What Happened To The Film Industry?

I've had this tab open for a week or more because I've wanted to write another technical blog post about something, but a topic to write about just never really came to mind. [Many more days later I now realize that my next technical blog post should be about my attempts to learn Java and Perl Web programming and my struggles with that.] So instead, I'm going to rant about something non-technical: movies.

I'm sort of out of the loop on movies lately. I've only seen a small fraction of new releases in the past few years. Which is a shame because I do rather enjoy movies. I also enjoy criticizing them.

On Wednesday I decided to rent some movies out of the blue. There was only really one that I had in mind when I went to the video store: The Adjustment Bureau. I wasn't sure exactly what it was about, but I knew that Matt Damon stars in it and his movies are usually pretty good (e.g., the Bourne series), so that was enough for me to invest in it. But here I find my first critisicm of the movie industry as of late: either they fail horribly to advertise in this Internet age or else there's actually very little good to advertise.

I think it's actually a lot of both. I do watch TV relatively often, but I rarely see movie previews anymore, and almost never see good ones. Online, where I spend the vast majority of my time, I never see movie ads. In fairness, that could be attributed to the AdBlock Plus Firefox extension, which does an AWESOME job of hiding pretty much every ad on the Web. Especially ads that don't really belong on a particular page (i.e., third party ads). However, I don't actually mind clever, non-intrusive advertisements. In fact, I rather enjoy them. Still, I block all advertisements on the Web because every schmuck and his grandmother have their Web sites filled with intrusive and annoying ads about completely retarded "products" and "services" that nobody in their right mind would invest in. That, or the ads are incredibly intrusive and slow you down. So I just filter them out of my Web, see none of them ever, forget all about their existance, and guarantee that basically no site will ever get any ad revenue from me.

So I'm left wondering, do the movies made today suck or am I just not getting the previews for the good ones due to ad blocking? I can't even really remember watching any truly good movies in the past few YEARS. Perhaps I'm just spoiled by video games and as a consumer of art have become superior to mere movie audiences, expecting more? Perhaps not. Still, it seems that all of the movies that I watch nowadays just suck. The characters are lame and unintersting. The story doesn't really make any fucking sense at all. The action sequences defy all understanding of the laws of physics and logic, both in the real world and the movie universe too. Basically the entire movie is either predictable, ridciulous, or both.

On this particular visit to the video store I did what I usually do: I walked from one end of the store to the other, browsing all of the new releases to find which ones seemed most interesting. Which in the past few years has actually turned into interesting at all. For the most part, I wasn't really excited about anything other than The Adjustment Bureau. In fact, had I been interested only in getting good movies, I probably would have only even rented The Adjustment Bureau, since it's the only one that actually looked good to me. For some reason though I felt like getting movies that I thought would probably suck, hoping to be proven wrong and perhaps restore some faith in the movie industry. The movies I rented were as follows (in the approximate order that I found them in the video store): For Colored Girls, Battle: Los Angeles, Drive Crazy, Just Go With It, Gun, and The Adjustment Bureau. I was tempted to also get Source Code (being a computer programmer those words have a special meaning to me), but from what I could recall from previews and what I could gather from the back of the case it didn't seem even related to computer programming so I expected I would be disappointed. [I happened to see a preview shortly after that made me think I might enjoy it, but nevertheless I didn't think I would when I rented these movies.]

I'll now discuss the movies in the order that I watched them. I watched the movies in what I predicted to be worst-to-best order, with the exception of Gun and For Colored Girls since at random and on the spot I had rented them for an extended period of time to avoid late fees. I'll try to flag spoilers, but no promises.

Day One

I couldn't really remember any previews for Battle: Los Angeles in the video store, but I had a feeling that it would suck. Nevertheless, it was a Sci-Fi/"war" movie (both things that I like under the right circumstances) and it was one of the movies that the video store has a ton of copies of so it was obviously supposed to be a popular title (of course, popular certainly doesn't mean good, and often means quite the contrary). Again, against my better judgement, I decided to get it anyway. It was indeed terrible. Primarily because of lazy writing (perhaps Hollywood fired all of the talented writers?). (SPOILER ALERT; skip to the next paragraph if you care) For example, the aliens that attacked the Earth came from space inside of what were identifed as meteorites, IIRC. The American forces mobilized shortly after realizing the potential threat, but naively identified that the invading forces were grounded, assuming that they had no air forces and that the air would belong to the humans. Of course, it doesn't take long for advanced enemy aircraft to appear, wreaking havoc on the U.S. forces. That's just a very simple example. I could write an entire blog post about all of the things wrong with this movie if I cared. Maybe even turn it into a series of posts. I digress... I did like some of the characters (familiar actors and actresses helped with that), but ultimately it was just a disappointment.

