Hollywood is an over-saturated money pot with no original bone left in its hollowed out body. To some this statement is false. With the nostalgia of ‘True Grit’ helping Americans remember what a good western is and ‘The King’s Speech’ taking everything but the kitchen sink at the Oscars. Those statements incite the clamoring of “nay young man you’re wrong in your statement, and you are the one who truly is unoriginal.” I say this: how is a true story adapted to screen and a little over-dramatized, and a ‘Gritty’ remake (pun intended, by the way) in any way creative?
And these are not the only cases, I understand there is a whole independent film movement keeping things fresh with films like ‘Black Swan’ grabbing a best picture nod, and best actress win for Natalie Portman, and ‘Enter the Void’, a vivid look into the idea of what life and death are explored from a first person perspective. I’m also not trying to say that the Coen brothers aren’t creative, with a best director Oscar statue on their mantle for ‘No Country for Old Men’ (an adaptaion of Comac McCarthy’s novel.) Other classic films such as ‘The Big Lebowski’, ‘Raising Arizona’ and ‘Fargo’ the Coen’s are a hard lot to form any criticisms about, especially since their remake of ‘True Grit’ was closer to its source material then the 1969 John Wayne version. Though; you still can’t slap the title of original on it, its source is a novel written by Charles Portis in 1968.
The original idea is a dying trend in Hollywood, we go to the movies and we watch the same drivel over and over again. Romantic comedies will never end with the nervous guy getting not the girl of his dreams; it’s just too real and sad. Movies like ‘The Fighter’ were way better when they were called ‘Raging Bull’, and Chris Nolan is still getting shafted, and shafted hard.
‘Inception’ gave us a breath of fresh air in blockbuster cinema as did Nolan’s previous effort 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’. The Academy didn’t see it this way, ‘The King’s Speech’ the tale of how King George, the sixth, of the United Kingdom overcame a slight stammering in his speech to be the last King of England.
The aforementioned ‘The King’s Speech’ beat a film with an ending that lets the viewer decide what happened and leaves the ending to the viewer’s imagination.
Nolan created a whole new world for his viewer that we’ve never seen before in movies, filled to the brim with action and intriguing plot development.
Yet, in this baron wasteland of recycled-talking-toy-movie plots, overly sappy romantic comedies that literally are the same thing over-and-over again, there might be a mathematical equation on how they are written nowadays, too. “Hey we couldn’t think of anything so let’s adapt this graphic novel/Novel into a movie and watch the cash pile up, cause nerds will watch about anything if it has their favorite hero in it.”
We gather like the sheep we are, to pay up to $16 so we can take in this awful bush-league entertainment and pretend to enjoy it. I say okay. I mean what’re you going to do? Stop Hollywood? Good luck
