Post-Oscar thoughts on cinema

Apple, consider yourself in my good graces again. I dropped my Macbook Pro off at a DHL facility last Wednesday and got it back yesterday morning, with everything fixed. Houston repair center service technician number 31514, I salute you. I am enjoying the hell out of my DSPL, 15.4", WXGA++, AG, CHIMEI, M1. Whatever the hell that is. (New screen, I'm assuming?)

Internets, let's discuss the cinema. Namely, could someone solve the mystery of why movies that are regarded as "good" have to be so fucking depressing 95% of the time? What's with the suffering? The over-the-top brutality? Is it not possible to make an engaging film that is in some way extraordinary and will make you think without the pain and torture? Granted, the last few movies I've seen were Pan's Labyrinth, The Departed, and Babel, so maybe I'm due for a break. Check out what one Mr. Thomas Dunham has to say in his amazon.com review of Babel:

What a depressing film. This film is basically about a highly unlikey series of unfortunate events occuring to a small group of people, with each event more depressing and unbelievable than the last. It's an emotional snuff film, offering only a voyeuristic trip into human misery. If you like to watch people suffer at the mercy of situations beyond their control, then then film is for you!

About midway through this film it began to strike me almost as a parady of itself; the never-ending chain of gut-wrenching, anguishing events were truly over-the-top. The same movie could have been made simply by filming little children as their pet-kittens are pryed from their hands, and then thrown out the window into oncoming traffic. Do we really need a film to tell us how random and cruel life can be, or have people forgotten?

Now, I will admit that since Baxter came along I have become an enormous weenie, but still. Doesn't life throw enough sadness our way that we don't need to sit through one man killing another man by beating his nose back into his head with a beer bottle? What does that teach us? Why is our choice so often either one of these cinematic reminders of man's capacity to be monsterous or You, Me, and Dupree?

Comments

[Sarah]

This is why Little Miss Sunshine should have won best picture. It is MUCH harder to make an intelligent comedy that makes you feel good about life at the end than it is to make a good drama.

[Jen]

Well i guess I just suck, I couldn't get through LIttle MIss SUnshine either. I am dying to see THe Departed,now that i have time I will be a movie freak!
An independent movie about Arkansas dairy farmers is going to Cannes!!!! Believe it or not!

[Erik]

For this past year, I'd recommend Dreamgirls (robbed of a Best Picture, I thought), Best Animated Film winner Happy Feet, and Borat (no torture, but a lot of uncomfortability).

I just discovered the existence of, and now I must see, both Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party and Fuck (Bill Plympton animations!).

[Missy]

I am sad I am so late to post to this.

I LOVED THE DEPARTED AND NOW HAVE A HUGE LEONARDO CRUSH.

I never could see before what the girlsies all saw in him. But wow. Seriously. I couldn't believe how emotionally involved I got in that story line. I felt like it was pulsing my heart for me.

And I will second that it's way more difficult to make an intelligent comedy than drama. And it was great (the running start to the van was sheer brilliance) But it still would have lost to the Departed.