Wanted: Good Movies
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| WANTED: GOOD MOVIES PODCAST - Chatting about ACTION MOVIES and how they've evolved! |
WANTED: GOOD MOVIES
By Daren Foster
**Do action movies have to be so bad?**
2009 is here and audio-visually I am loaded for bear. A recent home renovation afforded (not necessarily in the financial definition of the word) the opportunity to make the great leap forward in how we watch TV and listen to music. With walls wide open, wires were run, speakers were hung and a throne built to house components.* The view from the couch now looks out at a 40” flat screen, full HD LCD TV hooked up to an HD PVR and blu-ray DVD player. Pure cutting edge technology my friends, if it were 2005. But hey, progress has to start somewhere.
Much thought was put into the first DVD to be watched on.. through?.. with?.. the new system. (I don’t have the lingo down yet). Something with a high quotient of pyrotechnics or a personal favourite seen through a new lens? Say, any recent effort of Jason Statham versus The Godfather (but which one?) or Apocalypse Now. Ooo-ooo! Fight Club would be great, too. Maybe a little animation might be in order…
Six hours later, we’re still wandering the aisles of the video store -- quaint how we continue to use the old terms long after the actual object has been rendered defunct; video store where we rent DVDs; albums or CDs (depending on your vintage) when we’ve gone digital; ‘defunct’ rather than ‘obsolete’ because it just sounds funnier; semi-colons.. because we don’t know how else to punctuate a long, meandering sentence..
Action and animation win out and the recently released (on DVD and Blu-Ray Hi-Def) Wanted is the opening night movie for my very own film festival. Drum roll, please! Lights down! Curtain up! Cell phones off! Let the magic carpet ride begin.
**sigh**
Such lofty expectations can only lead to disappointment and that chill I’m experiencing comes from the lack of insulation we’ve stuffed in the walls rather than the movie going experience. Really? There’s a draft?! How is that possible? We spent how much?! Despite the car chases and the shootouts with the curving bullets and that guy smashing through that office tower window, fifteen minutes into Wanted, my mind is already elsewhere. I find myself staring hard at Angelina Jolie, convinced she isn’t an actual human being but a computer-generated facsimile, an avatar for a generic action movie female figure. She was cooked up like some Weird Science experiment or is the product of the coupling of Jon Voigt and Kelly LeBrock.
I tuned out, is what I’m saying. No amount of explosions or screeching tires or gravitas from Morgan Freeman can pull me back. My mind wanders. I have left the building. Wait a second. Wait a second! Angelina Jolie is what happens with a steady diet of soylent green. She’s eating people, people!! Good God is that why she’s adopting all those babies?! Now there’s a movie I’d pay to see. An updated version of Soylent Green with Angelina in the Charlton Heston role. In the near future, a childless woman attempts to adopt a baby but can’t find one because they’re all being shipped out to make gruel for a race of super-human women intent on taking over action films. Huh? Huh??
Wanted has lost my thrall and I’m left to realize the error of my logic in choosing it to watch in the first place. If I’m unmoved to go see a movie at the multiplex which, as much as I hate to admit it, offers up an even more intense viewing experience than my new home theatre, why oh why would I think it might grab my fancy now? I have never been an action movie fan, having sworn them off many times in the past. It starts with the implausibility that ultimately wears down my willing suspension of disbelief. OK, OK. I’ll buy that one single man can kill off terrorists by the baker’s dozen in a burning office skyscraper but please do not expect me to accept him dropping 3 floors down an elevator shaft and holding on to a ledge by his fingertips. 
That’s putting a bit too much onus on the power of my childlike sense of wonder.
Then there’s the routine exercise of playing out a familiar script. Where is it written that every action movie must follow the exact same storyline? Oh, that’s right. Atop the rules and regulations of every studio marketing department’s guidebook. Thou Shalt Not Indulge In Focus Group Untested Action Movie Narratives.
Wanted was followed into our blu-ray DVD player by Kung Fu Panda and I was immediately struck by just how similar the two such seemingly disparate movies were. A bumbling outsider is called into a chosen coven of highly trained specialists and must overcome his own fear and the disdain of other group members before he vanquishes the bad guy and claims his rightful place amongst the immortals in the hopes of a franchise ensuing. It’s almost as if there’s some sort of.. what do you call it.. formulae.
