Week One - August 8, 2009

Welcome to the Week in Stupid. What began as a one-off rant with a catchy subject line over at my personal blog is now, at the suggestion of a friend, a spin-off blog dedicated to highlighting things that might MELT YOUR BRAIN (author takes no responsibility for any liquified brain matter you might develop as a result of reading this blog).

Here is the original post that started it all. Come back tomorrow for a review of what's lowered IQ points this week.

Firstly, we have a prime example of why I can't be trusted to post on Snarkfest anymore, from the "Unpopular Movie Opinions You Hold" thread:

"My UO might be a little film geeky.
I feel that Hollywood hasn't made a good movie since 1934. Movies were filled with strong,outspoken,passionate women who ran their own lives.

There was life to these movies,not empty Bruckheimer/Bay spectacle or romcom nonsense.

Give me The Divorcee or Red Headed Woman over Andy Hardy, Judd Apatow and Transformers any day.

Don't get me started on how sound has made actors lazy."

In 75 years, not a single good movie? In 75 years, every movie is either stupid spectacle or insipid romantic comedy?

Sound made actors lazy? You know, I always thought there was something to all that "stage" acting that seemed ridiculous, and now I got it - they speak dialogue instead of over-emotive pantomime. Seriously though - not that far past 1934, we have His Girl Friday, one of the smartest pieces of scriptwork ever put on film, and while the story is certainly serviceable and Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are delicious, the reason it's considered one of the greatest movies of all time is the dialogue, and the way Grant and Russell nail every rushed, overspoken second of it. But... since we're talking about a movie made after 1934, obviously it sucks, because it's just romcom nonsense. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, The Searchers, The Godfather, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Great Dictator, North by Northwest, Psycho, 2001, The Best Years of Our Lives... in that entire list of movies that came right off the top of my head from 1940 through 1971, there isn't one movie that you would call "good" - not even great, not even excellent, just good, and they're all either Bay-esque spectacle or romcom nonsense? Sometimes, an opinion can be wrong, and this is a shining example, asshat.

Then, possibly prompted by a trip down memory lane instigated by the death of John Hughes, Roger Ebert wrote the following. I love Mr. Ebert, but while I generally respect his opinions, I'm sad to find that he's just like any other old man, decrying those damn kids on his cinematic lawn.

"The obvious implication is, younger moviegoers don't care about reviews and have missed the news that The Hurt Locker is the best American film of the summer. There is a more disturbing implication: word of mouth is not helping the film in that younger demographic. It has been Hollywood gospel for decades that advertising and marketing can help a film to open strongly, but moviegoers talking with each other are crucial to its continuing success. That has been Summit Entertainment's game plan for The Hurt Locker, which opened in a few theaters and has steadily increased its cities, becoming a real success without ever 'winning' a weekend or benefiting from an overkill marketing campaign."

First off, I love that we're singing the praises of Summit Entertainment's low key marketing for The Hurt Locker. This is, after all, the same company who's producing the very over-hyped Twilight "Saga" (sarcastic quotation marks mine). Second, I must say that I'm shocked... shocked!... to discover that Transformers is outperforming The Hurt Locker. Even if Paramount hadn't spent dime one on marketing Transformers, it would still have outsold The Hurt Locker, and anyone could have told you this before a single frame of footage was shot for either movie. This is not a surprise, this is the way it's been all along - you don't think there was someone in 1939 lamenting that some obscure little movie was getting ignored so everyone could flock to that overdone, gaudy melodrama Gone With the Wind? You don't think DeMille and his marketing team didn't have their fingers all over every inch of that production, right down to the whole brou-ha-ha over the casting of Vivian Leigh as a promotional stunt?

Look, I know that Michael Bay must have kicked you in the nads or pulled out your IV drip or something, but dude, lay off Transformers for a few blogposts, okay? Just last year you were declaring The Dark Knight proof that comic-books-as-cinema had finally matured into its own, but now Transformers is proof that all that potential was hollow and naught but ash? Oh, those kids today, killing us all with their goddamn giant robots and their rap music and their text messaging. Not at all like those Gen-Xers that were killing us with their raunchy sex comedies and their moonwalking!

Congratulations, morons! You've won The Week in Stupid.