It just ain't entertainment, sonny....

So I went to see a movie today - I had planned to see Darjeeling Express, to put me in the mood for India... but I was warned off by the woman on the ticket booth. When I politely asked for the tickets she just shook her head... which led to an understandable moment of confusion for me... huh? No? I am not allowed? Did I jump the queue or something? "Love", she said, "love... i saw it and it was just not worth it... there were only a few people in the cinema and most of them walked out... I should have too - I just didn't get it... " Since when do the people in the ticket booth tell you not to buy a ticket...??
So we went to see No Country for Old Men instead....
Now let me share my thoughts with you... I am so sick of movies about the bleakness of life. Sure it was really well made, sure it was really well acted.... but why are the "good" films so bloody depressing these days ?? I know life is shit... do I need to pay $15 to see it over and over when I can see if for free on the news each night?? It seems these days we must choose between trashy feel-good flicks or terribly well made feel-rotten movies....
Why are the good directors/writers/actors/producers so sodding bleak? I mean, is "dark" the new black? Is terribly realistic portrayal of the pointless banality of life and the depravity of human nature the new vogue "in" thing?? I suppose so... I do have a tendency to be out of step with trendiness...and it does kind of go hand-in-hand with starving waifs in multi-zillion dollar grunge.
So I exclaim... "Oh what's wrong with a bit of uplifting??" (or is that only for the actors' breasts and bums these days...) I like to come out of a film feeling like my mental state has been enhanced somehow by the experience...either because its taught me something useful, or its shown me a new way to see things that is more positive, or hell, it was just good fun...
So I complain... why oh why does the quality of a film seem to be defined by how realistically they kill people... ?? I know there has always been killing in movies...Bond movies etc... but the death seemed to supplement the plot rather than be the point of it. It seemed to start with pulp fiction maybe... kill bill.... fargo.... now this one - its like a genre of killing porn. I can just hear the directors in a bar..."so, frank, how many bodies you wrack up in this latest one?" or "hey, harry, you gotta show me how you got the blood to spirt out of the taxi-driver's neck like that...that was hard core"... Its not that I object to killing per se, well I mean I do in life as a rule, but I object to it being the point of the thing.... The Constant Gardener for example, had killing as an ever present element, but the point was so much greater than that, and the film motivating and inspiring... She may have been killed but she died for a cause, for a noble passion...not just for entertainment value.
I listen to the news and it seems like humanity is killing each other faster and faster and more viciously than ever these days... war and bloodshed seem to be erupting all over the place... terrorism, civil war, genocide...children sheltering in a church are burned to death.... And then I go to a movie.... and its more killing and depiction of the utter and unstoppably dastardly nature of people... And it adds nothing of value to my life.... and it just ain't what I call entertainment.
So I came home and watched Four Weddings and a Funeral on telly... that cheered me up a bit :-)









Getting washed by the blood! photo by A.J .. !! on flikr
Happy Face!! by Amarilla on flikr