Cinemusings

I've come to the realization that the media is completely to blame for most of the problems in my movie-loving life. They tell me the end of movies before I have a chance to see them, constantly hate the crappy movies I love, and possibly worst of all, they get my hopes up impossibly high about certain movies so I'm let down WAY more than I would have been otherwise. The movie Grindhouse is a perfect example of this. Grindhouse actually comprises two movies, the apocalyptic zombie epic "Planet Terror" and the...um...hot girl, testosterone-crazed killer, and fast car flick "Death Proof." Come on, with a description like that, how could I NOT like "Death Proof"? I've never been a fan of zombies, but I love Tarantino and his witty, fast-paced dialogue, and I love hot girls and fast cars, and all of the glowing reviews had me pumped for a fun ride.

So tell me...why did I find myself digging the zombies but checking my watch wishing the "Death Proof" girls would shut up and die already? I mean, Jesus, they sit around and talk and talk and talk and talk, and then BOOM, lapdance, car death, woo, and then they sit around and talk and talk and talk and talk, then car chase (no BOOM this time though) and car death...and why didn't I like the movie again? Sure 75% of it is talk, but 75% of "Reservoir Dogs" is talk, too, and I love that movie. I get the references in "Death Proof" (I particularly relished the reference to "Telefon," a sleazy Chuck Bronson movie that I loved as a kid) but the movie bored me to tears, and I can't tell you how disappointed I was. Give me the rollicking gory fun of "Planet Terror" any day, even with that gimmicky "missing reel" bullshit that pissed me off. I saw "Planet Terror" and wanted to watch it again, I saw "Death Proof" and wanted my money back (and I didn't even pay for it).

Ah hype, that gigantic monster of hyperbolic proportions, raiser of expectations and dasher of hope across the ages. On the one hand, the entertainment industry needs it, because without it no buzz would generate at all and no one would see movies or watch shows and no one would make money. I understand the need for advertising hype, I do, I know how the industry works and it wouldn't work very well without hype. But I've seen hype kill way too many movies. The upcoming film "Cloverfield" has been tickling imaginations for months now. All anyone knows is that it's a giant monster movie of some kind that's been appearing in teaser trailers for almost a year and so much speculation was going around the Internet that people weren't even sure "Cloverfield" was the real title until recently. Sure, the movie could be great, but the thing is...it's going to HAVE to be great now or it's going to be a gigantic let down after the hype storm from hell surrounding the movie.

Raising people's expectations and getting them so excited they're pissing their pants only works if the resulting movie lives up to its reputation. "Grindhouse" itself is a great example of that principle. The movie was hyped up the ass as being not just a movie but an experience, two throwbacks to the heyday of sleazy exploitation flicks fused together in one amazing experience. Right? Right? And sure, when the two movies appeared in theaters, connected by a string of fake, fun exploitation trailers, some people loved the experience and loved the movie and said it was a masterpiece (I know; I read their reviews). But the movie was far from a ringing success. At almost four hours, quite a few people thought that the movie was overlong and overblown (though they disagreed about which was the weaker installment) and when the movies were split up so people could see them separately, that wasn't the key to greater success that the powers that be thought it would be. Like I said, people disagreed about where to lay the blame for the relative lack of success that "Grindhouse" saw, but my personal opinion is that the hype fell flat.

Most would agree that with double-bills, one film is always better than another, and sitting in your seat for almost four hours is always a tedious experience. If "Grindhouse" hadn't had the ad campaign that ate Manhattan, then horror fans might have grumbled about it but it wouldn't necessarily have been considered a flop. We horror and exploitation fans are steeled against bad movies, we've inoculated ourselves over the years by wading through crap to find the celluloid gems that we love, and we probably wouldn't have minded that much if one of the movies was better than the other; we're used to that kind of thing.

Hell, even though "Death Proof" bored me to tears, I'd still go to the theater in a heartbeat to see "Grindhouse" if I got the chance to see a revival because I know I'd enjoy the audience participation and the fun of seeing the movies on the big screen. But when the general public is beaten about the head with ad after ad after ad that raises anticipation to a fever pitch and then they go to the theater and see a movie that doesn't blow them away for whatever reason, they get pissed. "Grindhouse" wasn't necessarily a failure...it simply committed the cardinal sin of not living up to its hype.

Hype can do more than make a movie more disappointing than it might have been otherwise, hype can mangle and main a movie through misrepresentation. What am I talking about here? Take the movie "Saved!" a teen comedy that I love. The movie was marketed as a "satire," so I was let down when I first saw it because it wasn't what I expected. "Saved!" isn't a satire, it takes some satirical jabs at pop-culture Christianity (some very well-deserved jabs, I might add) but it takes itself far too seriously to be a straight satire.

Satire by its very nature trumps emotional impact at every turn by never taking itself seriously enough to allow for emotional impact. It takes its subject matter and wrings every bit of humor from it by mocking it from every angle; think "Not Another Teen Movie" rather than "Saved!" "Not Another Teen Movie" might not be a perfect satire either, but it's a valid attempt, and it never takes a break from the exaggerated comedy long enough to draw you into the story or make you care about the characters. You're not supposed to relate to the characters, you're supposed to laugh at what they represent; they're "character types," not real characters. For that very reason I'll never enjoy "Not another Teen Movie" as much as I enjoy the movies it mocks.

I love sarcasm and I understand what satire is trying to do, but for me, in order for something to be funny it has to tell a good story. The humor for me comes from the emotion I feel when I actually give a shit what happens to the characters, and for me, movies have to EARN that emotion. Tearjerkers have to earn my tears and comedies have to earn my laughs and they can't do that if I'm not invested in the movie. Like I said, I love "Saved!" now, but it took awhile for me to appreciate it for what it is because of what the hype led me to expect it to be. The movies "Hellraiser" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" were the same way for me. I love them to death now but when I first saw them I was disappointed because of all the stories I'd heard of people throwing up or crying or leaving the theater because they couldn't take the horror anymore. With those two movies, I'd grown up seeing the monsters in ads and on the pages of horror magazines so by the time I saw them, they didn't shock me the way they did the original audiences, and it took me awhile to appreciate everything else the movies had to offer because I was so disappointed with not being shocked the way I'd expected to be. When a movie isn't what I expected it to be, I'm not sure how to feel about what it is, and that does a great disservice to some good movies.

I don't really know what to do about this except rant and complain about it. There will always be hype and it will always kill movies. I try my best not to give away movie secrets and warn people of spoilers if I plan to spoil anything, and when I see misleading hype I try to warn people so they won't be disappointed (when the hype for "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" painted it like a straight up horror movie I tried to warn everyone I could that it was like a long episode of "Law & Order" so they'd know that it's more of a courtroom drama than a horror movie...yet another movie that didn't really find its audience because people expected it to be a fear fest and it just wasn't). Hype is a double-edged sword...it can kill your film, but your film would be dead without it.

Perhaps the only solution to the hype issue is to be aware as an audience member. Know what you want to see, see what you want to see, but don't be sucked in by the hype. More often than not, it lies.

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