Subtle Vengeance

It’s happened so many times. I’ve smarted myself out of happys. If that makes sense to you, I’m sure you can relate. If not, then please do read on.

Okay, so I kept hearing about this “Avatar” movie. Then I finally checked out the trailer shortly before it came out. And would you believe that I was underwhelmed?

Here it is, the prettiest movie ever, and all I can think watching the trailer is, “straight-shooting marine Just Follows Orders in a war zone until he falls in love for an aboriginee, defects, becomes the greatest leader ever and drives out his own former comrades. End with either him sacrificing himself or him winning the war and marrying into the tribe. Also, scratch that first option because they never kill the hero anymore, not in the mainstream. Yawn.”

Fastforward a little. Past opening week when everyone is gushing with the morning-after glow of a pretty movie, to the next weekend when the too-smart-to-go-in-opening-night-crowds folks go to the theater, and it turns out I was right. In fact I was righter than I thought: (image courtesy the entire internet)

"Please see me after class."

I’ve seen similar images for Star Wars / Harry Potter, but this one was jsut uncanny. Note the initials of the main character and the fact a freaking magic tree delivers the same message at the same time in both films.

The thing is, there are people who are freaking loving this movie. And I envy them SO HARD. I wish I could just turn off my brain and go into a thrice-damned movie and enjoy it for the pointless shit it is, but I can’t. And even if I can, I still can’t, because if I went in there now I’d sit there feeling like a total follower-sheep for going to see the movie that everyone else is talking about.

Am I justified in this? Shit yes. Please watch the following two trailers for films eclipsed by this spectacle which honestly deserve to be seen:

Looks awesome huh? Well, let me tell you, I had not heard of either of these movies until about five days ago. I mean, shit, Willem DaFoe! In a vampire movie with an original premise! How could I miss that?!

I was stupid back in the day. I was queued at the end of the block outside the theater to see Jurassic Park of all things. I saw it, and then I went back a few days later to see it again when the theater was less crowded so I could hear all the jokes! We covered JP in our Film&Lit class in University. It was like torture. The film is awful, and the book is worse.

This happens to me constantly. I can’t ever read Harry Potter because I have spent this long pointedly not reading it in protest of it eclipsing the work of more talented authors. I grudgingly acknowledge the awesomeness of getting people, especially young people, interested in reading. But every time I see someone in a suit with a briefcase and a hardcover Rowling book on the train I just want to pee all over them. It’s almost as bad as Michael Moore (I’ll write about the Moore sin of delivering a valid point with blatant lies another time).

Note: I don’t think I’m missing much. People have made me watch the HP movies, and I found them a little… unengaging? Contrived? Yes, contrived. I have issues with Rowling, particularly her Useless Adults and Deus Ex Harry.

I really, really don’t want to be one of those snobbish internet nerds who looks down his nose at the “common low-brow” people as inferiors. But honestly, when the world seems to want to camp under my nostrils, I have to take a mighty big step back to avoid it.

And no, I will not be paying to see Avatar in the theater with uncomfy 3D glasses over my own necessary-to-see ones. I will download it sometime next year maybe. Or my wife will force me to watch it. (see my twitter feed, hashtag #twilight) I will sit through all 3 hours and I will end it with a “huh,” and I will secretly wish I could have enjoyed it like everyone else did – mindlessly.

Also… um… I’m scared to ask, but did anyone else stop halfway through Inglorious Basterds, look over at their spouse and say, “Honey, is this really the movie everyone is raving about? Because it’s fucking boring. We’re over an hour into it and it’s still exposition. Why are we watching these things happen?”

Inglorious Basterds sucked. There, I said it. There was about 20 minutes of good movie in that 153-minute chinese water torture.

1. Lisa says:

   January 18, 2010 at 11:16

   My word, you make me laugh! Speaking as one who loves mindless frippery and ridiculously happy endings, I want to say “lighten up and get over your bad self!” But then again, I haven’t seen the inside of a movie theatre since Fellowship of the Ring, because, although I’m all for complete fairy tales, no way am I paying that kind of money. Netflix is my happy place.
2. Mike Doyle says:

   January 18, 2010 at 14:31

   One of my buds saw Avatar on opening weekend. I’d heard all the buzz, positive and negative, and asked for his take on it. He hesitated a moment. “Well… technically, from a CGI/FX viewpoint, it’s brilliant., but… Well, don’t expect much in the way of story or characterization.”

   Gotcha. I’ll wait for Dollar Day.

   Meanwhile, I take your larger point. I, too, hate the way the craptaculars crowd out the interesting stuff. And, it’d be nice sometimes to shut down my mind and join the rest of the mob. But that means you wouldn’t be capable of appreciating Daybreakers or Fox, and, I, for one, am not sure that I want to pay that particular price for admission. Especially if it means the sort of lame-assed mooning after something you can’t have, and wouldn’t like if you were given it, that I bitched about here

   Quotable Quote (attributed to Mark Twain): “God must hate the Common Man – He has made him so depressingly common.”

   (Service Note: being the antediluvian knuckle-dragger sort who doesn’t know from html, I’m not sure I didn’t screw up the coding for that link; if so, give me a shout, and we’ll dump this comment and try it again)
3. Mike Doyle says:

   January 18, 2010 at 14:36

   Okay, Take II: that linkage should’ve been: “http://michael-j-doyle.livejournal.com/80533.html” Now where did I go wrong?
4. James says:

   January 18, 2010 at 17:37

   from what i can see, you forgot to put the url in the tag. *shrug* i usually just write out links for simplicity’s sake. i don’t mind if you do the same.
5. Mike Doyle says:

   January 18, 2010 at 20:19

   Or didn’t get the tag right. Oh, well… Good thing they didn’t hire me for my coding skilz – I’d be in serious trouble