After the
miserable summer I’ve had going to the movies, one thing has become abundantly
clear: I am quickly falling out of the key demographic for movie studios. I’m still a white guy with a fairly good
paying day job. I turned 31 earlier this
month. I have other priorities. My wife is going back to school to finish her
degree. We want to get a house. We want to start a family. I need a new car. I’m finally beginning to feel great about my
poker skills.
And I hoped
my passion since I was 15 would stay with me.
In general, it has. I still get
giddy at the ticket counter. When the
usher rips my ticket, points me in the director of my theatre & says “Enjoy
the show!”, I still smile & say “Thanks!” every time. I love walking in to take my seat & see
with whom I get to share this experience.
The hairs on the back of my neck still stand up as the lights dim. I love the quiet moments I get to reflect as
the end credits roll & the lights fade up.
But recently, I’ve noticed something odd. I’m not enjoying as many movies as I used
to. Also, the audiences I’ve watched
these movies with have gotten less & less enjoyable to be around.
So what can
I attribute that to? Am I at that age
where I need to move on? Do I leave my
passion behind? My answer: I’m not going
anywhere. I still love movies. I loved travelling with fugitives as they
take one’s son towards his destiny. I
loved following teenagers find freedom & joy through music. I fell in love with a college freshman &
his baseball teammates as he assimilates to his new surroundings. I found joy in a panda finally living out a
prophesy put forward years ago.
So where am
I going with this? Well, I have come to
the conclusion that I need to change my movie-going habits. From this day forth, I will no longer make
comic book “movies” a priority in my theatrical journey. If there is a CBM that I want to watch in a
theatre, I won’t be buying a ticket for until the third Monday of release at
the earliest. I will spending 17 days on
the outside as yet another visual effects extravaganza makes a billion dollars
in worldwide box office receipts. In
addition, I won’t waste my time reviewing them nor will I be getting in
arguments with people online over them.
They aren’t worth the time or energy.
I’ll throw out a tweet or two immediately after watching said spectacle
but will only barely acknowledge its existence after that.
I’m sure
you noticed that I put quotation marks around the word “movie” in the above
paragraph. That is because I believe
that recent theatrically released comic book adaptations are not movies, motion
pictures, films, whatever term you want to use.
A movie is a series of pictures strung together to create a compelling
story with a beginning, middle & end with interesting characters,
spectacular action sequences with high stakes & expertly crafted visuals
and great actors well-written dialogue.
Many recent comic book adaptations don’t have endings; they stop. They take this “sequel culture” that we live
in to the extreme and leave more open endings than closed ones after every
installment. Recent super villains have
been quite dull. I get a kick out of
seeing Daniel Bruhl on screen but his Helmut Zemo in Civil War could have been
eons more conniving. Even as technology
improves and visual effects get better, the over-reliance by these creations is
really distracting. And while studios
open their bank accounts to get the best looking & most talented actors,
studios don’t seem to care who they hire to write these creations.
I guess you
could say I’m a grump, an old fart, stubborn, a snob. And I won’t deny being any of those
things. I did not grow up on comic
books. I only remotely started paying
attention to them after I saw Spider-Man in 2002; even then, I still didn’t
read them. I showed up in theatres from
time to time when more comic book “movies” were released. I’ve raved about a few over the years. X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, The Avengers, Days of
Future Past: each one great. But now,
especially this year, these seem like experiences that only readers or devotees
can appreciate. I’m not one of them and
if I haven’t become a fanboy by now, I never will.
