Changing of the Guard

Hey Cinescapists!
I meant to get this post up a month ago, since it's timely after the election and all, so sorry for the delay.
But anyway, a new era has dawned, a changing of the guard. In a few short weeks, Barack Obama will officially be the 44th President of the United States. While this will actually have quite the affect on the national and international culture as a whole, it'll probably have just as profound affect on Popular Culture as well. As the nation's attitude about the future changes from discouragement to hope, it's very possible that we'll see a change in the type of movies that audiences champion. In the past few years, we've seen a clear pattern of types of films that are both popular with critics and audiences, and they tend to be films that either deal with darker themes and anti-heroic characters, or wildly unrealistic fantasies featuring flawed superheroes. To find examples, we only need to look back to the past few years, when movies like THE DEPARTED and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN won Best Picture, and SPIDERMAN 3 and IRON MAN ruled the box office. In a time of political disillusionment, audiences were responding to either high forms of escape (superheroes) or characters that broke away from the norm (anti-heroes and villains). Most often, these themes combined, with more and more superhero films featuring protagonists that deal with darker issues. It was only this past summer when the culmination of superheroes and dark themes collided for massive success when THE DARK KNIGHT became a phenomenon for the ages.

What I believe we're going to see in this new era of hope is a turning away from darker films and people responding to lighter and more accessible films. There has certainly been historic precedence for this. Back in the 1970s, amidst a corrupt and failing government and disillusionment over the Vietnam War, the films that were produced and successful were ones that (like today) had darker themes. Movies like THE GODFATHER and THE EXORCIST were both the box office champs and award winners of the day. Truly not light fare. When 1976 came along, and with the Nixon administration gone and the war over, people were ready for change at the movies as well as in Washington. That was when ROCKY came out, and it was not only a huge box office hit, but also won Best Picture for that year. ROCKY changed everything for the movies that year and the years since, with more commercial movies from filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas becoming the big hits of the era.

While we're only at the beginning of this new phase, I think what we'll see is more of a change towards that positive attitude reflected in the movies that are made and become successful. Already there is a wave of films that are on the way that reflect this new change. Movies like MILK and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE are ROCKY-like stories with themes of hope centered around protagonists who are underdogs and have to overcome adversity to succeed. While I think both of these films will do extremely well critically (I'm predicting right now that SLUMDOG will win best picture), it will be interesting to see how well they do when exposed to a wide audience. Much like JUNO and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, these movies could easily find a groove in the national zeitgeist, and become champions of a broad audience. Even though both films deal with somewhat uncomfortable subject matter (violence in India, gay rights), at the core, the hopeful themes and underdog characters are elements that any audience can respond to and root for. And while I always believe the movie will always speak for itself, it certainly does help that the national sentiments of change and hope (two themes of the coming administration) will be prevalent ideals throughout the country and in our popular culture. It would have been interesting to see how both MILK and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE would have been received had they been released a year or two ago.

So while we'll have to really wait and see if change really does come to this country with the arrival of a new President, it's already clear to see that change is coming to the movies. Audiences are ready to be inspired again. They want people to root for, and causes to champion. We're becoming a glass-half full nation again, meaning we'd rather see the hero succeed rather than just the villain fail.

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged!

Get the word out!

Hello Readers!!!!

Well I'm back!  Really no excuse for the delay, but since it has been a slow fall season, there really hasn't been too much to report.  But hopefully with the Holiday movie season coming up, that'll all change.

So, being in the middle of the fall season we're really in the middle of an interesting time time of year for the movies.  Not only do we have the upcoming Holiday movie season that will bring the end of the year blockbusters but also we will get a flood of Award season hopefuls.  What this usually causes is a flood of movies, both good and bad.  While many studios are advertising and positioning their "prestige" films, a lot of times, these films usually underperform, are underwhelming, or just don't get enough attention to merit award consideration.  Are all of these films deserving of this lack of attention? Some yes, some no.  Are there a lot of movies out there that don't get ENOUGH deserving attention? Absolutely.  What's important to remember, however, is that films are made for audiences, not for critics or academy members.  We, as the audience, are the ones that determine the value of a movie.  What most movie "classics" or award winners have in common is a deep love from an audience.  "Forrest Gump," "Titanic," "The Departed," and even last year's Oscar winner "No Country For Old Men," are examples where they have won over the audience, despite critics or award campaigns.

Why I bring this up, is because at this time of year when there is a flood of movies in theaters, and a lot of mixed messages coming from critics or the news calling movies not even released yet the "Awards contender to beat," it's important that the first and last word remain with the audience.  How can anyone predict that upcoming films such as "Frost/Nixon," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," or "Revolutionary Road" are likely candidates for Best Picture?  Until these movies are seen or embraced by audiences, it's really hard to predict anything.  Therefore, what I'm urging my readers is to get out and see anything and everything.  What turns movies into classics are people discovering something new and exciting.  No one wants to be told what's good or bad, or told what's GOING to be good or bad.  There are so many movies out there that might be great, but since they don't have the major press or ads running, they may be undiscovered.  So, see something new, tell your friends what you loved recently, weather it's a dumb and fun comedy, or a moving drama, or a revelatory documentary.  There are so many great movies waiting to be discovered, and new classics just waiting for audiences to put on their shoulders.

