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"Shallow Hollywood Tripe"

I feel like a rant about films. So this will do for now, partly because it annoys me at times.

The idea for this topic came to me last night as I was watching Idependence Day. Now, I'm sure a lot of us will regard this film as typical big-budget low-content shallow Hollywood tripe.

Yup, me too. And it bloody rules. I enjoyed practically every minute of it. The Yanks saying "We will survive" while just managing not to burst into song and skip around Area 51 in a conga line. The British with there stereotypical accents doing nowt because Blighty was waiting on the good old Yanks. The whole nine yards. And there's a specific reason why this rules.

It's simple, uncomplicated good watching. Just the sort of thing I want of a school evening when I'm knackered and can't be bothered to think hard. All I have to concentrate on is Will Smith bowling it around and marrying a stripper. Excellent. Jeff Goldblum making witty little regards in his role as Nerd-Who-Cares. It's all fun.

And this sort of idea can be extended like a large and shallow blanket to the whole of Hollywood tack and campness. There are times when Rush Hour is infinitely more appealing than Memento. I don't want to be thinking:

"Err, so he's where now? What? Thats a tattoo of his..wife? Erm. Damn, I'm lost."

Now don't get me wrong, I loved this film. But you've got to be in the right mood. And often as not, I just want to laugh at Chris Tucker being a tart and Jackie Chan speaking gobbled English. But shallow Hollywood projects sometimes rule. Its all about being able to waltz into a cinema and come out 2 hours later and say "I really enjoyed that." It doesn't particuarly matter whether it's directed by someone you hate or has a basic script or is a hard-hitting portrayal of near-collapse Japan. You can enjoy all of those. You can love tack like Men in Black or Ocean's Eleven and still be a fan of serious films like Battle Royale or The Usual Suspects. Mood changes can happen in anyone. So what have you REALLY got against them?

1.) "They are just some way of making money, man."

Really? No ship, mate. All movies are made for the good of the community at large, are they? It's all about the money, and to make money, you must entertain people. Entertainment can come in any form. People who love nu-metal aren't going to be swayed by people like me or Tiltawhirl or Goatboy telling them what sad little grunts they are; they are going to continue to smash around because they have to do schoolwork.

2.) "The actors are all well-known!"

Oh. There's a shame. I'd prefer we have unknowns each time and good actors only have one film before being slung back into the unemployment queue.
They are in a lot of films because they are good at what they do! Oh, and sex-crazed people like to look at them, sometimes. But sometimes even this can obscure a reason why an actor/actress is successful. Take Brad Pitt - loved by girls and fruity blokes worldwide. Obviously thats why people go and see his moves, right? Now watch Fight Club. This is an actor with talent, in my humble opinion. He rules. I remember people moaning about how Will Smith only made poor films. Now he's nominated for Best Actor Oscar.

3.) "It's too mainstream, dude, I'm underground."

People watch cult/indie/unknown films because they like them, and then suddenly everyone latches on. Soon, it's not good anymore because everyone likes it? Right? Bollix. A good film will be good whether 1 or 100,000,000 people see it. Take Battle Royale. Acheived infamy and now people watch it, me included. It's become the "cool" film to see on these forums. Does that mean that people who saw it first shouldn't like it anymore, and move onto a new film that's cult like Ghost World? Of course not. Same with mainstream films. Take Dragonheart. All the rage when it came out - "Wow, it's got Sean Connery in, and he's a dragon0shaped dragon!". I loved it on release and still do. It occupies a place of pride in my VHS collection and I shall soon acquire it on DVD.

It's Hollywood, shallow, meaningless rubbish. And I love it.

Don't think that a film can't be good because it's from Hollywood, and it's shallow. Admittedly, films that deal with the pains of drug abuse, like Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, are much more worthy of praise, or films that burn in your eyes and make you sit back in wonder, like A Clockwork Orange or Battle Royale. But that doesn't mean that I won't keep on enjoying some of the rubbish that Hollywood produces. It amuses me.

Next up for me in the next few months, A Beautiful Mind. Hollywood stuff that Oscar bigwigs lap up because it's about a mans struggle for survival (shortened so as to be entertaining.) Bet I'll enjoy it and all.

Cheers for reading, lads, and I'm not aiming it at anyone in particular. Don't take me too seriously.

Here's to shallow films. Except A.I.

