The Critic
In this entry I will act like an agitated orangoutang by slinging feces at movies for my own selfish pleasure. Enjoy.
It’s hard to say whether I feel more strongly about the movies I love… or the movies I hate. As those who know me can attest, I’m a jackass when it comes to movies. There are quite a few that I like, but quite a few more that aren’t worth my time — and I’m not even a busy person. As much as I love capitalism, capitalism makes movies that suck. (Yes, yes, capitalism brought inexpensive cameras and laptop non-linear editing possible, but I’m referring more to the studio side.)
Imagine my delight when I read in Wired the following description of two directors soliciting input from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the producer, on a scene in DreamWorks’ animated Madagascar that just isn’t as funny as it’s intended to be (”Alex” is the neurotic lion in the film):
The granny slams Alex’s oversize head with her purse, stunning the lion, and shuffles away to catch her train. The directors eye each other nervously via huge hi-def screens and then turn to the boss. “It’s great,” Katzenberg says, “but what I think you need to do is have her kick him in the nuts.”
A slow burn began inside me. That’s how you make a scene funnier? With a kick in the nuts? Then I found that Katzenberg produced Shrek, too, that masterpiece of subtle, clever, wink-wink humor. Well, now it all makes sense. I may not be the target audience for Madagascar, but to me this speaks volumes about why a lot of films today are so terrible.
Wouldn’t cable be a better medium for all of this mindless, wannabe-adult-humor (Shrek) tripe? For some reason we shell out $8.50 to sit in a chair, laugh at some hollow jokes, and go home. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re a teenager and you can’t get any action at your folks’ house. That’s the only positive angle I can think of.
And then there’s Star Wars Episode 3. It’s the final installment in an allegedly “epic” storyline. Nerds and even non-nerd enthusiasts rejoice at the coming of a visually impressive serving of crap from a director who is apparently too egotistical or oblivious to recognize the embarrassingly basic shortcomings of his last three “epics”.
Does this man even care about acting, or believability of performances? Not enough to ask for help, apparently. Star Wars once had some great characters and chemistry between its actors, but that’s long gone. Instead he rests on the laurels of 1977 and pays people to create cool visuals to compensate for lack of substance. What we’re left with is just as bad as the most pretentious art film: an $8.50 laser peep show of self-love.
Can this really be the man that made THX1138?
You might enjoy The New Yorker’s review of Episode 3. I know I did. They even went there and picked on Yoda.
June 4th, 2005 at 10:35 am
“Star Wars once had some great characters and chemistry between its actors, but that’s long gone.”
Have you gone back and watched the old movies? The old, unedited series? Have you seen how bad the acting is in the originals? How horrible the lines were? A lot of people scream that the first series was revolutionary for its time and that is why it is to be appreciated, to be marveled, to be held in awe.
Nope, sorry. The truth is, once you get beyond the amazing affects that stunned everyone in the late 70s, what you have is pure, total cheese. The most recent Star Wars is admittedly better than the low-budget crap they air on The Sci-Fi network, but only because they pump more money into it. And why does it all sell? Because its what these people are fed. My roommate once raged at some program on The History Channel that began airing as I was cooking dinner and he couldn’t stop complaining how much he hated shows about supposed UFO abductees. What does he switch it to? The Sci-Fi Channel, which was busy airing a constant stream of Stargate SG-1.
He never did understand why I couldn’t hold back my laughing at that moment.
The movie industry doesn’t have to do much to get people to part with their money because movie goers actually do find movies like Episode I to be masterpieces when compared with what they’re used to.
Yes, there are better movies out there. Yes, there are better writers out there. Yes, I believe that we could do much better. But you won’t see it because the industry is afraid to part with what has always made them cash in the past: stock scripts and storylines that are decades since dried up.
Intro. Emotional attachment. Conflict. Climax. Explosions. Happy ending. Humorous moment. Credits.
There goes your $8.50 and popcorn money.
June 4th, 2005 at 11:09 am
I may have to retract that statement about the original having some chemistry — I haven’t seen the old ones in years and years. Perhaps my memory was relying heavily on the star power of Harrison Ford.
Nice plot line synopsis. It closely describes the sequence of events in The Rock, a movie that I actually like. I don’t know if I would if I saw it for the first time today, though. I’d like to think I would; that it’s some exception to the rule about Bruckheimer flicks.
June 4th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
What I tend to call “fun movies”, which are movies you walk into with no expectations and simply watch just to see a movie and eat popcorn, aren’t bad at all and have their place. I enjoy a Bruckheimer film now and then and have no complaints — we all need these. But, dammit, ALL movies fall into the “fun movie” catagory these days! Coming up with an original story line these days is really difficult, but I wish the industry wouldn’t bank on sequels and remakes.
The mere fact that “Garfield - The Movie” exists should suggest that Hollywood needs to be completely firebombed and rebuilt.
I often wonder, however, if the industry really dictactes what people enjoy watching rather than the other way around. Star Wars enjoys so much popularity, maybe, because you’re supposed to enjoy it and the industry has told you to. I remember the effect of another such movie: falling asleep while watching the first Lord of The Rings on opening night somewhere into the third hour of it ended in ridicule for days.
“That was the greatest movie, ever! How could you fall asleep during that? You’re a geek and that means you should have LOVED it! You read the books, right? Tolkien is one of mankind’s gifts to God! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Uh-huh. That movie was so long that I thought it would have made an excellent mini-series on television, not to mention some of the CG looked more like something out of the original Diablo PC game than a feature film! (Yeah, I know the majority of it was beautifully done, but they rushed a lot of it through post-production waaay too fast.)
I just haven’t had anything pull me to the theaters, lately, and maybe that means something is wrong with me. Everyone else seems to be excited about the movies being released. Am I broken?
June 6th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
I am not excited about a single movie being released right now, Vince — so at least I don’t think something is wrong with you :) And I haven’t been excited about a movie that has been released in a long time, either. The steep decline in quality contributed the lion’s share to my “couldn’t care less” attitude towards modern Hollywood — but my Netflix subscription was the final nail in that coffin :)
There is zero chance that going out to a movie for $8.50 (plus refreshments) can beat watching any movie I want in the comfort of my own home on my home theater eating whatever-the-hell-food-I-want-to-eat — all for only $17/month. The only trade-off: I have to wait until movies come out on DVD. I say “Boo-frickin-hoo” and cordially invite the Impatience Culture to kiss my entire posterior.