Why does Hollywood keep making the same films?
We movie-lovers are facing a problem: too much of a good thing. A couple of films where morally flawed people are compelled to surgically remove their own limbs in order to free themselves from fiendish traps (and learn a valuable lesson about friendship at the same time) are fine. Maybe three. But we are now on Saw VI – released last month – and in my view, speaking as a fan of exposed innards, the once-scintillating formula is going stale. The violence that was such a pleasant, mischievous innovation in the first movie is starting to seem rote, manipulative, and, yes, even a little bit sadistic.
The same could be said of the hedonists-in-the-abattoir genre. The first time we were treated to the spectacle of innocent tourists, or hapless skiers, or self-absorbed vacationers being disembowelled by, say, renegade South American organ harvesters, it seemed like a fun idea – especially if the victims had it coming. But lately the genre (the Hostel and Turistas series are its leading exponents) has begun to repeat itself. We know the arc of the narrative, we know where it's headed. Changing the setting won't change the basic theme: the average vacationer deserves to die. But in a few of the more recent offerings, the violence has taken on an uncomfortably gratuitous tone, as if the film-makers were depraved, diseased or in need of therapy. However you slice it, the thrill is gone.
Going back to the same well one too many times is a problem that now afflicts film-makers in many other genres. Examples? Movies with the words "Shaolin" or "Kung-Fu" in the title. Movies based on revered graphic novels that the fans of the graphic novels start trashing when the films are still in the pipeline. Movies about unlikely triumphs in competitions no one cares about (ice skating, ping pong, dodgeball, air drumming). Movies where everyone has to lie. Or tell the truth. Or say "yes" all the time. Or something. And, of course, teen vampire movies. Does every US schoolgirl have to be a bloodthirsty vampire? Can't some of them be good, old-fashioned, home-grown sluts? Gosh, where's Christina Ricci when you really need her?
Finally, there have been quite enough documentaries purporting to explain what is wrong with America, as if anyone had any fresh ideas there. The first time Michael Moore made a movie denouncing the economic system that would make him rich, it seemed amusing and powerful. Now that he has once again stood in front of the soulless fat cats' HQ with a bullhorn in hand demanding to see somebody really important, knowing full well no one is going to come out, the whole shtick has taken on the aroma of the graveyard. Nobody outside of Hollywood seriously believes that Moore likes or cares about working-class people, and, for their part, working-class people are either oblivious to his existence or despise him. Nor is anybody fooled by the faux prole headgear any more: a young man in a red baseball cap is an imp; a middle-aged man in a baseball cap is a buffoon.
Paris is not the answer
It is said that, after three days, fish and house guests both start to stink. The same is true of movies – by the time you get to the third in a series, the stench is palpable. This is true whether the series is Halloween, The Ring, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or paranormal romances starring Sandra Bullock.
Around 30 years ago, New York's Museum of Modern Art held a brilliant film festival featuring movies that were the first flops in genres that had hitherto been packing them in. Among the most memorable was The Yakuza, a fish-out-of-water affair about an American cop trying to solve a murder in Tokyo. It wasn't very good, but it wasn't any worse than French Connection II. Also shown was Orca, featuring Richard Harris as an amoral fisherman lured to his death by a freshly widowed killer whale. There was nothing especially awful about either of these movies. Orca, in fact, introduced the world to Bo Derek, and starred Charlotte Rampling as a marine biologist, which gave the profession a soupçon of glamour it had not known before and has not known since. But each of these movies died at the box office. Why? Because the public had already seen them – or movies just like them.
This is very much the situation we now find ourselves in: too much of a good thing is making us ill. This isn't just a reaction against sequels; it is a reaction against films that so closely resemble other films that they seem like sequels. It is a reaction against films about shockingly articulate English gangsters. It is a reaction against films where Juliette Binoche or Julie Delpy or Meryl Streep or Audrey Tautou or Kate Hudson discover the meaning of life in Paris. The last film set in Paris where women did not discover the meaning of life was Taken. In Taken they got drugged, abducted and shipped to the Middle East. Come to think of it, maybe they did learn the meaning of life – at least in the Paris part.
