Thankfully, my grandma is all recovered from her hospital stay and back to her normal active life. She and her friends saw I Am Legend this afternoon.
"What did you think?"
"It was terrible. I think it was terrible, about New York being destroyed because of a vaccine, or germs, or something. I wanted to get up and walk out. It was so boring to me and so many other people. Why do they make pictures like that?"
"I don't know anything about it except Will Smith is in it and it's doing very well so far."
"I don't know how they filmed it. They had to build a set of Manhattan, I guess. It wasn't a true depiction of anything, they couldn't just go around and film things all broken down and desolate. I really don't know how they did this. That to me is a remarkable feat. Not the essence of the picture, the movie itself was terrible, but the photography, How they photographed New York without people running around, That's the greatest part of the picture, filming NY, I don't know how they make movies today."
"I didn't see the movie, but I'm guessing they can do a lot of that with computers -- erase people, make things look unreal, the computers can do a lot."
"Oh. I was hoping it was self-made, a little set they could then expand. You know, being a little bit informed about photography, I thought that was interesting, as I watched the movie, trying to figure out just how they made it. I was excited they could make things and then blow them up."
"You want to hear some reviews? I'll find some reviews and read them to you."
"Oh, that would be interesting. I'm curious what people thought. Remember, I think pictures are made for young people today, not old people like me. Give them a little excitement, they like that, they don't even care if it makes sense or anything. Young people. I don't know."
"Okay. One review: 'The film descends into a monster-movie malaise starring a horde of balding CGI monsters that look like refugees from a video game and that will scare absolutely no one, save those who worry that green-screening is ruining the movies.'"
"Oh, yeah, the monsters -- why did they have those faces? What does that have to do with New York being destroyed? Weird faces, and animals? It was so unrealistic."
"Another review: 'What starts off as a compelling drama descends into a stock B-grade horror flick with some of the worst big budget special effects of recent memory.'"
"I don't think they can just erase the people with computers. That seems impossible."
"Or they can close off streets, I suppose."
"You know, after a while i just felt it was boring, I just hoped it was over. And i was thinking everyone in the movie -- and it was a full theater -- would get up and say 'let's get out of here.' If those people were feeling what I felt, we'd all have gotten up and left. We'd have said, hey, let's get out of here, we don't want to see this. I would have been overjoyed. And I never feel that strongly in a movie -- I mean, I see movies I don't like all the time. But this one -- I felt wronged -- I felt whoever made this movie, they were taking advantage of people, just to give excitement to people's lives that only made them very nervous. It wasn't a relaxing picture, it wasn't an enjoyable picture, it was absolutely unnecessary. Just because people say 'ooh, did you see that, New York, barren' -- it was so contrived. You know, we were all set to see The Golden Compass golden compass but your mother talked us out of it. It's a fantasy right?"
"Yeah, same problems for you -- lots of special effects, reviews are terrible, it cost 200 million dollars to make but isn't doing well."
"See, that's it -- special effects, that's why these movie producers are making movies like that, they want people to go ooh, ahh, and get physical thrills, seeing things they've never seen before -- as long as people are amazed at what they're seeing, they're satisfied, they don't care about a good plot or anything. Years ago you went to see a movie, every movie had a good plot, otherwise it never went any place -- movies were about real life, about human nature, about people in general, now they just want to shock you into things. It's a terrible, terrible time for the movie industry, and I bet they're making money anyway."
"They are."
"You know, there are plenty of people who hunger for the kinds of movies we used to have in the 40s and 50s, for a plot you can remember. If these guys get away with making movies like this, they ought to be fined by the government. Really, I'm not kidding. You think it would pleasant to sit there and be scared and see things you never saw before, but I don't think it's so thrilling. I think it's nervewracking. The more nervewracking it is, the more successful they feel like the picture is. I don't know what kind of society we live in today, and a lot of it us due to the computer era, right? The things they can do? What movies did you see recently? What should I see next week?"
"I saw Walk Hard."
"Work hard?"
"No, Walk hard. Walk. W-A-L-K."
"Walk Hard? What does that even mean?"
"It's a parody of a movie about Johnny Cash from a couple of years ago called Walk The Line."
"What else?"
"I saw Juno, about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant and gives a baby up for adoption. It's a comedy. I liked it a lot."
"A comedy? How could that be a comedy? That's funny? That too, if the subject matter is weird and supposed to be sad, in today's world that's funny to people. To me that subject matter sounds tragic, giving a baby up for adoption. That's it, everything is changed, my world is not what it was. We had different things developed in us to appreciate."
Your grandmother might like "Starting Out in the Evening."
Posted by: Brandon | December 17, 2007 at 02:02 PM