I saw “How to Train Your Dragon” opening weekend. Yeah, I know, it shocked me too. Nutshell review: Dreamworks has achieved the impossible—they’ve graduated from juvenile to childish. This is a step up for them, as Dreamworks and their computer-animated films have always been Pixar’s dim-witted five-year-old brother, down to the sugar-addled attention span and immature fixation on flatulence. Cutting the buttock-centric humor from their repertoire instills some new confidence. They’re like a bunch of eight-year-olds now.
I’m not out to pan “How to Train Your Dragon,” aka “the stock-plot wonder.” I had reasonable amounts of fun at the multiplex. It’s just another entry into so-called meringue cinema: sweet, pretty and dissolves instantly. My only concern is the cultural diabetes: and, dear reader, we need insulin.
To me, it’s just a continuation of the infantilization of American culture: people seem to enjoy totally insubstantial nonsense—their little grey cells aren’t firing at all. This fluff siphons money out of audiences’ pockets because they are so in need of a “sugar high;” this money, of course, leads to more “sugar”—more mindless, insubstantial movies like “How to Train Your Dragon.” It’s Groundhog Day media, basically. That’s why there’s a third “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie. Side note, I hate you all for the fact that I have to acknowledge that there is a FUCKING THIRD “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie. Yes, that refers even to the people that hate the movies as much as I do: I’m sure you have friends that went to see it, and you didn’t hit every one of them with a stick until they swore not to go. You knew right from wrong and for this have failed me even more.
Postscript on the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” three-quel: it’s in 3-D. Shocking, I know. Really at this point, having the third movie in 3-D is about as shocking as calling the second one an Electric Boogaloo. Another postscript: three-quel is one of the only words as annoying as “tween.” It’s advertisers lingo and you condone its sheer idiocy just by using it. It also desensitizes the public to the fact that they’re not even trying new endeavors; they just keep coasting down the river of shit. Wasn’t it bad enough when we had to accept that any movie that does well is completely expected to have a sequel, let alone two more?
In his review of the Dragon movie, Roger Ebert even said it felt like a video game. And you can picture all the Burger King cups and stuffed animals this thing of thing will produce: movies are getting made on how “toyetic” they are. It’s easy to appeal to kids: it’s all toys for them. Kids get all their conflict in patronizing shades of black and white. Kids are told what to do, kids are easier to manipulate… all right, I’ll stop the paranoid “someone is out to erode our minds and control us” fantasy, but you get my point.
Jangly keys! That’s all it takes for people to overlook what a movie or a book is actually saying. “Avatar” got nominated for “Best Picture” at the Oscars. My own grudge against award shows notwithstanding (I know, such a well adjusted individual, disliking something of modern media), this Oscar nomination is the film industry’s resounding approval of our current intellectual genocide.
I’m not knocking the film industry for this: they saw the opening for 3-D and special effects and are exploiting it. You can’t illegally download the full 3-D experience, and hooray for them for adapting it, unlike the flailing fish that is the music industry. It’s the consumer that makes this a viable business plan. Do people not want to think anymore?
People might say, for example, “Stop complaining about your so-called ‘lazy writing,’ and remember ‘there’s nothing new under the sun.’” Yes, we can reduce all plots to a very generic formula, but that’s why people get paid and become mildly famous when they reinterpret them. Listen: all I’m asking is that you tell something in a new way, tweak it, sample it like a DJ that would get attacked by the RIAA, or even just put your own spin on it! Yes, the Barbie doll hasn’t drastically changed for half a century, but at least Mattel gives her a new hat every once in a while. Hollywood is letting us lower our standards for it, like the kid that keeps failing in school whose parents put his D+ test on the fridge, grinning with stupid pride. When you went over to that kid’s house (probably because his parents gave him a car or let him steal beer or something), you always just wanted to hit him because you knew your parents ignored you whenever you got below an 85 at anything. And that’s what I mean by standards, really.
Everything is about dumbing things down to the point where you don’t have to exert yourself. It’s why alcohol is cheap and prevalent and why pot will be legalized once baby boomers raised differently finally start dying off: tune out, ask again later. You might say, “But I just want to kick back and relax for fun…” really? Your work is that taxing? Students parrot back what teachers want to hear for grades that don’t really matter; then you get a white-collar do-nothing job doing a modicum of planning or number crunching. If that’s all your brain takes before you tap out, congratulations! You’re an eight-year-old!
All I can really hope for is that this throbbing hard-on the public has for special effects goes limp soon (and there’s no metaphorical Viagra). It could die down a bit, like when Technicolor was introduced to a hue-less, depression-era public, but that just reminds me that it has always been this way. People don’t want to leave their comfort zones, ever: the guy needs to get the girl and shit needs to go down. Rinse, cast fresh heads, and repeat. Popcorn blockbusters seem to be here to stay, but can we try something else the other 10 months that aren’t summer? Please?
Leave a Reply