What are some great movies out there that you've seen that people might not know about?  As always, comments are greatly welcome and encouraged!

Double Feature Fun!

Hey Cinescapists,

Just an FYI for anyone in the LA area, Thurs. Aug. 21 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood there will be a double feature screening of two of the all time classics: Ridley Scott's ALIEN and James Cameron's ALIENS.  One a sci-fi/horror masterpiece, the other an action masterpiece.  Both are absolutely amazing films, and although they belong to the same franchise and mythology, are completely distinct and artistically different films.  I'm insanely excited for this since I've never watched both back-to-back, and have never seen ALIENS on the big screen.  Check it out if you are in the area.

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged.  What is your ideal double feature?

New Posts Coming Soon

Sorry for the posting delay.  Working on a couple of new posts which should be up soon!

Let the Games Begin!

In honor of the start of the Beijing Olympics, it's only appropriate to talk about some of the great movies about the Olympic games. Actually, there's really not a whole lot of movies featuring the Olympics, but it certainly provides a compelling backdrop, weather it's a sports movie or not. Every four years, for a few weeks the world is attracted by the human drama created by obscure sports that no one watches the other 204 weeks. I think that's what makes the following movies memorable is because it exposes more of the emotion and human drama of sports rather than just the excitement of competition. Catch a couple of these before the games, you won't be disappointed and might even take more of an interest in some of the events.
CHARIOTS OF FIRE- The Olympic "prestige" film that won Best Picture in 1981, CHARIOTS OF FIRE is the story of two sprinters chasing Olympic gold in the 1924 games. It's a really compelling drama that shows the passion, dedication and sacrifice of Olympic athletes. As a runner myself, I think it does a great job in expressing the devotion runners have to their sport that many people don't get to see first hand, or really understand. It also has that really memorable Vangelis score.



COOL RUNNINGS- While most Olympic movies are already feel good movies, COOL RUNNINGS will also make you laugh. It's fun and silly at times, but has a lot of heart, and the story (based on fact) itself is pretty amazing. It's hard now not to watch the winter Olympics and not cheer on the Jamaican bobsled team.



THE CUTTING EDGE- This movie is purely a guilty pleasure, but it's still very entertaining and works well as an Olympics movie. And, it actually makes pairs figure skating seem exciting! Some of it is a bit cheesy and far fetched, and the love story doesn't work, but I think it's worthy of a spot on this list.



MIRACLE- If you're a true American, you already know the story of the US hockey team beating the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics in NY. I wasn't even born yet, so it's not an event that I can truly appreciate the magnitude of. All that comes to mind when I hear of it is the famous clip with Al Michael's screaming at the end of the game. MIRACLE isn't an amazing movie, but I think it does a pretty good job at dramatizing a huge moment in United States sports history. And Kurt Russell is great in it, too.



WITHOUT LIMITS- My favorite of the bunch, and one of my faves of all time, WITHOUT LIMITS is a severely under-appreciated and underrated movie. It's the story of Steve Prefontaine, a legend to all distance runners and would have been an Olympic legend had he not died in a car accident at a young age. In the running world, his death is seen much like John Lennon's was to the music world- a hero taken too soon. The movie also contains the best running scene ever dramatized on film (the Munich Olympics race). WITHOUT LIMITS is a really well made (written and directed by Robert Towne and even produced by Tom Cruise), but unfortunately little-seen movie. Check this one out for sure.



Hopefully you'll enjoy one of two of these movies and get excited about the Olympics starting in a couple of days. As you can see, there are a lot of diverse movies about the Olympics, but all are very enjoyable and rewarding viewing experiences.

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged. What are your favorite movies that feature the Olympics? Which of the above movies do you like best?

Dailies- 8/4/08

In an effort to expand the diversity of my blog, I'm gonna try a few new kinds of columns to have, especially ones that I can post on a more regular basis. The first kind is what I'm gonna call DAILIES- meaning just random thoughts on the day's entertainment news, and also interesting links relating to the film biz. I'll try to do it with some frequency, but who knows how long that will last. Let me know what you think...

DAILIES for Monday 8/4/08

-Box office recap: THE DARK KNIGHT continues to be an unstoppable force. One note I have to say about this: I hope the repeat biz on this movie continues. One thing that's been depressing in the past few years is how quickly these megahits make their money, then disappear from movie theaters until they're on DVD in 3 months. I hope THE DARK KNIGHT breaks that trend and plays in theaters for a few more months.

