On the state of Film
I was reading Philadelphia Weekly, the local paper, for the movie reviews today, while locked out of my apartment and waiting for the maintenance guy to come and let me in. I quite like the style their reviews are written in (obviously more experienced at it than me). I noticed an interesting trend: All the movies for which we had such high expectations were considered inferior to a select few which, given a little thought, we should have known were showing more promise.
Just so you can see what I'm talking about, I've summarised a part of their review list here:
| Title | Score |
| 28 Days Later | A- |
| Rivers & Tides | B |
| The Hulk | C |
| Jet Lag | C+ |
| The Hard Word | D |
| The Trip | C |
| Bend It Like Beckham | B |
| Bruce Almighty | D- |
| Capturing the Friedmans | A- |
| Dumb & Dumberer | C- |
| Finding Nemo | B+ |
| Hollywood Homicide | C |
| Identity | D- |
| The Italian Job | C- |
| Man on the Train | A- |
| The Matrix Reloaded | D+ |
| Spellbound | B |
| Wrong Turn | C+ |
That's enough for you to get the picture : The great expectations generated by the media hype surrounding
Bruce Almighty or
Reloaded fails to impress in comparison to the filmmaking effort that goes into doing something reasonably original such as
Man on the Train or
Spellbound. It's reassuring to see that even if the Hollywood decision-makers have completely lost their sense of taste, the reviewers who judge the decisions ex-post have managed to retain their composure.
I don't think the problem lies with the subject of the movies. It's true that the scripts that come off better on screen are those that deal with moderately original themes (although 28 days later is more of a new twist on an old theme), but this is not because completely original movies are inherently better than reworkings of tried and tested plot constructions. I think it's more to do with the fact that if you're trying to write something new, you have to think about it, build it with care and check its consistency meticulously. It's also not guaranteed to work, which means the team that build the picture deploy their talents more rigorously, and care more about the overall quality of the flick, because there's no "genre following" to guarantee it's success, it has to succeed on its own merits.
If some of the screenwriting, editing, directing and acting dedication that goes into making a new film and treading safely on new ground could be transferred into the bread and butter hollywood blockbusters, I think a revitalisation would occur, bringing the kind of freshness we experienced with La Femme Nikita or Adaptation to movies that rely too overtly on their story origins, audience preconceptions and special effects (think Hulk).
That having been said, I think 28 Days Later is going to be the horror flick of the year, and possible of the last 5 years, and I have to go see that. Maybe I'll go with a girl after telling her it's a sequel to the schmaltzy 28 Days of Sandra Bullock.
Posted by nlvp at June 29, 2003 12:57 PM