Crap vs. Classics

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

In the past, I would feel a literal compulsion to watch every major movie to come out, no matter how bad I knew it would be. I've actually paid to see pieces of crap like The Mummy, Tomb Raider, Gone in 60 Seconds and Con Air just because they were big movies and were on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Lately, I've become far more selective. I no longer feel the need to consume all the garbage Hollywood puts out. If I stop and try, I can exert a certain amount of self-control and seek out only the movies that I have a genuine interest in and/or ones that receive glowing reviews. This evolution has happened in the last year or so. I've been thinking alot about this lately and finally discovered the movie that was my tipping point.

Thank you Michael Bay. A strange sentiment, to be sure. Certainly the most successful hack-director working today, Bay's Bad Boys II must surely rank as one of the worst, if not the worst, movie I've ever seen. I saw it last summer on DVD after purchasing it previously-viewed, sight-unseen. The store was having a special, buy 3 get one free kind of deal and it was the free one. I figured it was worth the risk buying it without ever having seen it since it was, after all, "the free one."

It turned out I was very wrong. There was something of value missing from my equation: my time. Two and a half hours of non-stop nihilism and sound effects is not actually free. I could have been doing a dozen other things instead of putting more coin in Bay's pocket. Hell, I could have watched any other movie and it would have been a better use of time. From then on, I've tried to quit the hackiest Hollywood offerings cold turkey.

I remember working at a video store while in high school and marvelling how people would come in and only rent from the "New Release" section (which was usually empty) instead of taking something from the "Classic" section which was always full. Why would they rent something like The Addams Family when they could go home instead with Dr. Strangelove? They know Kubrick is better than Sonnenfeld. Always. But they still do the wrong thing the majority of the time. Looking in the mirror later I realized I was just as guilty as the people I would mock from behind the counter. Anyone who watches Bad Boys II undoubtably must come to this conclusion.

I think there are two reasons I would watch this dreck. One, I would feel a kind of ownership with current movie stars. I feel closer to Will Smith because I remember when he was on Fresh Prince and now he's a big star. It's like I grew up with him. Thus, someone like Cary Grant feels like someone else's movie star because he made his classics before I was born.

The second reason comes down to the damn watercooler. I would watch crap instead of classics because I wanted to be able to talk to people about it. Or tell them I had seen it and they could say, "oh, I want to see that too." I would be afraid of being out of the loop. Pretty lame excuse, I know. But completely honest.

Which brings me, ultimately, to my point. I haven't stopped watching movies, I've just tried like hell to watch better stuff. I haven't even stopped watching Michael Bay movies. (I rewatched my old-school Criterion Laserdisc of The Rock a few months ago after returning from a trip to San Francisco and it still kicks ass. It's becoming clear that Bay probably will never make a movie better than his sophomore effort.) I've just gone back and tried to fill in a few blanks in my viewing. More Kurasawa, more film noir, a little Olivier. Sure, it doesn't give me much to talk about around the proverbial watercooler, but I sure feel better about myself. Mom and Dad were right all along, kids. Eat your vegetables.