Why are new movies almost all uniformly awful?
Last night, the girlfriend and I went to see “The Family Stone”. (I agreed to see it, despite having read Stephen Hunter’s evisceration of it in the Post, because I always do whatever my girlfriend tells me to — and because one of the “Stones”, Rachel McAdams, is really hot. [But not as good looking as you, honey.]) Sneaky marketing employed by the movie corporations had led us to believe that this was a “comedy”. So, in the least, I figured I’d get a good chuckle out of it. I did not. In fact, this movie was far worse than I could have possibly imagined.
The first hour was horrid. It wasn’t funny, and I hated all the characters. The setting resembled my own personal vision of Hell; imagine a fine house decorated in a respectable WASP-type fashion
(And then we sneaked into “Munich” (which I had previously vowed not to watch) because I figured Hollywood owed us after we forked over our dough for this “Stone” fiasco. Later today I may tell you what I think of “Munich” after I sort out all the things I disliked about it. [And if you are an agent of Universal Pictures, Dreamworks SKG, or AMC Theaters, I was joking about that "sneaked into" thing -- naturally we paid full price to see your piece of structurally, intellectually, and morally confused garbage.])
December 30th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Most movies today suck because Hollywood is generally lazy, and far too eager to accept a predictable short-term gain in exchange for quality and substance. It reminds me of Jackie Treehorn in “The Big Lebowski,” lamenting that cost competition had forced him to strip out that “little extra in story, production value, feeling” from his porn films. If you’re lucky enough to get an original script, it’s probably been written by some unhappy sod who’s spent far too many hours drinking Starbucks coffee and searching for reasons that life might be worth living.
But why invest in what could be a quality original script when you can take a comic book, add the usual explosions, and cover up some terrible acting? Shoot once, cut, print. Collect on the box office receipts for a week or two, send it to DVD, and use the residuals to help forget that such garbage was ever produced in the first place.
Better yet, re-make a movie that has already captured the cultural awareness, save money by eliminating the original screenplay, and coast to success on the name recognition, a la Eddie Murphy in “The Distinguished Gentleman.” In a short while, the people will forget that the original was ever so badly butchered (The Manchurian Candidate, The Bad News Bears, Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Longest Yard, Assault on Precinct 13…need I go on? One exception: King Kong compared well with the B/W version).
It’s utterly depressing. It’s better to invest in some home theater equipment, buy some classics on DVD, pop in “The Quiet Man” and reminisce about the time when cinema was truly one of America’s great art forms.
December 30th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
The original ads for The Family Stone strongly suggested that this was a Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle as well as a comedy. Neither being the case. The latest ads don’t even have any clips of her from the film. Ah well, there are always reruns of Square Pegs, somewhere.
December 31st, 2005 at 10:59 am
Yes, sort of like Steven Seagal in Executive Decision. Yes, he was in it, but he got sucked out of the plane to his presumed death about twenty minutes into the show.
Not a good way to please your Seagal fans who paid money to see him.
January 17th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
The biggest threat to the Cinema Industry… EVER…
News - AP - Industry braces as new movie hits theaters, TV, DVD on same day …the new Steven Soderbergh film “Bubble” in a theater, pack your bags. It won’t be showing in those or more than a dozen other……