A String of Movies

I included the "review" tag just because; this isn't a review - certainly not of any one movie, anyway. In fact, I'm not exactly sure wtf it is going to be yet. I have a thousand things to say on at least 10,000 movies I've seen the past week or two while I haven't been working. I have "mentally blogged" at least 12 different entries on cinematography, blocking, how this flick stands-up to that one, and so forth and so on, but since I haven't been actively working, you haven't seen any of them. Oh, and I'm not sure what's going to come spilling-out once I get started here.

A month or two back, my cable provider had a special: HBO, Starz, Encore, Cinemax for $5.00/month for the first 6 or 12 months, then regular price. I went ahead and ordered it because I'm tired of having nothing to watch and paying $100/month for said privilege. Then my wrist started hurting and I was having to wait longer and longer between posts, then my neck got to hurting (which is common, but coupled with the other pain, became harder to take), then my neighbor started back, poncing-about in the wee morning hours - so I took a week off (more or less) and wound-up watching a shitload of movies ("shitload" is an industry term).

And I realized something: all the bad ones have much in common. Mainly, the cinematography (or lack thereof), but there's actually a pretty concise list one can compile, and so I did just that. If you are a struggling actor who wishes to work in film, let me give you a few quick pointers to help you avoid being in a bad movie:

• If you see tripods anywhere on-set, you're screwed. Tripods indicate stationary cameras, usually unmanned; unmanned, stationary cameras result in perfectly-centered, completely motionless cinematography; perfectly-centered, completely motionless camerawork results in boring movies.
• If you ever hear the phrase, "We can film in the Valley and save money," run like hell. The Valley means Porn Valley and Porn Valley has plenty of general, poorly-designed sets they use for filming pornographic movies - and sometimes, really shitty regular ones. Regardless of how you feel about porn, poorly designed sets are nothing more than window dressing and they look awful on camera. The reason you rarely realize this in porn is because you don't have time to look at the sets - and porn is basically one close-up after the next (so you rarely even see the sets).
• No matter how good the script, a bad actor screws it up. No matter how good the actor, a bad script cannot be saved.
• Points are incidental to movies; points should be made in the movie, not by the movie. If the movie is one Big Point, it will be one Bad Movie. Unless it's a documentary - in which case, casting is usually set. You should still sleep with someone just to make sure you can't be written-in - always approach the writer first.
• If the flick starts with a sex scene, you've got a good movie - unless it's a comedy, in which case, you've a bad one. If the flick leads-up to a sex scene, you've got a good movie - unless it's a romantic-comedy, in which case, you've got a bad one. If there is no denouement following the sex scene, you've got American Pie. At any rate, the inclusion of a sex scene at any point after the first 10 minutes of the movie is suspect unless the movie is specifically about sex. If you don't know what I mean by this, just trust me.

I'd like to use a specific movie for this discussion: Fast Food Nation.

Fast Food Nation was based on a best-selling novel of the same name. The screenplay was co-written by the author and director - almost universally a good sign. The director was none other than Richard Linklater, who is known for such movies as Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Dazed and Confused. And Fast Food Nation is one of the worst films ever made.

It is boring, on every level; it is terribly filmed; it is not well-acted (though Avril Lavigne is rather surprising) even though it is filled with great actors; it is not well-written, even though the dialogue is not clunky and the plot follows a clear cause-effect-outcome model; it is not well blocked, even though most of the scenes are talking-headers. Fast Food Nation is one of the worst films I have ever almost seen.

That's right: almost seen. I use that phrase simply because it has been on at least 3-4 times and I have tried to watch it, but moments in, I start contemplating more interesting things - like what it would feel like to fuck a cheese grater. Gently, I mean. Well, maybe not so gently - the imminence of climax does induce such passion in me - but maybe a gentle progression to that... is this thing still on!? Wait - did I hit HBO-Latin by accident? Now they're speaking in Spanish? Do they have cheese graters in Mexico?

Go back up and read the points I made and keep them in mind when watching this torturous exercise in self-abuse. Just to illustrate my points.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008