I’ve always admired Roger Ebert. “Adored” would be a better
word, actually. I’ve been reading his reviews for so long, I really felt like I
knew him. In fact, his death made me about as sad as I think one could be for
the loss of someone they’d never actually met. He caught my attention early on
when I discovered his syndicated movie review show as a kid. I was every bit as
much of a movie fan back then and I was in awe of the concept that somebody
could have a career (and even their own show) of watching movies and then
talking about them. It never occurred to me that there could be a drawback to
that kind of arrangement.
Two months out of a year’s worth of free movies has shown me
that drawback. The truth is, for every great movie, there are probably nine bad
ones. It’s an interesting position, to have unlimited free movies whenever you
want them. As a normal paying customer, you exercise discretion because you
obviously don’t want to spend money on something you don’t think you’d enjoy.
Some of that discretion still remains, in my case, because I certainly don’t
want to spend time on something I
don’t think I’ll enjoy (I have absolutely no intention of ever seeing Scary Movie 5, for instance, no matter
how free it may be), but I am more inclined to indulge in something I wouldn’t
normally pay for. As I stated in my previous post, I have been pleasantly
surprised in some cases by movies I had little to no expectations of (I still
stand by my ascertainment that Snitch
is a great movie despite my own prejudices) and never would have seen in the
first place were it not for my Golden Ticket, but – just like good movies I would have paid to see – those are few
and far between.
In case that last paragraph sounds too cynical, let me be
clear: I’m not in the least bit sorry I have a year’s worth of free movies at
my disposal and I’m still excited about what remains in the year to come. I’m
merely pointing out that, the more movies you see, the percentage of movies
that impress you decreases exponentially. So, let’s take a look at the past
month of mediocrity, shall we?
Movie Eight: Evil Dead – The original Evil Dead never had a claim on quality
or dignity, but it did have one thing going for it: Excess. Probably 90% of its shoestring budget was dedicated to gory
special effects that were impressive enough to earn the film a permanent
standing in the horror hall of fame. With that in mind, you would think a
remake would be something spectacular with a huge budget behind it. Yeah, baby!
Crank that sucker up to 11! Unfortunately, I thought the same thing about the Godzilla remake 15 years ago (which was
terribly botched in ways that, to this day, still mystify me) and the Evil Dead remake suffers the same fate.
It’s really quite simple folks: Get some teenagers up to a secluded cabin, make
them likeable enough so we can at least stand them for 90 minutes (this
version’s first mistake was failing to manage even that), find a way to unleash
evil spirits, then an hour’s worth of special effects, freaky monsters and
gruesome deaths (each one more impressive than the last) that accumulates into
a finale that makes us say “whoa.” How hard is that? It’s pretty pathetic when
you take a movie that wasn’t very good to begin with and do away with whatever
it had going for it to make something even worse. I’m having PTSD flashbacks of
The Amityville Horror remake.
Movie Nine: Jurassic Park 3-D
– Some movies were made for the theater. Not just because they have
breathtaking scenery and fantastic sound effects, but because the presentation
is integral to the experience. Lawrence of Arabia, for instance, is a movie I will only see in the theater because to watch it any other way is to
undermine its greatness. It makes me shudder to think that there are probably
people out there who have actually watched it on an iPad. I used to own Jurassic Park on video years ago, but got rid
of it before too long because I never watched it. I always assumed it was
because it just wasn’t a good enough movie to stand up to multiple viewings.
But now, having seen it in the theater again 20 years later, I see it’s all
about the presentation. It was every bit as impactful as the first time I saw
it in the theater as a teenager, which is impressive given all the movies we’ve
seen since then. That’s Spielberg, I guess. JAWS
holds up, so why wouldn’t Jurassic Park? As for
the 3-D aspect, the conversion is pretty spectacular and looks about as
realistic as it possibly can, but the fact is Jurassic Park is a good enough movie that it doesn’t need it at
all. Although, that scene when the velociraptor leaps up at Lex hanging from
the ventilation shaft seems like an even closer call with the 3-D.
Movie Ten: The Place Beyond the Pines – Here’s
one I went to see just because I’d heard it was good. And, man, was it good.
