Okay, I’m probably not going to see 9 (animated dolls = creepy case of the willies; Elijah Wood as an animated doll = sleep with the lights on for the rest of my life). But I do respect that it is trying to do something at least a little different. There are so many concepts that I’m so over that I won’t even consider going to see them. Here’s the short list of movie elements I currently find unacceptable:
Rom-Coms: And here I’m talking the straight up rom-com. I’ll accept the rom-com hybrid (R-C/musical; R-C/mystery; R-C/sci-fi). If it’s just the standard meet cute between cute and cuter, I’ve seen it. Don’t need to see it again. And I don’t care if it stars Hugh Jackman and a clone of Hugh Jackman.
Movies involving the following professions: lawyers, politicians, doctors, real estate agents, fashion designers, architects, writers, mafia assasins and wedding planners. Professions that are weak, but still marginally acceptable: cops, code crackers, artists, chefs, dog walkers, journalists, comedians, socialites, fire fighters and the clergy.
Talking animals: Actually, this was never acceptable. Just stop doing it.
Apocalypse: Anything where a landmark is destroyed (i.e., the White House, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Christ of the Andes, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, etc.). Frankly, it’s just not that shocking any more. Yawn. Though let me draw a distinction here – apocalypse, no; post-apocalypse, yes. It’s a fine distinction, but one I’m willing to draw.
Jason Statham: Unless he’s going to be playing an accountant from Tulsa who just wants to dance on Broadway. Then maybe. But if he's just going to be kicking someone's ass again . . . it's just lost it's charm.
Psycho-killers: They haven’t come up with a new way to kill people in years. So all they’re doing is making it more disgusting. And here’s a clue, more disgusting is not more interesting. It just makes me wish I hadn’t had all that popcorn.
And of course, I’m not saying that these will never be acceptable again. I’m just saying give it a rest already. And when you pull it out of the mothballs, it will all seem new and fresh. How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
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4 comments:
You know what i REALLY wishthey'd gve a rest? Father & Son realtionship flicks - BIG SNORE!!! To all you male screenwriters and directors with dady issues - you think you are being "artistic: - you are just being derivative- no one wants to share your story about daddy was criel/absent/indifferent and then you grew up and you didn;t need him, but all of a suffen he needed you - pathetic! it is the same one we've seen a 1000 times. so over it.
I'd tend to agree there. Real world's smallest violin territory there. Though I have to say, I cried big, hysterical tears at the end of Big Fish. "He's carrying his father into the hungh-hungh river and huhng waaaaahhhhh!" Really embarassing.
I just read a great book - Freshwater Road - about a young woman who goes to Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to help register blacks to vote. It's fascinating and would make a great, thought-provoking movie.
What I couldn't help thinking about as I got farther into the book, was the Elvis movie I watched a couple of weeks ago that took place around the same time and how carefree everyone was while they spring breaked in Ft. Lauderdale (not a person of color in sight on that beach) while black people were being killed not too far away from there for simply wanting to vote. Mind boggling.
And that's the kind of thing that it wouldn't even take a good screenwriter to turn into a movie - it writes itself.
I've always wondered why no one has made a movie about the Poison Kitchen journalists who tried to warn people in Germany about the danger of the Nazis party. Incredibly dramatic true story - that WRITES ITSELF! And it's just laying around. But Tarantino has to go completely make up some whackadoodle story. Go figure.
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