SECONDHAND SUMMER; OR, LOST IN A RECURSIVE OCCLUSION
A season of movies that can feel like an infinite loop
By Kat Murphy Special to MSN Movies
In a couple of unusually melancholy "Doctor Who" episodes ("Logopolis" and
"Castrovalva"), nothing less than universal entropy and apocalypse loomed. Even
worse, the Time Lord and his current batch of companions found themselves
trapped inside a recursive occlusion. What the tesseract, you may well ask, is a
recursive occlusion? For the Doctor, it was a perspective-deranging city that
mimicked an M.C. Escher nightmare: Threading an infinite loop, folks
simultaneously went up and down stairs, in and out of doors, all within a
no-exit design — architectural and existential — that folded in on itself like a
Möbius strip.
Or, as I like to call it, summertime at the movies.
Seems like we warm-weather moviegoers have been trapped in an infinite loop
of recycled screen scenes for years and years, with no end in sight. No matter
how many times we whine "been there, done that," the sequels, remakes, spin-offs
and re-hashed comic books, fairy tales, TV shows, toys and video games just keep
coming. Don't get me wrong: It's not that refurbishing old stuff is inherently
bad or unrewarding. (After all, there really is nothing new under the sun.) The
real problem is that writers and directors lack the knack of injecting new life
into their secondhand subjects. So we're inundated by too much that is
repetitious and familiar — formulaic action and cardboard characters — all
tricked out in F/X drag.
Has our pop culture hit a dead end, creatively speaking? Will summer
"tentpole" cinema eventually become one long, self-referential saga of
superheroes, crowding out any authentically new places to go, people to see?
Well, duh. "The Avengers" just smashed all opening-weekend box-office
records, taking $200 million right out of the gate. Why wouldn't there be more
"Avengers," "Spider-Man"s, "Men in Black," "Hulk"s, "Pirates," "X-Men," "Batman"s, "Transformers," "Iron Man"s, "G.I. Joe"s, "Titans," "Thor"s,
"Captain America"s, "Green Lantern"s, et al. in our future?
Complain at your peril. What do you mean, you're bored by nonstop bashing,
flinging and equal-opportunity mayhem that never draws real blood, for stakes
that are monumentally irrelevant (the world has been threatened and saved so
often the plotline's become a meaningless meme)? But, dude, you've just gotta be
dazzled by the awesome computer-generated special effects! Actually, hours into
some predictably puerile plot, no.
Couldn't more of these bigger-than-life mutant saviors possess something
sexier than muscles and a super-skill — say, a personality more complex than
their theme-costume? Can't these latterday "gods," for whom the universe is
battle- and/or playground, grapple with grander doom than monster machines and
petulant psychopaths with monikers that make evil a kid-sized joke?
We are settling for snack-sized, empty-calorie movies masquerading as
blockbuster banquets.
Joss Whedon may have infected "The Avengers" with his subversive brand of wit
and conversational rough 'n' tumble, but, like it or not, most of the movie
consists of CGI'd brawls and breakage. Here comes heresy: I'd rather watch the
funky "heroes" of Whedon's "Firefly" — at play in the universe, cracking wise,
bleeding emotions and for real, going up against a soul-killing State — than sit
through any more Avengers class reunions. Seems like I've grown up and out of
The Demographic.
Surely, some bright young thing — or a second Peter Jackson — could dream up a worlds-spanning
götterdämmerung that would knock our socks off and unsettle our souls. Instead
of relying on the diminishing returns of old comic-book stories, how 'bout
searching for inspiration in some of the great national mythologies
("Nibelungenlied," anyone?) or classic science-fiction literature (Zelazny's
"The Chronicles of Amber," perhaps?).
Why can't the big screen welcome big, lively fictions like George R.R.
Martin's "Game of Thrones"? HBO's splendid action series, starring heroes and
heroines marvelously idiosyncratic — in appearance and character — mixes fantasy
with grubby, mundane reality. (Peter Dinklage effortlessly out-acts and
outclasses Hollywood's horde of superhero clones.) Imagining a whole "medieval"
world of multifarious evil and good, both human and inhuman, "Game" breaks out
of formula to test out new and different gambits.
Yes, I know, newness means risk, and Hollywood is nothing if not risk-averse.
But how long will movie audiences pay big bucks to sit through yet another
recursive cinematic reality, unreeling in a Möbius strip ... I mean, multiplex
... near you, when they can stay home and enjoy genuinely challenging, fun TV
entertainment? Sooner or later, filmgoers will once again demand to be
astonished. Build something new and different and grand, and they will come.
A decade ago, "Spider-Man" was the weekend record-breaker, and
two summer sequels later, Spidey's back, played by a new (younger) actor
("Social Network"'s Andrew Garfield). Villainy has devolved from Goblin to
Octopus to Lizard. This fourth iteration plumbs a backstory about the
sticky-fingered hero's parents; if it's a hit, dare we anticipate a prenatal
adventure? In any case, the web-slinger's balletic shtick seems oddly effete in
the company of Hulks and Thors. Wouldn't Spider-Man do more good on Wall Street,
as a hedge-fund manager, luring investors in like flies? If a Gekko can do it,
why not Spidey?
WHERE ARE THE REAL STARS.??? WHEN I WAS YOUNGER THERE WERE REAL STARS IN HOLLYWOOD. THE STARS OF TODAY SEEM LIKE A LOT OF WANNA BE'S. THEY AREN'T THAT INTERESTING. WHERE ARE THE JIMMY STEWARTS, THE CARY GRANTS, THE JOHN WAYNES.
ALL WE GET ARE JIMMY KIMMEL AND TRACEY MORGAN. WE HAVE GONE DOWN HILL
Well...I have to agree....all the "real stars" are sadly gone, or working in the director's chair. All we have left are whatever the hell a "snooky" is, something called a "honey Boo-boo"? or something like that, and all the super teens with white teeth, big smiles, perfect hair.....and no "real" talent. Hollywood....you have lost it.....shame on you!
I watched this show with some curiosity for awhile last night; simply because the wife was watching it. One cannot honestly say that there was anything normal about the characters portrayed in that show. Perhaps I am an anachronism, but I must conclude that if NBC wants to convince people that these weirdos are normal, there must be some quite odd people at NBC..
Check out MSN Movies’ Summer Movie Guide to plan your
summer entertainment. Find release dates and watch trailers for all the hottest
action, horror, drama, comedy, family and sci-fi films in the
pipeline.
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'Man of Steel' movie trailer
Arriving on earth as an infant from planet Krypton and raised by a farmer and his wife, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is urged by his adoptive father to ke...
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