oh me of little faith . . .

my twenty-seventh year, which, if you'll recall, i feared and half believed would be my last, has wound to a tidy and shockingly satisfactory close. it brought me a boffo job that exceeded all my craziest, most fevered, most tequila-soaked hopes; it brought me a new and improved home that i don't have to share with anyone or anyone's evil parrot; it even brought me a smaller dress size and an unsuspected gift for making excellent vegan desserts, two things i would never have expected to receive simultaneously. and now i'm twenty-eight, and nothing's ever perfect, but some things are a lot better than you think they'll be.

earlier this month i passive-aggressively scolded my very best beloved secret boyfriend malcolm gladwell for forgetting my birthday, partly out of hurt and partly because it seemed so unlike him to do such a thing—and, of course, it would have been unlike him, if it had happened. but it was all me jumping to conclusions, which is only a little bit unlike me and usually works out o.k. in the end.

i am, as ever, about three and a half months behind on the new yorker. the blasted things just keep coming and coming, and i keep picking them up out of the mail pile and stashing them at the bottom of the magazine pile because i'm determined to fight my way through the whole wretched mess without cheating or skimping or missing anything, and because my mother pays to renew that subscription every october and four months' worth of issues is equal to close to half of a year's renewal fee and i'm sure as hell not tossing my mother's hard-earned money out with the recycling without at least leafing through it on a sunday morning . . . and so i didn't notice that malcolm had written a perfectly lovely article for the media issue, which just happened to come out the week of my birthday. shame on me. and even though malcolm would have been well within his rights to point out that he hadn't received any special packages from me back in the beginning of september, he took the high, phlegmatic road and instead brought the article up—very gently—on his blog.

i don't know if it's me becoming increasingly smitten or an objective editorial observation, and odds are there's no way for me to be sure, but malcolm's writing, from a purely stylistic standpoint, seems to have improved exponentially over the past few years. (i still lose my breath over "parlor pinks," but that's neither here nor there.) he's much better about not talking to us as though he isn't sure we'll understand him, and while his reporting has always been straight, his wrap-ups have become tighter and cleaner—unreporterly enough to make you sure of where he stands, but not so swayed that you feel as if he's trying to convince you of something. his emotional saturation has found the just-right spot typically reserved for the third bowl of porridge. and he makes jokes now, and they're good, subtle, quirky jokes . . . the work's gone all sparkly, and i'm just over the moon about the whole situation. and then, of course, there are the things he actually chooses to write about, which are all fat and yummy and made so sad by the fact that he isn't pitching them to me from my sofa.

but he is sending them to me for my birthday, and my present went like this: some men have come up with an algorithm that allows them to predict, far more accurately than anyone else has ever been able to predict, which screenplays are likely to be made into hugely successful movies and which can expect to grow up into movies that will meet with moderate to meager, to zero, success. here's the comment i made at his blog prior to reading the article:

i suppose once i read the piece i'll have a better understanding of how the network monitors public opinion in order to assess a movie's likely turnout. i have a feeling, though, that it would be similar to . . . looking at movies that have been box-office hits and seeking similar aspects. how long could a system like that really be successful at pitching films to a single generation?

on a more selfish note, my personal movie preferences are different enough from most people's that i might dread a tool like this being put into widespread use. i understand that most movies are already, and always will be, made based on the likelihood of a substantial return; but if production studios start selecting screenplays based on algorithms, won't that only increase the odds of films that may not appeal to the sensibilities of the vast majority but that are still quite good and deserve to be made, well, not getting made? the blockbusters are rarely the works that stand the test of time. a system like this would probably benefit the executives, it's true, but the rest of us might miss out on a lot of strong works of art.

i felt fine saying that, because malcolm and i have that kind of open, trusting, imaginary relationship where we can disagree with each other without fear of excessive defensiveness or retaliation. it's a very warm feeling. besides, he knows i live on the fringes. and he also knew that i would race right home and read my present start to finish and form a far more balanced and informed opinion, because that's the kind of girl i am. and that's exactly what i've done.

here are the ten top-grossing movies of 2006 (thus far):

