"My Year of Flops" by Nathan Rabin

One of the ways that film differs from television (in a good way) is that, no matter what happens, the movies most always end up getting made. Once released there exists the potential that they will be collectively dumped upon and cast aside like unwanted rags, but at least the film was conceived, filmed, edited and released. The same cannot be said of television, in which commercial failures are aborted quickly without giving them a chance to develop a true identity. The short-lived series that lives forever is a rare occurrence. Despite the fact that the cult may be loud, it is most always the minority. Such an example is the oeuvre of Mitch Hurwitz. He created Arrested Development, and even though it has an army of followers that could put up a fight against Poland, his next two projects, Sit Down, Shut Up and the dead-series-walking Running Wilde, both failed.

Contrast Hurwitz to Elaine May, one of the directors examined in the wonderful new book My Year of Flops by Nathan Rabin, head writer of The A.V. Club, one of my favorite pop-culture and entertainment websites. In the book, Rabin examines Ishtar, May’s infamous box-office disaster from 1987 about Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty frolicking through Morocco. May had a history of failing at the box office, which makes it all the more puzzling that she got a big budget to film a buddy comedy on location in the African desert.

When released the film was met with a reception comparable to Mel Gibson walking into the Holocaust Museum. Most of this is due to what Rabin calls “The Curse of Bigness”: the idea that audiences naturally detest films like Ishtar because of their gargantuan budgets and production values. When people go to see a $55 million comedy (equal to more than $100 million today) they expect their minds to be blown. In this case they were not satisfied, and thus Ishtar was rejected. Nonetheless, May was able to make and release the film that she wanted, and no one can take it away from her. Because of its existence, it has been able to accumulate a substantial following who appreciate it as a much sharper comedy than its usually given credit for, a group which includes Nathan Rabin himself. In Hurwitz’s case, he has created one show with a following he can be proud of, but everything else has been killed before it had a chance.

Because of this difference between film and television, there are many films out there that were released to commercial, and in many cases critical failure, waiting to be rediscovered by movie fans of a later generation. It was the goal of Rabin to seek out these otherwise ignored films, and Ishtar is just one of the examples found in his book My Year of Flops. A compilation of several pieces he wrote for The A.V. Club, along with 15 new book-exclusive entries, My Year of Flops chronicles the history of film, only not from the usual perspective. Instead, Rabin looks only at films which bombed and disappeared into infamy. Some would go in to such a project expecting to unleash all kinds of snarky one-liners, and Rabin offers plenty, but on top of that this book has a passion for each and every film reviewed. To him, a film’s failure at the box office does not equal artistic failure. He approaches each and every film devoid of expectation, (usually) allowing no outside factors to influence his opinion.

Because of this, Rabin comes out of his “journey into the heart of cinematic failure” with favorable, nay, glowing opinions on some of the most reviled films of all time. Besides the aforementioned Ishtar, Rabin also expresses his appreciation for Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered. This is odd, as upon its release Freddy Got Fingered was universally chosen one of the worst atrocities ever to find its way onto a movie screen. This is not difficult to understand, as it is not a popular pastime to watch a movie in which the main character swings a newborn baby around by its umbilical cord, thus spraying blood and God knows what all over those nearby. In a way, Rabin appreciates Freddy Got Fingered because of its audacity. He enjoys living in a world in which a film like Freddy Got Fingered can be financed and created, and as such he appreciates the movie itself.

What makes My Year of Flops so great is Rabin’s absolute passion for the medium, even when he faces a terrible film. He examines the anatomy of a flop, wondering why audiences didn’t respond to it. Only once, in the case of the rightfully maligned “reality film” The Real Cancun, does Rabin become truly insulted at the film’s existence, with Bratz coming a close second. He empathizes with failure, and as such he devoted three years of his life to chronicling the history of failed movies, and he came out the other end with 260-page book. Most people would not spend the bulk of their time sitting down and watching movies which the public deemed unworthy of their affections, but Nathan Rabin isn’t most people.

Not only does he personally re-evaluate each film, but also included are interviews with many of the films’ stars. The people interviewed include Richard Dreyfuss (who spends most of the interview ragging on Oliver Stone), Austin Pendleton, Dave Foley, and my personal favorite Roberto Benigni, who addresses his much-maligned 2002 version of Pinocchio. Benigni, famous for everyone’s favorite concentration camp comedy Life is Beautiful, comes off as someone incapable of disliking anything, particularly his own work. While he is naïve, he also personifies the insatiable optimism that runs through My Year of Flops. Sure these movies failed the first time, but Rabin firmly believes these films deserve another chance. (Except The Real Cancun, of course.)

You may be asking yourself why I decided to write this. I am most definitely not a book aficionado, nor do I expect this post to exponentially increase his book’s sales. I hold none of that power, as I currently have 11 people following the blog. (There are many many more of you who pop in and out and I thank you for that.) More or less, I just wanted to do my part in spreading the word about this book, which you can buy anywhere books are sold to my knowledge. (I pre-ordered mine through the Onion website, and thus my copy was signed by Rabin.) You spend enough time reading about cinematic masterpieces in other books, so isn’t about time you read more about Howard the Duck, Paint Your Wagon and Southland Tales? I think it is.

Also, the appendix features a minute-by-minute account of the nearly 3-hour director’s cut of Waterworld. That Rabin would even consider sitting through such an endeavor should tell you everything you need to know about this man.