"WendyWIRE" by Wendy Mitchell: Elvis Mitchell Metaphor Mania!

April 26, 2004

Elvis Mitchell Metaphor Mania!

With rumors swirling that film critic Elvis Mitchell (no relation) may be soon vacating the pages of the New York Times, I thought it was a fine time to pay tribute to some of the more colorful metaphors and similies that often enliven his reviews with needless pop culture references. Rather than just running through a greatest-hits list, let's make a game of it -- match the film with the nonsensical metaphor. Answers at the end. [Obviously, all of these quotes are taken out of context of the rest of the review, but some of them didn't make so much sense IN context -- what the hell is "a hip slice of summer ham"?]

Films: Black Hawk Down, Calendar Girls, Changing Lanes, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, 8 Mile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Eurotrip, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Requiem for a Dream, Pieces of April, Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Save the Last Dance, The Sweetest Thing, 13 Going on 30, 21 Grams, 24 Hour Party People, and The Whole Ten Yards.

1. "[This film] is like a Chuck Jones video starring Cool Herk, in which the scratch rhythms on the soundtrack are mirrored by editing so nimble and fast it's like old-school turntable scratching."

2. "It's a hip slice of summer ham."

3. ''[This film] has the wonderful turn-on-a-dime drollery found in the delivery of 'Come On Home,' by Everything but the Girl.

4. "Taking a journey through [this director's ] filmography is like watching Jay Gatsby tossing shirts on the bed, looking for the right one to set off an ensemble."

5. "[This film] is ''Top Gun' on an all-protein diet."

6. "It's a greatest-hits collection along the lines of last weekend's 'Beverly Hillbillies' marathon on TV Land or Tim Conway's 'Dorf on Golf' videos."

7. "Women have so little to do here that they serve almost as plot-device flight attendants, offering a trough of Diet Coke to refresh the geek-magnet story."

8. "Like an episode of 'American Dreams' written by Pep� Le Pew."

9. "The mournful, paranoid quality of [this film] especially brings to mind REM's 'South Central Rain.'"

10. "It's like the new kid in school -- still wearing a John Deere cap and last year's Diesels -- asking to be punked, so he can fit in.

11. "If it were American, it would already be spun off into a series reuniting Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper."

12. "[This film] becomes 'A Christmas Carol' with a Road Runner cartoon added."

13. "[This film] wears its contempt proudly, like a Prada badge."

14. "The movie also evokes the majestic heartbreak of the Willie Nelson song ''Three Days,'' a misery compounded by the sweetness of K. D. Lang's cover..."

15. "[This film] is content to eat its retro snack cake and have it, too. 'Let them eat Twinkies,' the movie suggests..."

16. "[This film] is more afterthought than accomplishment, a cocktail made with orange juice and Champale instead of actual bubbly."

17. "[This director's] movies are about loss and betrayal, and [this film] is a
double-burger helping of those motifs. It is rich, substantial and sustained, yet also greasy kids' stuff, a wrapper filled with an extra large order of chili fries, stained with ketchup, salt and cheese."

18. "[This film] makes Tony Bennett's second home appear to be the site of a supermodel convention."

19. "The movie has the echoey, haunted heart of Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' ''Hurt.'"

20. "It's a decaf iced frappaccino, a confection that won't upset the stomachs of its target audience."

Answers:
1. "Requiem for a Dream"
2. "Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"
3. "Pieces of April"
4. "24 Hour Party People," directed by Michael Winterbottom
5. "Black Hawk Down"
6. "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles"
7. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
8. "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights"
9. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
10. "Eurotrip"
11. "Calender Girls"
12. "Changing Lanes"
13. "The Sweetest Thing"
14. "21 Grams"
15. "13 Going on 30"
16. "The Whole Ten Yards"
17. "Kill Bill Vol. 2," Quentin Tarantino
18. ''40 Days and 40 Nights''
19. "8 Mile"
20. "Save the Last Dance"

Now go post your favorite Elvis metaphors in the comments section.

