Loading ...Why I will not succumb to “Pearl Harbor”
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Loading ...By Dale Nauertz
It happens every year. Every year there is that BIG SUMMER ACTION MOVIE. You know what I’m talking about: the one that everyone and their brother is supposed to flock to. The one that is WHAT SUMMER is all about. And, invariably, it burns you. Because it is usually shit.
Oh, you doubt me? Hmmm, well, think it over. What did we have last year? “Mission: Impossible 2″. No wonder everyone thought last year was such a shitty movie year. It had this right smack dab in the middle of it. It wasn’t as horrible as I initially thought. No, I will confess. The plot is actually pretty solid. But it’s too long, its action scenes are way over the top, and Tom takes a major career backstep in it as far as acting is concerned. So it wasn’t as awful as I thought at first, but it was still a far cry from great. So they filled it full of explosions and put a lot of hype behind it. You can see almost anything with a lot of hype and explosions. If we learned anything from that Piece of Shit “Independence Day”, that should have been it. But I can’t just pick on “MI-2″. No, no. That’s not why I am sitting at my computer and communicating with all you fine people in cyberspace.
No. I am here to pick on “Pearl Harbor”.
If “Mission Impossible 2″ was the only example, we could just forget all about it. A fluke, you would say. Not even that awful of a movie, really. No big deal. Well, did you take stupid pills? Have you forgotten the awful dreck we have swallowed in the past few years? The shit that was supposed to be “Entertainment”? I sure as shit have not.
The following is a list of shitty movies that were forced down our throats in the summer moviegoing season:
“Independence Day”
“Batman Forever”
“Batman and Robin”
“Battlefield Earth”
“Armageddon” (or as Ben Heckendorn calls it: “I’m armageddon-a-headache”)
“Scary Movie”
“The Perfect Storm”
“Austin Powers 2″
And, lest ye forget, “The Phantom Menace”. Each of these movies could qualify as a crime against humanity itself. Each of these movies robbed me of hours I could have better spent clipping my toenails or masturbating or picking up cans along the roadside or WORKING. Any of those activities would be preferable. Oh, I even got conned into enjoying “The Phantom Menace” somehow. Deep down inside of me there was a small child who still loved anything Star Wars and refused to accept that the movie was not so great. Deep down inside, I was in denial. The THX and the nostalgia and the memories of better movies actually led to me being entertained. I apologize. I see now the error of my ways. But each of these movies was bad. But they each made money. Well, okay, “Battlefield Earth” didn’t make money, but it only proves there’s only so much shit that even AMERICANS will swallow.
My point? Each year there is a new, shitty movie with incredible hype and a well-cut trailer that makes anyone who has ever gone to a movie come out of hiding and salivate and get their butts into the seat. Sometimes, be it the air conditioning or the THX or the popcorn smells emanating from the lobby, the movie actually is somewhat enjoyable. And some of those movies are good. Some. But most of them, the ones with the most hype, suck. Suck big, in fact. Hype is usually a good indication that a movie is going to blow, and blow big time. It was the tremendous hype on “Men in Black” that killed it for me the first time I saw it. But that movie actually was good. It was the exception that proved the rule. It had style, it had class, it had wit. Something every movie on that list could have benefited from. Hype is another tool Hollywood uses when it realizes it has a dead dog on its hands. It’s a way to make their money back. Hell, they’re in business to make money. Any Hollywood executive who tells you he’s in it for the art, they’re bullshitting you. They’re making money. And when they put as much cash into a sick cow as they did “Pearl Harbor”, of course they are going to lure you into the theater any way they know how. They are going to hype this bitch up like it’s the second coming of Christ.
A good movie, you see, doesn’t need the hype. It relies on reviews and word of mouth. It relies on people who have seen the movie and will tell you that it is worthwhile. Example? “Titanic”. There was no hype on “Titanic”. Now you’re probably thinking: “Bullshit! I saw hype!” No, you didn’t you ignorant fool. You saw a couple ads. After that, it was just your friends harping on how great it was (it was great, just admit defeat right now) and urging you to go to the theater. If you went and it didn’t live up to those expectations, well, that was your friends making this thing sound impossibly great. Hollywood didn’t need to rub your face in the shit. They did that later, when “Titanic” was doing gangbusters and the studio realized they could make a little extra off it. That was reverse hype, not Hype. Hype is when, two weeks before the movie comes out, you see a print ad every time you open the newspaper, you are bombarded with music videos, you are firebombed and blitzkrieged by television commercials whenever you mistakenly pass by a television. Hype is what got us all into “Independence Day”. Hype is what lured you into “Godzilla”. Hype is what made “Armageddon” a hit. (God Help Us All!)
