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MOVIES SUCK CONTINUED
by Daren Foster

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DAREN FOSTER PODCAST September 1 2009 - PRESS PLAY TO LISTEN

MOVIES SUCK CONTINUED
by Daren Foster

***Me and the movies used to like each other.***

Another Labour Day has passed and as custom would have it, the last long weekend of the summer was spent deep in the woods, covering myself in the fecund earth and season’s fallen detritus of foliage, talking of life’s grander meanings and drinking deep of an elixir supposedly possessed of highly distilled spirits of self-awareness. Or so it claimed when I came across it a few years back on the internet.

In short, I went on a camping bender and wandered from my tent in the early Sunday hours to take a pee, got lost, wound up face down in a mosquito infested bog and wasn’t rescued until later that afternoon by a very nice couple from the nearby RV park out walking their very yappy Pekingese. Stinking of rotting flora and fermented fauna refuse, covered in nothing short of a rash of insect bites some of which I’m sure were chock full of West Nile-y goodness, I found my way back to the campsite, babbling incoherently to the sky above about being a little too old for this shit.

Never one to pass up a highly forced segue, this has become my general outlook toward the movies. I am simply too old for this shit. (Nice, eh?)

And I don’t think I’m the only one who has come to this conclusion.

Aside from my partial lost weekend, much of the Labour Day outing was spent with 5 other adults and, I believe, 2 children, although the noise and high-pitched energy level would point to at least 3 more. Many topics were broached and countless subjects expounded upon, sometimes garrulously, or so it was suggested almost exclusively in my direction to which I opined that there is a world of difference between over explaining and under.. understanding. I’m sure I defended myself much more succinctly and effectively at the time.

Of all the talk, not once did anyone mention the movies. Perhaps this happens in a lot of social circles. Despite box office numbers suggesting a serious spike in attendance at local cineplexes, perhaps there are those who don’t chat idly about what they’ve seen recently, what they like/disliked etc., etc. This is not the case for me and mine. In fact, what makes the Labour Day weekend movie talk omission that much more curious is of the 6 adults involved, 4 were or had been at one time involved in the film business while the other two were certainly no strangers to frequenting rep houses back in the day.

It was a movie crowd is what I’m saying and yet no one talked about movies. Television came up but almost exclusively in regards to Mad Men. (Details I will not go into since everyone is at different stages of viewing the series and I fear giving away vital plot points. Besides, I have recently been accused of being a Mad Men fan boy, slavishly bootlicking the franchise. So I cease and desist here.) But no conversation about movies.

Why should there be? There’s pretty much nothing to talk about. This is something that I’ve been saying for some time now. In fact, my last post stated that very notion, more or less verbatim. Movies suck. Movies suck. Movies suck. Ad nauseum. To the point where one might think a pattern was emerging.

Why this matters and why I shouldn’t just file this column under the been there, wrote that, maybe you’re falling into a rut, please stop, you’re getting really, really monotonously boring to the point where I might just be starting to hate you category is that movies used to matter to me. A lot. Movies are the main reason I am doing what I am doing now. Much more was at play for me to arrive at this particular place in my life but movies were certainly an integral part of the process.

They weren’t simply a pastime; a something to do on a Friday night. Going to the movies was serious business. I didn’t want to be merely entertained or simply kill a couple hours. That’s what TV was for and my oh my, how times have changed. I fully expected to be engaged by the movies, swept up in their action, surprised, blown away. Not occasionally or every so often. Every time I went. Anything else was a massive let down.

Maybe it was all just misplaced youthful exuberance. One of my favourite film critics, David Thompson, suggests in the introduction to his 2008 book Have You Seen…? that everyone’s most cherished films were probably seen between the ages of 10 and 15. So don’t rule out the possibility that the movies are most fit for kids. That certainly seems to be the thinking of Hollywood marketing departments these days. We grow up. Our thrill of spectacle is replaced by the induced queasiness brought on by the vicissitudes of life. Priorities change. We go to the movies (or bring them home to us) wanting little more than to laugh or not think too much. How recently have you caught yourself saying that?

So we abandon movies as a form of adult entertainment. (Insert your.. ahhh.. joke here.) Movie houses are handed over to starry-eyed youngsters out on their first few awkward dates who are thinking of anything but what’s on the screen in front of them. Bored shoppers needing a couple hours to take a load off. Diners waiting for a table at Milestones©® or Jack Astors®©. The retarded. No wait. Let me re-phrase that. Those suffering from any sort of ailment that restricts them from bearing witness to the dreadfulness that Hollywood so habitually and pervasively emits from its engorged posterior.

Does that sound bitter? I guess so which shouldn’t be surprising since my entire being is full of bitterness and rancour when it comes to the state of movies today. I’m like a jilted lover, pushed to the sidelines and replaced by a younger, less demanding model. The breakup went something like this.. Movies: What’s with all the nagging lately? I’m spending a lot of money trying to keep you happy. Me: I don’t care about the money. Any asshole can spend money. I want a little substance. Can’t you even try to treat me like a semi-sentient being? Movies: What are you talking about?! Didn’t I give you The Dark Knight? Me: The Dark Knight!?! It’s me you’re talking to not your 15-29 year old boyfriend. Movies: Shut up! Me: No. You shut up!!

This thing between movies and me? It’s done.

Call it irreconcilable differences but I think it’s much more than that. After briefly treating me as a living, breathing, thinking adult from say about 1967 into the early 80s, Hollywood ultimately wants me to remain a teenager in mind and spirit if not in the wallet. Sure, it lured me back with the occasional serious turn but I don’t think that’s happened much since about 1999. They’ve simply stopped trying and I’ve just got to accept the fact that’s never going to change and move on with my life.

Which might not be a bad thing when all is said and done. It could be argued that I’ve wasted the best years of my life in prolonged adolescence. Idle hours spent watching flickering two dimensional characters in largely one dimensional narratives with nothing to show for it outside of a fairly pedestrian knowledge in the Entertainment category of Trivial Pursuit. God help me if the final wedge comes down to a Geography or Science and Nature question.

It’s never easy to admit a mistake especially one as large as your choice of vocations. Willingly led down the garden path of make believe, it’s become glaringly apparent that this is not going to sustain me into my old age. No matter how much I may love movies they just aren’t willing to return my affection. Hollywood has robbed me of my youth but this is where I make my stand, unwilling to hand over anymore of what remains of my life.