The Problem Of Nostalgia

The art of filmmaking is not dead.

In the last year, I have seen the following films in theaters: Drive, Captain America; The First Avenger, Super 8, Moneyball, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, The Rum Diary, Horrible Bosses, Cowboys and Aliens, Red Riding Hood, and The Hangover Part II. I would classify Hangover II and Red Riding Hood as "bad" (with the former movie probably bringing up the rear; sad to say, I laughed more often during the serious drama than the raunchy comedy); Horrible Bosses and Cowboys and Aliens as "decent"; Potter, Moneyball, Super 8, and Captain America as "good"; and Drive as "legitimately great." (The Rum Diary gets an "incomplete," as I was dangerously inebriated when I saw it.) I would purchase any of the "good"-to-"great" movies on DVD. Drive is probably one of my 15 or 20 favorite films of all time. Overall, it was a positive year for me, movie-wise. (For what it's worth, I also saw X-Men; First Class, Limitless, and Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, three more 2011 releases, via online torrent; I would classify the two former films as "decent," and the latter one as "quite possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen.")

Here is the reason why this topic puzzles me: Absolutely every single media figure appears to agree that this year was one of the all-time worst for movies. Their arguments often reflect the fact that 2011 was a record year for sequels, remakes, and comic book movies, which are three genres that generally produce poor films (in the eyes of critics, anyway). These opinions probably hold water; although I did not see Transformers; Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean; On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2, Fast Five, The Twilight Saga; Breaking Dawn, Part I, Cars 2, The Green Hornet, Scream 4, Thor, Final Destination 5, Spy Kids 4D, Shark Night 3D, The Thing, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, or Happy Feet 2, it would not surprise me if nearly all of these films were great disappointments or even completely awful. The premises of them alone (especially Shark Night 3D, which is about a group of rogue sharks terrorizing teenagers near a river, for some reason) sound far-fetched at best and "I think I'll wrap this marijuana in tinfoil to get it through the airport metal detector"-level moronic at worst.

But here's the thing; aren't most of those movies supposed to be appeal to people that could safely be described as "stupid"? Transformers, Fast Five, Green Hornet, Thor, Scream, Final Destination, Shark Night, The Thing, and Harold and Kumar were all aimed to appeal to 12-to-16-year old boys, who are generally considered the third-dumbest demographic that movies can be aimed at; Pirates of the Caribbean and Twilight were both aimed at young girls, who are generally considered the second-dumbest demographic that movies can be aimed at; and Kung Fu Panda, Cars, Spy Kids, and Happy Feet were aimed at little kids, who are generally considered the dumbest demographic that movies can be aimed at. It's not like any of these movies were trying to win Oscars; they knew exactly what they were, and made no pretension about it. Are we now also supposed to riot when Ke$ha puts out an awful album, or when Charlie Sheen gets arrested for acting like a terrible human being?

This is what confuses me about the characterizations of "2011 in film"; apparently, it was a terrible, awful year for movies because the movies that were supposed to be terrible and awful turned out to be terrible and awful. This does not make any sense. It also seems as if everyone decided to go out of their way to avoid praising the good ones that were released. By all accounts, 2011 films such as Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, The Descendants, Hugo, Beginners, Melancholia, Midnight In Paris, The Guard, Jane Eyre, Rango, The Muppets, Bridesmaids, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Attack the Block were all good-to-great; critics also (justifably) loved Potter, Moneyball, and Drive. So why do they get no love, and why does everyone choose to pin their focus on the types of films that feature Adam Sandler repeatedly punching himself in the face or Kevin James doing dance numbers with animated zoo creatures?

Based on these observations, it would be easy for me to say, "Well, it's because we've all become a bunch of whiny pessimistic movie brats." However, I believe that the real answer is more complicated than that. Yes, we've become somewhat cynical as a society in terms of film; in recent years, everyone was Usain Bolt-level quick to poke holes in movies such as The Dark Knight ("Joker was freaking omnipotent!"), Avatar ("Just a billion-dollar remake of Dances With Wolves!) and Inception ("Inconsistent rules of dreaming and too hard to follow!"), but you have to really dig deep to find people who have problems with classic films such as Citizen Kane (which is entirely based around a reporter trying to find the meaning behind Kane's final word, when nobody was even around to hear it), Star Wars ("Hold your fire, there are no lifeforms aboard"; um, "stolen Death Star plans" aren't lifeforms, last I checked), or even The Godfather (we're really supposed to believe that a group of shady men could stop at a tollbooth for 10 minutes, fire a thousand bullets loudly into a vehicle, and then speed away without getting caught or even seen?). As such, I believe that our obsession with critiquing new films does not have as much to do with the fact that we're all "whiny pessimistic brats" as it does with the fact that we're all "nostalgia whores."

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Tradition is a dangerous thing.

