Last night I tried to watch a movie. I do this all the time, try to watch movies, because I used to really like movies a lot. I used to watch every movie nominated for best picture, for example, like I was a dutiful yet powerless Oscar voter. I even read one issue of “Sight and Sound” magazine, before I papier mached a balloon with it.
But I couldn’t actually watch a movie last night, because every idea for a movie I saw seemed so laughably bad that I was like, laughing really hard.
Now, I’m not the first person to say that movies are bad. It’s a popular sentiment and Martin Scorsese is always screaming about it. But, I feel like mostly when people say “movies are bad” they are talking about how there are no movies in theaters anymore except comic book movies where a man morphs into an ant with very sticky hands and kills an alien played by Jeff Bridges that emerges from a cyclone in the sky, carrying a gigantic glowing orb. But I have no problem with those movies and I am sure they are fine. I haven’t seen any of them since Iron Man in 2008, but I was never their target audience anyway. And honestly they are probably good to see in a theater because they are usually very loud. So whatever.
I’m talking about the indy movies and serious dramatic movies and quirky comedies and middle budget movies about historical times. I am talking about 3 hour long art films and a movie where someone falls in love with someone else. These are the things I was the target audience for, because I’m just this random basic girl who thinks she’s an Oscar voter. And actually, unlike what Martin Scorsese says, these movies are still getting made all the time (on streaming) but instead of being good and normal they are just really bad and weird, movies that no one would ever want to see voluntarily.
And oddly, a lot of them have the same plots.
Like, if you want to watch an indy movie you have to watch some dyspeptic actor get drawn into a strangely boring, sedentary and charisma-less crime ring. If you want to watch a drama you have to watch two parents grieve from their child being/kidnapped/murdered/dead of a drug overdose or the 2 hour and 23 minute chronicle of a post apocalyptic world where you have to choose your own family from a 13 year old run-away and a 53 year old guy in a cargo jacket. If you want to watch a quirky comedy, you can’t, unless its about seven 80-year-olds riding five motorcycles across America. If you want to watch something about historical times, it’s only about World War 2 or people in the 1970s learning about women’s rights and then teaching other people about it (spoiler alert: it didn’t work!!!!!!! So just stop talking about it like it worked or is working.) If you want to watch an art film its always about a restaurant. If you want to watch people falling in love its always about a 14 year old doing something super crazy embarrassing like telling the most popular hot guy in school that she loves him and then that guy, in an almost psychotic break with reality is like super nice and likes her back so there’s not even any tension.
Anyway, everyone is always talking about the death of monoculture and how everything is sub culture and blah blah blee. But I don’t even think that’s true! If anything is good, everyone would watch it! I think it’s that everyone in Hollywood is kind of depressed or like has forgotten that anything is fun and they think that drama is a series of the most unfortunate and horrible events, or people teaching other people a lesson or eating. And guess what? That all sucks. And not only does it suck but it is incredibly lame and uncool.
Sincerely,
An Oscar voter.