Movies Since Last Post:
|
Straight Outta Compton
|
|
The Neon Demon
|
| T2: Trainspotting |
|
A Liar’s Autobiography
|
| Crash |
|
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
|
|
Battle of the Sexes
|
| Fatal Attraction |
| Death Note |
| V for Vendetta |
| Welcome to Me |
| Song to Song |
| Cloverfield |
I’m hoping to dash this post off in at least less time than it just took me to watch Cloverfield. I mean, I know found footage movies can’t too long or else they’ll run out of ways to make it look like the person filming isn’t just being an idiot, but with a running time of 1:25, it hardly seems worth the effort. Still, monster movies are always fun on some level.
So, midway through October, and I am at 127 movies for the year. The only movie I saw at a theater in that span was Battle of the Sexes, and I feel that not going to a theater severely impacts the quality of films that I take in. Of the above films, Trainspotting 2 was better than I thought it would be, and Welcome to Me had some funny moments, and I recommend any fan of Monty Python see A Liar’s Biography, an animated doc about the life of Graham Chapman (narrated by himself, from before he died), this was a pretty “meh” crop of movies. It’s probably not kosher to say that about Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the one that started it all, but really, it doesn’t hold up.
In fact, a lot of these movies that I have always meant to see, like that one, Fatal Attraction, Crash, and V for Vendetta, have all been rather underwhelming. Part of it is definitely watching them on a small computer screen, because a lot of these movies were made before that kind of thing was even possible. Still, either I’m just getting even more cynical, or sensibilities have changed a lot since the 70’s and 80’s.
For the sake of argument, let’s just say that it’s not me for once, and that a lot of movies actually don’t hold up. It’s a reasonable statement, given how technology has evolved to a point where things that were just not possible back in the day are now possible, so visually, yeah, of course, movies made today will look better. But it’s more than that. For example, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was made, the trend back then was long tracking shots of spaceships (like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a bunch of other bad sci-fi movies made back then.) Today, because we’ve seen spaceships in movies a billion times, we don’t really need those kinds of establishing shots.
Also, I would like to think that I am not a victim of the cultural “lessening of collective attention-span,” but I think it’s time to face up to the fact that that is just not true. The reality is I want a faster pace just like any grown-up kid. Maybe even more because now I feel that my time is precious. There have definitely been many movies out of this illustrious 127 that left me saying, “Nothing really happened.” I must admit (and I could probably make a whole post about this one), that I found Blade Runner, which I finally watched to prepare for the new one, to be one of those movies. I mean, could someone tell me what happened in that movies? My initial reaction was that, other than Rutger Hauer gouging that guy’s eyes out, nothing happened. Although that was pretty awesome.
Now, you may be thinking, “Hey, jerk, didn’t you want to be a screenwriter? Are you judging these filmmakers? Because clearly they made it and you didn’t.” Indeed I did want to be a screenwriter, and indeed I am kind of judging them, and indeed, I don’t really have a leg to stand on. Still, as I said in an earlier post, movies take a lot of money and time and effort to make, so I am trying to give them their due. I realize that a lot of people may watch something like Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and think, “Well, it was a nice escape for a couple of hours.” But unless I was actually watching that movie with Aubrey Plaza sitting next to me, sharing the most delicious popcorn in the world, there’s no way I could say that it was a pleasant diversion. In fact, if I was sitting next to her while watching that stinker, I would pull out my new favorite meme on her:
I just couldn’t resist.
The point I wanted to make was that there is definitely something to be said for sitting in a theater and experiencing a movie with other people. I know that’s not exactly blazing a trail, but it is certainly getting lost on people these days, and certainly on me after watching only 23 out of 127 movies this year in a theater. That many trips to a theater might be a lot for some, but for me, it’s just not enough.
I get that going to the movies is not always easy. It’s expensive, it’s crowded, there are too many previews, there are morons looking at their phones, but it’s still one of the best forms of entertainment we have (even in this “Golden Age of Television.”) And in this day of cord-cutting, and Netflix and Hulu going with more shows and fewer movies (and most of them really rotten), if you’re a movie guy, it’s worth it to spend the time and money to go out and experience a movie in the theater. With the morons. There, I said it.
mattdursin.com 