Selling Out
By Tom Macy
June 23, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This past Memorial Day at a family gathering, I found myself in a conversation with my youngest sister's boyfriend, who I had never really gotten to know even though I always thought he was a super nice guy. We muddled along pleasantly enough, not talking about anything in particular, but it didn't take long before we ran head first into a wall. Scrambling to break the silence I grabbed the most readily available thought in my head.
"So I saw Terminator 4 yesterday."
His eyes widened. "Really?!"
What a fantastic development this was. Not only had we stumbled upon some common ground, not only was I going to be able to quell my burning desire to express my absolute loathing for this film (that desire was ultimately exorcised in my first entry of this column a few weeks ago), but here was a chance to impart some real wisdom. Using my satirical cinematic intellect, I could spare this young man the hair-pulling frustration of watching John Connor traipse around the headquarters of an army whose soul goal is his demise and seeing them send ONE FREAKING MACHINE AFTER HIM!!! Whoa, sorry about that. I guess I'm not as was adjusted as I thought.
Wanting to savor his reaction, I milked the moment for it for all it was worth.
"It...was..." Dramatic pause. "Awful!"
His face sank in disappointment. "Oh man, I thought after that pause you were going to say awesome."
Ah youth, I thought to myself. I proceeded to explain that while I agreed that the trailer was amazing, the movie was a non-stop series of expensive detonations and ridiculous plot holes – though you could argue that plot holes are what Terminator is all about - but I digress. As we continued to talk, he told me he still planned on seeing Terminator 4, which I understood. Sometimes you just need that trash fix - hey, I saw The Golden Compass. But then things took a startling and somewhat disturbing turn. Looking to still pass on some knowledge and point him in the right direction, I suggested that if he really wanted to see some good summer fun he should check out Star Trek.
"Yeah, that one I really didn't like too much."
"What? You didn't like Star Trek? Sure it's not a masterpiece, but I thought it was pretty darn good."
"But there were scenes, like you said about Terminator, that would just never happen. Like when that monster chased him on the snow planet."
Okay, he had a point. That sequence before Kirk meets the older Spock is mindless CGI filler but it can easily be lifted out of the film. Overall, Star Trek is a perfectly solid flick, with sharply drawn characters and a decent plot that is shrewdly constructed. It's head and shoulders above the explosions on top of explosions on top of a good trailer that was T4.
I made my case, which he went along with, but it was clear I wasn't about to change any minds. I decided to let the thing go before I went into neurotic cinephile rant mode, this was a family gathering after all. Looking to close the book on the subject I said. "Well, at least Star Trek was better than Wolverine."
"Yeah, that one I really enjoyed!"
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Okay, this had to be a joke. Buying a ticket to that movie was basically paying for a live MST3K. I didn't want to push the envelope and get into the nuts and bolts on why he liked Wolverine. Clearly we pronounced tomato in different ways and it was time to call the whole thing off.
But that night, while lying in bed I swirled this idea around in my skull. He liked Wolverine. He liked Wolverine. What does that mean?! I tried replaying the film in my head. The tired CGI. The lazy script. That dreadful scene where Logan's girlfriend talks about Indians and the moon it somehow results in the genesis of Wolvy's namesake. Someone watched this, enjoyed himself, and admitted it to someone he doesn't know very well. I mulled on this for a while before coming to this conclusion: He is going to love Terminator Salvation.
No doubt about it. Obviously the bad writing, bad pacing and tired formulas didn't bother him in Wolverine so they won't in Terminator. He'll just have fun watching the big machines crashing into each other. Huh. And then my mind stumbled on to a real bombshell. I wonder if most moviegoers feel this way. Vertigo zoom onto Tom's face.
Most moviegoers feel this way.
The average moviegoer doesn't think about movies 15 hours a day, which is still difficult for me to grasp but I do believe is true. They just want to be entertained. And for a lot of them a fireball is entertaining, regardless of whether it's surrounded by good narrative structure.
I pondered this conundrum, looking at it from different angles, trying to put myself into the misguided shoes of the general public, even digging into my own psyche. In doing this, I found my thoughts curiously drifting back in time. Way way back to a time I remembered well but I now see had been largely forgotten. It was in this period that I discovered the answer. Now, I see the truth. It was 1996. I was 13. And it was one of the greatest years of my life. It was the year that I had my first girlfriend, the year the Yankees won the first World Series of my lifetime, and the year in which both Broken Arrow and The Rock were released.
It's hard to recollect but for a good span these were my admitted favorite films of all time. Walking out of Broken Arrow, I promptly declared it had supplanted Jurassic Park in the top slot (though to this day, Jurassic Park is and will always be the greatest movie-going experience of my life. Happy Father's Day, Dad). In talking with my friend about why Arrow was so awesome I established that one of the main qualifiers was that it managed to have fight scenes on almost every mode of transportation - car, plane, boat (sort of), train, jeep, helicopter, cave. I carried this multiple transit meter and applied it to other films, living and dying by it as a measure of cinematic quality. Side note: I'm happy to say that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade still appears to be the winner. They cover all of Broken Arrow's and throw in a motorcycle and a blimp. Well done, Indy.
Then just a few months after Arrow rocked my world I was Bayanized by The Rock. I saw it twice on opening weekend and was never the same. They may not have fought on a train but they did have some super awesome underwater-sub-motorcycle-thing. I loved this movie so much that I abandoned the transit meter and with my cousin's help, created a simpler model. This new model was The Rock Meter, wherein any time we saw a movie we thought was good we'd watch The Rock again to see how it measured up. As you can probably guess, The Rock was never topped. My cousin is now a professional film editor, an encyclopedia of film, and totally embarrassed.
This journey into my past has unearthed a reality of my youth. I may not like to admit it but here it goes. A major seed of my cinematic obsession was planted by Michael Bay. Back in the days when a new summer actioner really was an event and every trailer was for a sequel I didn't know was being made, Bay was my master. And while I don't plan to stop riding him for every Pearl Harbor (worst movie ever? Certainly in the conversation) he releases, I have to give him credit for some of the most fun I've ever had at the movies.
I haven't seen Broken Arrow for years, and I think I'll keep it that way. But I did catch the better part of the Rock on TV recently. And yeah, it's pretty hilariously bad, from the quarter second cuts to Hans Zimmer's frying pan to the face score – both things I loved when it came out. But when Nicholas Cage shoves the translucent green snow globe that makes your skin melt off in the guy's mouth and says "eat that!", deep down inside there was a 13-year-old high-fiving himself.
So, I thank my sister's beau for the enlightenment. Because of him, when I plop down after dropping $18.50 for a ticket to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The IMAX Experience, I will have checked the snarky-Bergman-lover at the door and let my inner Michael Bay fan tag along instead. This time he'll have someone to slap hands with.