I've recently watched a string of bad movies.
They're not bad as in they never should have been made. It's more disappointing than that. They're bad because a good idea and often talent was wasted on poor execution.
I should have known better than to throw away my time on them. They were all released in the dumping ground casually referred to as the Spring Season. Few decent U.S. films debut during this time. It's home for stupid family fare featuring Martin Lawrence (College Road Trip and Wild Hogs) and now random offerings from this year's unexpected double-dipper, Dennis Quaid. 2007 was a rare exception to the rule with Zodiac, Grindhouse, and the widely liked but personally loathed 300. Typically, it's an overall mess.
The films that I ignored post-Oscar rush and pre-Summer Blockbuster are now on DVD and at the library. Since now I don't have to pay to see them, the slightest bit of interest that I suppressed in March and April by staying home now looks at me every day at work and has, in several cases, followed me home.
The results have not been pretty.
Smart People looked like another potential Wonder Boys. It was not. Thomas Hayden Church's performance was the only bright spot, but Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page were wasted. The trailer for Vantage Point looked great. The actual thing was far from it. The movie makes you wonder what kind of dirt the director had on Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Forrest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, and, yes, Quaid.
Then there's Stop-Loss, which holds a special place in my heart. It's the first movie that I've watched alone and couldn't get through.*
I won't see just any movie. Pass the Grey Poupon. Since there are so many new releases in addition to the monstrous back-log of DVDs and videos, I can only see so many and the ones I choose to see must meet a certain criteria to even be considered. So, if I'm watching a film, it's certifiably special.
Of the films I see, I like 95% of them. Of the sour 5%, I'll watch them to their completion because, up until now, my hope in them has been rewarded by enough imagination and intrigue on their part to keep me away from the Eject button. When the credits roll, I may not have liked what I've seen overall (see above titles), but, as was expected when the film became personally desirable, it had its moments. I wouldn't recommend these films, but they're not total disasters.
Stop-Loss, however, is a class-5 hurricane hitting Cape Cod. It's hard to imagine a more heavy-handed approach to the Iraq war, and that's saying a lot. Give credit to co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce (who guided Hilary Swank to her first Oscar in Boys Don't Cry) for bluntly stating the opinions of returning (and subsequently departing) soldiers that aren't always voiced. These thoughts are genuine and I agree with them. They are also the same thing that Mr. Bullhorn is spouting in front of the White House.
The ridiculously wooden dialogue and Ryan Phillippe at his unexpected worst (did they tape him when he was working out his Texas accent in rehearsals?) combined with a hokey plot to ruin a great concept. The hardships of this generation of soldiers' home lives had yet to be explored in a major film, but Stop-Loss does no justice to our military. The film adds to the pile of recent failed attempts to translate the current conflict to the screen, and had me skipping scenes by the half-hour mark. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my free time), the beginning of each new DVD chapter began with the same dumb talk or events that plagued the film's start. When the credits showed up, I was glad to be done.
It's doubly disappointing that I was forced to skim through the rest because the opening Iraq combat scenes were done so well. Peirce does a fantastic job of depicting the mammoth tension of Baghdad roadblocks and of putting the audience amidst the squad as they fall under attack. She should have stayed in the Middle East and taken most of the Spring releases with her.
But it's not all a pile of poo.
Drillbit Taylor was awful on most fronts, but there was enough charm and general Owen-Wilsonness to elicit a positive feeling. Most surprising was In Bruges, a.k.a. Colin Farrell's Coming Out Party. Witty dialogue: check. Great acting: check. Expert direction and cinematography: check, check. Everything I could want from a film is found in this sleepy Belgium town. Plus, Mr. Consistency (Ralph Fiennes) is there in a role that rivals his Voldemort, Tooth Fairy (Red Dragon), and Amon Goeth (Schindler's List) for Most Menacing. The guy can play bad and play it very well.
But these two bright spots (one, really) don't excuse the regularity of stinkers during this time of the year. Spring should be left for Oscar-nominated films that were given little or no release to be screened at the national level. Often, excellent foreign films will trickle in during this time, and they're welcome, too. Studios are cheating audiences and themselves by putting out sub-par material Spring after Spring. Filmgoers deserve more. Spring is an opportunity for catching up on the under-appreciated foreign, indie, documentary, and short films. We should continually be celebrating the best, not being fed soggy leftovers. Anything less is not good enough.
Are you with me?
*My fiancee Sarah embraces the attitude that you don't have to finish a book if you don't like it or don't want to. I agree with that, but since I read about 1/10 as many titles as she does in a year, the books I choose meet an even harder criteria than the films I see. If you look at my GoodReads ratings, you won't find anything I read outside of school that I didn't at least like (and, more than likely, loved). She also, according to the frequency in which she conks out on the sofa, believes that you don't have to finish a film. With Stop-Loss, despite my rigorous initial screening process, perhaps I've come to agree with that, too. It's not that I didn't believe you could drop a film; I'd just never been pushed to the point of losing faith in a film ever getting better. Still, since I continue to keep up my guard, I don't expect to repeat the Stop-Loss massacre very often.