For this I lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Robert McKee who has enabled a generation of soft-headed filmmakers to think they are talking intelligently about story structure, narrative arcs and the like when, in fact, all they are really doing is regurgitating cant. The hackneyed, seen-it-before nature of the script for ________ (fill in the blank with your own favourite, FX heavy, story light movie) can be overlooked when you quote from Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. While he recently predicated the end of Hollywood as we know it at one of his seminars, McKee should accept some of the blame for what he now derisively dismisses. While nothing in the film business is ever sure fire, except a third instalment of The Dark Knight, there’s one thing you can take to the bank (literally): there’s a formulae for making money but not so much for making a movie.
No hunting through a series of action movies after Wanted dissuaded me from this thought. The Mummy. Rehashed bits and pieces from Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone. The Bank Job. Hey. There’s a bank. Let’s get the gang back together for one last heist! Ghost Rider. Q.: How does Nicholas Cage sleep at night? A.: On a bed of money. (Tip of the hat to Mad Men for that).
Out there among the readership, a chorus is surely building, chiding me for getting overly excited about the soullessness of the action film genre. Dude, the calls ring out, chillax. They’re just action films. It’s all about escapism. Not everything has to be moving picture perfect. Let it wash over you like a warm bath of monkey blood and asp venom. What?! That’s right. You heard me. Stop being so analytical. Just go with it and think of the flag if you have to. Action films aren’t intended to be deconstructed. It’s all about blowing shit up.
But, we’re making a movie like nobody’s business!
Even the Bard himself, Billy Shakes from Stratford, had to/chose to cater to the masses. Masses who also shouted themselves hoarse around the bear pit, so these were crazies with a for real blood lust. If giving the people what they want was good enough for him, who am I to hold such high aesthetic standards for my entertainment dollar?
I know, I know. But I just had to end with it.
* (A shameless plug. For those looking to bring their homes fully into the 21st century, I highly recommend Electronic Interiors. Look them up on the web. Ask for Graham.)
READ MORE COLUMNS BY DAREN FOSTER
January 12 2009 - HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD - Basking in the glow of a Golden Age.
December 29 2008 - REKILL THE BATMAN - Fingers crossed for a Dark Knight free 2009!
December 22 2008 - KEVIN SMITH CONUNDRUM - Why such love for a mediocre talent?
December 15 2008 - PUSHING UP DAISIES - Let's doff our caps for TV shows few will miss.
December 8 2008 - THIS JUST IN - The media just loves a good tragedy!
December 1 2008 - UNDER THE RADAR - The curious career of Albert Brooks.
November 24 2008 - PULP FICTION FOREVER - Once exciting filmmaker now never fails to disappoint.
November 17 2008 - CHARLIE KAUFMAN UNLEASHED - Brainy scriptwriter goes for broke in directorial debut.
November 10 2008 - A GOLDEN AGE - TV's renaissance amidst the ruins.
November 3 2008 - POLITICS AS UNUSUAL - Media tales fail to take flight.
October 27 2008 - EYES HAVE IT 2 - Joe the Plumber 4 President!
October 20 2008 - EYES HAVE IT - You say pollster. I say huckster.
October 13 2008 - MUSLIM COMEDY REVIEW - Ahmed's now your wacky next door neighbour!
October 6 2008 - BVLGARI VVLGARIS - Celebrity overseas whoring.
September 29 2008 - COMEDY TODAY
September 22 2008 - FALLEN SEASON EXPECTATIONS
September 15 2008 - CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
September 8 2008 - KILL THE BATMAN - Seriously. Put him out of his misery.
September 1 2008 - MY SUMMER VACATION
August 25 2008 - PHONING IT IN
August 18 2008 - GUNGA GULUNGA
August 11 2008 - EMMY DAZE - Where is The Wire
August 4 2008 - ME TALK GOOD
July 28 2008 - TAKE THE CANNOLI
July 21 2008 - TECHNO BEAT 2
July 14 2008 - TECHNO BEAT 1
June 30 2008 - KING GEORGE
July 7 2008 - THE INDIGESTIBLE HULK
