If you've seen the movie Land of the Dead you probably laughed at the parts where people could distract the zombies' hunger by shooting off fireworks. The zombies would stop and stare in awe at these explosions in the sky. Well, the movie industry is shooting fireworks at you, and I feel like I'm the only one laughing.
Basically, I have a huge problem with the movie industry lately. It is becoming increasingly bland and predictable. The worst part is that the more horrible, simple minded movies are becoming, the more money they make. Avatar is the culmination of this! People praising that movie are no better than the zombies who would stare at fireworks in the movie Land of the Dead. Meanwhile, one zombie saw how utterly stupid and pointless these fireworks were, and tried to convince the idiot zombies to stop staring. This is how I feel. I'm telling everyone "but this movie has a recycled plot, horrible acting, and some of the worst character development possible," but everyone just replies "but it looks so cool!"
OK, I'm used to this, what I'm not used to is that same movie that I speak against winning during movie award season. The Golden Globes are usually pretty good (certainly not great) with choosing decent movies, but this year was just awful. I mean Sandra Bullock, Monique, and Avatar? What the hell, were they bought out by MTV? I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with fact that they do TV and movie awards in the same ceremony. Television is the worst writing of any art form, of any genre. Newspaper ads have less predictable writing than television. As far as the Golden Globes go, movies are now being rewarded for the same reason TV is rewarded: short term popularity. Hardly any judgment based on actual aesthetic, artistic criticism was used this year, that's obvious. There is nothing of real artistic value in Avatar, outside of the visuals, so give it best special effects and let the zombies masturbate over it. The only intellectual point of the movie is the environmental aspect, which isn't presented to us in a subtle manner, but beaten into us with a metaphorical sledge hammer, leaving nothing for us to actually think about (nor is anything new to the issue ever offered).
Another fear that I have with these blockbusters is that they will be pretty much our only viewing options. If production company A has X amount of budget to distribute to movies and Avatar ( over 300 million dollars) uses 3/4 of X, then that leaves very little for other movies. Most likely another blockbuster will take the rest of the 1/4 leaving nothing for an up and coming director who needs 7 million dollars to make a movie that will (gasp) challenge us to think.
That being said, I still have a little faith in the Oscars, mainly because of their largely ignoring the hype around The Dark Knight last year. I am going to try to catch up on award movies for that, anyway.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Let the Poets Cry Themselves to Sleep
To say I've been in an emotional slump lately is the early understatement of the decade. I know that time will fix everything, but in the meantime this past couple of weeks has been far worse than I anticipated, for more reasons than I anticipated. This has forced me to pick up some new hobbies, since my old ones were doing nothing for me. Before all of this my two favorite things in the world were dreaming and reading novels. Well, dreaming is now a cruel joke, and reading has been a struggle (I've read about 30 pages in 2 weeks ).
In light of this struggle with novels I've switched to reading and writing poetry, because I thought it might be therapeutic in some way, and in a way I was right. There is something about getting your emotions down on paper in the efficient manner that only poetry allows that relieves some of those emotions, or at least makes them a little more understandable. In this way, poetry is a very personal form of literature. It typically comes from emotions that we don't quite understand, which often leads to varying interpretations.
In short, poetry can be beautiful and enlightening, but unfortunately I found that most of it kind of sucks. Of course this is my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that most problems in the poetry I've read comes from people who wrote or write poetry for the specific purpose of that poetry being published and read. I can not imagine a bunch of people reading my poetry! For me, poetry deals with subjects so personal that it is only meant for myself, or maybe one other person. When poetry is written for other people to understand it, it becomes too contrived and very inefficient because the subjects, emotions, and meanings tend to be spelled out far too often. Efficiency is important to me because connecting with a poem that you can interpret personally hits my heart faster, harder, and long lasting. Personal interpretation goes a long way to establish a real connection with poetry.
I'm not saying that poetry can't work for people for other reasons, because obviously it does, I'm only saying that it doesn't work that way for me. I do enjoy reading poetry from time to time, but I've found that writing it stirs a range of emotions that reading it rarely even touches. If someone ever were to write a poem specifically for me I imagine it could have a similar effect. In contrast, when poetry is written to be published it loses that personal and efficient touch, leaving a lot of empty words and empty meanings.
However, I did say most of it sucks, not all of it, and what doesn't suck is pretty amazing. Some poetry covers emotions that we go through so well that it can strike almost anyone that reads it. Also, some poetry conveys a message and image so beautiful that it becomes a testament of the human spirit. I want to leave you with one of those. This is a poem by W.B. Yeats that a friend of mine recently reminded me of (this friend is a pretty good poet himself). It's called "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Enjoy!
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
In light of this struggle with novels I've switched to reading and writing poetry, because I thought it might be therapeutic in some way, and in a way I was right. There is something about getting your emotions down on paper in the efficient manner that only poetry allows that relieves some of those emotions, or at least makes them a little more understandable. In this way, poetry is a very personal form of literature. It typically comes from emotions that we don't quite understand, which often leads to varying interpretations.
In short, poetry can be beautiful and enlightening, but unfortunately I found that most of it kind of sucks. Of course this is my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that most problems in the poetry I've read comes from people who wrote or write poetry for the specific purpose of that poetry being published and read. I can not imagine a bunch of people reading my poetry! For me, poetry deals with subjects so personal that it is only meant for myself, or maybe one other person. When poetry is written for other people to understand it, it becomes too contrived and very inefficient because the subjects, emotions, and meanings tend to be spelled out far too often. Efficiency is important to me because connecting with a poem that you can interpret personally hits my heart faster, harder, and long lasting. Personal interpretation goes a long way to establish a real connection with poetry.
I'm not saying that poetry can't work for people for other reasons, because obviously it does, I'm only saying that it doesn't work that way for me. I do enjoy reading poetry from time to time, but I've found that writing it stirs a range of emotions that reading it rarely even touches. If someone ever were to write a poem specifically for me I imagine it could have a similar effect. In contrast, when poetry is written to be published it loses that personal and efficient touch, leaving a lot of empty words and empty meanings.
However, I did say most of it sucks, not all of it, and what doesn't suck is pretty amazing. Some poetry covers emotions that we go through so well that it can strike almost anyone that reads it. Also, some poetry conveys a message and image so beautiful that it becomes a testament of the human spirit. I want to leave you with one of those. This is a poem by W.B. Yeats that a friend of mine recently reminded me of (this friend is a pretty good poet himself). It's called "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Enjoy!
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
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