Posted on 01/01/2002 1:27:41 PM PST by Psycho_Bunny
What do you see, over and over again in movies, that pisses you off?
1) There is nothing that can be placed in a motion picture which irritates the hell out of me more than a exceptionally bright, mature and self-possessed child. After years of this stupidity I've finally given it a name : Jurassic Park Syndrome.
Long-gone are the days of Shirley Temple, when children in movies were portrayed as 'cute' and, while they might have been placed in adult situations now and again, they were never wholly divorced from their childishness.
Now, in movie after movie after movie ad nauseam, we have Jurassic Park Syndrome shoved down our throats. Over and over, the Big Screen tells us that children aren't children at all but, fully mature and extremely well educated brains in small bodies. They have remarkable gifts, too - for instance, it takes less than a minute for the average 12-year old to crack into computers programmed by adults with Masters Degrees in Software Engineering from MIT.
Also, they are calm, cool and resourceful 'under fire'. It seems that the child's irrational fear of Whatever-Is-Under-The-Bed or the Monsters-In-The-Closet is nothing but a ruse. When push comes to shove, it's the children that keep their calm once the 15-foot monster actually shows up. While adults run around pulling their hair out and screaming, it's the children that cunningly devise A Plan to Save Everyone.
Of course, the problem with Jurassic Park Syndrome is that we've all met children. That being the case, it's 100% impossible to suspend the disbelief in their "super-abilities": children are almost entirely bereft of cognitive thought and can frequently be scared to death with a craftily made sock-puppet. We, in the audience, all know these are the facts. Stop telling us different.
Sure, there's smart kids out there but they're not 'Hey, let's build a skyscraper' smart. Sure, some children are brave but mostly it's a bravery born of being too stupid to know they should be scared. I don't think 'Aww, Mr. Lion is cute! I want to pet him' should be counted as true bravery.
2) Why are Bad-Guy Politicians ALWAYS conservatives? Well, there's two reasons for this: the primary factor is, of course, Hollywood Liberalism.
Screenwriters are flaming liberals...and they have to be. In order to portray human emotional conflict on the screen, writers have to be abnormally in touch with emotions. Given that liberalism is all about the Politics of Feelings but, conservatism requires a high degree of intellectual clearness of thought, screenwriters are forced to be liberals. They're simply helpless when faced with conservatism. They don't understand it: "How can the Head triumph over the Heart?"
As far as most screenwriters are concerned, there should be a feel-good solution to every problem in the world. And, maybe they're right but, the difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives know there isn't.
There's a second, more subtle, reason why Bad-Guy Politicians are always conservatives: PLAUSIBILITY.
Lets say you have to write a script about an "evil politician that's hatching an elaborate plan to take over the world". Who are you going to base your character on: Condi Rice or Maxine Waters? Dick Cheney or Tom Daschle? Hey: you're going to pick the conservative every time. Nobody's gonna buy that some pinhead liberal, who's probably too stupid to coordinate a sock drawer, has hatched a plan which threatens to lead them into control of the earth.
Sure, the liberal may take over by an accident of sheer stupidity, but the plot has to be interesting and thus, requires a well-thought plan.
Subsequently, your bad guy HAS to be a conservative.
3) Formulas. If I catch anything stronger than a whiff of a formula in a movie I leave the theatre. A formula means one of two things: either the author was too retarded or too lazy to come up with an intelligent story. Either way, my time has more value than their efforts are entitled to. I view the $8.00 admission price as "Money I lost by accident".
I learned at an early age that there is no shame in walking out of a stupid movie: the weather outside is ALWAYS better than a piece of crap flick.
3B) Club Cuts. Has there ever been ONE movie, ever, that cuts to a scene in a Jazz, Strip or Dance club that doesn't cut to it at the very beginning of a song? And why do directors insist on making us watch 1 to 4 minutes of the singing, stripping or dancing before panning to the characters and continuing with the movie?
If a movie cuts to the protagonists place of business, do we have to suffer through 3 minutes of office personnel shuffling paperwork in their day-to-day jobs? What's different with the clubs? ENOUGH WITH THE CLUB CUTS ALREADY!
Jeez.
4) Advert Phrases. This isn't so much about movies as it is an INDICATOR of a movie. If there is any press clipping, television advertisement, movie poster, or 'The Making Of' TV fluff-piece that uses either the phrase "In the tradition of XYZ" or "It's (One good movie) meets (Another good movie)" then you know, for absolute certain, the film in question sucks. Sucks Big Time.
Not only does the film suck but, it's entirely probable that watching it will induce you to being genuinely angry at the director, actors, writers, producers and any other person that had anything to do with the project. Your anger will be so complete that any time, years down the line, that the film is casually mentioned at a diner party or in the company break-room, your eyes will widen and you will briefly be singed with a flared temper all over again.
Do everyone a favor: if you see either of these phrases on a box-cover at Blockbuster, put the movie down and keep walking down the aisle.
The actors, the producers, the directors, the studios, the sponsors, the viewers willing to spend money on all of the above.
Did I miss anything?
Memo to Hollyweird: let this cliche go. It's awful and BOR-ing.
Amen to all of that! The rampant moviegoers on here who would rather die than miss going to the movies, or take the attitude of "nobody can tell me what to do", don't seem to care that their dollars are going to fund leftwing causes. Hollywood is more politically active than before, and they spend their money on these causes..money that YOU, the movie goer, provide. So next time you see a left wing flick (nearly all of them), pat yourself on the back for contributing money to the Free Mumia fund, Planned Parenthood, the Democratic Party, Handgun Control Inc., and lots of other nice causes.
Money talks in this world, so instead of seeing some film that makes conservatives look evil or stupid, I'll send my 8 bux to a conservative cause.
Did you know that the script for the movie "The Candidate" was originally written about how one democrat was trying to take out another democrat by airing her dirty laundry? Well, that changed of course by the time it got to screen with and evilRepublican taking out an innocent democrat. I believe that the star of the movie, Gary Oldman, was outraged enough to call his own film a "piece of propaganda".
I guess talent is not what it used to be so they have to spice it up in some way.
The last movie I attended was about a child prodigy
called "Good Will Hunting"
I took my mother to it and sat through it in acute embarassment.
I vowed never to attend an American movie ever again.
I have upheld that vow.
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