I've always loved movies but being here in Mexico for several years we had kind of fallen behind in movie viewing. We signed up for Netflix determined to see as many of 2006's award winning movies as we could. We wanted to be current and with it when we went back to the USA and talked with our stateside friends. But my dear readers, I'm throwing in the towel. I no longer want to be current with the award winning movies.
We have recently seen The Departed and Blood Diamond. We also saw Hotel Rowanda because we hadn't seen it when it was up for the academy awards a few years ago. I know that the world is in one hell of a mess. I know that man's capacity to be inhuman seems to be limitless BUT I don't have to see it in my house. I don't care how good the plot or the cinematography is, these movies leave me depressed and drained. I don't want to see atrocities to the point that I am immune to caring, to the point that I say, "It is a good movie." These movies are bad for my health. We are reading more and more about the effects of having a positive outlook on longevity. I can't keep a positive outlook after watching whole villages get mowed down by children trained to be killers.
Maybe I can deal with a movie like Babel but otherwise, my movie list is going to be The Devil Wears Prada and Little Miss Sunshine. Yeah, enough already. I'm sticking my head in the sand. How about you?
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11 comments:
HAhahaha.....
I don't...hehehe....if I can write
LOL, LOL, LOL.....this. I just conjured up the image of you and Ned standing there with your heads in the sand. OMG! That's one funny picture I won't be able to get out of my head all day. I may have to start drinking early today.
Pitchertaker
I agree. I hate blood and gore movies.
Patty
Billie...when it comes to movies I am very much like you. I have great difficulty watching graphic violence. This is to the point where I actually check the Kids-In-Mind movie reviews (http://www.kids-in-mind.com/) to see how much and what type of violence is in a movie before I go. Truth be told, I go to see few R rated flicks because of this....I don't particularly want to see people being blown apart with blood flying everywhere. It has been made worse today with a plethora of horror films that are now part of the 'mainstream'.
Not that I want to stick my head in the sand about the world. I am very well versed in what is going on today. Just yesterday, I blogged (is that a verb?) about the portrayal of violence in art and conveying the message of suffering without the use of overtly graphic images. Here is a project that is superb by Adam Nadel that depicts horror without graphic images:
http://www.polarisimages.com/Nadel_exhibit.html
Frank, Frank, Frank....so you must be seeing the heads in the sand and butts in the air???? Really, Frank. And on a Sunday Morning.
Patty and Howard....glad to know that there are others who feel that way. Still these blood and gore movies are big money makers. What does that say about our society? I've even been thinking about how this affects contemporary photography and maybe how it affects what I choose to photograph as a way to block out some of the world's horrors.
Howard I saw your piece on Nadel yesterday and looked at his images. I think in some ways the words and images of the place at a later time are more moving than the scene when it happened. Kind of like the response so many people have had to the Vietnam memorial even if they didn't lose someone in that war.
There was actually a piece in this weeks Newsweek magazine as to how these types of movies are becoming mainstream. In the past it was hard to get "big time" actors to play in these films, but the article said that they have become so mainstream now that they are able to get big names for them as well.
I do wonder what the effect on kids will be. No matter what you let your kids do (and we don't let them see R movies at age 14 and 12) they still get to see some from being at friends homes where they have been bought or illegaly downloaded and the parents don't seem so concerned.
I'm with you, Billie.
We need to surround ourselves with positive imagery and beauty, not blood, gore, and bad values.
You'll enjoy Lost and Found in Mexico, anyway!
Totally agree that these depressing movies are not healthy. Checkout Jack Black's "Nacho Libre" for some mindless fun ;-)
John
I’m not a big fan of movies, mostly because 99.999% of the movies made recently seem to be nothing more than a chance to pay $10 for the privilege of filling my head with unpleasantness that lowers my quality of life.
Recently, though, my son recommended that my wife and I should watch ‘Amelie’, an independent French film. Now, my son knows I don’t like movies, and he knows I really don’t like French culture, and that I would be predisposed to think that a French independent movie was likely to be a perfect storm of badness. But he was very, very persistent, so we watched the movie.
It’s awesome. It’s wonderful, it’s beautiful, it’s creative. It’s heartwarming, uplifting. I loved it, and when we got to the end I was sad the way you were sad when you got to the end of reading ‘Tom Sawyer’ and realized you’d never, ever be able to read it for the first time again.
I'm with you, Billie. As I recently wrote, we finally got a DVD player and have been catching up on several years of movies. Yuck! Most of them are so depressing. (I loved the Devil wears Prada.)
If I want reality and blood and guts, all I have to do is look at the Honduran newspapers. I want to be entertained. I want happy endings! Call me unsophisticated but I don't care.
I also don't like the custom of having half the actors speaking in Arabic or German or whatever. Maybe it is more realistic, but I like my movies in one language. I like the old way where the Germans, for example, spoke English with a German accent. Haha.
Sometime around the last Star Wars movie, I stopped watching movies. Actually, I stopped several years before that but I did continue going when a new Star Wars came out. After that, never. Not in a theater and not on DVD. They just don't entertain me. Partly I think I always disliked a screen grabbing all my attention, it never bothered me with books though. The other part is my job included being surrounded by miserable people and miserable stories and I just don't understand paying money for it, I think I feel I should be paid to watch it. If I'm buying something then I want to feel good about it afterwards, feel happier or uplifted or exhilarated. I don't want to spend money so I can be scared, mad, disgusted, terrified, or insulted. It just makes no sense.
I too worry about the effects of exposure to this stuff on young people, it just can't be good.
So glad that so many of you feel as I do. Juan I had forgotten about Nacho Libre but when I saw the previews, I thought that it would be a film that Ned would like. Now I've added it to my list. And Paul the same with Amelie. If you liked it, I'm sure I will too.
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