So, Is Hollywood Bereft of All Ideas?

I just saw another commercial for the movie "Real Steel", and I cannot help but wondering about the inspiration for this film.

To me, it looks like someone really loved the game of Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots as a child and then and tried to make a movie of it. What's next, a movie based on G'nip-G'nop, or the action thriller in a theme park where a cop chases a fugitive through Chutes and up Ladders? How about "Saw VI: Escape from the Connect Four Puzzle"

So many movies that are out now are just remakes, or poor ideas - there are plenty of good novels to make into movies, there is creativity out there, but because of the structure of Hollywood is such that movies have to make money. I do not begrudge that aspect of Hollywood - the "churn and burn" style of film-making where you have a weak plot idea, a lot of money, good effects and mediocre but pretty actors and actresses are what gets butts in seats. But have more than a thin veneer of a plot, please.

Michael Bay is the perfect example - why does Hollywood keep letting him make movies? Because his movies make money, and not in the way you might think. Most people use this Hollywood proclivity to bash the anti-intellectual middle-American, but big movies make most of their money on the international market. The international (and particularly European) markets love this stuff. Their cinema does not have the money to produce the effects that Hollywood does, and much of Europe does not allow much action or violence on television, so violence in American film is driven by European demand as much as by American demand.

People like to blanket condemn America because we get addled at any depiction of sex, but are totally fine with violence. To get to the truth of it all, you have to dig a bit deeper. We have prohibitions about sex and violence on TV, and yes, sex is more taboo, so we see more violence on TV, and more sex in movies (which is why American audiences love European cinema - lots of naked Europeans, who cares about plot). Europe is the opposite. So in many ways, our respective film industries are giving us and the foreign markets what we want.

I will not brand either the American or the European consumer with any labels for liking this stuff - to the majority, a movie is an escape - something about which you do not have to think, that you can just go and get washed away in the visual imagery, whether that is violent or sexual or artistic or all of the above. They want an escape not an analytic experience. This is fine, and there is nothing wrong with it.

I just would like filmmakers to endeavor to something more - put a good movie together with great visuals.

(Warning: the following example sounds condescending and nasty - it is not. I am not trying to say the majority of film viewers are children, and I am like the adult. Just look past that and see the heart of the analogy. Two things can be simultaneously targeted at different audiences - this is the best example of which I could think)

Old Warner Brothers cartoons are the perfect example (and it has been done in many cartoons since - Rocco's Modern Life, SpongeBob Squarepants, and the Animaniacs are just a few). The visuals and some of the jokes are targeted at kids, while there is a subtext that only adults will get. The subtext does not distract from the kids experience, and the kid stuff doesn't detract from the adult's experience. In fact the kid's stuff usually enhances the adult's experience because of the whimsy and nostalgia.

It has been done well and successfully in films before: District 9, Aliens, Harry Potter, Serenity, and many others. Formulas make financially successful films, extending beyond the formula can achieve greatness in the box office and in an artistic sense. I just wish people in Hollywood would try a little harder.

In all honesty, Real Steel might be fantastic. It may have a great story and be much more than I have given it credit for. I honestly have no idea, because I only know what I saw in the commercials. But those commercials crystallized for me a number of thoughts that have been rumbling in my head for quite a while, and I suppose I should give it credit for that inspiration as well. The advertising seems to scream superficiality, and while it may have great depth (and I hope it does and I am wrong) they are advertising it as if it doesn't.

And I suppose that is fine, too. People who go see big escapist fantasies want the stunning commercial to say that this is an escape that you want. Since that is the majority of the film-going public, they have to advertise this way. If there is a plot, the rest of us will hear about it and go see it for both the plot and the escapist visual fantasy.

I am not judging the escapist fantasy - even those of us who want something more complex are looking for an escape, just one into story rather than into visual imagery. Neither one is particularly better, but because I like the one style better, it frustrates me that there seems to be so little of it, when just a little effort and risk could make both groups happy.

Thanks for listening (radio, anyone - I suppose this was the same argument that was made by people critical of radio programming at the dawn of the radio era, and the same argument as the radio advocates made of TV, so I am just as bad as Hollywood - I am just recycling old arguments)

I guess it comes down to the simple fact: 90% of everything published is crap. Myself included.

And I am lucky if 10% of my ramblings aren't crap.

An interesting look at atheism in politics

So this post was inspired by something the Acupuncturist said to me at MightyMook's wedding, and I have been thinking about posting on it for quite some time. I actually have had thoughts in this direction for years, and I have articulated them in other situations, but I guess I have finally decided to commit the thoughts to writing.

Basically, since the Acupuncturist and I have similar views regarding spirituality and religious expression, even though we have starkly different political views, we have some commonalities - he was pointing out to me that one of the most irritating things about conversations with the extreme secular left was the tendency to completely dismiss religious sentiment and devoutly proclaim one's faith in atheism (heavy sarcasm intentional - atheism is a matter of faith just as much as belief is - agnosticism is more like a non-choice than anything else).

But here is the thing that I could never reconcile about the atheist left (and, I suppose, the atheist right, if there is one - I am sure there probably is, but they are simply mot prominent in the conservative movements) - why they seek to impose the morality they seek to impose.

First, they do seek to impose a morality - human dignity and compassion for the poor and the underrepresented are clearly moral stances. What I have never been able to figure out is why those are important to a true atheist. In a way I understand; if we are simply animals and have no higher "spiritual" calling, then we need a government to enforce that morality so that the law of the jungle does not reign. But therein lies the real problem - if we are just animals, why bother with that sense of morality at all. Why protect the underprivileged? What is "good" about that, and why even bother with the concept of "good" at all? Obviously, I don't believe this, these are questions I have for the atheist left.

Of course, "human dignity" is often raised, but nature does not recognize human dignity - that is a purely spiritual concept. A clever person might argue for the preservation of the "diversity" of our species using a combination of Darwinian theory and popular buzzword, but that idea fails, too, because why preserve the weak members of a species - what genetic imperative does that have? What is "good" and why should we strive to preserve your version of "good"?

Of course, one could always go the Nietzschean route and say that all the were trying to do was make their life a consistent artistic expression of helping the underprivileged, but that carries no more morally compelling weight than the consistent artistic expression of the predatory serial killer exploiting the weak for self-gratification. Since, under this philosophy, morality is superfluous, neither view is more right than the other. Nietzsche would still probably condemn the liberal more than the killer, because the liberal has bought into the "slave morality" of good and evil, while the killer is actually forging his own way, independent of any sense of right or wrong.

Not that I really believe anyone is reading this, but if anyone out there is, give me some insight into "Why?" from an atheist liberal perspective. I would understand it if it was from an agnostic perspective, and I think most people who make the claim of atheism actually fall into the agnostic category, because they cannot actually disentangle themselves from the constraints of the concepts of "good and evil" or "right and wrong" that are required for true atheist thought.

Help me out here.