House of Eratosthenes

Yeah I know I already made fun of this highly overused trope back in June…one of our loyal readers in New Mexico thought once was more than enough. But the movie-makers can’t stop using it, so I can’t stop making fun of it.

When just blowing something up isn’t enough, proof of one’s apparent badass bombing technique can be seen when the bomber leaves himself barely enough time to escape the blast radius, usually just enough so that as he’s walking away, he’s silhouetted by the explosion itself. The exploding object can be anything: a building, a car, a space ship…anything large enough with plot-relevance that must simply, absolutely be erased in a fireball. Bonus points if the target’s not the object detonated itself, but the person or people inside. One has to really want someone dead to bother setting up such a considerable kaboom when several bullets to the head would do just as well. Regardless of the explosion’s size, badasses of this stamp will rarely need to worry about shrapnel, flying masonry, or getting blasted off their feet by shock waves. The shock waves can be useful for blowing about that cool cloak or longcoat the badass may be wearing.

Besides, when I lampooned this recurring effect a few months ago I failed to tie it in to Why Everything Sucks so much lately. It doesn’t matter that this particular clip wasn’t out there just yet at the time. The point has been a valid one for awhile, the connection is there whether we choose to recognize it or not. So we might as well recognize it. We’re following that rule about “Never attribute to malice that which may be blamed on incompetence,” and I have found this to be a good rule.

Parents: When you just have to have that “alone time” on the weekend afternoons do NOT send your darlings down to the movie theater with fifty bucks or whatever. DO. NOT. You are sending the average age of the theater audience down, down, down…and with that, the quality. You Saturday fornicators are ruining movies. You don’t want to ruin movies, do you?

But whether you intend to or not, that’s what you’re doing. Too many young kids watching movies. With money. Participating in the market. Creating an artificial demand for the same silly effect over and over again…

Well, some nine-year-olds jump into the movie-consuming market, and the real “civilized” people jump right out:

…I went to one movie the last year. Maybe three in the last four years. There is not much choice here—car crashes, evil white men killing the innocent, some gay or feminist heroes fending off club-bearing white homophobic Mississippians in pick-ups. Or you can endure the American war-machine kidnapping, torturing, or murdering even more of the helpless abroad—with Robert Redford, glassed down, tweed in display, or snarly George Clooney sermonizing, like the choruses of Euripides’ tragedies.

The usual themes—some evil corporation is destroying something (fill in the blanks: the environment, the neighborhood, the small town, etc.), some CIA conspiracy is out to ruin a crusading heroic journalist, or some brave professor or writer is exposing a massive cover-up—are, well, boring, even with the sex, the blow-em-up explosions, and some nice scenery. (And all this from a corporate Hollywood—reliant on the security of the American military, crass in its high tastes and destructive in its behavior, and all the while profit and status obsessed!

If it is not all that, we get instead some neurotic suburban psychodrama about a senseless midlife crisis of some aging yuppies, wondering whether their empty lives really have meaning. Then there are always the “action” movies about tomb-robbing, treasure-hunting, or Zombie killing, but even they try to mask emptiness with a politically-correct throw-away line now and then. Can’t they make one movie of the Lewis and Clark expedition or Lepanto, and one less with Tom Hanks as the anguished and caring postmodern man?

You and me both, Victor. All together now: “Get the hell off my lawn!” (Hat tip for that excellent find to Neo-Neocon.)

When we demand creativity out of people…and they supply something else, and are allowed to call it a success…everybody loses and nobody wins.

Cool Guys Don’t Look at Explosions

Cool guys don’t look at explosions
They blow things up and then walk away
Who’s got time to watch an explosion?
Because cool guys have errands that they have to walk to..
Keep walkin’, keep shinin’
Don’t look back keep on walkin’
Keep struttin’ slow motion
The more you ignore it, the cooler you look

Ah, yes. VDH speaks for me, as well. Except for the fact I dropped out of Hollywood back around… when was “Top Gun” released? I think I’ve seen mebbe four movies since then, and all of starred Jack Nicholson, ‘cept for one, which was about hockey (Miracle). A pox on Hollywood.
- bpenni | 10/22/2009 @ 11:32
It’s true.

The “rant” really resonated with me. It’s SO true. I knew I wasn’t the only one who was sick-to-death of the political correctness in movies. It’s funny…every now and then we see some movie made “the old fashioned way” that portrays the American military heroically (or lionizes a traditional hero rather than a postmodern one). The movie makes a killing at the box office, is lauded by all sorts of conservative groups, is recommended by pastors from the pulpit. Then it’s ten years before we see another film like that. Why?
- cylarz | 10/23/2009 @ 20:57
And as far as the explosion bit is concerned…all I could think about was “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” It’s got one of these “explosion, but hero doesn’t look back” scenes, too. In fact, I believe the movie trailer uses it.
- cylarz | 10/23/2009 @ 20:59
It’s funny…every now and then we see some movie made “the old fashioned way” that portrays the American military heroically (or lionizes a traditional hero rather than a postmodern one). The movie makes a killing at the box office, is lauded by all sorts of conservative groups, is recommended by pastors from the pulpit. Then it’s ten years before we see another film like that. Why?

Because when there are enough dollars at risk, the most lefty liberal starts to embrace conservatism. Hundreds of millions have to be put on the line now when a single project is green-lit…the window of “cerebral-ness” has become so narrow, the movie can’t tell too much of a story before it flies over the heads of the intended audience…it just makes business sense to use what was used before.

As to why that isn’t your “Gran Torino” or “The Patriot” movie getting pumped out summer after summer, with a frequency on par with Transformer movies, that’s easy. After you’re about twenty years old you realize a need to optimize your time…by which I mean, if you’ve seen a movie with four of your friends but two of them couldn’t make it, but now all seven of you want to go, when you’re a kid you’ll see it again. Why not? It’s just an experience to you. After you’ve grown up, you still have a lot to learn but a movie becomes “What We Did Friday/Saturday Night” and you have consumed from a scarce resource to see it. By the time you are seasoned enough to sympathize with VDH’s complaint, it may be safely assumed that even if you like the movie, you’ll see it only once…and if you hate it, they just might make every bit as much money off you as they would if you liked it.

That thing Darwin’s theory says about living organisms — that’s what is happening to movies. They are being exposed to benefits and hazards that are particularly kind or cruel to some among them, but not to others, and it is molding and shaping their “species” over time.
- mkfreeberg | 10/24/2009 @ 06:11

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Walk Away From the Explosion, Don’t Look BackThursday, October 22nd, 2009

Walk Away From the Explosion, Don’t Look Back
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009