I stumbled upon THIS article recently, and it led me to do some pondering of my own.
Having been an avid fan of films for my entire life, I have come to be more rigid and inevitably more biased when it comes to my choices and opinions of cinema.
Ideally, it shouldn't be this way, and I understand this.
I should want to see every movie that Hollywood produces and tries to sell me on.
But unfortunately, there's a problem with that.
A big problem.
Some movies are just plain awful. Unfortunately, there really isn't an unbiased way to approach that subject, so I figured I would just be honest and clear.
Some movies are terrible. Well let's use the word terrible to be nice. We wouldn't want to use any other words to describe them, as this is a PG-13 rated blog.
It's the truth.
But moviegoers understand that not every movie that they pay to see will be gold.
Sometimes, movies are a gamble, one that does not pay off...for anyone.
But the scary thing that I've come to find is, in spite of what I have learned and what Hollywood might want me to believe, there are a LOT of crappy movies out there.
And their presence and numbers far outweigh the great, good, or even decent movie choices.
But why is this?
How could this have happened?
Who would want this sad but true fact to be the norm in our society?
The answer is: We caused this.
But how is this possible, you might ask?
Allow me to explain.
Pretend that Hollywood is a small child, and doesn't know any better than to cry and scream when it wants attention.
Now pretend that the movie-going community (us) is this child's mother.
Now let's also pretend that the crappy movies that no one really likes, yet continues to see on a weekly basis, is the child's constant cries.
The child keeps crying for attention, and the mother keeps giving that attention to him.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The child doesn't know any better, all it knows is that by crying, it can get all the attention (money) that it needs and by understanding this primitive and rudimentary formula, it will continue to do so until a change in behavior by the mother can be seen.
Ah metaphors, you gotta love em.
Hopefully this makes sense.
We are causing this problem. Everyone keeps complaining about how many bad movies are out there, yet almost every single weekend, those same crappy movies that are the source of negative attention keep appearing on the Top Box Office Reports.
-The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1
-Underworld: Awakening
-The Devil Inside
-Contraband
-The Vow
-New Year's Eve
-Little Fockers
...Should I go on?
-The Roommate
-Hall Pass
-Clash of the Titans
-Valentine's Day
-G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
-Meet the Spartans
-Baby Mama
-Semi-Pro
-Max Payne
You know what all of these movies have in common?
They were all number one at the box office the week that they came out.
We are causing these movies to be made, and get sequels.
Because we're feeding Hollywood all the wrong signals.
"Oh you guys like this crap? Let's make more! Let's make a lot more! It's what the people want!"
Money talks.
And there really isn't a more prevalent example than the screaming that money does in Hollywood.
I believe that the system can be changed if we speak up about this! Just like we vote for our President and Governor, we have the ability to show the big studios that we don't really want all this crap that they think that we want.
It's a vicious circle,
one that will literally continue as long as movies do, unless we put a stop to it.
But what can you do to stop it?
Well there's a couple of ways to solve this problem.
One: Check out the reviews.
Reviews have the ability to tell you if you might like this movie. Now as I mentioned in an earlier blog, reviews aren't always accurate, but for the most part, you're going to be able to tell if it's an award-winner, or a piece of crap.
For instance, if you went on Rotten Tomatoes and saw that the movie you were thinking about seeing is getting a 2% (which happens a lot more than you may think), do you think you'll enjoy that movie?
NOPE. Probably not.
Jack and Jill, the abomination starring Adam Sandler, garnished a mere 3% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It ended up winning every single Razzie Award it was nominated for (more awards than are categories).
And still this movie got $25,000,000 on its opening weekend, on its way to $150,000,000 worldwide by the end of its run.
This is the message that we're sending Hollywood, people.
That THIS is the kind of crap that we want to see all the time.
If they could do it, I'm sure 99% of the people who saw that movie would want their money back.
Two: Think before we leap.
Let's use our brains, and not be motivated by factors that we have complete control over.
Watch the previews.
Read summaries.
Look at the poster.
Be informed about the movie.
Let's not go in blind here.
Maybe wait a week and then ask your friends what they thought of it?
There's a lot of possible solutions to the problem.
The Studio's Side:
Now the studios are gathering the information and studying what makes money and throwing their money into a lot of crap these days.
I've come up with a theory about how the studios could solve the problem as well.
You know how it seems that like twenty five movies come out every week?
Well the majority of those twenty five movies are going to be crap, because they are hastily written and thrown together as fast as possible to make a quick buck.
I feel like if all that apathy was eliminated and boiled down into one or two GOOD movies a week, we might be off to a good start here. If we took the resources, willpower, writers and money and the studios allowed a little more time to actually hire good directors who care about the project, this might be a step in a very good direction.
I think that audiences will appreciate the time that is spent on this films and the studios might realize that making GOOD movies, movies that everyone can appreciate, can be rewarding and will still make a profit for them.
We see this happening a few times a year, but I believe that ALL or at least MOST of films made today have the ability to be good, if the appropriate amount of time and energy is put forth into those projects.
There's a lot more that can be said, but alas, it all boils down to the same point.
No more enabling.
Let's nip this problem in the bud and show the studios that we're smarter than they think we are.
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