And that was the problem, dear friends. “Armageddon” was SHIT. Oh, yes it was. Don’t dispute it, you’re fighting a battle you cannot possibly win. It had a shitty romance, it had a lame ending, it had some fun stuff toward the front of the movie and then slowly turned to shit later on. It was patriotic, dumb bullshit with a hot chick in it (what would one of these retard movies be without a hot chick?) and it made a shitload of money because our brains seem to rust when it’s hot. “Armageddon” made money, so Micheal Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer were able to profit and go on to RAPE AMERICAN HISTORY by using their immense hype talents on-
“PEARL HARBOR”!
It’s a “Titanic” wannabe. Look at it! Look it right in the eyes! Two attractive people (Sorry, THREE, this is what’s known in Hollywood as ORIGINALITY) and a big disaster. “Titanic” worked, because it had characters we cared about and its effects were excellent and it had a heart and a soul. This is a clone of that. And we all know that clones have no soul. The original of something has a life to it. The clone of that same thing is just that thing warmed over. It’s like those guys who want to be black and turn their hat backwards. It doesn’t work, because everyone can see through it. Well, if you can’t see through it, “Pearl Harbor” is going to work. “Titanic” made money so Bay and ShitHeimer thought “Hell, WE can do that!” But they can’t. Neither of them is James Cameron. Want proof? Before “Titanic”, Cameron made “Terminator 2″, “Aliens” and “True Lies”. Before “Pearl Harbor” Bay has made “Armageddon”, “The Rock” (an entertaining flick, yes, but it does not prove he can do anything serious) and “Bad Boys”. You remember what a pile of shit “Bad Boys” was, don’t you? I sure as hell do. Ugh! I rest my case. Cameron cares about his characters. All evidence proves that Bay does not.
So if there are no characters to care about (one of them is Ben Affleck, so I’m pretty sure there aren’t), what do we care when the bombing happens? Yes, it was a terrible tragedy, but if we don’t like any of the people, it becomes nothing more than a bunch of “Cool” explosions, and that is entirely against the point. The battle stuff in “Saving Private Ryan” was harrowing. Harrowing. It was cool in that it was effective. But if we see people who could have been our grandparents being blown apart and think “Cool Explosion”, well, the movie is NOT doing its job. That’s my point. If this movie were being made by Spielberg or Cameron, I would be there opening night. If Coppola or Aronofsky or David Lean were making this movie, I would be first in line. Those are filmmakers who understand human drama, and know how to put us through the wringer. They know how to stage an explosion that has a point, that MEANS something. Bay does not. Nor does Bruckheimer.
Need more reasons to stay home? Okay. Here ya go.
A) There is a shitty Faith Hill song in it.
B) It WILL be as rapidly edited as a music video. No thanks. “Gladiator” was good despite that, but it’s a trick that won’t work too often.
C) It’s only PG-13. How the fuck can an effective War movie be PG-13? Huh? Tell me that!
D) The most intriguing stories in it are the real-life stories (from what I’ve read). So why not make the movie more true to life? Why not ditch the sappy love story (I’ve heard some of the lines of dialogue. One of them is “I’m going to give Danny my whole heart, but I’ll never see another sunset without thinking of you”. CLUNK. Remember this was the guy who brought you that fucking animal crackers scene!) and concentrate on the stuff that, oh, I don’t know, ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!???
E) The animal crackers scene in “Armageddon”.
I rest my case. If you go see this movie, you will just encourage this sort of stupid shit to keep going on. Movies in the summer (and every other time) will just keep getting worse and worse. They will just keep making shit this bad. Summer movies used to not suck. Remember “Ghostbusters”? “Jaws”? “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? These were summer films! Movies can be that good again, we just have to raise the bar. We must draw a line in the sand and say “No more of this bullshit! Respect my intelligence!” Women demand a certain amount of respect before they will allow a man to get into their pants. Why can’t we demand the same thing of a movie before it can worm it’s way into our wallet? We can! We should! Stand up! In the immortal words of Twisted Sister, just say “We’re Not Gonna Take It!”
If you must see a good love story about Pearl Harbor, rent “From Here to Eternity”. If you want to see the bombing done magnificently, rent “Tora, Tora, Tora”. You can make a difference. Voting is difference. That requires filling out a piece of paper. This requires not giving up your money. People actually LISTEN to that. Stop bitching about movies and put your money where your mouth is. It’s the only way these greedy Hollywood pricks are gonna learn.
(And, yes, I have been reading a lot of Carlin lately. This one’s for you, George, I’m sure you’d agree.)
