So, we've already covered the fact that there is nothing good playing at the movie theatre right now. Used to be, you could count on summer to bring out the awesome movies. Not so. Even more irritating than the lack of intriguing movies is the lack of ORIGINAL movies. Of the 12 films playing in Nanaimo right now, seven of these are sequels/prequels/remakes. At least if there were 12 new films about which you knew nothing, you could pick one at random and think "Hey, even if it turns out to be crap, at least it's crap I haven't seen before." But no! There are seven varieties of crap you already KNOW is crap, because it was crap last time and the time before that.
This irritation is made exponentially worse by the fact that earlier this week, due to the aligning of the planets, I had the opportunity to go see a movie with my husband. This is an event that happens extremely rarely and is one of the things I most intensely miss from our former life as non-parents. As the date drew nearer and the movie listings failed to improve, I told Chris that hell, I'd already sat through Sex and the City 2, obviously I could sit through anything - so whatever movie he wanted to see was fine by me. He chose Predators.
The premise is that a disparate group of people find themselves parachuted into an unknown jungle and soon discover that they are being hunted by the Predators - it's a game reserve on an alien planet, and the humans are the game. It's also revealed that all the humans are killers themselves: there's a couple of black ops military people, a yakuza, a death row inmate, etc.
The movie was pretty dumb, as I expected. (This is a great review, if you want more details.) But even worse than the dumbness was a horrible moment about halfway through the film when the humans have a moment to rest and regroup now that they know what they're up against.
The death row inmate says, "Man, if we ever get home .... I am gonna do SO MUCH cocaine." There's a beat, during which the audience laughs a little. Then he continues, "And I'm gonna rape SO MANY BITCHES." And then? The audience laughed even more. They laughed, you guys. I was suddenly jarred out the movie and into my surroundings: a theatre predominantly full of 20-something males, and yes, the theatre *was* pretty full because this movie just opened, and they were laughing because they thought that speculation about raping bitches was pretty funny!
I don't think that's okay. And I don't know where to channel my sadness about this. This line was clearly played for laughs, and it succeeded. How do I continue to be in a world where a lot of people - the people who made the film, the people who watch the film, the people who LAUGHED, dammit - think that's okay? What do I do with this useless mournfulness and stomach-dropping feeling, to make it useful? What do I do next?
2 comments:
That's really F'd up. What is wrong with screenwriters? Why couldn't he say "do so many bitches" or "get so laid" or anything still fitting with his dumbass mysogynistic character but not insanely offensive.
Seriously.
I'm actually kind of excited about Inception opening I think today. I hope it's good. It's billed as matrix meets james bond or some such bs but I hope that it's: nothing meets nothing. ie a NEW MOVIE IDEA. Ah well, hope springs eternal.
Yeah, I'm not at all sure how that is funny. I can only think that people were really laughing in an "Oh my god, I can't believe he just said that!" kind of way. There is more than one reason we laugh I suppose.
The only thing missing from this post is the part where his character dies horribly??? Please say he did??
I agree about all the remakes etc. Inception does sound intriguing, although I've heard it's a bit long. I think we'll be waiting for the fall to get some good stuff again.
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