Movies Have Started To Suck

I was just reviewing my list of favorite movies, and it dawned on me: I have nothing to add to this list, and it's been two years since I touched it. (Okay, slight lie: I managed to miss Brick on the list, and added that. But it's a 2005 flick.)

Are movies really starting to suck, or am I just getting more curmudgeonly in my old age?

Ever notice how older adults tend to prefer the older movies? Perhaps there is some part of the human psyche that predisposes us to media ("stories", broadly) that we take in during our more formative years.

If that's true, I'm well-formed. :) Not much has appealed to me since Serenity.

Am I missing something? What have you enjoyed in the past two years?

5 comments:

rbbergstrom said...

Was going to say Primer. Then I discovered it came out a year before I thought it did.

rbbergstrom said...

Name one recent movie that doesn't suck, huh?

Well, took me a while, but I can think of 300 movie that came out in the last two years and didn't suck.

:)

Jeremy Rice said...

This is NOT Sparta.



(In all seriousness, I haven't seen it, and frankly, have no burning desire to... not sure why. In fact, I passed it up at the store yesterday.)

rbbergstrom said...

Thought of another one, and had to rush over here to post it. "The Call of Cthulhu".

It's a very faithful adaptation of the H.P.Lovecraft tale, told using the methods of the era. In other words, it's a black and white silent-film. But it was filmed and released in the last two years.

The story it's based on, while inspiring so much in the horror genre, has defied all previous efforts to movify it. It's a slow-boiling tale of minute personal investigation into events of massive cosmic impact. The hero does nothing exciting, he just reads old newsclips and conducts some interviews. But what is revealed could destroy the world.

Man is insignificant from Cthulhu's P.O.V., but not from the narrators or audience's viewpoint. Generally film-makers get so caught up in the potential for gore and bizarre critters, that they completely forget that the contrast of abstract evil vs personal suffering is what makes Lovecraft great.

This film doesn't make that mistake. Not some folks' cup of tea (especially the quaint special effects) but genius in it's own unique way.

Jeremy Rice said...

You had mentioned that at one point.

Perhaps I'll look it up sometime when I'm in the mood.