Thursday, August 16, 2007

FILM: There's a 9 Dollar Hole In My Head

The following is a list of movies that someone made this year, expecting someone else to pay to watch...
This year, I'm approaching September a lot like how I approach the hours between 9 and 10 AM after a night of drinking: groggy, sweaty, and hell bent on never, ever, doing that again. Why? Because this summer's blockbuster movie season has, for all intents and purposes, left me with a giant gapping hole where my brain used to be. The mere fact that my cranium now resembles something like an empty (and hairy) punch bowl is of very little consequence to Mr. Warner or his rat-bastard brother, Mr. Bros. As they light their money rolled cigars with money wrapped lighters which emit money-based flames, I wonder if they realize that now, more than ever, they completely, and utterly, suck.

I say this because I believe movies have no soul. Not that they ever did. In fact if ever there was something that was completely bereft of a soul, it's the miles and miles of celluloid we make race for us for 9 dollars. But now when I slip comfortably into my Coming Soon mode at the local Galaxy, I can't help but feel that there's something even less in the movies than before. I watch the previews and find myself getting unbearably angry at the dribble, the faux-sensation, the "one-ordinary-man-in-extraordinary-circumstances" this and "isn't-it-funny-how-these-two-characters-are-so-unalike-but-damn-they-better-
get-along-or-else-they'll-never-_____" that. I can't bloody well take it much more to be honest. I find myself not only witnessing a thing without a soul, but feel my own dying - slowly at first, and then as the not-so-clever pun above the release date winks it's smarmy asshole at me, it speeds up and my everything crashes all around me only to be built up once more for the next trailer. Except each time my soul is weakened, vulnerable, and can't stand as much punishment. It'd make a pretty epic movie if that story line weren't so god-damn-beaten to death.

It's the concept of the Swiz, really; one of those old fashioned phrases you'd expect to hear someone in an old-fashioned movie (hey...) say. By definition (who's exactly, I'm not sure), a Swiz is something that appears to be giving to you, but is in actual fact taking something away. A useful hint here would be to picture a cow at a milking farm. To the cow, they are being provided with shelter, grain, and although it has never been witnessed by farmer eyes, a wicked spot to rave when the humans go to bed. But for the farmer, they're getting a sweet deal. They're taking the milk, making mad cheddah (monetary and dairy types alike), and won't stop till the cows come... oh...

A crude analogy, perhaps, but you get the idea. When you strap yourself into the movie theatre expecting to receive all the wonders the dude with the voice in the trailer promised, you realize he is a liar. And liars get their nads kicked.

So, fellow cows, let's think about our situation a minute. Movies today have no soul, meaning that they are bereft of meaning, provide no substance, and enrich our lives to the smallest degree that I've enjoyed mosquito bites more. They're sequels and carbon copies of originals which are adapted screenplays themselves. They're not artistic, they're made solely to make money, and are completely unconcerned as to whether or not you remember them. Most frustratingly, they leave you feeling like so much more could have been done with your time. The grain, per se, sucks.

Does this mean that there aren't bad movies every year? No, of course not. Does this mean that there won't continue to be bad movies in the future? P-lease! But was 2007 ESPECIALLY bad? Yes. Dear God Yes it was, and I hope you're nodding your head in agreement right now thinking back to that time you bought a ticket to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and heard a tiny scream emit from somewhere deep inside you. That was your soul, and the movies have killed it.

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