So, summer is nearly over. The wonderful people over at Hollywood have churned out a rather high number of incredibly awful films this year, especially during the summer. You name it and it probably was a dud. Oh, where to begin? From the "blockbuster" fare of Green Lantern and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides to the striving for gold drivel of One Day, Bad Teacher and Hangover 2, it was a rather depressing time to go to the movies. Not only that, but who wants to spend $11 dollars for all of that? Not to mention another few bucks if it's in 3D.
So, of course, the big question is, why? Why does Hollywood continue to make such trash? Well, maybe, these films all sounded better on paper, not to mention these rich executives know how to market the hell out of these damn movies. I am not going to lie, none of the films I mentioned looked truly remarkable, but it's nice to be surprised. My hopes were clearly a fluke. You look at a movie like Hangover 2 and you wonder what went wrong? After all, it replicated the formula that made the first one so successful, but therein lies the problem. There were no surprises, the screenwriters literally rehashed every joke, granted with more raunchiness and envelope pushing humor. But still, their efforts were wasted. Hell, the movie was basically the same as the part one, even down to the music cues. They literally just remade The Hangover and figured it would be just as successful and unfortunately they were correct. The movie broke records and it's very sad to know that my own money contributed to its massive success.
Hollywood is banking on nothing (of brilliance), there were literally 3 or 4 very solid films this summer, especially in regards to the big, blockbuster fare. X-Men: First Class, Super 8, Horrible Bosses, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 are a few titles that come to mind. But it was still very lackluster, it always bothers me that I have to wait until September or so for the so-called Oscar-caliber films to be released (and even those can be huge disappointments). Perhaps, I am being a bit too cynical, but Hollywood is going bankrupt with ideas. Sure, there are great films every year, but they are few and far between and that's truly maddening. This has got to stop. I recently saw a video of Rolling Stone's film critic Peter Travers yelling about how much garbage Hollywood has released lately. While it's always amusing to see a 50 year old guy losing it, he couldn't be more right.
Ahhh, when will Hollywood learn? Perhaps, there's more to art than trying to please the masses by actually making good, well-thought and constructed films. Oh, and when they stop charging me a ridiculous $11, let me know. I'll stick to Netflix till then.
Images: http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2009/07/lanternreynolds.jpg
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