As
the streamers and confetti are swept away, and the last vestiges of
2011 are lost amidst a thumping hangover, we're now looking at the cold
hard light of 2012.
The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers and
Skyfall are coming within the next 12 months, but then so are
American Reunion,
Battleship, and
Jack and Jill. And
The Three Stooges. And
The Expendables 2. Dammit, Hollywood!
The main business of celebrating the end of one year and the
beginning of the next is in resolving to do things differently. However,
any resolutions for Hollywood wouldn't really take effect until at
least the end of the year or, more likely, 2013, because of the rate of
production. But that's no reason why they should waste another year on
stuff like
Here Comes The Boom, an MMA comedy that's going to star Kevin bloody James.
With this in mind, here are our suggestions for resolutions that Hollywood could take up in 2012.
1. Coax more directors outside of their comfort zone
Think back to 2011, and some of the work that big-name directors put
out there. The Coen brothers made a Western, Kevin Smith made a
politically minded grindhouse horror movie, Steven Spielberg made his
first animated movie, and Martin Scorsese made a 3D movie for children.
All directors we know, doing something they had never tried before.
And if even half of Hollywood's output was as exciting as
True Grit,
Red State,
Tintin and
Hugo
alone, there could be no reproach to the quality of modern mainstream
cinema. While it's entirely possible to find a director is wrong for the
material when they try something new, the projects are often more
interesting than something similar to their previous work.
Of course, you sometimes get Paul W.S. Anderson's
The Three Musketeers, but the opposite, best case scenario would be Guy Ritchie's reboot of
Sherlock Holmes,
the sequel to which is still playing in cinemas for your enjoyment.
Those two films have a style that is completely distinct to any other
blockbuster franchise and, more importantly, it's a style that fits the
material. If Ritchie can find his niche, who's to say that even less
well-regarded directors won't do just as well?
2. Treat the female audience right
Between the
Twilight series and the box office success enjoyed by
Bridesmaids and
The Help
last year, there's no longer any excuse for underestimating the female
contingent of film fandom. Then again, if we remember how Hollywood
works, that's not to say that audiences of women won't be exploited now
that they've made themselves noticed.
If you judge
Twilight purely on how well it works for its
audience, then it's a pretty much perfect series, because critical
faculties aren't the first concern when it comes to the whooping
sub-genre of young adult supernatural romance. In a market where
everything is aimed at getting cash to fall out of teenage boys'
pockets,
Twilight aims to do the same with girls of the same age.
Another demographic still being short-changed are adults. Grown-up
films, for either males, females, or both, are relatively rare compared
to the movies which try to work for everybody, but end up just being
serviceable enough to attract the teenage dollar.
The Help was a
good example of a film marketed principally at women that men enjoyed
too, and the film went on to reap the rewards of treating the female
audience right.
Going back to that financial point of view, Hollywood will
undoubtedly try to mine this rediscovered reserve of box office revenue.
To some, that makes
Bridesmaids 2 an inevitable, if unnecessary move, but perhaps the failure of
Sex and the City 2 suggests that female audiences aren’t always as sequel-happy as men. With the
Twilight saga drawing to a close this November, we should hope for more films like
The Help, to take its place as viable entertainment for an under-served audience.
3. No film really needs to be longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey
Mark Kermode made this his yardstick for film running times, and it's
as good a measure as any. If Stanley Kubrick could chart the whole of
human existence, from Neanderthals, all the way beyond the Infinite, to
the birth of a whole new species, then your film need not be any longer
than the 141 minutes he took.
There are exceptions, though it remains to be seen if certain films
in 2012 which will almost definitely cross this line, actually merit an
extended runtime.
The Dark Knight Rises, for instance, has the
mammoth task of concluding Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy in a
practical amount of time. But for blockbuster filmmakers who are less
disciplined than Nolan, there's a pronounced tendency towards over-long
films. Look no further than last year's additions to the
Pirates of the Caribbean,
Transformers and
Fast and Furious sagas.
This isn't even a problem limited exclusively to blockbuster movies.
Bridesmaids was well within the 141 minute barrier, but it still rambled on a bit too much for my liking. Brevity is the soul of wit, and
Bridesmaids, as much as I liked parts of it, wore me out like many films from the Judd Apatow school of part-work comedy filmmaking.
Yes, all films are different, and all have different requirements in terms of how long it takes to tell their story. But if
The Hobbit is a 384-page book that apparently takes two films to tell, and Peter Jackson's first instalment,
An Unexpected Journey, is even one minute over two hours long, he is officially taking the piss.
4. Introduce quality assurance for 3D
James Cameron, who is still undoubtedly Real-D's biggest proponent,
recently raised the idea of introducing a board of classification, like
Dolby, that would classify quality stereoscopy. This is his solution to
the problems of crappy post-conversions, sub-par projection of 3D, and
all of the other minor bugbears that are still holding the technology
back from being taken seriously, even two years after
Avatar made a big noise with it.
The bottom line is that Real-D 3D was initially taken up as a gimmick
to bring audiences back to cinemas, and the inflated ticket prices saw
to that much. Before 3D came around, only four films in history had ever
crossed the billion dollar milestone at the worldwide box office, and
three 3D films managed it last year alone.
But since then, 3D has become available in homes too, with
electronics manufacturers trying to hype up the next generation of 3D
tellies in the same way as cinema exhibitors are still hocking the
plastic glasses. If something that might have brought you out to the
cinema is now available at home, then the problem is reiterated, and
standards in the cinema must improve.
No problem with 3D is insurmountable, but with the cost of having
implemented this currently problematic technology making any
ground-level improvements somewhat prohibitive, filmmakers and studios
need to start taking 3D seriously if it is to become any kind of norm
for audiences. We can't be expected to accept slap-dash
post-conversions. On which note--
5. Filmgoers of the world- vote with your wallets
This one goes out to the audience, rather than the studios. If you
didn't vote in the last general election, even though the right to vote
is universal, you have given up any right to complain about the way that
the coalition government is running things. Likewise, you will have no
right to complain about
Transformers 4 or
The Hangover Part III, if you paid good money to see the latest instalments.
While the classification of “good” is always subjective, there's no accounting for how a good movie like
Warrior,
a terrific and underrated film with early awards buzz and broad appeal
as a sports film and a family drama, somehow managed to flop upon its
release in the US, except for the fact that it apparently wasn't well
advertised. Have we now entered that phase of
WALL-E, where everything has to be brought to us?
If you're sick of seeing bad movies in the cinema, then read around a
movie beforehand. The internet is at your disposal, so you can find out
what's playing at your local cinema, find out what films are about,
watch trailers, and make an informed decision about whether or not
you'll like it. The discovery of the new only happens by looking outside
of what is established.
With audiences going to the cinema less frequently, the films that
they tend to see are mass-marketed franchise films. If you pay to see
those, disliking them afterwards won't do a thing, because you've
already rewarded the studios for their troubles. Going to see something
that you wouldn't normally see, something that you've gone and sought
out yourself, is a pro-active move that you, as a filmgoer, can make. In
the year that
Battleship comes to the big screen, make sure you remember that.