- Still President Bush: The teaser trailer released last week for Oliver Stone's W was just okay, but the advertising is really intriguing. This could be an interesting movie in the fall. I'm curious to know a) if the movie will be any good and b) if audiences will respond to it.

-Rebirth of a genre?: Interesting article about PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, which after seeing I'm surprised is getting as much press as it is. While I'm sure the movie will make a bunch of money, I have a feeling audiences will be a bit disappointed. The movie is good, but not great, and certainly not as laugh out loud funny as the trailers have you believe.

-The Govenator Responds: Some interesting thoughts from the original Terminator himself. He's right about a lot of points about James Cameron's vision for the first two TERMINATOR films, but TERMINATOR: SALVATION, to me, looks pretty badass and could bring the Terminator mythology in a really cool direction.

-Hope he's okay

-Don't really care he's okay, but a crushed hand sounds pretty crappy

That's all I got for today. As always, comments are welcome and encouraged.

KNIGHTwatch continues!

While I've been floating around new ideas for posts, I feel like it's only appropriate to continue some more discussion on what is now officially a phenomenon- THE DARK KNIGHT. I don't really need to recap all of the records that are currently being smashed to pieces with each passing day, but what's exciting to observe is how truly phenomenal this movie has become. I don't feel as if I can provide an accurate in-depth review of the film until I see it again, but all I can say is after the first viewing, the film itself is truly amazing in its complexity and boldness to be more fearless than any other "comic book movie" has ever been before it. It's so well crafted that I really think that it has the feel of an instant classic. And what I mean by instant classic is that it will be a film that you'll watch in a few years for the 20th time and discover something new you never noticed the first 19 times. It's a film that people will turn on, watch and say "I forgot how good this movie is."
I think right now since most of the focus on how its doing at the box office, it's important to really appreciate what we're currently witnessing.  Not since TITANIC has a movie become this phenomenal and really gone above and beyond what anyone could ever have predicted.  As such, here's a number of reasons why THE DARK KNIGHT's record breaking run is something that is truly amazing:

1) It's a sequel- The predecessor to THE DARK KNIGHT, BATMAN BEGINS, "only" grossed $205 million at the box office back in 2005.  While the fan response to that film was very enthusiastic, it's darker and more realistic approach to the Batman mythology made it a tougher sell to audiences other than the comic fanboys.  It wasn't nearly the accessible hit that IRON MAN or SPIDERMAN was, a hit that was truly four quadrant.  This makes THE DARK KNIGHT's success phenomenal because for a sequel to a film that didn't have as broad an audience as you might think to do as well as it's doing is quite unexpected.  While THE DARK KNIGHT surpasses BATMAN BEGINS in almost every aspect, sequels rarely outgross their predecessors, especially to this high degree.

2) It's a comic book movie, but it's kinda not- When you think of the most successful comic book movies, the films that come to mind are the ones that make the comic pages come to life in a truly cinematic way.  Comic book movies are supposed to be the ultimate escapist cinema with larger than life villains, grand heroes, and action set pieces and scenarios that you wouldn't normally see in real life.  While THE DARK KNIGHT certainly has touches of all of those elements, most of them to a degree seem a bit more grounded, rather than comic panels come to life.  The internal and external conflicts the characters face in the film deal more with real human conflict rather than the conflict that a superhero or tortured supervillain must confront.  The basic point is that when you look back on the film, it's more of a crime drama than a comic book film, and the fact that audiences are responding to the film in that regard is unexpected.

3) It's a dark (no pun intended) film- If you've seen the film, you know there are moments in THE DARK KNIGHT where you just think "I would never take a kid to see this movie."  TITANIC was a movie that had something for everyone: it was a romance, and action movie, historical drama.  Everyone went to see that movie multiple times (mostly teenage girls) because it had enormous broad appeal.  THE DARK KNIGHT deals with murder, terrorism, corruption.  It's not a light movie, and many of the themes and storylines are complex and dark.  People die, the villains do truly horrible things, and the heroes aren't always the good guys.  This is a new kind of epic, and there must be something in this film that's driving people to see it two, three or four times.  Since it's so dark and tough to watch at moments, it would be very interesting to know what is drawing people to see the film multiple times.

It will be extremely fascinating to see where THE DARK KNIGHT ends up at the end of the day.  I think it will be hard to judge if it can challenge TITANIC as the box office champ, but the picture will certainly be more clear in a week or two.  This is a movie that, in a way, is rewriting the rules, and that's always a good thing.  I, for one, know that one time was certainly not enough to enjoy this "new classic."  This is a movie you don't want to miss on the big screen, and really want to enjoy as many times as you can.  This is a movie to get anyone excited about the movies.

As always comments are welcome and encouraged.  What did you think of THE DARK KNIGHT?  Where does it rank on your list of classics?