Death By Boring
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Erhrm. Right, why am I getting flashbacks to the top 50 most boring Nerd arguments? Oh right, because this is trying to come across as "witty" and ends up sounding exactly like it is: a rant about how horrible movies that Bob doesn't like remain popular.
Pray silence please for yet another round of...
"Bob is pointing out that he's been round the block a bit as a critic and as such is getting increasingly tired of some of the more grating cliches that he has to sit though again and again. This must mean he's telling me I'm wrong for liking anything to do with any of these things! PRETENSION, PRETENSION I SAY!"
Yeah, can we just not do that this time around? I mean, I know we will, but can we not?
"Bob is pointing out that he's been round the block a bit as a critic and as such is getting increasingly tired of some of the more grating cliches that he has to sit though again and again. This must mean he's telling me I'm wrong for liking anything to do with any of these things! PRETENSION, PRETENSION I SAY!"
Yeah, can we just not do that this time around? I mean, I know we will, but can we not?
Bob is pointing out that he's been round the block a bit as a critic and as such is getting increasingly tired of some of the more grating cliches that he has to sit though again and again. This must mean he's telling me I'm wrong for liking anything to do with any of these things! PRETENSION, PRETENSION I SAY!
Bob, I'm going to steal this paragraph if I may and then pull it out whenever any of my friends or acquaintances try to make me feel worse about a problem I already feel bad about. Good ammunition against that kind of BS emotional warfare.
My list would build upon what you have mentioned and would also include:
Hip Hop Kung Fu movies
Movies about fast living and fast cars
Rob Schnieder is a______ (this was of course covered by a South Park episode and I haven't seen any since- Success!)
A sports movie in which the great lesson of all is learned off of the field. And there is a disadvantaged player who needs the game to survive. Also, they are underdogs. Also let's tie it to an historic sports event. Blerg.
Here's one that's sorely missing:
Big City Hotshot Finds Small Town Life Charming and Preferable
Examples: Doc Hollywood, Sweet Home Alabama, Cars
The protagonist is a young, wealthy, beautiful (by Hollywood standards), and often famous professional with a jet set life in either New York or Los Angeles. Events conspire to force the protagonist to stay in Bumfuck Georgia, where the houses are rickety, the cars are ancient, herd mentality thrives, and nobody knows what's on television these days. The protagonist reacts in shock and dismay at their situation at first, but grows to love the small community and gives up their fabulous life to settle down as a simple (wo)man.
One of the uncomfortable aspects of this framework is how it propagates Bible Belt stereotypes. It assumes the audience to find ambition, talent, and drive to be bad traits that need to be ironed over with some Norman Rockwell-esque southern hospitality. What makes this framework outright paradoxical is that nobody ever got in a position to make this movie by following the moral it preaches. Basically, it's cynical pandering to an audience held in low esteem.
The absolute worst instance of this plot framework is Sweet Home Alabama, which sets the heroine up with a love triangle between an impossibly charming, wealthy, and good-hearted city man versus her abusive, neglectful, unambitious hometown husband she left behind... and has her throw away her professional life to move back in with the jerk. The movie doesn't even try to make her decision look good, with Mr. Charming even fully supportive of her decision to dump him for her old life.
Big City Hotshot Finds Small Town Life Charming and Preferable
Examples: Doc Hollywood, Sweet Home Alabama, Cars
The protagonist is a young, wealthy, beautiful (by Hollywood standards), and often famous professional with a jet set life in either New York or Los Angeles. Events conspire to force the protagonist to stay in Bumfuck Georgia, where the houses are rickety, the cars are ancient, herd mentality thrives, and nobody knows what's on television these days. The protagonist reacts in shock and dismay at their situation at first, but grows to love the small community and gives up their fabulous life to settle down as a simple (wo)man.
One of the uncomfortable aspects of this framework is how it propagates Bible Belt stereotypes. It assumes the audience to find ambition, talent, and drive to be bad traits that need to be ironed over with some Norman Rockwell-esque southern hospitality. What makes this framework outright paradoxical is that nobody ever got in a position to make this movie by following the moral it preaches. Basically, it's cynical pandering to an audience held in low esteem.
The absolute worst instance of this plot framework is Sweet Home Alabama, which sets the heroine up with a love triangle between an impossibly charming, wealthy, and good-hearted city man versus her abusive, neglectful, unambitious hometown husband she left behind... and has her throw away her professional life to move back in with the jerk. The movie doesn't even try to make her decision look good, with Mr. Charming even fully supportive of her decision to dump him for her old life.
I get the arguments made here, but I think there can be some merit if the offending genre is done well. I know you are making generalizations and I am about to nit-pick but in this case I think I have a good example.
Death at A Funeral
For those of you unfamiliar this movie was made and then remade within the span of about 14 months. The initial version is an English family dark comedy where everyone is very stiff and proper and dark hilarity ensues (a small part played by Alan Tudyk is a great piece of character acting). The family is disfunctional and supposedly proper while being very improper at the same time. Have we seen this before, sure. Is it done well to the point that it entertains here, absolutely.
