Choice Of Movies These Days

Alright, here comes one of those posts that is liable to leave people stunned at my difference of opinion--and perhaps my boldness as well.

But let me lay out the idea right here for you: In general, peoples' choices of movies to watch these days are just terrible.

When I've heard about the movies that people want to see over the weekend this year, only once or twice have I really agreed with them, and that was on the Hunger Games and the Amazing Spider-Man. (The former I initially wasn't going to see because I was getting disgusted over the hype.) Other than that, here's what people have talked about seeing: Prometheus. The Dictator. Magic Mike. Ted. The Campaign. And even The Expendables 2.

Notice all how of all those movies have one thing in common: they're rated R.

Now, this is not a post to rant against R-rated movies in general. This is more of me noticing that the movie has the R rating on it, and suddenly people want to see it. And what is in those movies? Movies of which are supposedly comedies, and yet from the sound of what type of humor is in there, I would have the TV turned off five minutes in. The only one on that list that isn't a comedy is Prometheus, the prequel to Alien, a 1979 film which spawned of the scariest movie franchises ever. Prometheus doesn't appear to be any exception.

But that's another thing about the choice of movies these days: either they're so-called comedies that is really just filled with loads of foul language and inappropriate humor/content, or they're slasher R-rated films where the amount of blood spilled could fill more than five gallons of milk.

Honestly? Is this really what people want to watch? Really?

Now, it all sounds like shock value. And for some reason people get a laugh out of that. I simply do not understand these things. And back to Prometheus for a moment: a couple people I know said they were more interested in that than the Dark Knight Rises. I just about had a conniption. How can a mere mortal like Prometheus be better than the Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman? It's impossible. Literally.

I have seen four movies in theaters this year: The Hunger Games, the Avengers, the Amazing Spider-Man, and the Dark Knight Rises. All four of these felt more like the type of movies that people should be watching more often. And sadly, although they may make so much more money than those comedies do, they're still not just talked about as much--when really, in my estimate, we should be getting those type of movies every weekend during the summer instead of other junk.

And as much as I love movies like the new Batman trilogy or the Avengers, a lot of my favorite movies just happen to be... animated ones. Particularly from Pixar or Dreamworks Animation. Apart from the Batman trilogy, some of these movies convey more emotion than all the movies I've mentioned. They've got plots that are about as good as anything you can find in the live-action world. And although you won't find any awesome special effects or explosions here (except in The Incredibles), you can still find some heart-racing action in there. And especially in Pixar films, you won't find any inappropriate humor. You'll find some actual humor. Some good, clean humor.

I find myself asking that question fairly often: What happened to good, clean humor? However, when I watch those type of animated movies, it shows me that there is still hope for the human race.

I'm not suggesting that you dive your nose deep into animation and watch nothing else. There are great live-action movies to be watched out there as well. But if you're going to shun animation, at least try hacking off the R-rated movies a little bit. There's so much more out there.


A postscript: Here's a shortlist of animated movies that I love: WALL-E, The Incredibles, Cars (and the sequel), How to Train Your Dragon, Bolt, Kung Fu Panda (and the sequel), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (don't be fooled by the title or the fact that it's based on a children's picture book), and the Toy Story trilogy. That's just the basics. Pretty much anything else by Pixar is great too, and I haven't even gotten into the rest of DreamWork's library. Oh, and be sure to catch Wreck-It Ralph in theaters November 2nd--that one looks to be a classic.