Cinema Matters

Something about today's movies sucks. Sometimes there are a few good ones, but they never make it well in the box office, instead sparkly vampires and bad remakes are selling more tickets. So what makes a movie truly "good"? Now they do have to make money, mind you, so popularity is important, however popular does not appear to be the same as good these days. Seems Idiocracy is coming true, survival of the most stupid.

To better understand what movies are good we need to look at the real classics throughout the ages. Most of the really good classics from the pre-color movies are based on novels, really big novels, with lots of story and full character development. Later they added in special effects to the mix yet still the characters were well written and full of life. Then the fall, the dependence on special effects and complete disregarding of character background. Now we are in an age of bad remakes and screen effects.

So I ask the writers of new movies to consider one thing: Has this been done before and do I have characters the viewers can believe in?

We'll look at one of the cheesiest horror movies of all time, Nightmare on Elm Street. The franchise started off with a laugh, though the characters were lifelike they had an element of stupid in them. Freddy was the biggest clown of the killers, with bad jokes and one liners that made you chuckle. His story was simple and yet made sense. The characters he was targeting were "just because he could" ... which actually added the fear into it.

So what's wrong with the sequel to Nightmare on Elm Street? Everything. They tried to turn a B-movie into a serious one, that was the biggest mistake. Losing the humor of the main character turned him into just another supernatural killer, of which there are already too many. Changing the script was another mistake. They even changed the story, just enough to make fans of the originals choke on their own vomit. Watching Freddy was like watching a set of knives that kept falling onto people ... bland, boring, and lifeless. Nothing scary, just a bunch of pointless red colored sugar water spilling on the floor.

Sometimes, I admit, remakes are improvements, Lord of the Rings trilogy was one. The first was rushed and though animated well for it's time it also was not the best telling of a massive story. The sequel did well in telling the story with only a few changes and great writing. So not all remakes are bad, just the ones which take something already well done and turn it into ... crap.

Then there's the movies depending on the special effects to tell the story instead of using them to enhance it. Not the Final Fantasy movie, though that story fell a little flat, ones like Avatar. Special effects are fun, yes, but if that's all you want there are video games you can play. Movies are about the story, a novel in motion.

Now Hollywood, we have demonstrated, as movie fans, that we can sit through three hour movies, why are you cheating us now with 60 minute garbage flicks featuring vampires wearing glitter and soft core child porn? Give us good remakes like The Wolfman again, or better quality stories like the Star Wars Four, Five, and Six. Also some new worlds like Delgo are a good idea to.

As to the fans of the crap being put on screen these days, grow up already. That mentality was never popular, "it's like totally uncool to like behave so childish, you know?" Did the stupid stick hit you all when you were born? Look closely at yourselves, do you really want to be known as the most moronic generation? No, nothing you are doing now is new, it's not different than the rest of us, but when we were young your behavior was laughed at because it was the same as watching Three Stooges reruns in real life. Thank you.