Last night, I had to sit through "The Social Network". It was on TV, so it wasn't as bad as having had to watch it in a cinema. But it was dire, all the same. Apparently, it won dozens of Oscars. I steer well clear of any films that have won Oscars. These usually have someone talking incessantly through the film, or someone looking intensely into the camera, or doing both, at intervals. That's pretty much it. And the ability to do either is considered "good acting", apparently. The rest of the movie is incidental.
Anyway, to get back to "The Social Network". For those thankfully not in the know, the movie's about how Facebook came into being. How boring can you get? Couldn't the makers of the movie have found a patch of growing grass to film instead? Sure, I think Facebook's great, lets me catch up with old pals and announce to the world that I've sneezed thrice in a row, but come on...a movie about it? Have moviemakers run out of ideas, or do people actually like to watch this nonsense? This should've been a documentary on the Weird Crap channel or something. Basically, all that happened in the movie (and in reality) was someone set up a website in his college to get even with a girl, and the it got popular, and took off. Just like Google. Or ebay. Or a dozen others. And Facebook isn't even that revolutionary - lots of people had the same idea, long before them - Orkut, anybody? If you want to watch a movie where a bunch of geeks come out on top after being persecuted, try "Revenge of the Nerds". At least it's funny.
What happened to movies where people actually did things, went places, diced with death and managed not to come over all emotional? They seem to be going the way of the dodo. To be honest, there are some movies that came along once in a while that make me think there is some hope, but they're far overshadowed by tripe like "Social Network". Where are the Indiana Joneses, the spaghetti westerns, the Star Wars? I'll tell you what it is. We've just grown fond of gazing deeply into our own navels. Nothing to do with the outside, pioneers or action interests us as much as a depressed retard playing the piano (I made that up, but I'm sure there's a movie like that - if not, I'm claiming royalties from any producer reading this). Where once men were men, and women were beautiful, now you can't tell the difference. Or they're all geeks, which amounts to the same thing. No wonder this generation actually want to be accountants and computer weirdos.
It's not just movies, either. I'm a bit of a science fiction buff - I head straight for the sci-fi shelves whenever I see a bookshop - and this penchant for navel-gazing is apparent even in the sci-fi world. Where once the likes of Clarke and Asimov dominated, with their huge panoramas of Galactic Empire and the colonization of space, now it's mostly about individuals dealing with their angst in dystopic futures (or something equally pathetic). Pathetic is the word, actually. We're turning into a race of pathetic little people preoccupied with our pathetic little problems. The whole human race (the current generation, at least) needs a kick up the backside and a few weeks at boot camp.
Hell, who cares!
PS: Regarding my opinion of Oscar-winning movies, there's one honourably excepted category - Oscars for Special Effects. More movies like Jurassic Park, please!
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2 comments:
suvo,
reading your stuff makes me feel elated and upset at the same time.
elated because i can't agree with you more, and the fact that there are other people out there who think social network, oscars, grammys, and angst filled performances amount to no more than a large, collective exhibitionist wank is a happy thought (there, i am writing sentences like salman rushdie who believes a sentence is no sentence unless it runs into pages).
it upsets me because i find myself agreeing....and i am not a person who likes to agree!
but coming to your question about where have all the cowboys gone, where the hell is biggles when you needed him last saturday (shamelessly borrowed),i wonder if it is us who shot them down. us, with our analysts, therapists, psychiatrists, counsellors who have killed action for analysis.
movies ought to be large, grand and a little absurd. like john wayne, like mgr, like don quixote. we have enough realism to kill us, why watch the history of facebook. it seems as good fun as mugging up dates for the battle of plassey, or aurangazeb's circumcision.
ah well, we're in jurassic park, and les boys on the fashion ramps are wearing pink trousers and cod pieces.
sunu charles
Sunu - that comment of yours deserves to be a post by itself :-) - and yes, being forced to agree is a horrible feeling!
As for Biggles, may he rest in peace...I dread the day someone resurrects him (and others like him) as a gay special ops airman suffering pangs of guilt for having taken out an Afghan family's only goat with a cruise missile..
There is some hope, though - Spielberg is making a Tintin film (The Secret of the Unicorn)- and judging by the trailers, he's being faithful to the book. We shall see...
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