It is also a reaction against films where Jennifer Aniston cannot find the right guy and never suspects that her hair may have something to do with it. It is a reaction against films based on video games, or films where characters are trapped in video games, or films where people must enter video games to fully comprehend the evil that lurks inside video games and those that play them. Not to mention films where young people did a bad, bad, bad thing and now must pay the price. And, of course, it is a reaction against films that involve the war in Iraq. Or just Iraq.
Another movie we have seen too many times is the one about a gigantic metal object floating around the edge of the solar system – something horrible has happened to its original crew, but we won't find out what for about 119 minutes. Nor will its cast. The only thing we do know about the haunted vehicle is that it looks exactly like the set from Event Horizon, which looked exactly like the set from Aliens, which looked exactly like the set from Leviathan, which looked a little bit like the set from Doom. We can also be fairly certain the cast will consist of people we have never heard of, plus Sam Neill.
It has been said that, in space, no one can hear you scream. This may have been true in the past, but it is no longer the case. In space, everyone can hear you scream. And what they can hear you screaming is this: stop making movies about places where no one can hear you scream.
Weddings from hell
What other genres have been worked to death? Mockumentaries. Wayans Brothers send-ups. Parodies in general. Upscale remakes of downscale Asian horror films. Films about journalists. Films about charismatic schoolteachers. Films where dancing or chess or cooking help save poor inner-city kids from their own worst instincts. Honestly, folks, you can stop making these movies now. Joe
You can stop making movies about weddings, particularly movies about women sabotaging other women's weddings. The formula worked well enough when Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz faced off in My Best Friend's Wedding. But The Wedding Planner was lame, and Bride Wars was horrendous. Ditto Margot at the Wedding, where two of the most neurotic actresses in film history (Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh) competed to torpedo the nuptials. Then, as if on cue, last year brought us Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, about the perils of inviting a dysfunctional family member to the wedding. In this case, the dysfunctional family member was the bride's drug-addict sister who once drove off a bridge, and was too wasted to undo little brother's seatbelt, so he drowned. The subtext: I don't mind you coming to the wedding, you skanky cokehead, but did you really expect to be the maid of honour?
So what type of film should the industry be making instead? Well, think of what we have a shortage of. There hasn't been a top-class mob film since American Gangster. There hasn't been a sophisticated adult rom-com since Sideways. There hasn't been a really great scam film since The Spanish Prisoner. There hasn't been a full-costume, macho-man epic since Gladiator. There hasn't been a great sci-fi film since The Matrix. And there hasn't been a memorable movie about the perils of using public transport since Speed.
Actually, another film about a killer whale might not be a bad idea, either.
The genres we'd like to see
Convoluted heists
Ocean's Twelve and Thirteen were so bad they obscured the virtues of Eleven, the last recent good caper movie. Heists and scams are the most intellectual of crime movies, which is what makes them so tricky. Look at Welcome to Collinwood for an example of how easily they can fail.
JG Ballard adaptations
Empire of the Sun and Crash, two masterpieces of very different kinds, showed that the late master of suburban sci-fi had a lot in him. With numerous short story collections and 16 novels – all tiptoeing into unsettling areas no one else dared enter – surely there's something else to be done. Whatever happened to John Maybury's Super-Cannes?
Weird-female-friendship movies
What did Heavenly Creatures and Me Without You have in common? Both were about teenage girls who lived – unhealthily – in each other's pockets and found rich drama therein. A long way from the nauseating hug movies that have infested cinema for the last 20 years.
Puppet action
Team America: World Police was a one-of-a-kind stroke of genius – inspired, as we found out, by the Thunderbirds' gronky puppet-on-a-string look. In the age of Fantastic Mr Fox and Curse of the Were-Rabbit, when stop-motion and claymation are rendered digitally, can't we please go back to plain old wood and yarn?
Slasher comedies
The combination of nastiness and giggles is hard to pull off – do it wrong and you're inviting people to laugh at sadism. Sam Raimi set the template with the 1980s Evil Dead films, Peter Jackson churned out Bad Taste and Braindead, and Shaun of the Dead was a fine recent example. Now that we're up to our necks in grim torture films, a little levity would be appreciated.
Source:Joe Queenan, Guardian Online