Day Two

Next I watched Drive Angry. I had low expectations for this one as well. Again, I couldn't remember any previews, at least not in detail, but for some reason the movie reminded me of Ghost Rider, another Nicolas Cage movie that I found terribly disappointing. IIRC, Ghost Rider had a certain "cheap" quality to it, and I got the same first impression from Drive Angry. Again, I rented it just in case I was wrong, but unfortunately I was not. The movie made basically no sense, and while it was clear from the special features that the crew enjoyed making the movie (which is all well and good for them), some even citing it as some of their best work, I personally thought that it sucked horribly. I'm not criticizing the actors or actresses so much as the overall story and script. (SPOILER ALERT; skip to the next paragraph if you care) For example, Cage's character, who is an escapee from Hell (the fiery one from Christian fiction, which in this movie is portrayed as a more traditional prison with a supernatural flare), walks into a church to rescue his infant granddaughter from a Satanic cult planning to murder her as a sacrifice for Satan. His granddaughter is laying down in a basket or something at the front of the church where a church leader would normally be preaching from, but foolishly Cage's character just walks in silently as if to avoid disturbing the service, and eventually gets disarmed when the entire church basically pulls a gun on him. Sure, he's "undead", so practically speaking he can't really be hurt, but his granddaughter is not so undead so I consider it rather risky to allow himself to be so easily captured. Personally, it frustrates the Hell out of me whenever a protagonist in a movie makes a foolish mistake like that. It's like they aren't even trying to ensure success. Again, there are many more examples of stupidity that I could cite from this movie. That wasn't even a very good example, but it has been a few days since I saw the movie and it wasn't all that memorable, so that's the best that I've got. Even the characters seemed ridiculous in this movie. Their actions do not make sense. During the special features it was explained that they didn't really go through a whole lot of revisions with this film's script. They basically decided to do a movie of this style, wrote up a quick draft in a couple of weeks, and submitted the first version. Apparently it was praised for it's originality (it wasn't original at all) and creativity. I guess people thought it had a pure, untainted artistic quality to it. I disagree. It didn't fit together well. It lacked polish. It wasn't well thought out, or perhaps thought out at all. I guess they figured they could subsitute an interesting script with guns, tits, and cars. While these three things are all good, they alone don't make for an interesting movie.

Next I watched Just Go For It, an Adam Sandler film. Adam Sandler is awesome and I like pretty much all of his movies. For some reason though I didn't have high hopes for this one. Perhaps because I had already been let down by Grown Ups. Perhaps I had seen previews that tipped me off. As usual, I was right. This movie was pretty terrible. Let me also say that I love Jennifer Aniston: Friends is one of my favorite all time shows (I have the entire series on DVD). I think in just about every movie I've seen Anison in though (at least since Friends ended) I've been disappointed. Her acting seems blatantly poor. To give her the benefit of the doubt, I choose to believe that it's because she played Rachel Green for so long that it became a part of who she is, making it difficult to portray other characters. Just Go With It lacked scructure and polish. Watching the film I got the distinct feeling that the movie was designed to incorporate improvisation by the actors and actresses into their roles. Given the title and Adam Sandler's roots, this wasn't really a surprise. However, it was clear that many of the cast members were terrible at improv, and as a result I think the performances suffered. I noted a few moments where Jennifer Aniston appeared to screw up her lines. I guess since the movie was somewhat improvised they decided not to bother with too many (any?) retakes, but in my opinion this hurt the quality of the film. Perhaps worst of all was the improv of Nick Swardson, which often seemed to be of a somewhat vulgar nature (which seemed out of character for the movie). I remember a particular scene where the two young children were present that particularly struck the wrong nerve with me; he even tried to involve them in the dialogue when the adults withdrew. I also got the distinct impression that his "improv" on numerous occasions bordered on sexual harrassment towards the female cast members, and in particular Jennifer Aniston. While I can commend them for doing something different and risky, especially so for those that were clearly outside of their comfort zone with the improv, I have to criticize the film for poor performances. Adam Sandler did a decent job of it, which is no surprise, but even he seemed to struggle with it at times. I might have been more open to the idea if it was made blatantly clear that it was improvized so I wasn't blindsided by it. All of that out of the way, I did like parts of the movie, and enjoyed some of the characters. (SPOILER ALERT; skip to the next paragraph if you care) I liked the way Sandler's and Aniston's characters fell for each other in the end; that sort of made up for the amateur improv in the end.

