Misdirection

I'm really starting to get tired of the first person perspective film. That and the whole 'found photography' thing. Fair warning, this rant may not go on for very long but it's something that I have to get off of my chest.



So, we had "The Blair Witch Project" right? Now, I'll admit, that was fairly clever...from a marketing standpoint. Billing a movie made up of scattered and random clips, no real plot, no character advancement as something that was 'found' making it seem like a genuine article was unique. It's absolute bullshit, but it was unique. I personally found it an interesting experiment in gullibility too. Like forum trolling on a massive scale.

And while I'm on the topic, yes, I found that fairly astounding too, that people actually believed the shit they were watching in a massive theater, on a big screen, with millions of other people, was some sort of reality. Granted, the human psyche is hardwired to make shit up and even to believe made up shit, but at the same time one would assume the theater, crowds, tickets, show times, exchange of money and other sorts of things would break the illusion. Obviously these didn't which makes one wonder just how much of the audience lacked the higher brain functions that tend to wrangle our tendencies to believe made up shit.

Then again, if you read this blog, you're perfectly aware of how much stupid made up shit people believe.

Alright, so, the first Blair Witch movie sucked, at least from the standpoint of a frequent film viewer but it was successfully marketed to the public, so I cannot begrudge that. What I can do is rail against these fucking followers. Lemme just go from the top of my head: Paranormal Activity one and two, Cloverfield, Quarantine,  [Rec], and on and on..

Look, Hitchcock was right when he decided not to show the audience the serial killer, the crazy person, what have you. Less is more and if you build up the mythos without showing the villain, then people's imaginations will quite gladly run wild with them. My biggest question is why do we have to resort to potentially motion-sickness inducing and horribly shoddy camera work to achieve the same sort of effect on the audience that worked as recently as 1979 with that little, unknown film "Alien".

Yes, I can do more than bash. I will say that Ridley Scott made a very, very good decision to show as little of the titular alien as possible. I've seen the director's cut where more of it is shown, and to be frank, it looks awful. But he didn't need grainy, shaky footage to create the effect. Most of it was clever use of light and shadow, much like Hitchcock.

I give the credit where it's due and as I've said, with Blair Witch, it was all about the marketing. Plot, character development and essentially everything that makes up a movie were utterly lacking. These follow-on, coattail grabbing films filled with 'me too' syndrome keep up the exact same issues, but as they are repeats of the same, they lose all credit for being 'clever'. They are repeats, imitations, clones and otherwise pretty much pointless.

To me, these films require as much technical skill, writing skill and fuck it, skill in general as taking a crap on a piece of cellophane. They're like independent film documentaries. I see them as a horribly lazy way to make a film, to be quite honest. You don't really have to do anything to make one and you don't even need actual actors for fuck sake. Anyone who can at least have queue cards held up off screen or their lines written on a counter top can play in one of these damn films.

It is the highest show of disdain for the audience whose only equivalent I can think of would be the bad poetry you see written on bathroom stall walls. While the filmmakers and such may have nice ideas, that this is the only way they can express them almost makes Lucas look like a fucking genius in comparison, and we all know what I think about that asshole. That audiences eat these sorts of films up like candy almost befuddles me more than the contempt the creators must have for their audience.

If you're going to make a film, at least try and make a good one, don't ride on the ass of a film who's only success was in the marketing department. Instead aspire to greatness instead of the mediocrity, but then again, that's a bit of the trouble with society as a whole. The acceptance of mediocrity. However, that's another rant, for another time. Happy Halloween and feel free to leave comments, as always.