be talking about for a while.”

I’ll get it out there that I don’t think Madonna now is really great, but her body of work is something else. Ignore the early “Material Girl” stuff and jump to the innovative “Like a Virgin ” performance at the VH1 Music Awards, and you’ll get the start of what essentially has been the iconic leader to pop singers for the past 30 years. She also put out a lot of catchy songs and redefined where music and sexuality can intercede. She may be grand and elaborate, but it definitely defines pop music as art and commerce. So of course, if I were to talk about the Super Bowl, I would talk about her. Also, I heard M.I.A. was performing, and curses if I don’t think that “Arular” is a great album.

I don’t need to give you the play by play of what happened. It was a medley with big budgeted feel drooled all over it. Almost everything was used as big flash lights that assisted the music and the set pieces were neat looking. This was meant to be spectacle and they succeeded. I don’t know if it reaches the greatness of Prince’s set, but I was in awe of the orchestration. As for the “controversial” gesture that M.I.A. provided, please do note that her line was “I don’t give a s**t” and also that the GoDaddy.com commercials you were airing alongside a Doritos commercial where you pelted a kid with a baby to get a snack were more demoralizing. I didn’t find it defiant, but just an act of a performer immersed in song.

As much as I liked it, there was something that just became clear to me. Madonna was a performer. She knows how to create energy. She has shaped the pop music world just by being experimental. She clearly loves performing. I applaud her for that. What I don’t approve of was something else that she released this past weekend.

When picking assignments for Nerd’s Eye View, we looked through the new releases and discussed which we wouldn’t choose. I vehemently said that I didn’t want to see W.E. Do note that while I liked Madonna as a musician, I have not given her any clearance as a director. We reviewed the trailer on the show, and I found it campy and cold. She has a sense of class and sexuality, but doesn’t know how to direct other people with it. Also note that it currently holds 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Don’t get me wrong that Madonna CAN be good as an actress. However, her resume does feature 12 Razzie nominations, seven of which she won. I do defend her in Evita, which probably is what jades my opinion. She is basically called upon to sing while Antonio Banderas narrates the story. It’s a good movie, but I think it’s mostly because the general concept relied more on her strengths.

In fact, Madonna’s poor acting is what once kept a former house guest of mine from watching Guy Ritchie movies for the longest time. He had nothing against Ritchie other than the assumption that Madonna was a bad influence on his work. Then I finally forced him to watch Snatch and almost all was forgiven as we decided never to see Swept Away.

What is the big appeal of Madonna getting behind the camera? It isn’t a popular trend for musicians to succeed as movie directors. Writing a song requires a tight focus on structure, lyrics, breakdowns, and other elements. It can often be a personal affair with Pro Tools and leave many to go insane. Movies are harder. They take weeks to shoot and require more focus and a way bigger budget. While you can control yourself, you cannot always control performers and crew members who can be unruly.

Madonna’s bad direction is not the first time this trend has happened. Even Prince has experimented with it to abysmal results with Razzie-winning Under the Cherry Moon. The interference of outside sources is what kills an artist usually and not having that specific control. It also hurts that usually one forum is verbal and one is visual. Even if you take into consideration music videos, that’s usually the work of a director not named the main performer. I guarantee you that if Michael Jackson directed the “Thriller” video instead of John Landis, it wouldn’t be remembered.

There is a need for a visual flair with music videos that often requires experienced directors to do it. There’s even a select group that progress into feature lengths, including Spike Jonze and David Fincher (who directed Madonna’s “Vogue”). They all created music videos that you probably have seen and remembered because they were authentic. It can also be because they honed their craft as opposed to just jumping into it and looking foolish.

Musicians can play a guitar, but they need to hone their visual craft. Some may do music videos, but their original passion of music will always overpower their desire to branch out. There hasn’t been any that has progressively shown an impressive body of work. While Ice Cube directed the entertaining The Player’s Club, he hasn’t done much since. He’s even starred in Fred Durst’s The Longshots, which may have been well received, but doesn’t redefine the Limp Bizkit singer.

Probably the one that has shown some growth has been Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Going back to their debut “License to Ill,” the Beastie Boys have always been more than a rap group. Their lyrics feature the cultural heritage of pop, history, and literature. Not a track goes by where they don’t cleverly mix in some humorous reference . They even began making interesting videos with the help of Jonze in the 90’s and have since become one of those bands that have also pushed boundaries on how a group can present themselves. It also helps that they’re ambitious musicians who performed their own parts on “Check Your Head.”

While Yauch is not entirely known for his movies, he has become an ambitious force. He gets the credit of directing the Beastie Boys concert Awesome: I Shot That, in which they give hundreds of fans cameras to shoot their concert. He also created the 30 minute short Fight For Your Right Revisited, which recalled their 80’s heyday with a who’s who of modern day comedians. It’s a very humorous, ambitiously shot film which falls apart at the end, but it is definitely worth the fans’ time. However, Yauch’s only full length credit, the documentary Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot, hasn’t captured the zeitgeist in as creative a way as his other work. He is also the producer of Oscilloscope Laboratories, which has made a name for itself as an ambitious independent company that has released acclaimed movies like We Need to Talk About Kevin and Meek’s Cutoff.

It helps that Yauch has established his voice through various artistic projects. The Beastie Boys were always about pushing the medium through new things. While Madonna redefined herself repeatedly in music videos and stage performance, she mostly stuck to music. She tried to branch into acting, but hasn’t been nearly as successful. It doesn’t help that some people just aren’t good at acting. Yauch isn’t either, but the difference is that he tried several things to get where he is today.

While Madonna’s halftime show will probably be one of those things I look back fondly on, I cannot say that her obituary should include director as an occupation. She doesn’t really have an authentic voice in her movies worth sharing. I appreciate the ambition, but hopefully she’ll just continue to make music until she retires. It may not be the most exhilarating stuff on the market, but when your music sounds like the Go! Team, you’re at least sounding half your age. Maybe that’s the issue. She hasn’t lyrically felt like she aged. She’s a pop star to the nth degree. However, things have gotten better since “American Life .”

In closing, I do think that it’s possible for musicians to translate to directing films. There hasn’t been one yet who has redefined their career with it, but if they have the passion, I am sure that one day it will come through. Who knows who that will be? It probably won’t be Madonna, though.

You can read Thom’s blog every Wednesday and hear him on Nerd’s Eye View every Tuesday and Thursday at nevpodcast.com . Send your thoughts to nevpodcast@gmail.com. You can also read Thom’s movie reviews for Cinema Beach at cinemabeach.com .