1. pirates of the caribbean: dead man's chest

2. cars

3. x-men: the last stand

4. the da vinci code

5. superman returns

6. ice age: the meltdown

7. over the hedge

8. talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby

9. click

10. mission: impossible III (or miiii, as i shall refer to it until the end of days)

here are the movies out of those ten that i saw:









i did want to see x-men, because i am weak for all things comic-booky (and am FREAKING OUT about the new spider-man, oh, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!), but none of the others, and i'm pretty sure i've never even heard of click. am i a movie snob? perhaps, but i don't believe so. what i am, according to "mr. brown," a primary source for the article and one of the neural network's developers, is an intelligent niche viewer drawn to movies that are more european in style than american. not snobby, my darlings, just misplaced, and i've known that for ages. my favorite movies are typically french, lynchian, or just plain odd, and while some people seem to think that i feel that makes me better than them, the only thing i do feel it makes me is isolated. i have to scroll down to number 41 on that list just to find a movie i actually went all the way to a theater to see, and i had to see it alone. do i think the epagogix—the neural network under discussion—would have deemed little miss sunshine worthy of production? well, there is a female in occasional distress, and that female is a young child who encourages the adults around her to break free of society's chains and find joy in their lives, and there were some drugs and the faintest whiff of pornographic material, and there was some comedy, and some bonding and redemption—but the redemption was intensely personal and required mass public humiliation, and the comedy was dark and involved a family member's corpse, and the porn and drugs were nowhere near explicit, and nothing exploded, and while i'm pretty sure someone wore a hat, it was hardly a memorable hat.

no algorithm would have fully endorsed this screenplay, or that of the princess and the warrior, which has, by this point in my endless chain of viewings, practically taught me german. i doubt epagogix would have great things to say about rushmore or the purple rose of cairo or the big kahuna or farewell, my concubine, or any other movie on my shelf. but i love these movies and feel i owe them a great debt. i would like to buy all of the actors and writers and directors and editors involved in the making of these movies fuzzy blankets and delicious treats. and honestly, does anyone want another da vinci code? ever?

so i became rather glum, listening to malcolm tell me in his straight, reporterly fashion how no studio would ever have to make another movie that would gross under $50 million because math is fantastic, and listening to mr. brown and mr. pink tell me that my european attitudes are ill suited to my parochial american environs, and listening to the snide ghosts of moviegoers coast to coast telling me that car chases and costly effects and weak women will always triumph over understated dialogue and carefully lit stills and flawed characters who struggle and strive and sometimes still fail. i mean, brokeback mountain came in 22nd in 2005, and everyone was talking about that movie. it came in four behind fun with dick and jane. who saw fun with dick and jane? who the hell saw that movie? why did any of you go to see that movie?

all right, maybe i'm a teensy bit, just the ittiest bit, of a movie snob. but i won't apologize for loving beautiful stories and impressive craftsmanship—i won't apologize for demanding art, instead of settling for distraction, even engaging distraction. and i became glummer and glummer, thinking maybe i was right to argue off the bat, and maybe i wouldn't be able to go back at the end and say, i'm sorry, muffin, i really should have read that article before i did that thing i do with the jumping and the assuming and whatnot,

and then i came to the conclusion:

the neural network had one master, the market, and anwered one question: how do you get to bigger box-office? but once a movie had made you vulnerable—once you couldn't even retell the damn story without getting emotional—you couldn't be content with just one master anymore.

that was the thing about the formula: it didn't make the task of filmmaking easier. it made it harder. . . . the epagogix team . . . were technicians with tools: computer programs and analytical systems and proprietary software that calculated mathematical relationships among a laundry list of structural variables. . . . a kamesian had only to read lord kames to appreciate the distinction. the most arrogant man in the world was a terrible writer: clunky, dense, prolix. he knew the rules of art. but that didn't make him an artist.

mr. brown spoke last. "i don't think it needs to be a big-budget picture," he said. "i think we do what we can with the original script to make it a strong story, with an ending that is memorable, and then do a slow release. a low-budget picture. one that builds through word of mouth—something like that."

well, what do you know. everyone was on my side the whole time. and that way of being wrong, my lovelies, is always the best gift ever—always; but malcolm sent it with a "prolix," and while it was a grand and profoundly moving gesture, i have no idea how he expects to top it next year. as i've seen, though, as i'm sure we've all seen at one time or another, a year can knock the socks right off you. so whatever presents are coming my way, i'll take them.




postscript, 12/3/06: the plain fact is, the world will never need epagogix--because it has jerry.