Movie Reviews

We watched a bad movie last night. A real stinker. One that when we were done watching, we all looked at each other and said, "No wonder that didn't make it big in the theaters!"

Being able to rent videos makes it easy to watch that kind of thing and then Not Feel Bad about the money spent. When you pay a monthly fee for whatever number of movies you get...then get a stinker, it's a small investment. Back when I was renting movies for $6 each, it would have made me crazy.

It's all a matter of degree and money spent. I don't mind stupid movies. Some of my favorite ones could be described as "big stupid fun". I like comedies and slapstick. I don't mind movies where some big strong man is baffled by a couple of kids (ala Kindergarten Cop, The Game Plan) but I don't like the ones where the kids are ascendant and the adults are idiots.

The movie we watched last night will remain unnamed, but there are those who believe that the topic is sacrosanct. I don't believe any movie topic is off limits, but I do think that politically, a production can suffer because of popular beliefs or mores.

Some movies are crummy because of poor acting, some because of a dreadful (or edited to pieces) scripts. Regardless, they end up flopping and someone loses money. Some films go 'straight to video/rental'. These are the ones that baffle me. Some producers fronted the money to MAKE a film. Then, when they see it, they say to themselves, "what a hot mess. Don't release this in the theaters." I know that there is a market for straight to rental productions, and there are people who made millions doing those films (Mary Kate and Ashley, the Olson twins).

The ability to download streaming, or do a 'rent as many as you want' contract makes it so that when you SEE a movie like that, you don't feel ripped off. When you go to the theater, pay $10 or more a ticket, buy popcorn and cokes for a quarter of a million dollars and then sit down to watch a stinker--you feel robbed.

It's all a matter of degree.

--Sandee Wagner