Blog number 261 **** 20 December 2008
In a perfect world, I would be an Executive Movie Director, answerable to no one. As the Executive Movie Director, one of my duties would be to pick a movie director to direct my movies. That way, since I know next to nothing about directing movies, I would be free to let Martin Scorsese et al, direct the movies.
But I would never let them;
(1), have any sex scenes that did not advance the plot. None, nit, nil.
(2) have any sex scene that lasted longer than necessary to advance said plot.
(3) There would be no kissing that began and ended with mouths opened as if to swallow an ostrich egg. That's it for the sex stuff. This is not a porno film, folks.
I would not allow the action to take place in the dark just to be "arty." I want to see the action, the horror, whatever. This idea that things are more scary in the dark is nonsense and the perfect example of that is the bright and scary movie, "The Shining."
There would be no more of this silly running down the middle of a street trying to escape an automobile.
No one would show their anger by sweeping things off a table or otherwise destroying inanimate objects. If I wanted to show anger, I would have the character hit somebody for little of no reason. They probably deserved it anyhow.
And wise up, movie people. No animal hisses or growls at their prey. Predators are silent when hunting. That knowledge should come from common sense. There is nothing more scary about predators than when they are coming at you with obvious intent and confidence, knowing full well that you will be there when it comes time to bite your leg off.
In my movies you will no longer see those "falling in love" scenes. You know the ones I am talking about - gleefully running along the beach hand in hand, laughing sillily at ducks or gooses or anything that happens to be handy.
I like realism in my movies. In that great movie, "American Beauty," tell me please, why were the only two cheerleaders that were not smiling during their performances, the two actors? Because they were actors, NOT cheerleaders. The forth wall was broken.
If I were the Executive Director of American Beauty and Sam Mendes was merely my assistant, I would say to him, "Sam! Come here! See those two? What in hell's the matter with you? Are you an idiot? Now fix that or I'll fix you!"
Why am I saddled with incompetence?
I twice saw on classy television programs, automobile batteries accused of being the cause of cars not being able to start EVEN THOUGH THE ENGINES COULD BE HEARD TO AGGRESSIVELY TURN OVER! There was and still is absolutely no excuse for an error like that.
In "The Shawshank Redemption," Tim Robbin's character busts through a drain pipe and is greeted with a violent gush of sewage. NO! NO! NO! Drains have pressure ONLY if they are blocked up. There has to be pressure IN the drain pipe in order for water to gush when the pressure is released. If a drain has pressure, it is not longer a drain. It is malfunctioning and it would have been noticed inside the prison when all the toilets started overflowing.
If the pipe gushed, it would mean that Tim's character would have to crawl through a hole tinier than what a turd could go through.
Sorry about the language. Nothing I can do about it. Computer malfunction.
And finally, if there has been made a classic movie, leave off the remakes. Please?
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4 comments:
Don, I detect a thread of anger running through your screed.
I must make an exception to your request and bring up one movie where the prey was silent and it advanced the plot very well. One of the Jurassic park movies where the velociraptors attacked the hunter from the side, now THAT was good.
Hah! Yeah. You detected anger. My most available "button" is stupidity. I hate it. Absolutely hate it.
Now my definition of stupidity is not the common one. For me it is when it is obvious that something is true and the perp insists the opposite is true.
It should be obvious that predators wouldn't growl or his when hunting, therefore...
And yeah! Like the velociraptor. Makes a big difference. Lots more scary. One may think,if the predator is making noise, that one may have a chance by arguing with him, but a silent killer? No hope at all.
Ha! This is why Jon hates movies. I tell him that he has to suspend reason so that it doesn't become an argument about reality and fantasy. Aren't movies fantasy for the purpose of entertainment, not documentaries? My niece is a cheerleader and her and her team aren't always smiling, although they are supposed to and they do lose points in competion if they don't.
Hi Zip!
My quarrel with breaking the fourth wall is that it is almost always done out of seemingly an "I don't care attitude." Like the car batteries and the bursting drain pipe. With all those highly intelligent people making the movie - plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc etc, you would think ONE of them would notice something amise, and if they did and said something and the director didn't care, Bah! Humbug!
And if they didn't notice, again, Bah Humbug.
Yeah, cheerleaders, dancers, ice skaters - all supposed to be smiling except when circumstances says no.
Wouldn't you think one or both of those actors would have known that, and if they didn't, shouldn't the director have noticed, and if he didn't, how many people were watching the rushes and thought it was OK to be off like that?
Might be a little OK if a couple of the cheerleaders were also not smiling, but for only the two actors to not? Bah. Humbug.
And to tell you the truth, part of my fun of watching movies et al, is to catch them doing things like that.
Daryl and I were razzing on "Contact" pretty bad over something they did that was pretty ridiculous and Teresa and her friend that went with us thought we didn't like the movie. We protested violently. We didn't mean that at all.
It was no accident that I called this blog a "Harangeout."
And as a little aside, I did a zigsaw puzzle of one of Van Gogh's paintings and there was a big obvious mistake in it.
He scrubbed in the outline of a boat and left it like that, so it is nothing more than an olive green blotch in the painting in the outline of a row boat. He didn't go back and finish it.
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