Tradition is why no current artist should ever record a Christmas song, because even if they do, nationwide radio stations will still clog up their entire December "Christmas hours" with songs by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. (The lone exception to this rule is NSYNC's excruiating 1998 release, "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays," and it only gets airplay because 99% of it consists of the entire fivesome shouting, "Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!" Ugh.) Tradition is why the Dodgers just signed notorious hustler Adam Kennedy to a two-year contract, even though wise statisticians can prove that he's almost definitely the worst player in the majors. Tradition is why Notre Dame coaches get fired every three years for not winning national titles, despite the fact that no great athlete would rather spend four years freezing his ass off in South Bend when he could spend four years laying on the beach in Florida or California. Tradition is why America's health care system will never change (despite Obama's best efforts), as it would shift the country that much closer to the dreaded "socalist society" tag. And tradition is why 2011's Drive is too boring and too forced, and why 1976's Taxi Driver is an infallible masterpiece.

The longing for tradition is extremely prevelant in this year's movie scene. For example, Scream 4 had no good reason to be made (the story had wrapped up nicely with 2001's Scream 3; Wes Craven would merely be pissing on his legacy by creating a crappy fourth movie; there was a ten-year gap between sequels, et cetera)...but Hollywood higher-ups knew there would be a huge market for it. By all accounts, it was a far inferior production to the intelligent, psychological horror picture Take Shelter (58% Rotten Tomatoes rating for the former movie, 92% for the latter), and yet the worse film made $57 million while the better film actually lost money. Another perfect test case is the 2011 Mary Elizabeth Winstead vehicle The Thing, made only because Thing producer Marc Abraham flipped through the Universal Studios library looking for the movie whose re-make would prove the most lucrative; his film ended up in the red at the box office, but the mere fact that that was his strategy for picking a project is damning enough in itself. Instead of dreaming up an original horror story to satisfy the legions of hardcore fans of the genre and then putting that dream into action, he simply decided to re-produce someone else's dream, knowing that it would be more financially viable. This is disturbing, to say the least.

Interestingly, these sorts of trends have arrived primarily because of audiences, not because of greedy filmmakers. The movie business has always been just that: a business. A film goes into production nowadays because of how much money it will make, not because of how good it is. The aforementioned list of terrible 2011 films appealed to the exact demographics that pay to see most movies nowadays: young children and younger children (usually accompanied by their parents). New, original films are primarily produced to appeal to their preferences, not those of the "intellectual" movie audience. This is because the latter demographic is the one that either "waits until the DVD/Internet torrent comes out" (thus, waiting until they can see it for cheap/free) or skewers the film privately and publically. Zach Snyder's completely original film Sucker Punch is widely considered one of the worst movies of 2011 for being a "two-hour music video," but really, is it that much worse than Fast Five (which could also easily be described as a "two-hour music video")? Probably not, but as Fast Five already had a built-in audience and low expectations, it succeeded wildly both commercially ($500 million box office) and critically (78% Rotten Tomatoes rating). This is likely due to the fact that a large portion of these moviegoers liked the original Fast and the Furious back when they were younger and happier, and thus gladly enjoyed in the fifth film in the series without needing to break it down and analyze it critically. As Sucker Punch had no pre-existing material to go by and no "franchise" attached to it, it did not receive these same benefits of the doubt. Tradition is a dangerous thing.

So really, the only movies that adults will both pay to see and "accept" nowadays are those that remind them of their past. This is exactly why so many comic book movies and re-makes and sequels got released in 2011; not because Hollywood has run out of ideas, but because these are the ideas that make money. Basically, if you're a modern filmmaker working for a big movie company, you have two choices: you can make a film that the age 6-16 demographic will enjoy (either a harebrained animated movie or a terrible horror movie), or you can make a film that the age 48-plus demographic will enjoy (a nostalgia-filled production that reminds moviegoers of something they used to like). There's literally nothing original left for the age 17-47 demographic, because all those people are either going to rip the movie apart or just wait until they can see it for free.

In essence, we, as a general moviegoing population, are the problem; the movie-making people are not. They are simply appealing to the senses of ours that will cause us to spend our money. We have nobody to blame for "movies today being shitty" but ourselves. I decided to buck that trend in 2011 and go spend my money on a bunch of well-reviewed, interesting movies, and the result was that I genuinely enjoyed my theater experience this year. Therefore, I was able to shake my head at reports that declared the entire year a "loss" for quality filmmaking; despite the fact that there were a record number of stupid movies produced during the year, there were also a number of smart and creative films released that I happened to catch and like. Thus, I would advise any and everyone to actively go out and try to see under-the-radar movies such as Drive, Take Shelter, Melancholia, and others that aren't targeted at six-year-olds; then, and only then, will major movie-making "shift" away from idiotic/nostalgic pictures to original, interesting pictures.

(Although, even then, they'll probably still get the "glass-half-empty" treatment.)