Utah Stories

Hollywood Never Ceases to Amaze by Stooping to New Lows

It can be hard to find a decent movie to spend your hard-earned cash on, but they do exist.

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While watching previews, I saw four upcoming films that must have required all of about five minutes each to conjure. A remake of the scary clown movie It. Yes, It looks scary. Clowns are scary. Now I feel even sorrier for all of the out-of-work Ringling Brothers clowns, whose only desire in life was to put a smile on the faces of children.

There is a sequel to “An inconvenient Truth,” where Al Gore appears like a powerful religious figure, and the only man who can save our planet from imminent global destruction caused by Donald Trump not signing the Paris Climate treaty. He points out how his prophecy from his previous film eleven years ago came true, when Hurricane Sandy hit. He predicted eleven years ago that New York would be underwater in the next ten years.

Yes, Hurricane Sandy was foreseen by Al Gore’s prophetic wisdom. My excess of 80 IQ points tells me he was predicting that the entire ocean would rise, flooding New York, not that a single-event would cause temporary water damage. But, he must assume that moviegoers are so dumb as to not remember. Al Gore has attempted to put himself in a position where he would earn millions  if a climate credit exchange were to be enacted in which his company would sell carbon credits.

Gore must consider this film a wise investment, and this film is protecting his status, as not only the inventor of the internet, but the protector of all human-kind. And of course, Hollywood is willing and able to help him spread his propaganda message that only government and Al Gore can save our planet, and not individuals deciding to change their habits.

In another preview for a film called “Snowman,” a serial killer places his victim’s bodies atop a snowman’s body— oooh, so creepy, and so incredibly stupid.

I haven’t been to the movies in about eight months. I love good films, but the stuff that Hollywood is churning out is truly at an all-time low. Nine out of every ten films they make follow such an exact formula, and so few films even attempt to elevate a thought process beyond our primal levels of fear, and hero seeking/worship action/sex.

Comedies have fallen to an all-time-low of banal, fecal, phallic, and sexual humor. Movies appear like clickbait we find when trolling the web, appealing to the lowest common denominator in audiences.

Studios are losing money and they wonder why moviegoers aren’t coming out. It’s not just because I love a big flat-screen TV at home with stereo sound, it’s because they have forgotten how to make good films, where characters and stories drive a unique plot, not cliches and formulas.

Today, I’m sitting in Sugar House’s renovated Movies 10 where all seats are Lazy-Boy recliners, to watch Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. I actually take time about once a month to seek out movies to see in theaters, including Guardians of the Galaxy Two (because I liked the soundtrack of the last one), and before that, the Imitation Game, which was excellent— I’ve failed to find anything I really want to see. TV is also producing much better content than movies, it’s sad to think back how good movies once were and how poor they are today.

Anyhow, I suppose this is more than just a rant about crappy movies because I did in fact come and see a really great film. Christopher Nolan has earned the status of a premiere film director because not only has he become a master of weaving story lines together, and plot lines through timelines that are very seldom linear, he actually seeks great stories to tell by using unique and interesting characters.

Read more about Dunkirk. Then go and see this very rare, great film

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