Cinema today sucks!

For me, it was a long process to wean myself off going to current movies, but I’m glad I did. I used to go see virtually everything, and definitely read every review. But there were just too many times of the movies that were receiving great reviews that were either bloody terrible or just bloody banal [there’s a special category here for the “quirky, spirited, touching independent film of the week”]. What’s more, even the bad movies I convinced myself might be “fun,” such as The Scorpion King or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, weren’t even fun. I knew I had kicked the habit when I resisted sitting through Van Helsing despite internal voices screaming to the contrary: “It’ll be so terrible it’ll be fun! It’ll serve as eye-candy if nothing else! It’ll still be fun to watch Dracula, et al! It has Kate Beckinsale slumming as never before thought possible!” …and on and on. But I resisted, and a later video rental proved me absolutely right.

Here are some of the many reasons you should severely limit your intake of current movies and watch more older [and selected newer] films on video:

The Movies Suck
You’ve had the experience: Million Dollar Baby is getting great reviews. People are telling you it’s brilliant. It wins the Oscar. You go see it, and what you get is another pedestrian, precious, pandering drama that may be well-made and well-acted… but there’s still no reason to see it. It doesn’t show you or move you in any way a ton of movies haven’t a hundred times in the past. To me, this happened too many times [the final blow in my case was Affliction], and I just gave up. But you were misguided to go, because…

Film critics are under pressure to recommend a certain amount of movies
They can’t just hate movie after movie, so the ones that “aren’t THAT bad” get pumped up as the best movie in years. Most critics can no longer be trusted… or have to be read very critically. But their job is not an enviable one, because…
Movies are made to appeal to the greatest amount of 14-year-olds possible
Which, fine, 14-year-olds deserve movies… but you know, so do adults. So do people who have graduated from High School. So do people who may once have read a book. Even the Million Dollar Baby’s of the world have to appeal to a huge amount of Americans, and a huge amount of Americans are just flat-out dumb. Which is why…

Movies Pander So Badly
They desperately try not to alienate any segment of their audience [most notably religious parties, women, and minorities], which leads to a flattening of the variety of stories that can be told and characters that can be seen. Now all blacks MUST fire off sassy, irreverent comments to their white co-stars, all women MUST be spunky, empowered self-starters… And this kills off movies such as the recent Stepford Wives remake, because you SIMPLY CANNOT have women who do not take control of their lives and win out in the end.

This is not to say that there aren’t women like that, or that women SHOULDN’T be empowered, but the fact is that not all women ARE, and I personally think movies would be better if they more closely mirrored reality, not pushed an agenda and then SAID it mirrors reality. And another, related reason not to see current movies is that…

The Movies Themselves Are Advertisements
It always cracks me up when people get outraged by product placement in a movie, because what do you think the rest of the movie is? If it’s not selling a particular product by name, it’s still selling the consumerist lifestyle that can only be lived by buying the products. I call it Lifestyle Placement. Ever notice how everyone in the movies always has the latest gadgets, and is routinely praised or portrayed as cool and hip for having them? Ever notice how you never see people in movies who don’t watch television, don’t see movies, or don’t own a cell phone? Or if you do, they are portrayed as a crazy Marxist wingnut? Ever notice how in movies computers and the Internet never just don’t work, the way in real life computers and the Internet often just don’t work? Could it be that companies want their products to appear this way in order to add to their sales? And could it be that they rely on the audience’s perception that these movies represent real life in order to reinforce their desire for these products?
And let’s not forget to mention that…

The Moviegoing Experience is a Horror
Okay, so you arrive an hour early, having had to pay and extra $3 to buy your tickets in advance in case it’s sold out, but still having to get there that early to get a decent seat. You pay approximately 3X the value for your snacks and drink. Then you sit in your seat while assaulted by at LEAST two forms of advertising [the slide ads and the “movie tunes” playing in the theater]. This is before the ads begin to play, and then the trailers begin to play, occupying an average of 15 minutes. After that the movie starts, which you are unable to enjoy because increasingly the American public has not achieved the cognitive ability to conceptualize that there are OTHER PEOPLE on the planet, some of whom may not want to hear their fascinatingly insightful comment about the lead female’s breasts, or admire their new cell phone [and the illumination it provides] in wonder at how very busy, important, and well-connected they are. When they aren’t kicking the back of your seat.

And we’re going to movies… why?