You know, I'm sitting there today, thinking over the movies of today....considering my top ten list of the year, so far...and thinking about the movies I've seen this year...and I'm seeing a lot of 3's...not bad...not Earth-shattering...you know...alright. Now, you could argue that I'm just seeing a certain type of film, but not really. I watch pretty much anything, and you know what? Everything's...mediocre these days. So, that's why I'm writing this post.
There's a lot of people out there who consider themselves "movie people". They sit around, talking about this latest film, and that new flick, and they speak as if they know something about movies. Now for those who don't know, I know about movies. I was practically raised on them, I can remember one wall of our dining room practically covered with bookshelves stacked two deep with VHS movies (and it was a decent-sized room). As it stands now, I have close to 1,000 DVD's, and none burned. I've attended classes that showed films from Thomas Edison, all the way down to The Godfather. I've seen epics of the modern era, and epics from the golden era, and right now as it stands, the two don't compare. They just don't make films like they used to, which is sad.
So, why write this post, bemoaning about the state of films today? Simple: because I care. I care about movies, and about where they're headed, and I don't like where the new releases are headed. Think about it: we live in an era where information is literally a click of a button today. We have the Internet Movie Database, which documents pretty much every film in existence. We have scores of movie classes that teach genres, and even ones based on individual filmmakers. Why are films so mediocre these days? We have history on our side, and we know how the masters did it. Think about this progression: D.W. Griffiths, Cecile B. DeMille, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg...Michael Bay? What's wrong with this picture?
The problem is this: we accept mediocrity too easily nowadays. We're shovelled it by the barrelful. I liken movies to fast food: you absorb it, you crap it out two hours later, and you completely forget about it by the next day. The filmmakers and studios have all these classics, all these masterpieces that came before them, so, the natural progression is that films get bigger and better, right? We're supposedly a sophisticated society. We should expect sophisticated, better produced movies, right? Nope. We have more explosions, I'll give you that. We also have shaky-cam, amateurish humour, t and a, and not a storyline in sight. Any storyline we do get, usually feels as if it was dreamed up by an exec's 12 year-old niece. These guys don't seem to understand they have a legacy to continue. They don't care; after all, it's just a movie, right?
Some of us still care though, and to those, I am appealing. Hell, I'm getting down on my hands and knees at this point: please, please, PLEASE do not accept mediocrity anymore. Let these yahoos know that while the koolaid drinkers of the world still might be the majority, the minority, the ones who actually think for themselves, are still going to be an annoyance. Let them know that the kind of bland, cookie-cutter, pie chart drivel that is constantly being driven into our skulls is not going to continue unchallenged. You won't change the world, but you'll let them know that we're all not going to sit there and take this garbage.
Still with me? I know, this is a rant, and not a movie preview, but I've simply had enough. It's time some people sent a message to these schmucks in Hollywood. I know what you're thinking now; you're thinking one man can't make a difference, you can yell and scream on your blog all you want, and it won't make a damned difference. You're probably right, but remember this: the sun shines on every dog's ass, even a mutt like me.
I bid you a fair good night.
- Stephenstein
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