Posted by indiewendy at 11:02AM on Apr 26, 2004

Comments

I'm sort of sorry to see Elvis go. I feel like Gary Trudeau campaigning for Bush--I want him around to make fun of him. Remember his first review, of "The Beach": "For the first 10 minutes, the movie slices forward like the prelims of the latest adrenaline splurge at the Extreme Games." Hunh?

Posted by Ted on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

I sincerely loved the following moment of verbal jouissance in EM's review of "Buffalo 66":

"As a supine Christina Ricci endures anti-coverboy Vincent Gallo's diffident thrusts, you can just about hear her thinking to herself 'this is how Jodie got her Oscar, right?'"

Posted by chris on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

LOL!

I think Elvis is a slice of ham all on his own.

Posted by The Rabbi on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

Perhaps the worst movie critic of our day, it is sad to see him plant his moribund ass elsewhere. That's one less laugh in the Times.

Posted by Joey Joe Joe, Jr. on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

wendy, this is genius, thank you for the afternoon laugh!!

Posted by jaime on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

As one of Elvis Mitchell's erstwhile editors, I know he has his funny little ways, but wait! You're razzing him for the best thing about his unbuttoned-down mind--those meta-metaphors. More perverse than Kael, more esoteric than Farber, Elvis is up there (and way out there) with Lester Bangs. And what's so unintelligible about "a hip slice of summer ham?" He clearly means Depp hammed it up, hiply. The h, s, and m sounds make pleasant verbal music, and the strangeness of the image is what makes it funny.

Posted by Tim Appelo on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

Can you believe that he is a disciple/protege of Pauline Kael? There's no way she'd be okay with some of his babbling. Wendy, you rock.

Posted by Kate on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

lolol. this is great. I've always read EM's reviews and wondered, "he's clearly trying to get blurbed somewhere," even though NO studio'd be hammy hip enough to actually use one of his quotes."

That said, he makes me want to see 8 Mile now.

Posted by greg.org on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

This is the perfect example of why I've always found Mitchell so annoying. Because I sometimes think the Times' film section speaks only to upper class white New Yorkers, I always wished they had a person of color writing reviews. You know: Give the time some serious street cred. For the longest time I thought Mitchell was white, mostly because his reviews are so cutesy and vanilla. (That's why I prefer the LA Times, which now you have to pay to read online, so THAT relationship is now over.) Hell, A.O. Scott (who may be one of the best film reviewers to ever work for the paper) has more soul. The Times could do themselves a world of good by replacing him with a woman or minority writer who's up to par with Scott. Then again, would the Nathan Lees, Manhola Dargises, Armond Whites, Amy Taubins and Ed Gonzalezes of the world necessarily want to write for them? I'd be curious to find out who comes next.

Posted by michael on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

http://www.ves.fas.harvard.edu/images/mitchell.jpg

What'd expect?

Posted by monkchild on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

Elvis Mitchell is crazy cool. I love his reviews and the movie reviews at the Times will be a whiter, paler, infinitly less interesting read.

Posted by jujubee on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

This was on today's IMDB movie newswire. I think Mitchell would feel right at home as a character in _The Player_.

Mitchell Quits As Film Critic of The New York Times

Elvis Mitchell has quit as film critic for The New York Times, reportedly miffed at Executive Editor Bill Keller's decision to name Mitchell's colleague A.O. Scott lead film critic. Today's (Tuesday) "Rush and Molloy" column in the New York Daily News says that although the newspaper has been trying to convince Mitchell to return, they may have been unaware that he had been talking to Columbia Pictures President Amy Pascal about running the studio's New York office even while he was reviewing the studio's films. "He never said a word to the people at The Times," a source told the Daily News. "If they knew the truth, they may not have wanted him [to return]." .

Posted by chorizo on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

An anagram for Elvis Mitchell is "Evil Slimeletch." Well. . .almost. Too bad it doesn't work out to "Eve Harrington."

Posted by Bill Reed on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

Now the Times can hire native son Mick LaSalle from the SF Chronicle. Did anyone see Mitchell's IFC interview with Bill Murray? Murray slapped Elvis across the face to make a dubious point.

Posted by JD on Apr 26, 2004 at 11:02AM

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

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