Why do Bad Shows do Well?

While truly great cinema and television fail to make it? This is today's question. A question that comes in the wake of:

• The massive Twilight opening
• The biggest Bond film ever
• The impressive showing for Lincoln

Of the three movies listed above we attended two of the premieres. We won't attend the third (Twilight) on principle - the first Twilight movie was Ok, the follow-ons have gotten sillier and seem to represent an opportunity to see the main characters again in a sort of teen worship scenario. The other movies listed above seemed very promising from the initial reviews and trailers yet we walked out of both highly disappointed. 

If these three were ugly, how many teens would go to watch their movie?

Lincoln, which we just saw on Friday was a relatively lifeless and unimaginative take on Lincoln which chose to suck in every oddball piece of Lincoln mythology developed over the past 150 years. Skyfall was a movie that didn't seem to know where it was going for more than half of the picture with a James Bond who seemed as though he was doing his best to get out of his contract by turning in the most apathetic Bond performance in a generation  Yet both films have done exceptionally well. On the other, Cloud Atlas, which was remarkable on many levels, fell flat in the box office (at least here in the US, it did much better internationally).

Now, there are exceptions where great shows are actually recognized as being great these days, although most of that is coming from television cable networks. The best example of this is AMC who have developed and stuck by Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad in just the past 5 years. Other great television shows over the years haven't fared so well with comedies like Outsourced being cut, shows like Firefly being ditched and so on. Often times, truly great shows need time to build up audience or need at least not to be pitted against top-rated nonsense like American Idol. 

Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - Kid's books and Comic Books now dominate Hollywood

Before Twilight, the last big hit at the theaters was the Hunger Games. It was perhaps even sillier than the Twilight saga and worse yet had stolen its entire concept from a Japanese movie called "Battle Royale" (a film which turned out to be more entertaining by far than hunger games - it's on Netflix). 

The book "Hunger Games" was a Ripoff Royale

So, this brings us back to our original question? Why do so many crap movies or shows do well while truly remarkable cinema and television get ignored? Here's our thoughts:

1. More and more decisions on what gets produced (and how it is produced) is being based on demographics rather than story. 
2. We have a precious few really talented writers these days in Hollywood. 
3. People respond to trailers - and most of these trailers represent false advertising. Lincoln is a good example - it includes fully half of the most dramatic scenes of its entire 2 hours and 29 minutes in the two minute preview. Instead of watching the 2 hours of riveting cinema we expected there was maybe 5 minutes of real drama in the whole movie.
4. People respond to brand and are afraid to try new things. Hunger Games is a brand, Twilight is a brand - they were both brands before they were movies. Lincoln is a brand as well - sort of. 
5. People going to movies don't like to think too hard - or so Hollywood assumes. Sequels, brand franchises, re-tellings of the same old stories represent perhaps 2/3 of all Hollywood revenue. During Looper, which in fact wasn't even that complicated, we personally witnessed people acting as though their heads were about to explode.
6. When people come to the movies expecting it will be good, often they're unwilling to admit that it wasn't. That's real loyalty - but it doesn't help guarantee that future movies will be made with any skill if you reward films that are flimsy and un-entertaining. 
7. There seems to be lowered expectations for film quality these days. In this regard, cinema and politics seem to be competing with one another to see how dumbed-down they can get. Contrary to popular belief, however, the United States doesn't operate at a sixth grade level. 

There is nothing worse than going to a movie expecting to enjoy oneself and end up being stuck for two hours wishing you were somewhere else. We're grateful for gems like the Cloud Atlas when they do occur, but we think it's about time that Hollywood started raising the bar again in general on their major releases. Stephen Spielberg is a genius, we credited him with the best movie of all time, yet in Lincoln he makes the high point of the movie a bathroom - sorry - wash closet joke. 

That's just sad.  

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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Navigating the Cloud Atlas

Yesterday evening was dark, rainy and generally miserable out as the Eastern third of the United States was being pummeled by Hurricane Sandy - it seemed like an excellent time to go to the movies - so we did. We had been hearing quite a lot about Cloud Atlas; the feedback so far seemed to be sharply divided pro and con so we had to see it for ourselves (and yes there were multiple of us - we're not referring to one person in the third person). We didn't know what to expect and we understood why shortly after the movie began. We will also try to do our best not give away spoilers for this review.

An extended preview of Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is an altogether different sort of movie. The only thing that comes close is an old flick from the 1970's based upon a Ray Bradbury short story, "The Illustrated Man." There was also a Robin Williams movie from the early 1990's called "Being Human." The idea behind all of these stories is that there may sometimes exist connections between people across lives and across the sea of time. The difference between those earlier versions of the core premise and Cloud Atlas is one of scale and execution. Cloud Atlas tells six stories concurrently, with many parts of the those six stories interwoven with the others. The main cast of this ambitious film were required to play as many as six different (albeit potentially related) characters. And the stories were interesting in how different they were from one another - we move from suspense, to melancholy, to comedy, to terror and to inspiration in turn. There does seem to be an underlying theme that binds most of these stories but we won't give it away - it is one of the pleasures of watching this tour de force.

So much of cinema these days is ordinary, formulaic and downright moronic - and we here do our best to ridicule bad cinema when ridicule is deserved. By the same token, we must also pay homage when we're in the presence of genius. Granted there are parts of the movie that overreach a bit and perhaps the makeup artists and Tom Hanks got a little carried away at times but overall this was a gripping 2 and a half hours of cinema. As the movie progressed we kept wondering when the intricate web of tales might collapse upon its own weight - we waited until the end and it never did. Some have argued in their critiques that the six individual stories were too shallow to stand on their own. We don't think the tales were shallow, but that's partly because they don't really stand on their own - in many cases one tale is a bookend to another and unless you can see it that way you might miss the whole point of the movie.

Hugh Grant as Cannibal Chieftain - he plays not one but 5 bad guys - you go Hugh!

We have to say that the most striking part of the film is that which deals with the character Sonmi-451 - it's pure science fiction and very reminiscent of the Matrix trilogy - not surprising considering that the same folks (the Wachowskis) who made the matrix created this film. It's striking both visually and because of the philosophical and political issues it chooses to tackle and it is a love story as well. There is something haunting and profound about it that we can't quite put our finger on. 

Somni-451 is a Fabricant who dreams of freedom - we think the 451 may be an homage to Ray Bradbury

There are going to be people who don't like this movie for its politics or its views on spirituality and the human condition or simply because they find it too long or complex to follow. For the rest of us though, this represents much of why we love movies in the first place. Cloud Atlas is about storytelling and that couldn't be clearer if you pay close attention to the first scene and the last of the movie. And it's not just about telling six compelling stories, it's how those stories are told - within a wider context of stories and cultural currents. This movie witnesses breakout performances by Hanks, Halle Barry, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant. It featured an absolutely stunning performance by Jim Broadbent and a remarkable debut by Doona Bae who plays Somni-451. The cinematography throughout the film was first rate and contributed a lot to the overall impact. The movie even featured some very decent comedic performances but we won't give those away.

Cloud Atlas receives our best film of the year award (if we had one). It is highly doubtful anything else will come close, although we do have hopes for Life of Pi. If you enjoy cinema and not simply going to movies to watch things you expect like the Expendables - then you have to see this movie. Love, hate it - it doesn't matter - you should experience it. If you like stories, you'll like Cloud Atlas.

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

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