Friday, January 11, 2008

continually disappointed by Hollywood movies

In the past few months, while watching some movies on DVD, I've had to turn off a couple right in the middle. I didn't turn them off because they were offensive or objectible in any way. I turned them off because they were bad. I mean they were just plain just terrible.

What I've realized for a long time is that the entertainment industry does not really care whether the films they release are actually of good quality. What they care about is money. They want to know, "Will this film be profitable?" and not, "Is this a good story or a beautiful piece of art." The same goes for music and TV. The entertainment industry is driven by profit, not good taste.

Here's a recent example of a film that I couldn't sit through. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I got the latest Die Hard movie from Blockbuster. The Die Hard series with Bruce Willis is one of the very few sequel/ series of movies that actually are all really good films. Usually, the sequel is never even close to being as good as the original, but the first three Die Hard movies were all really great films. They had great stories, lots of actions, engaging characters, etc. So I rented 'Live Free or Die Hard' expecting it to just as good. In short, it wasn't. I realized about 15 minutes into it that this would be a really bad film. I finally turned it off after about 55 minutes.

In general I'm sort of swearing off of Hollywood for a while because they just keep cranking out so much unwatchable rubbish. Another example of rubbish (and a sequel as well) is the film Alien vs Predator: Requiem. This is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever sat through. I went to see it only because my father and law went to see it and was paying. I love all the Alien films and love the first Predator film as well. The first Alien/ Predator movie wasn't all that great, but it wasn't too bad. I thought they'd do at least as good as that one. But they didn't and it just plain sucked. I almost fell asleep about 1/2 way through it and if I'd been watching it at home on DVD, it would have gotten shut off.

I love to watch movies. No check that - I love to watch good movies, the kind of movie that can actually be called a 'film'. The good thing about steering away from Hollywood is that I've seen some extremely good films that I may not have otherwise seen. Here are a few I've seen recently:
The Lives of Others
Delicatessan
The City of Lost Children (one of my new favorites)
The Curse of the Golden Flower
Night Watch
Day Watch

So branch out in your movie watching and don't just eat what the major studios are trying to sppon feed you.