Friday, August 01, 2014

31 Days of Scooter Movies - What Have We learned?

What do movies tell us about the world?  Oh forget it, what do movies tell us about Scooter?
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Well, I hate violence on screen.  I do like mysteries and detective stories, but mainly from the 40’s and 50’s when the production code was in full swing.  I don’t like them know because I don’t need to see the guts on the ground, heads kicked in or a lot of blood – even if it isn’t real.  What’s the point except to get a visceral reaction?  It is lazy story telling.  A head splitting as it is kicked from a steel toed boots conveys the filmmaker want you to feel bad / be shocked / or experience sadness but can’t waste time getting you there through storytelling, so they will cut of a hand and spurt blood. Boo!  Not always, don’t get me wrong, but often enough that I don’t appreciate it.
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I don’t do violence against women (or children).  I can’t watch it. I had to leave Slum Dog Millionaire when they were forcing little girls to be prostitutes because it made me physical ill.  I really can’t watch it when it is only exploitive.
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I like black and white, when it is well done.  There is, to my mind, nothing wrong with black and white when it is well done.  There were cinematographers in through the 60’s that knew how to light and film black and white.  They are pretty much gone now.  Black and white now is dull and haphazard.  It signifies “serious” now – but the expertise of lighting, filming and cutting black and white is mainly lost.  Look at the shadows in something like Laura or A Place In the Sun.  It wouldn’t be the same in color.
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I find movies can be a release. If I need to laugh, to cheer up, to escape from the constant drone of work and deadlines, then movies can provide that.  And there are movies I can watch again and again.  And ones I can’t.
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Just because I can’t watch them again and again doesn’t mean they aren’t good.  For example, I loved Brokeback Mountain.  It was moving, beautiful and touching.  But the techniques used (outside, open sky, wide open places when they can be themselves vs. interiors, houses and families where they couldn’t be) they don’t demand reviewing.  It was great, and engaging and well done, but seeing it once or twice was enough.  Same for Saving Private Ryan.  The huge invasion, the house to house combat.  Great movie.  But once was enough.  Shakespeare in Love, on the other hand, I could watch a million times.  It is intimate and intelligent and doesn’t rely on shock to get you to the end.
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There is no yardstick on which Hudson Hawk or Sahara is a better movie that Saving Private Ryan or Brokeback Mountain.  Except the yardstick that I can watch the first 2 a ton of times easily (and the Fox Terrier count).
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Speaking of Sahara, I think it is amazing how the simple poster for Sahara is changed for each market.
The Main Use Poster

South Korea - Cruz is moved up
I am not sure who this is, but it is close in on people only

In French, Humpy Matthew takes center stage