Erm, what?

but then again, what the hell do you know about films? nothing! you conformer.

Meka Dragon wrote:
> See, this I why I reckon The Mummy Returns is on a par, if not better that The
> Matrix. Both shallow, but The Mummy Returns entertained me more, it made me
> laugh, when I thought that The Matrix took itself a little too seriously,
> attempting to be cool.





Not saying you're wrong or anything but I feel I must say this as I can't have anyone saying Mummy Returns was good. :-D

It was dismal. Painful in fact. Brendan Frasier is an incompetant t**t, unable to deliver one liners with any style whatsoever. "Go to hell and take your friends with you" was delievered worse than a Jet Li one liner! And that NOOOOOOOOOO was NOT passable. It was the worst NOOOOOO I've ever heard. He should seek advice on how to deliver a good NOOOOOOOO from Elijah Wood.

And was that boy supposed to be funny? They gave him all the supposedly funny lines. Problem is they weren't funny.

AS you can see, I despised it. I didn't particularly like the first either mind.

Not liking LotR is unforgiveable. Goatboy is doomed to be in the Pixie Hell where elfs will prod his genetilia with glowing sticks.

Heh, I love the Mummy series. Got me the Ultimate Edition.

Very passable NOOOOO! from Brendan Fraser when his wife gets a knife in the groin and her son reads from a book then she pops back alike with NINJA SKILLS!

Damn, hat film ruled. And big dogs made of dust.

Whereas Mullohand Drive makes you think. God.

:-)

Stryke, you have hit the nail on the head there. I've been waiting for someone to say something like that. I've tried to do it before, but can never quite get it right.
I'm at uni at the moment, and some of my friends are the pretentious movie types. You won't believe this, but one of them came out of LotR and called it.....

"Mediorce to poor"

WHAT?!?!

Obviously an idiot, but then I wasn't particularly surprised. They all also thought Ocean's Eleven was poor. Then they ask me, and I say "I thought it was fantastic!" and they just hive that knowing smile, and you can see them thinking, it's just another GL film, I was right not to like it cos he likes it. Gimps.

So thank you, now I know that I am right, it is okay to like Hollywood films. Nice!

See, this I why I reckon The Mummy Returns is on a par, if not better that The Matrix. Both shallow, but The Mummy Returns entertained me more, it made me laugh, when I thought that The Matrix took itself a little too seriously, attempting to be cool.

I don't get why some of my friends like Tomb Raider, yet they disliked Charlies Angels because it was stupid.

Wha?

It was supposed to be stupid, but it had Lucy Lui, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore in it! It laughed at itself.

Tomb Raider was stupid movie-lass with gun who shoot stuff that can't be shot because shooting is cool piece of crap.

I too liked Batman Forever, mostly because of Carrey mincing around making silly rhymes. Batman and Robin, however, scared me becasue Clooney (as Batman) kept looking at Alfred like he wanted to bed him.

I also have X-Men, because it rules. I hated Tomb Raider too, though, but I have nothing against it because people enjoyed it and thats all a film should be about. Jurassic Park III has lots of big and small dinosaurs and they eat people. Superb. L.A. Confidential is a masterpiece of dark drama. Excellent. I watched them both last night and enjoyed both about equally.

I have nothing against Hollywood "stupid" films, as long as they know that's what they are.
It's when they try and say something (Pearl Harbour, Titanic, We Were Soldiers Once) that my hackles go up.

Hell, in my DVD collection I have Charlie's Angels, Cannonball Run, X-Men etc etc and they sit nicely alongside Battle Royale and other "arty" films.

And, apart from being big loud films, others like Tomb Raider really annoy me because they suck, even as big summer films.
Bad plots, shoddy effects and laughable acting.
Look at Tomb Raider - godawful, lamentable rubbish. If she already had one half of the device thingy, why not just smash it up so it could never work? Eh? Eh? Exactly.

Whereas something like The X-Men was superb entertainment, and was about men in tights with powers, not arty at all.
Just well done nonsense.
And yes, Jim Carrey putting a cow in a headlock is a comedic highlight I'll not forget in a hurry.

This is why I like Batman Forever. Carrey ponces about waving a gold stick. It's funny.

I agree. Complicated films have their place, sometimes I just want to watch Jim Carrey punching a cow in the face.