10 years later
Ten years ago Christopher Reeve told the audience at the Academy Awards to make films that challenge the mind and make people discuss important topics instead of making movies just for a quick buck. Today, we see that Reeve's request to Hollywood has gone largely unnoticed. What was the tipping point for me? The movie Turistas was what made me decide if Hollywood is either full of idiots or Hollywood believes the general public is just a bunch of idiots. In the movie there is a line which blew my mental socks off. The movie largely is about college kids on Spring Break in Brazil. One scene has a college female asking her male friends if "they didn't mind she went topless" Now this line got me thinking. Is Michael Ross (the writer of the movie) retarded or does he believe the audience who will see this movie is as well? Why does a college coed need to ask her college male companions if they didn't care if she went topless, I think that we all know the answer to that question. So what was the point of including this question into the script? What purpose would it fulfill in the movie? Was this a turning point in one of the characters who was gay but started to give second thoughts once seeing supple college age boobs? I honestly don't know. If Ross put that line in there for marketing purposes then well done, the line is used in a preview, but why try to sell a movie using cheesy lines and idiodic characters? Why not make a horror movie with mental twists and turns such as Jacob's Ladder?
So why make such a big deal about a horrible horror movie and one line within it? Well its more of the big picture. It costs millions of dollars to make a movie. (I believe the current average is $64 million per picture). The money that is wasted on movies like Turistas could have easily gone to movies that are like Children or Men or Equilibrium, or other movies that make you think about public morality and ethics. It seems to me that Hollywood is not even trying anymore. Look at this summer for instance. It seems that every weekend there is a sequal coming out. Last week it was Spiderman 3, this week its 28 Months Later, next week Shrek 3. Are there any good writers left in Hollywood or are we all just wasting through life until Gigli 2 comes out?
One last thing on Hollywood. Although they are somewhat intelligent movies the current trend out of the movie studios is Anti-Bush and anti-war movies. This week the movie 28 Months Later uses the story to somewhat criticize the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. Yes Hollywood, we know you dont like the war or the President stop shoving these movies down our throats. instead of attacking the President and his policies go after other contorversial topics such as AIDS in Africa or poverty in South America.
posted by Jordan Grant @ 6:23 PM
3 comments
