Todays' Movies ... UNWATCHABLE GARBAGE

Todays' Movies ... UNWATCHABLE GARBAGE


I can't bring myself to go to the movies anymore. Aside from the fact they're usually being PC garbage doing a drive by on my sensibilities, there is something else.

The films are mostly UN-WATCHABLE.

Filmed in fish-eye tunnel vision and epilepticly edited.

To wit:

1. Shaky cam - The constant bobbing up and down of the picture because they decided to NOT put the camera on a dolly in an action scene. Or the slow vomit inducing weave and roll in slower scenes.

They say it's for the sake of "realism". I don't know about you, but when I'm running my vision is a lot steadier than that.

2. The camera is always "moving" - Okay ... I understand the cameraman has to move along with the subject when they're on the move. But does the cameraman have to constantly move closer then farther while doing this? Does he also have to repeatedly zoom in and out, do low angles and even do 360 degree circuits of the subjects? This is usually accompanied by

3. Shaky cam.

4. Why the incredible amount of tight shots and extreme close ups? I really don't care much for skin pores and nostril hairs. I know there's a place for these kind of shots in a film, like say 5% of the film, but for 50% plus? Come on!

It's not enough the actors are having a conversation, no, we have to see their faces up close ... REAL CLOSE. When one stops talking edit switches to another talking then another and another.

Good GOD! Just pull the camera back so we can see them all and let 'em talk!

5. Shaky cam.

6. Low light/no light/low contrast - Why can't they light a scene with more than just a 40 watt bulb? What is it they don't want us to see? Why is it they don't want us to see period?! TURN ON THE FREAKIN' LIGHTS SO WE CAN SEE WHAT'S GOING ON!

7. Shaky cam.

8. Red/green/blue/yellow/brown filters/tinting/gels - They say it's to set the mood. Yes ... It certainly does. IT PISSES ME OFF!

I have some older silent films (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferautu, etc.) that have this but they have decent lighting to go with it thus actually getting the desired effect. This however coupled with todays' nonexistant lighting makes the film even harder to watch.

9. Shaky cam.

10. Lens flares - You're not dazzling with brilliance. You're baffling with bullshit!

11. Shaky cam.

12. All that backlighting - Finally! You're actually using some light. Too bad it's only for doing "shadow puppets".

13. Shaky cam.

14. Mist and fog - Is this to set mood? I can understand it in an outdoor scene at night (Graveyards anyone?), but during the daytime ... and indoors? Oh ... I see ... It adds to the backlighting ... NOT!

15. Shaky cam.

16. Epileptic editing in action scenes - What happened? What did I just see? Did I see anything at all? Oh yeah ... I saw extreme close ups of ...

wingtips

explosions

screaming faces

running feet

jet exhaust

car wheels

more screaming faces

a fist or two

muzzle flashes

a tossed grenade

flashing sword

another screaming face

claws

etc.

etc.

etc. ...

Yeah ... I saw a lot ... of what?

A lot of almost literal snapshots of various objects, body parts, effects etc. but no action to speak of. Hardly an image registers in your mind when the picture switches to another shot of ... something. Nothing but one close up quick cut after quick cut after quick cut after quick cut after ...

I swear ... What the hell are you trying to do? Induce seizures?

And I didn't see any real action of any kind.

PULL THE FREAKIN' CAMERA BACK SO WE CAN SEE WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!

And of course along with it we have ...

17. Shaky cam.

Oh yes ... If I haven't mentioned it before, there's that especially annoying thing called ...

18. Shaky cam.

The various and sundry non-collages passing themselves off as films, and the poseurs who make them have pretty much kept me out of the theater and in my home where I can resort to my collection of real movies and films.

Movies today ... Nothing more than exercises in eye strain and motion sickness.

To hell with 'em.

Jus' sayin'.

Damn shaky cam ...


Go to Jays Tee Vee blog main page here. Any articles under this 'un means yer already there. And hold the damn camera steady for once!

Starbuck: Lost in Castration

Dirk Benedict as Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica wields a couple of phallic symbols of male
domination. Ladies should always remember that to defend ones self with a gun is to give in
to male domination thus, the criminal/rapist has won. Yeah ... RIGHT!

The following is an excerpt from an article by Dirk Benedict decrying the sad PC state of affairs in mass media science fiction and (I feel.) the way things are in the entertainment industry in general. The article, written in the early years of the last decade, is to me, even more topical now than then.

The whole article can be read here.

xxxxx


Starbuck: Lost in Castration (excerpt)

by

Dirk Benedict


There was a time – I know I was there – when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result.

Witness the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. It's bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects, in microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores of today's world as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama) and Fred Astaire (Starbuck's Poppa), and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he's in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been so lucky. He's not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters.

"Re-imagining", they call it. "un-imagining" is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy our civilisation. One would assume. Indeed, let us not say who are the good guys and who are the bad. That is being "judgemental". And that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne and, well the original Battlestar Galactica.