Day Three

I finally got around to watching The Adjustment Bureau. I loved it. I was a little bit afraid of it going in a direction that I wouldn't like, but instead it remained interesting and gripping and well put together. There were a few unexpected twists that I really enjoyed. I loved the characters and I loved the story. It was actually so emotionally jarring (?) that I was hurting myself with the rate at which I was drinking bottled water (the water being a substitute for beer). I love to feel emotions through art, especially strong ones, and this movie delivered for me. I really enjoyed Matt Damon's and Emily Blunt's characters. (SPOILER ALERT; skip to the next paragraph if you care) I initially expected the Adjustment Bureau to be a purely political force. Something relating to corrupt government and potentially secret societies and things of that nature. This was interesting to a point, but it would have ultimately frustrated and bored me. I found the change of direction that the movie takes unexpected and very welcome. It was timed very well too. The "twists and turns" were well executed. I really liked the unique and original take on the creator concept (I am, however, an atheist). It was an interesting concept the way the Adjustment Bureau was run formally and like a company hierarchy. I particularly liked how it was pretty much completely independent of the religious beliefs that I imagine inpired it. I thought it was just brilliant.

Day Five (?)

I hadn't heard of For Colored Girls, but it seemed like a movie that I would be interested in so I read the synopsis on the back and decided to get it just in case I'd like it. I watched it next. It wasn't at all what I expected. I have mixed feelings about it. I didn't really enjoy it, but perhaps that was the point. I will say this though: it's a Tyler Perry movie. I wouldn't even know who that is if it weren't for one thing: I have a brother that loves the "Madea" movies. I personally think they're highly overrated and as a result feel the same way about Tyler Perry, since he seems to be the mind behind them all. In a way, I guess For Colored Girls was more or less just another Madea movie without Madea. In fact, some of the cast seemed to be the same, and though I never pay much attention when I get pressured into watching a Madea movie, I think some of the shared cast members even played a similar role. The title sounded to me like it was supposed to send a positive message, but I didn't really get one at all from this movie. I will say this though: it was nice to see some actresses that I haven't seen in a while, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Phylicia Rashād.

Day Seven (?)

Gun is a 50 Cent movie, so that's pretty much the only reason that I rented it. I watched it last for no good reason at all. It was undoubtedly the worst movie of all six, and with this selection that is saying something. It looked pretty low budget (indeed, Wikipedia says $10 million) so I wasn't really expecting much. Nevertheless, I like a lot of 50 Cent's music and I liked the Get Rich Or Die Tryin' movie. I suspect that Before I Self Destruct (the movie) was also low budget so I expected something on par with that, which itself wasn't very good. Indeed, Gun had a similar low-quality feel to it. I think probably what I found the worst was the dialogue, which didn't really feel natural, and even seemed improvised at times. I don't know if the script was just poorly written or if it was intentionally left with holes in it for the actors to fill, but next time I think I'd rather see a fully thought-out script. :-X (SPOILER ALERT; ... but you probably shouldn't care here) The movie reveals that Kilmer's character is a rat sometime near the middle of the movie, but towards the end I actually expected a twist where it turned out that he had been loyal and another character had been the rat. Instead, the movie remained blatantly predictable with Kilmer's character actually being the rat. Perhaps the worst part was Jackson's character not figuring this out. It's painful to watch most of the dialogue in the film, but in particular there is a moment where Jackson's character invites Kilmer's character to a warehouse to talk in person, and then invites him to take a walk through the warehouse, etc. The dialogue is very hestitant and awkward here, and you're almost sure that Jackson's character MUST know that Kilmer's character is the rat. Indeed, he begins to question him about it, but then he foolishly just takes Kilmer's character's awkward word for it and instead makes him his "number one" (I forget exactly how they worded it in the movie, but the idea was that he was basically considered the most trusted). It's quite literally painful to watch how bad it is...

Summary

Overall, I rented 6 movies, and 5 of them were pretty much terrible. The Adjustment Bureau was awesome! There were a few redeeming qualities in Just Go For It, but not enough to make it enjoyable. The other 4 just completely sucked. Perhaps the reason I haven't been watching many movies is because most of Hollywood stopped even trying to make decent movies anymore and instead relies on marketing and pop culture to make money...