Biggest Gripes About Movies

Anyone who is particularly fond or knowledgeable about a subject also acquires some deeply rooted pet peeves. Here's a list in progress of some of mine ... there is always room for more.

Add yours or repudiate mine in the Back-Talk forum below this article. Let it be known in advance that one of my big gripes is people that don't think before they type, can't write a complete sentence, don't capitalize or (worse yet) use all caps. In exchange for making a forum that needs no registration and does not require you to give your email address, please leave intelligent messages.

People That Won't Watch Old Films

This is a multi-level issue because some people simply must have color and others just don't think they would be good. For starters, the problem with not watching old movies is that you cannot become an intelligent film enthusiast if you don't know anything about the history of film. Obviously you can't know about the history of film unless you watch old films!

How many younger movie-goers (that's a stupid term isn't it) don't even know when the film they are watching is a remake? How many people know that "You've Got Mail" was an email update of the old Jimmy Stewart classic, "Little Shop Around the Corner" and the list goes on and on. Hollywood will always be making remakes so there is little value in getting upset over the fact that they do it. Largely it is just to make money without having to be very creative but there are also some very good remakes. It is the lack of knowledge that bugs me, not the remake.

Great dialog is not as common in today's films as it was in the classics. This could be a gripe of its own but illustrates the point here. When the audience is not discriminating about such matters because they lack perspective, the industry can easily throw in more special effects to wow the viewer and eliminate the need for the characters to say more than a few spiffy lines. Watch "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" or "Twelve Angry Men" and then compare the dialog (and the delivery!) to some of the current "blockbuster" films today ... no contest! Occasionally a great script comes along like "As Good As It Gets" and is equally well delivered but does the audience really know why that film was so good? Did you hear people leaving the theatre saying "what a great script" or "that was good dialog?"

Colorization of Old B&W Films

This is perhaps the worst use of digital imagery technology imaginable. Hopefully it has now come to a halt! John Huston literally went to his grave fighting against bean counters that sought to alter HIS creations to suit what they saw as a chance to make bucks for themselves. He appeared before the Senate with an Oxygen tank by his side to express a contempt for the practice that is shared by virtually everyone in film, expect for the front office business people. Of course they can't make films themselves so they are always ready to capitalize on the creativity of others.

In this case, it plays into my first gripe and reinforces a childish notion that color films are better. As much as I love the proper use of Black and White film today and the old B&W classics, it would be equally foolish to say that B&W is better. At one time, they had no choice. Then using color was simply much more expensive and was reserved for films like Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz where it made a very important contribution to the film. Now it is purely an artistic decision. However, films made in B&W, such as "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", be it for economical reasons or by artistic decision were always filmed with light and shadow that made use of that medium. Casablanca in color is repulsive because the lighting is all wrong. Everything that was filmed made use of special lighting and positioning to be enhanced by the B&W film.

In light of the number of irreplaceable film originals that have actually been lost or destroyed over the years, it is not a great stretch of the imagination to see a time when the only master copy of Miracle on 34th St. (the real one with Edmund Gwyn of course) left is the colorized version! The best you can do to prevent this is to not rent colorized films and let your rental place know about it ... "I want the real version!"

Morality Censors

Now I'm getting up a head of steam. As I was writing this article I noticed that a "Clean Films" company was showing in our Google Ads in the sidebar. I took great pleasure in blocking ads from that domain. Ironically I would probably agree with the more moderate of their customers that most films just have too much gratuitous swearing in them and that it doesn't always relate to the plot or the characters. In my view it simply lessens the impact of what should probably remain "strong language." The writers of many of these films are just avoiding the pressure of good dialog (see above) and the films that we would find agreement on are simply lousy films. My advice would be, just don't bother to see them and send your message to the producers that way. There is no "right" for anyone to have movies made that cater to anyone's morale views. That is what the "rating system" is for. It is intended to advise you of a film's content so you can make a choice before seeing it.

Movies, like all forms of art, mirror the times they are created in. Even a film that takes place in the past reflects a current view of the past. We are a society that says "shit" a great deal now and we also expect that nudity is at least a realistic part of a steamy love story, be that good or bad. We are also a society, America in specific, that is struggling with our Puritanical legacy and our views on sex and the naked body. It might be more healthy for the human race to just get over it all and gradually move on. The movies are simply a reflection of this. The legal issues surrounding the modification of a film's audio and/or video content not withstanding, there is a subtle erosion of freedom of speech regardless of one's viewpoint.

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