I love movies. Always have.
I grew up on Sean Connery as James Bond and great epics like Spartacus on Sunday Night at the Movies, classic horror films like the Frankenstein series and Fiend Without a Face on late night Chiller Theater, and family outings to movies such as Gone With The Wind and The Great Race and The Sons of Katie Elder. Later, I discovered classics such as Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, White Heat, Hitchcock and the Frank Capra film library, as well as unique and artistic foreign films by masters such as Kurosawa and Fellini. I learned to appreciate the raw star power of film legends Bogart, Cagney, Stewart, Gable, Davis, Hepburn and so on. And well into the 1970s, I enjoyed modern classics like The Godfather.
Thinking about the vast universe of motion pictures that has been an important influence on my life, I can’t help but notice one sad fact of 21st century America:
Modern movies generally suck.
It pains me to write that, because I do so love movies. But it’s true. Movies, and the entire movie-going experience, have gone sadly downhill.
Here are some examples of the general suckiness of modern movies:
Commercials in the theater. This is simply unacceptable on every level. If I want to see an ad, I can see one every single place in daily life; can’t we have just ONE place where we aren’t bombarded with silly, stupid, expensive advertisements? I pay ten bucks a pop to sit in a movie theatre; want me to come back? GET RID OF THE DAMNED ADS! How on earth could the movie business and the movie theatre business not know this? Why are they allowed to get away with it? When did it become acceptable to soak every fiber of existence in ubiquitous advertising? I don’t know, but I hate the ads.
No more movie stars. When I think of the great movies that I’ve loved, and that many people have loved, I think first of great stars who inhabited great roles. Men and women of real talent who burst off the screen in every scene. Stars and movies, and stars and roles, are interchangeable. When you think of a classic movie, you instantly think of the star. Think Casablanca – Humphrey Bogart! Claude Rains! Ingrid Bergman! Think brooding and troubled – Marlon Brando! Think over the top sexy – Marilyn Monroe! Think music and dancing – Gene Kelly! Fred Astaire! Think pyscho bitch – Bette Davis and Joan Crawford! Think macho superman – Charlton Heston and John Wayne! Think menacing gangster – James Cagney and Edgar G. Robinson! Think comedy – the Marx Brothers! The Three Stooges! And the list goes on. These days, you can count the true movie stars on one hand: Nicholson, Pacino, Streep, Clooney, Ford, Hanks, and yes, Cruise. And maybe Johnny Depp. But really, isn’t that close to a full list? The modern actor or actress is a pretty boy/girl running from CGI-generated set-piece to CGI-generated set piece. They don’t burst off the screen, they don’t hand us memorable lines that we will cherish for the rest of our lives, and they generally can’t act very well either. Whatever happened to the bigger than life movie star? It’s a dying breed. I think our 24-7 media-saturated existence has bestowed too much celebrity on too many undeserving people, and so we have lost that sense of wonder about movie actors and actresses, and they in turn have lost much of their mystique. Best example of this problem is poor Leonardo DiCaprio. The man tries, I know he does. But he’s just a lightweight. He cannot carry a movie to save his life. He is not memorable. I don’t run to the theatre to see his latest picture. Yet he’s presented by the entertainment establishment as some kind of huge movie star. Uh, he ain’t.
The special effects are more important than the story. – Why does every movie have to have giant CGI-generated set pieces? Why do the actors seem lost amid the special effects? Whatever happened to good solid storytelling? I recently watched the movie “Body of Lies” with the aforementioned Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Great explosions. Great torture scenes. HORRIBLE, BORING MOVIE. I mean come on, at least Crowe can act. But he was lost in this pile of incoherent exploding dreck. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good action film with over the top violence. But this film was simply awful.
Few good, original stories. Hey, let’s make a series of super-hero movies! Hey, let’s make a remake of an old TV show! Hey, let’s make a remake of an old classic! Hey, let’s edit this piece of shit like it’s an MTV music video! Dammit, I want a story! I want conflict and resolution, I want characters and sparkling dialog. THAT’S what I will remember. But Hollywood is no longer run by movie-lovers. The movie business is more business than movies, and that is a very sad state of affairs.
No more memorable lines. “Louie, I think is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” “Top of the world, Ma!” “So let it be written; so let it be done!” “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” “No Mister Bond, I expect you to die!” “Here’s looking at you, kid.” “I coulda been a contender.” “I could dance with you till the cows come home…On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows when you came home.” “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” And the list goes on. These are timeless quotes which evoke the humor, tragedy, pathos and drama of classic movie scenes. Okay sure, once in a GREAT while we get the pleasure of a memorable line these days, (“Yippie ki-yay motherfucker” comes to mind, but even THAT was years ago now) but those are few and far between.
I could go on and on and on, but it’s depressing to think of what Hollywood has done to my beloved cinema. However, I will keep going to see movies because I still love them, and I still secretly hope that the next movie I see will be the one that I remember for years to come.
As Norma Desmond once wryly observed, “It’s the pictures that got small.” Yes, the pictures have gotten very small indeed.