« Get Tossed | Main | From Another »

October 20, 2005

In the Movies

I was in the theater the other day about to watch a movie. BUT FIRST; I was subjected to the usual barrage of movie trailers and commercials that pretend to be movie trailers. This all seems so redundant to me since half of all modern movies are just large cinamatic advertisements. Think I’m wrong? The last Matrix movie should have been called “Cadillac Presents the Matrix” or “Pepsi Brings Alien v. Predator.” This is the way of the world and I am going to let it go since product placement is how these movie companies make their money.

Psst...movie execs. Come closer, I have a secret for you. If you just spent a little more time and made better films then you wouldn’t need to make Nike your pimp. When you can see the plot twist three miles up the road begging for spare change to buy some originality it’s sad (M. knight you know that was for you). These things get as predictable as a Punch and Judy show. (He’s got a bat and he’s going to hit someone and since she is the only one there, Judy is going to get it.) This was fine and dandy (and I’m sure it taught a generation of children that hitting women is wrong). We're adults now. I am going to go out on a limb and say that unless you are Fantasia (oh, I am going to write about her 'cause she’s just ignorant) you do not need the same type of setup. But wait. You and I all know the person who no matter what the plot is and no matter how transparent the motives of the characters are they turn to you and ask, “Now why did that man shoot the other man?” You should be allowed to stop the movie and send that person to wait in the car with an Etch-a-Sketch.

We want to be excited and entertained. I do not care that “Bennifer” is in the film. Is it good? Can they act? Is there a plot? Is there a rapper in it? (through painstaking research I have come to the conclusion that the suck factor of any film is increased 100 fold by the mere presence of a rapper in the film. This rule has few exceptions.

Hollywood filmmakers, please stop being threatened by the independent filmmakers--learn from them. Indy filmmakers stop with the 2 1/2 hour films on a guy returning home after the death of a parent. That may have flown for your senior film project, but this is the real world. It's time to step it up.

But all that is icing. This post is about movie trailers. What is it with these new trailers that fade from movie clip to black and then to another movie clip and then to black? As in this Aeon Flux trailer. I saw this trailer in the theater and I swear I began to foam at the mouth. I understand that studios want a dramatic effect so you will remember their trailers, but I do not think the memory they want you to have is flopping on the sticky ground covered in popcorn and jujubees. This stuff is going to cause someone to seize and it won’t be all fun like in Japan with the Pokemon thing. This is America and someone will sue and then someone else will get jealous and sue too. Then there will be a class action suit. Every movie-goer from the past two years will get a nickel and the price of tickets will rise to 17 bucks.

So let’s recap.
Hollywood:Make better movies.
Indy filmmakers:The dead parent device is a dead cliché.
And no matter how bad the movie is you cannot hide it by making me have a seizure while looking at the preview.

Posted by Kwaku at October 20, 2005 12:46 PM

Comments

Posted by: Kelly at October 23, 2005 7:16 PM

Posted by: Kwaku at October 24, 2005 11:18 AM

Posted by: Embrownny at November 1, 2005 11:32 AM

Post a comment