It’s a compelling arrangement of three movies in one with stories and
characters (and their connections with each other) overlapping within a span of
about 15 years. Movies like this usually separate the chapters into a series of
vignettes, but this film has a nice flow where the viewer just rides along with
the story as it unfolds in unpredictable tangents. Much like real life. It has
an especially beautiful ending that suggests that life comes full circle and
the character who exits in the final scene is likely to go on and eventually
enter as another character does in the opening scene. It’s a pretty powerful
movie. The set-up, relationships and pathos of this film reminded me of a Dan Chaon novel. If haven’t read Dan Chaon, do yourself a favor and seek out his
work. But, do yourself a more immediate favor first and seek out The Place Beyond the Pines.
Movie Eleven: 42 – When Red Tails came out, it was almost unanimously deemed prosaic by
critics. That bummed me out, but I went to see it anyway in the hopes that I
would like it regardless of public opinion. Unfortunately, the critics were
right. It was unfortunate not just because I wanted to like it, but because the
story of the Tuskegee Airmen is such a great one and they deserved a better
telling of their legacy, especially since the service of black soldiers in
World War II is so grossly overlooked. 42
is a better movie than Red Tails was,
but it still falls short as far as the kind reverent tribute Jackie Robinson
deserves from a film. I was hoping for a more sentimental and moving baseball
flick like The Natural or The Pride of the Yankees. Maybe part of
the problem was that Jackie Robinson lived a very straight and honorable life.
He was faithfully married to the same woman for over 25 years. He didn’t have
any problems with drugs or alcohol. He didn’t have any debilitating illnesses
(unless you count diabetes, which he was diagnosed with after he retired from
baseball). He wasn’t even traded from the Brooklyn Dodgers during his entire
major league career. So, basically his story is that he was a good ball player,
they let him into the major leagues, racists didn’t like that, but his prowess
and talent combined with the changing of the times made people think
differently and, eventually, he became a legend. That’s about it. Makes for a
good milestone in the history of civil rights, but lacks some punch as a movie.
I’m not saying it’s a bad film, but I would have liked it to be better. As a
footnote, I’d just like to point out that there was some controversy
surrounding Tarantino’s Django Unchained
and its overabundance of the word “nigger”. Now, I wasn’t keeping a tally, but
it seemed like 42 used the word about
as many times as Django did. How come
nobody made a fuss about it this time? Is it because baseball is a less
inflammatory subject than slavery and therefore racial slurs are more
acceptable in a sports movie? Or is it just because 42 wasn’t as popular a movie?
Movie Twelve: Oblivion – This kind of movie is
exactly what I was referring to in the third paragraph of this blog post. Oblivion is a perfectly competent
science fiction film. It’s tightly directed, beautifully shot, well-acted, has
amazing special effects, good action sequences, realistic dialogue and an
original enough story to not feel redundant. Plus, Morgan Freeman. Yet, even with
all those elements in place, I walked out of the theater feeling little more
than that it was a decent way to kill a couple hours. Is that because I’m
seeing so many movies that my standards are too high or was it merely a garden-variety
sci-fi flick that didn’t deserve much acclaim? Probably a little of both. In
any case, I’m glad I saw it, but by the time next spring rolls around and I’m
compiling my top ten favorite films of the year, Oblivion will surely be omitted. Not because it wasn’t good, but
because it was forgettable.
Movie Thirteen: Pain & Gain – Apparently, some
of the real life victims (and families of victims) portrayed in this movie have
come forward complaining that this movie glorifies the criminals depicted and
makes them likeable and “sympathetic”. I don’t know what the hell they’re
talking about. Everybody in this entire movie (with the possible exception of
Ed Harris’ character and his wife) comes across as a world-class grade-A bag of
douche, in my opinion – bad guys and
good guys. There isn’t a single likeable or sympathetic person or action in the
whole movie. In fact, I’ll even take it a step further and say that anybody who
even liked this movie is probably
kind of a dick. Let’s face it, the movie was made by Michael Bay and we all know he’s a dick. It
really is an insufferable movie made worse because it’s over two hours long.
Interestingly enough, you could probably trim it down to 90 minutes by simply
letting all of the slo-mo scenes play in real time.
There were a number of days last month (especially the rainy
ones) where I actually wanted to go to the movies, but I had seen everything I
conceivably wanted to see (as I said before, I never had any intention of
seeing Scary Movie 5 or any film of
its caliber), so I had nothing to do but wait for something new to come out.
Thankfully, the studios tend to get a jump on the summer market by releasing
some of their blockbusters as early as May. So, here’s to hoping I’m in for
some better stuff in the months ahead.
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