Most of the time, I do not write about popular culture, apart from the culture that my friends and I experience - and since we are New Yorkers, we are part of a bellwether for popular culture for the rest of the country, if not the rest of the world - excepting California. Okay, so maybe I do scrawl about pop culture, but I want to believe it is less banal than the crap you can read anywhere about B-celebrity stalking and the like.
I do make the occasional reference, though not as obscure as Dennis Miller, that is, before he had his self-induced personality transplant, which is to say, when he was funny, back in the Holocene - to erstwhile popular music, my favorite films, and classic books.
The point here and now, is about a film I went to see, its premiere weekend, in but a handful of cities, one of them mine, of course. C'est normal. We are an island of cineastes, among the many personas we are or adopt.
Muck. I am sounding like Henry James again. Forgive.
Well. My hair colonist-stylist did aver that I was a "gay man trapped in a straight woman's body." Except that I like straight men. Well, my gay brethren do too - that's most likely what he meant.
The film my biz partner and I saw was Conversations with Other Women, a profoundly mis-titled piece of work. And I do know one or eighty-seven things about titles, given my history in book publishing. Yes, not only titles, but covers do matter. Shocking. Right.
The film starred two compulsively watchable actors: Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter.
My pithy, literary, politically-charged, former editor, writer friend - who traffics among movie reviews, blurbs, and interactions with stars - for a living, described it within the structure of that well-known, Japanese, structured verse here.
Wrong title. After watching this gorgeous tone-poem of a film, more like an intensely wrought duet that could have played itself well on a stage, before a live audience, I thought: "Why the shit did they name it that?"
Even though I visited the film's official site, and read the writer's rationale, I wanted to say:"Huh?" Or, "No freakin'; way!"
The writer is a young woman, and kudos to her for crafting such pitch-perfect characters, such worthy dialog. And the less than subtle, but oh-so-appreciated references to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. Brava, young, smart thing that you are. Keep at it. Don't stop now.
But. She - or the director or producers - got the title dead wrong.
Skip the obscurity. Audiences of a certain age and appreciation would prefer a straighter line. Not a deviation.
How about a modification? How about: "Conversation with Another Woman?" Dead-on. Ping. Just replace the question mark with a period, or better, nothing at all.
More incredible - and this film is by no means distinct - is that here is a film, a story brought to cinematic life - the split-screen device at first disorienting, then essential and brilliant - made out of the minds of the writer and director. Bravi for them. Make the film in which you believe, cast remarkable talent, in this case, both of whom have indy-cred (and in truth, more), but probably liked the excellent script, and saw roles upon which they could dig in and chew. Or so, I'm supposing.
But where were the rainmakers? Where were the taste makers? Where were the people - behind the scenes - those folks who could have dialed into the target audience(s) and devised a demand for this film - way in advance? For surely, and I as one person - among a handful - can attest that there is not only a target audience, but it would be rabid.
Too often, films get made under the rubric: "If you build it, they will come." Well, news flash: they won't. That wall of noise is several hundred stories high.
Whether or not Snakes on a (mother fuckin') Plane is worth the price of $10.75 - yes, hello the rest of the world, that's how we roll here - I expect it will have a killer opening weekend. You would have to be living on a stopped elevator for the past year not to know about that film.
Sure, I'll go see Snakes on a Plane.
But I'll wind up buying the DVD (or future equivalent) of Conversation with Another Woman (my title), and watch it over and over again. Like, oh: Something's Gotta Give, Amelie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Door in the Floor.
And almost any other film starring the guy, yep: Aaron Eckhart.