December 1, 2011
According to JRD Skinner, Threedayfish is a mystery to man, woman, and child. As master of the FlashCast’s first recurring segment, and sole film reviewer, Fish has begun to build an empire of internet notoriety which can only end in a flame-out of booze, drugs, and easy women.
While always listening, Fish currently occupies most of his time with his education, and has been known to delve into the world of war game miniatures.
I’d like to note that it says “sole” film reviewer. There is a good reason for that. While my New York Minute segment of FlashCast may often touch upon movies, and this website may on occasion do a feature on some of the worst that movies have to offer, I am not nearly the reviewer that Threedayfish is. I would hate to try to put into words what I feel about movies. I would not dare step on his toes. The old cliché “I may not know about art but I know what I like” applies to me. It definitely does not apply to Threedayfish.
You can find him online and like him on Facebook right here.
Read on and discover how some modern films carry on the tradition of a classic American genre.
Fish’s Guide to Judging Pulp
Special guest Threedayfish here helping out bmj2k, a guy I’ve never even met. Why? Because I am a nice guy. He didn’t give me much to work with. He just said “Hey Fish, you’re a handsome guy, mind helping me with my blog” and I said yes. Why? Because I am a sucker for flattery. Enough about what I am, now for who I am. I am a contributor to a podcast known as Flash Pulp. Flash Pulp tries to revive an American genre that has left a lasting impression on its media. I specialize in reviewing movies worthy of the title pulp. It was easy at first, thanks to the slew of super hero movies. Comic book heroes are a direct descendant of pulp fiction magazines. But as summer waned, and the easy pulp picks thinned, I had to decide for myself how to distinguish pulp flicks from any other old movie?
Well, looking back on pulp’s history and evolution, I have determined three hallmarks that separate a true blue pulp movie from a look alike. The first genetic trait in pulp DNA is how the movie ends. The movie has to make the audience feel like things worked out for the best. There are a couple of ways a pulp movie can achieve this. Super hero movies have the most familiar form of this kind of ending: the hero, after coming to grips with his new identity as an individual with the responsibility to help others, has saved the day and things look brighter until the inevitable sequel. However, that isn’t to say the ending has to be all smiles. An example of this would be when John Hartigan saves Nancy Callahan then kills himself in Sin City. Not exactly uplifting, but the hero’s moral code was upheld and the girl was saved. A warrior’s death. While not a happy ending, it was virtuous. Sounds predictable? Of course! A pulp movie must leave the audience reassured that good can triumph over evil. The exceptions to this rule would be your Lovecraftian horror and your film noir. But that has more to do with the goals of the genre.
So, we have eliminated kiddie movies and tragedies. C’mon Fish, we need specifics. Okay. Here’s another give away. Pulp will experiment in story lines and style. A great example of this is Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Movies like Tron experimented with being sucked into a video game, but Scott Pilgrim put on display a world where video games were reality. This made for a visually humorous and charming movie. This narrows down our picks. While dramas can be pulp-y, a good drama will often try to make some point, one that may challenge your beliefs or defend others with a new perspective. This is all well and good, but it’s not the way pulp operates. This eliminates dramas, documentaries, and a through and through comedy which aims to parody rather than experiment.
So what does this leave us with? The pulpiest of genres: Adventure, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Horror/Thriller and Crime. But Fish, you have yet to really narrow things down. Well, to be honest, it’s not hard to fall into the pulp category. But there is one more necessary quality. Pulp heroes are static, predictable, expected. These have a negative connotation from movie critics, but an audience member may see it differently. An audience member may see them as reliable. “Count-on-able” if you will. So what’s so great about this predictability?
Pulp is a genre that doesn’t try to invent, rather to improve and innovate. Humans have created anything original in art, music, or literature for thousands of years. Pulp-influenced writers have no illusions about this and so they reinvent whatever and wherever they can. This can be in the setting as in the Scott Pilgrim example, or with pseudo-science in Sci-Fi. Any new discoveries in science lead to new pseudo-scientific problems and conflicts in our movies and books. It is what society at large calls ‘progress’ that pulp tries to shield us from. Often it seems to just add more problems and more stress to our troubled world. Pulp ultimately tries to reassure the public that things will work out, even if their world was just turned upside down and we hit our butts hard on the unfamiliar ground. Pulp will do this by any means, even if that means avoiding thought-provoking and ‘smart’ plots.
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