Tepid Entertainment

I’ve been writing weekly movie reviews for a NH paper for a little more than 7 years. In that time I’ve missed maybe a total of 7 weeks, usually supplanting a seasonal preview or Oscar column or something of that sort. I don’t do this because the pay is good (it’s not). I don’t do it out of loyalty, although I’m sure that factors into it. I primarily do it for two reasons:

1.) to keep writing, and to keep writing for a deadline (I can’t emphasize enough how important this is)

2.) to continue my cinematic education and stay in touch with the current movie world.

This isn’t entirely academic of course. I love movies, TV, music…I consume a lot of it because I enjoy it, and in turn it keeps me immersed in pop culture, which I consider just as important.

Anyway, I don’t post these reviews here because, well, I’m not always so nice. But I do email them to a few people, and occasionally these people respond, and these responses stir up dorky little arguments. Last week I reviewed BANGKOK DANGEROUS and defined it as “Tepid Entertainment” – a film “that quasi-entertains through detached, un-distracting storytelling, rarely alerting us to its presence but never worsening our day either.” One reader, who responds more than most (often to argue against me, about movies he hasn’t even seen, if only to throw me a few jabs and keep me sharp) thought this was a part of a bigger picture. I’m sure he doesn’t mind me sharing his two cents:

“I think you're hitting on something bigger than you were expecting to in this review. You got to it right at the end. The action genre has gone TEPID.

I'd be willing to say that even Die Hard 4.0 suffered from this. No matter how cool (J. Long) and campy (K. Smith) and hot (That Elizabeth ??? chick) and awesome (Bruce)... it still felt tepid.

I think that the only way is to reconstruct the genre by reflecting the truth. The harsh reality. Kill the hero! Evil abides. Like the dude. It's the reason why "No Country" got such acclaim.

Even poppy afterbirths such as "Bangkok" and anything else that's been out since "Heat" will forever lock the genre into a glitzy, cartoonish, overacted, CGI'd smorgasbord.

I think that filmmakers have forgotten that, as Jean Luc Godard once said, ‘...all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl!’”

I agree with him, to a certain extent. Even WANTED, which tries so hard to make our eyes pop, feels generic and standard these days. It’s tougher and tougher to wow people, and somehow simultaneously easier to pump out a buffet of standard. I imagine this is similar to what The Western went through as a genre, on its way to the endangered species list.

Remember, the action genre as we know it only really came into its own in the 1980s. It’s evolved since then, but only to a degree. DIE HARD was and always will be a high point. It’s the pinnacle. And THE MATRIX was the evolution. But since then, where have we gone? Where will we go? And is the action flick going the way of the west?

To be fair, I still enjoy these flicks, and the standard western was never really THAT bad. But people grew sick of the same ole thing. It’s hard to believe that would happen again. And, based on my current project, I hope it doesn’t.

“Poppy afterbirth.” Gotta love that.