Fast forward and Tyler Perry remakes the same movie, almost shot for shot except now we have loud black people. This is not a racist exageration on my part. The family has gone from stiff propper British to loud and crazy African American. Presumably to make them ore relatable to the Tyler Perry audience. But it adds nothing to the genere of "my crazy family". It isn't done particularly well and therefore it becomes less about entertainment and more about tkaing something that worked and litterally black washing it and putting it in a larger market (the original is considered an independent film) to make a bit more money.
This movie essentially supports and opposes Bob's statements on the genre. Anything done well and which is entertaining should be allowed to continue to be produced regardless of whether the story has been told before. However being lazy in order to make more money should not be tollerated by the mass movie going audiences.
Death at A Funeral
For those of you unfamiliar this movie was made and then remade within the span of about 14 months. The initial version is an English family dark comedy where everyone is very stiff and proper and dark hilarity ensues (a small part played by Alan Tudyk is a great piece of character acting). The family is disfunctional and supposedly proper while being very improper at the same time. Have we seen this before, sure. Is it done well to the point that it entertains here, absolutely.
Fast forward and Tyler Perry remakes the same movie, almost shot for shot except now we have loud black people. This is not a racist exageration on my part. The family has gone from stiff propper British to loud and crazy African American. Presumably to make them ore relatable to the Tyler Perry audience. But it adds nothing to the genere of "my crazy family". It isn't done particularly well and therefore it becomes less about entertainment and more about tkaing something that worked and litterally black washing it and putting it in a larger market (the original is considered an independent film) to make a bit more money.
This movie essentially supports and opposes Bob's statements on the genre. Anything done well and which is entertaining should be allowed to continue to be produced regardless of whether the story has been told before. However being lazy in order to make more money should not be tollerated by the mass movie going audiences.
Oh God yes, to the last one. I remember I kept seeing previews for that movie "How Does She Do It?" Or whatever the hell it was called, and kept having to ask my television, "But what is the movie ABOUT!?"
I typically agree with you Bob, and I agree with most of what you're saying here. But I agree more with your "anything can be a good movie" even tired, plodding, cliche genre flicks. It just depends on the film itself, first the script, then the direction. I feel like all those genre's have good examples as well as bad.
Yes I suppose that's the Hollywood method. This is more common of the independent film/theater angle, but as someone who grew up in a small town I always get a kick out of how film makers portray small town life from a more negative angle. Whether they're glorifying it or minmimalizing it people born and raised in the city can have some weird perceptions about small town life.AlexanderPeregrine said:
Thank you, I was just about to plug this movie and it's subsequent remake when I got to the "crazy extended family" part of Bob's article. I couldn't have said it better myself.sinsfire said:
Alfie is a really, really good film and Michael Caine is really, really good in it. If you haven't seen it, you really should. Your Good Luck Chucks and their ilk are not only superficially sexist, they fail completely at providing deep and human male protagonists.
This one really does need to die. In this modern age the only way hollywood can make the contrast work is if the family is either Amish (Been done, see "For Richer or Poorer") or the family has lucked out and, as Bob mentions, has fallen through every crack of the U.S. security net. These days even the poorest people have an Iphone or a laptop. So in order to find a depiction of rural life so lacking in modern conveniences that the contrast would stand out, where would one go, Harlan County from Justified?RandV80 said:
I'm so sick of movies with, like, three acts. Like come on, I don't need to learn everything about the world and characters before the third act. And am I really expected to believe all of life's plot threads are just going to tie up after some decisive climax? Is it really a big deal if I have no clue what the movie is about by the 17-minute mark? Peaks and valleys my ass, I want a movie that is all action for 40 minutes, then 60 minutes of exposition and musical numbers. And what the hell is up with the credits always coming at the end? Lazy. It seems a capable director these days could break the mould and do something creative, like work them into the backround, or into the dialogue using secret codes. And why am I supposed to care so much about the protagonist? It really seems that the extras are doing all the heavy lifting anyway, they should get more screen-time and stunts. And why does the villain always have, like, dark sounding music? A little bebop would be a nice accompaniment to murder. Twist endings? How 'bout a twist beginning? I don't even...[small]hey let go of me![/small]
Damn, is that what Eat Pray Love is really about? No wonder people hate it so much.
That said, if you're making a movie in a genre that's generally considered to be tired and cliché, you're probably not doing it out of a desire to be original. And if you are, you're probably making a movie that deliberately deconstructs the genre and not just a "finally good" film that plays the premise straight.rddj623 said:
But, Bob, don't you realize that those wealthy elites in their mansions are suffering for us? After all, they are the job creators, and without them being constantly supplied with foie gras, designer dresses and luxury cars, the rest of us would be living in the gutter?
They have to endure living such empty, horrible lives, where everything they can think of is available on a whim, so the rest of us get to enjoy our 10-hour workdays and quaint down-to-earth struggles with family life and saving up to afford getting our cars fixed.
They have to endure living such empty, horrible lives, where everything they can think of is available on a whim, so the rest of us get to enjoy our 10-hour workdays and quaint down-to-earth struggles with family life and saving up to afford getting our cars fixed.