In the bleak and miserable, "re-imagined" world of Battlestar Galactica, things are never that simple. Maybe the Cylons are not evil and alien but in fact enlightened and evolved? Let us not judge them so harshly. Maybe it is they who deserve to live and Adama, and his human ilk who deserves to die? And what a way to go! For the re- imagined terrorists (Cylons) are not mechanical robots void of soul, of sexuality, but rather humanoid six-foot-tall former lingerie models who f**k you to death. (Poor old Starbuck, you were imagined too early. Think of the fun you could have had `fighting' with these thong-clad aliens! In the spirit of such soft-core sci-fi porn I think a more re-imaginative title would have been F**cked by A Cylon. (Apologies to Touched by An Angel.)

One thing is certain. In the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of Battlestar Galactica everything is female driven. The male characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak, and wracked with indecision while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as hell, puffing cigars (gasp) and not about to take it any more.

One can quickly surmise what a problem the original Starbuck created for the re-imaginators. Starbuck was all charm and humour and flirting without an angry bone in his womanising body. Yes, he was definitely `female driven', but not in the politically correct ways of Re-imagined Television. What to do, wondered the Re-imaginators? Keep him as he was, with a twinkle in his eye, a stogie in his mouth, a girl in every galaxy? This could not be. He would stick out like, well like a jock strap in a drawer of thongs. Starbuck refused to be re-imagined. It became the Great Dilemma. How to have your Starbuck and delete him too?

The best minds in the world of un-imagination doubled their intake of Double Soy Lattes as they gathered in their smoke-free offices to curse the day this chauvinistic Viper Pilot was allowed to be. But never under estimate the power of the un-imaginative mind when it encounters an obstacle (character) it subconsciously loathes. "Re- inspiration" struck. Starbuck would go the way of most men in today's society. Starbuck would become "Stardoe". What the Suits of yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker. As in, "Frak! Gonads Gone!" And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un- imagination, "Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!"

I'm not sure if a cigar in the mouth of Stardoe resonates in the same way it did in the mouth of Starbuck. Perhaps. Perhaps it "resonates" more. Perhaps that's the point. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is this…

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Han Solo as Han Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women `hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands of years, has gone round.


Whole article here.

Mr. Benedicts' web site here.

Wikipedia article on Dirk Benedict here.

Wikipedia article on Battlestar Galactica here. The real one. Not that abortion from 2004.


Go to Jays' Tee Vee blog main page here.

A Real PC Turn Off

My first PC. Ain't it a beut!?

                                                   A Real PC Turn Off

                                                                by

                                                                   Jay Agan


Me: Oh!? ... The computers are off.

Non Computer Savvy Co-Worker: I turned them off.

Me: You did? ... Really?

NCSCW: Yes. I did.

Me: You? Uh ... how did you turn them off?

NCSCW: I just turned them off.

Me: Meaning ... ?

NCSCW: Turned them off.

Me: As in ...

NCSCW: TURNED THEM OFF.

Me: Uh ... HOW did you turn them off?

NCSCW: I hit the power buttons.

Long Pause

NCSCW: So ... what's wrong?

Me: Ooooooh! ... Nothing ... nothing ... (sigh) ... It's ... OK ... whimper ... whimper ....

Copyright © 7-12-2012 Jay Agan


Superfluous-ity here.

Superfluous here.

Go to Main Page here.

"Reviewing" Movies Not Seen

                                                       "Reviewing" Movies Not Seen

                                                                               by

                                                                                  Jay Agan

      It's easy. Especially from a negative stand point. After all, you know what you don't like better than what you do. If a film is about something(s) you don't care for, then you know right off the bat the flick stinks.
 
      For instance. To me, all musicals are crud. How do I know this, especially in light of the fact I've never seen the vast majority of them? Easy. Nothing ticks me off more than when a story comes to a slamming stop & the "actors" go into a 10+ minute song & dance. So what if the music, coreography, etc. are great? The story's been put abruptly on hold & I have to wait for the grand mal to pass. Get on with the movie for cryin out loud! I swear. If they subtracted the howling & hoofing, most musicals   would be less than half an hour. I exaggerate, but it sure feels that way. I avoid musicals like AIDS & ebola.
 
      Any film, of a subject matter &/or "message" I don't care for, is one I probably won't like & will not bother to look at. This way, I know a flick is garbage from the start & won't waste my time. I guess that makes me closed minded & lazy. Life is too short for "broadening my horizons".  Too many "good" films are out there to see without drek getting in the way.
 
     Take Avatar, for instance. I've not seen it, have no intention doing so. I know it's one I won't care for. How so?

     1. Reading the reviews (pro & con, mostly pro) gave warning as to what a pretentious pile of PC it is.

     2. It's been done before. I've seen Return of the Jedi. Dances With Wolves is in my collection, the Ewoks win again (yawn). "Revisionist westerns" aren't my thing.

     3. The previews make it out to be another cgi lightshow (cue the oohs & aahs).

     4. I'm really getting tired of that blue goon smugly leering at me from the dvd shelves at the stores.
 
     One does not have to see a film in order to make an informed descision. Getting enough info from the warning signs, one does not have to drive into the river to know the bridge is out.

                                                   Article copyright © Jay Agan

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